When I travel to new places, I often like to do minimal research into the history of the place. I may look into popular sites to explore, good food to try, or things of that nature—but I’m very intentional to avoid looking into the history, especially anything paranormal.
Why? As a medium, for me, it’s important to experience the spiritual activity of a place with as little psychological bias as possible. Once I’ve taken note of my observations, experienced things, interacting with the spirits of place, and the like, THEN and only then do I start deep-diving into the legends, folklore, paranormal insights, history, and so on.
While this is backwards from how most mediums, psychics, empaths, paranormal investigators, and spiritualists operate, for me this helps validate what I saw and heard as being legitimate experiences that weren’t influenced by having already read about others’ experiences online beforehand.
Recently, our nomad travels took us to Mineral Wells, Texas. Most people in the paranormal space have at least heard of the Haunted Hill House of Mineral Wells, Texas, but I was unfamiliar with anything else pertaining to the town or its history.
Upon arrival, I felt uneasy, like my nervous system was “frozen in time”…it was a strange phenomenon and I didn’t like it. We drove through the heart of the town and came across a mix of old and new buildings, from restaurants to shops. What stood out to my husband and me most was a seemingly abandoned hotel. Immediately, I could see it teeming with spiritual activity and it felt heavy.
We parked our car to walk around the downtown strip of the town to explore further and I paused as we walked past a particular building. Women danced on the porch and it was like they were all trapped in a moment from the distant past. I could only guess that these women were escorts based on their flirtatious behavior and attire.
“I swear,” I said to my husband, “It’s like the energy of this town is trapped in the past. Like something happened a long time ago and everyone got stuck here.”
My husband looked up at the building I had been watching the dancing spirits of and said, “Hmm, is that why this has the energy of a brothel from the past?”
I love moments like these because we both see and feel the energy in our own way. Everywhere we went in this town felt like this.
An old rundown hotel filled my heart with sadness. I felt the suffering of so many spirits who had stayed there.
Back at our campsite, I shared with Wesley the heaviness. “I can’t quite articulate what I’m sensing,” I explained, “But it’s like someone told a very big lie that drew in crowds of people to this town. They must’ve stayed in this hotel before it was condemned, and sadly, many of them must’ve passed away here before they were ever cured of what ailed them.”
Snake oil. The words repeated in my mind. Someone had promised people “snake oil”. A fraudulent miracle cure for diseases of all kinds—and I could see in my mind droves of people traveling from far and wide. It was a scam, though, or at least it was something that was hyped up more than it should’ve been leaving suffering people on death’s door with false hope.
Unfortunately, my research on the town, confirmed all of the residual energy I could see lingering throughout the whole townscape.
The “mineral wells” were advertised as holy healing waters. The Baker Hotel was built as a way to house out-of-towners who came to experience the magickal mineral wells for themselves—but a fire burned down the original hotel that sat atop the healing wells. A new one was built in its place by two men from Dallas who saw it as an “investment opportunity”. They continued to advertise the water’s magickal healing powers and desperate people made their way from all over. They perished within the hotel, and never healed as they were promised.
Spirits who suffered until their final moments still stay in the town of Mineral Wells. You can see them, hear them, feel them. They don’t wish to move on for the most part, still clinging to the past that grows more distant each day, and for that, I feel sadness for them. Though at the same time, my heart is filled with joy that they do not ache and suffer in the material realm any longer.
The path of a death witch is often a heavy one. You see, hear, and feel things that are echoes of the past trapped in a liminal state that's neither here nor there. When I can, I offer to help if I feel like I am supposed to. Other times, I simply observe and hold space for where a spirit is at on their own journey of death and rebirth.