September 9, 2025 • 44 mins
Join us as Cathy, Chris, Sean and special guest medium Stephanie Jacquier explore The Mount.
Nestled in the Berkshires, The Mount isn’t just Edith Wharton’s architectural masterpiece—it’s one of the most haunted homes in New England. In this episode, the gang dives into the life of Pulitzer Prize–winning author Edith Wharton, her love for design and storytelling, and the dark whispers said to echo through the halls of her estate. From ghostly figures on the stairs to voices drifting through locked rooms, The Mount blurs the line between high society and the supernatural.
Join us as we unravel Wharton’s genius, her secrets, and the spirits that may still linger where she once walked. Because at The Mount, the past never really stays silent
Email Us: Thegang@weirderafterdark.com
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Contact Stephanie @ MediumshipWithStephanie:
https://inspiritcrystals.com/stephanie-jacquier/
https://www.facebook.com/mediumshipwithstephanie/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is a story of a turn of thecentury novelist Edith Wharton
in our home that she lovingly and carefully designed, The
Mount Estates, the Victorian style mansion in Lenox,
Massachusetts. This property to this day is
reported to be a paranormal hotspot.
With first hand accounts and insights from my expert guest
Stephanie, we'll be exploring Edith's life and why so many
(00:20):
spirits seem to frequent the property at the Mount.
I'm Chris. I'm Kathy.
I'm Sean. And this is Waiter after dark.
(00:42):
Today we're going to be talking about the haunting at the Mount
Estate Mansions, and we have a special guest who's had personal
experiences that could create some insight into what we're
talking about because she's actually a medium.
Stephanie, welcome to the podcast.
Good to have you. Thank you for having me guys.
So excited this dog is high. Well, Steph would love to know a
(01:04):
little bit about you and Chris, said Medium.
Like, tell us about that. So I am a practicing medium,
both me and my mom. I actually started doing this
through her. I started practicing in 2016.
She practiced a little bit longer than I did from a young
age. She started from like I think
like around like 11-12 started like sense of like, you know,
(01:25):
presences. And then it wasn't until I think
she was 16, the dream started happening.
So she started getting visitations.
She like, and they were very like vivid and very detailed,
also a little bit graphic. In fact, didn't know really what
to do with it until years later.So years later, she joined a
spiritualist church in Springfield, MA.
And through there she was able to connect with some people who
(01:46):
were practicing mediumship circles.
So she, you know, started like sitting down and like learning
techniques on how to connect andall that stuff.
So then I, I was at the time living in Eastern Mass.
I just got out of college and I ended up moving back because,
you know, the Boston area is so like freaking expensive.
Yeah. So so then I said I'm going to
join you too because I'm really curious and like I've had an
interesting paranormal my whole life, I think is 14.
(02:09):
I went on my first ghost tour, which was in Salem, Mass.
And I was like, I think from then on it was like my dream
job. So cool.
I mean, we've got to dig in. So I assume everyone probably
has like their own experiences or how mediumship works for
them. What is it?
What does it look like for you? So for me earlier on, I started
like sensing stuff. Like my mom has always told me
she's like when you were a kid, you just anxiety like all the
(02:30):
time. I was like very sensitive to
like just being around people. So if I had like a lot of like
people coming at me, it was justlike high energy.
When I first started doing this,it was on a much more visual
basis. I think on over time as I
practiced it, like started getting more like, you know,
feelings, I could hear more stuff.
But like, you know, it's very visual based.
And for my mom and my mom, it's like more she does more like
(02:51):
factual stuff. For me, it's like more on the
emotional side. I tell people all the time that
like, the reason why I do this, the reason why my mom does this,
it's for healing purposes. So it's, it's not to be
negative. I've heard people say they've
gone to mediums or psychics and say like, you know, you have all
this bad energy around you. That's not what this is for.
It's for just knowing that your loved ones on your side, that
(03:11):
they're safe, they're looking out for you.
I do tell people we get what we need, not what we want.
So it's whoever comes in, comes in, whatever they give me, I
will give to you. I don't control like, you know,
what's what comes through or whocomes through.
At times it can get emotional. I mean, it depends on who I'm
reading and depends on who, you know, what's going on in their
(03:33):
life or what's happened in theirpast or connections with people
on the other side. I just do this for like,
positive. I don't like when people say
like, you know, like, oh, it's like you're going to predict
when I'm going to die and all that stuff.
I'm like, no, that's not what I do.
Yeah, it's a nice message. I mean, it sounds like you, you
take this ability that you have and you're using it to try to
help people heal or find closurewith anything that they may be
(03:56):
struggling with after people have passed.
Was there a moment that you knewlike, hey, this is something
that's real, that I need to explore more?
Yes, when I first started going to my spiritual circle, like it
was like small little things like here and there, but I
wasn't getting that aha moment like right away.
So when I probably like either late 2016, maybe early 2017, I
(04:17):
was at circle and we were we were going around doing our
readings and it came my turn. They say to you when you start
practicing this, it's like, you know, just give what you get
like don't think about just get something right away.
