Stay-Behinds

By Hans Holzer

Paranormal expert Hans Holzer investigates some of the strangest and most difficult cases of loved ones who are simply not ready to leave their earthly lives

The "stay-behind," a term coined by professor Hans Holzer, is a ghost who is not prepared to move to the "other side," but prefers to remain among loved ones and its former home. In Stay-Behinds, Holzer reveals some of the most famous cases of these beings, including the haunting of Rose Hall Plantation in Jamaica and the strange case of Mrs. C.'s late yet lively husband.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Dog Leventhal Publishers
• Release date: Sep 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781453279670

Hans Holzer

Hans Holzer, whose investigations into the paranormal took him to haunted houses and other sites all over the world, wrote more than 140 books on ghosts, the afterlife, witchcraft, extraterrestrial beings, and other phenomena associated with the realm he called “the other side.” Among his famous subjects was the Long Island house that inspired The Amityville Horror book and film adaptations. Holzer studied at the University of Vienna, Austria, and at Columbia University, New York, earning a master’s degree in comparative religion. He taught parapsychology at the New York Institute of Technology. Holzer died in 2009. 

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STAY-BEHINDS

TRUE ENCOUNTERS WITH WORLD BEYOND

HANS HOLZER

By the author of Witches and Hans Holzer’s Travel Guide to Haunted Houses

Contents

Introduction

Stay-Behinds

HANS HOLZER IS THE AUTHOR of 119 books, including Life Beyond, The Directory of Psychics, America’s Mysterious Places, Windows to the Past, and Witches.

He has written, produced, and hosted a number of television programs, notably Ghost in the House, Beyond the Five Senses, and the NBC series In Search of… He has appeared on numerous national television programs and lectured widely. He has written for national magazines such as Mademoiselle, Penthouse, Longevity, and columns in national weeklies.

Hans Holzer studied at Vienna University, Austria; Columbia University, New York; and holds a Ph.D. from the London College of Applied Science. Professor Holzer taught parapsychology for eight years at the New York Institute of Technology, is a member of the Authors Guild, Writers Guild of America, Dramatists’ Guild, the New York Academy of Science, and the Archaeological Institute of America. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and lives in New York City.

Introduction

As we settle more securely into the new millennium, people’s interests in the cosmic continue to grow. Even ordinary Joes and Janes who normally wouldn’t be caught dead reading an astrology column are suddenly wondering what the second millennium will mean for them and this world of ours.

To begin with, the millennium came and went over a decade ago. Jesus was born not the the year zero but in 7 B.C., on October 9, to be exact, as I proved quite a while ago after fifteen years of archeological research. This business of the millennium was strictly hype, a promotion that was created to make people think something very special would happen in the year 2000. The psychological effects of this millennium, however, are already upon us—casting a shadow in terms of a renewed great interest in things paranormal, for instance.

Several new TV talk shows and documentaries dealing with psychic phenomena and the exploration of the frontiers of human consciousness have sprung up, filling the television screens with tabloid tidbits often lacking in depth and validating research. Fictional forays into worlds beyond are also currently hugely successful both in film and television, and in books and even Websites.

As a purveyor of genuine information regarding psychic phenomena, I welcome this resurgence of curiosity in worlds beyond the physical because contemplating these matters tends to make people think about themselves, their ultimate fate, and the nature of humankind itself.

When it comes to dealing with the hard evidence of life after death, there are three classes of people—and this may remain the case for a long time to come, considering how resistant humans are to embracing radically new or different concepts.

There are those who ridicule the idea of anything beyond the grave. This category includes anybody from hard-line scientists to people who are only comfortable with the familiar, material world and really do not wish to examine any evidence that might change their minds. The will to disbelieve is far stronger than the will to believe—though neither leads to proof and hard evidence.

Then there are those who have already accepted the evidence of a continued existence beyond physical death, including people who have arrived at this conclusion through an examination of hard evidence, either personal in nature or from scientifically valid sources. They are the group I respect the most, because they are not blind believers. They rightfully question the evidence, but they have no problem accepting it when it is valid. Included in this group are the religious-metaphysical folks, although they require no hard proof to validate their convictions, which emanate from a belief system that involves a world beyond this one.

The third group is often thrown offtrack when trying to get at the truth by the folks in the metaphysical camp. This makes it more difficult for them to arrive at a proper conviction regarding the psychic. The thing for this third group is to stick to its principles and not become blind believers.

The vast majority of people belong to the third group. They are aware of the existence of psychical phenomena and the evidence for such phenomena, including case histories and scientific investigations by open-minded individuals. But they may be skeptical. They hesitate to join the second group only because of their own inner resistance to such fundamental changes in their philosophical attitudes toward life and death. For them, therefore, the need to be specific when presenting evidence or case histories, which must be fully verifiable, is paramount, as is an acceptable explanation for their occurrence.

It is hoped that those in the second group will embrace the position of the last group: that there are no boundaries around possibilities, provided that the evidence bears it out.

Prof. Hans Holzer, Ph.D.

Stay-Behinds

STAY-BEHINDS IS A TERM I have invented. It refers to earthbound spirits or ghosts who owe their continued residency in what may have been their long-term home to the fact that they don’t want to leave familiar surroundings. This is not simply a willful decision (I ain’t goin’), though that can on occasion be the case; the majority are people who have never been told where to go and are expecting the kind of fanciful heaven their faith has for so long pictured for them. Naturally, when they pass out of the physical body they are disappointed, or at least surprised, not to see a reception committee of angels and cherubs showing them the way to Heaven, God, and possibly Jesus as well.

Instead, they find their loved ones who have preceded them to the other side; they have come to make the transition easier. If the death is due to severe illness or prolonged hospitalization (including heavy doses of drugs) the person will often be confused and need to be placed into healing facilities over there for a while.

But the majority of people are not prepared for what comes next: some will prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know as yet—meaning, of course, not a literal devil (a figment of the imagination) but a figure of speech. The unknown frightens them. They cling to what they know.

The Pennsylvania lady who passed on at 90 years of age—she had spent most of them in her house—was not at all prepared for her funeral and points beyond. So when the grieving relatives returned from the cemetery, guess who was already there, in the lady’s old chair, waiting to welcome them back—the lady in question, feeling no pain, naturally, having lost or gotten rid of her physical shell.

It is a bit tricky at times to differentiate between a true stay-behind (a person) and an impression from the past. Only when the apparition moves or speaks can you really judge.

Stay-behinds are different from resident ghosts in another important aspect. True ghosts will resent new tenants, or even visitors, and will consider them intruders in their house. But the stay-behind could not care less: it is his or her place all right, but the stay-behind’s attitude is the same as it was before death. Just you leave me be and I won’t bother you!

* 141 When The Dead Stay On

NOTHING IS SO EXASPERATING as a dead person in a living household. I mean a ghost has a way of disturbing things far beyond the powers held by the wraith while still among the quick. Very few people realize that a ghost is not someone out to pester you for the sake of being an annoyance, or to attract attention for the sake of being difficult. Far from it. We know by now that ghosts are unhappy beings caught between two states and unable to adjust to either one.

Most people pass over without difficulty and are rarely heard from again, except when a spiritualist insists on raising them, or when an emergency occurs among the family that makes intervention by the departed a desired, or even necessary, matter.

They do their bit, and then go again, looking back at their handiwork with justified pride. The dead are always among us, make no mistake about that. They obey their own set of laws that forbids them to approach us or let us know their presence except when conditions require it. But they can do other things to let us feel them near, and these little things can mean a great deal when they are recognized as sure signs of a loved one’s nearness.

Tragedies create ghosts through shock conditions, and nothing can send them out of the place where they found a sad end except the realization of their own emotional entanglement. This can be accomplished by allowing them to communicate through trance. But there are also cases in which the tragedy is not sudden, but gradual, and the unnatural attachment to physical life creates the ghost syndrome. The person who refuses to accept peacefully the transition called death, and holds on to material surroundings, becomes a ghost when these feelings of resistance and attachment become psychotic.

Such persons will then regard the houses they lived and died in as still theirs, and will look on latter owners or tenants as merely unwanted intruders who