You give it so immediately I hadthis vision of being in a car
and it was raining and one of the things that stood out, I was
(04:38):
just smelling fast food grease like just make it fast food
grease like it just smelled. And then I had a picture of the
pool I had when I was a kid growing up and I had an image of
a motel room. So I'm saying all this stuff
saying out loud, but I don't know what this means.
I don't know like what I'm why I'm saying this, but my mom who
(04:58):
sit next to me, she goes like keep going, keep going.
So I'm just saying the stuff andthen all of a sudden I had a
female come in and she slammed the door to the motel room in my
face. And Carol, she was our head
medium. She's pushing me to like keep
going forward. As she's pushing me.
This female was telling me no, like we're done.
(05:19):
Like this is it? We're done.
And I'm saying I'm like Carol, I'm like I can't go forward
anymore if she's not letting me.She's not showing me anything.
So I'm like, like, that's all I'm getting finished my thing.
And my mom says to me, I know exactly what that was.
And I was like, what is it? She had a friend sadly murdered.
She had met this guy in a rehab center and he ended up
(05:42):
kidnapping her, took her to a motel in somewhere in West
Springfield's, tied her up and basically killed her.
So that's what. You were seeing.
That was the first real experience you had that's I was.
Like, yeah, so I'm like, well, what is the pool?
Me, Because I'm seeing the pool that we had when we were kids,
and she goes, she was the one that came over to my house and
went swimming all the time. That's why the pool means a lot.
(06:04):
And she goes, the fact that you're smelling the fast food,
Grace, she goes, that answered aquestion that I had because I
didn't know which motel it was that he took her to.
She was. I know which one.
It was the one near McDonald's in West Springfield.
That was the one, Yeah. You can smell like the French
fries in the. Which went Connell.
Like, that's what it was. It was crazy.
(06:24):
He let her call her mom to say goodbye.
Like, shit, kids. It was just like, yeah, it was
crazy. Like I'm saying all this stuff
like not knowing it. And then my mom was like sitting
next to me and my mom was actually saying when Carol was
pushing me to, you know, push forward, my mom in her head was
was saying like she just don't, don't show anything, don't show
her anything. Like like, Nope, that's it.
Like that's all you're showing her.
So I went home and then my mom like calls me and she goes I
(06:46):
just realized today's her birthday I got.
So Goosebumps, I don't know if that's a fan or Wow, yeah,
that's that's a lot too. That was the big one.
That was the big one. I was like OK like I can do
this. So how long did it take for you
to like kind of hone in on this?I imagine it's a skill, right?
Like, like the more you work on it and like, it happens, the
(07:07):
better you get at it. Oh yeah.
How long did that take? Or are you still working on it?
Is it a craft for life to? I mean, we're still learning
when you never stop learning. So I mean, like, I'm better than
I was before. But like, you know, I, my mom
and I still like will discover like new stuff about like how we
communicate with spirit and, youknow, sometimes dealing with
difficult spirits then also dealing with people.
I definitely say it's harder to read people who are close
(07:29):
minded. I had read a girl one time, came
in for a reading and like everything I was giving her, she
just was like shooting down, shooting down.
And at the end of the ring she said to me she was, I didn't
want to do this. A friend pressured me into it.
So I tell people if you're goingto come in for reading, just
make sure that you like really want to do this.
This is for you, not for anybodyelse.
You guys want to dig into the store, Let's do it.
(07:52):
So I'm really excited to have a medium who's also been to this
property and has had personal experiences as we get into the
story. But today we're digging into the
hauntings at the Mount Estate mansion.
To understand these hauntings, first we have to understand the
builder and designer of the Mount Estates novelist Edith
Wharton. Edith was born in 1862 into a
(08:14):
prominent family from New York. Think dinner parties with the
Rockefellers and Carnegies and countless maids and butlers
running around. So she rich.
Yeah, she got money raised to begraceful in high society and to
marry well from early childhood.To say it was a strict
upbringing is an understatement.Today, we would probably call it
emotional abuse. All depictions of her
(08:35):
relationship with her parents, Ifound described her parents as,
well, Terrible people. Yeah, they were overbearing,
micromanaging work to criticize and push her down.
For example, Edith was banned from reading fictional books or
novels as a child and was restricted to the books her
father approved of. How come?
Because it was the wrong vibe for the times.
(08:55):
So despite her father's strict controls over her approved
reading list, Edith was a prolific reader.
And Edith's autobiography calledThe Life and I, she wrote as a
child. My books were my closest
friends, and I had a painful longing for a friend to speak to
me, as my books did. That just kills me.
And I hate her parents all. Can you imagine, though, being
like, what made you a bad kid? You're like, I smuggled books
(09:17):
and read that it was nonfiction.It wasn't any nonfiction.
Fairy tales. So she clearly had an affinity
for the limited reading she was allowed to do in the spark, the
love of the written word. Now, interestingly, when she was
10 years old, she came down withpneumonia and she had a very
high fever and she was bedriddenfor weeks.
She wrote later of this time, and I'm paraphrasing here, she
(09:40):
was in and out of consciousness.She would enter a world of the
spirits and ghost would communicate with her when she
was in that state. She later asked her doctor about
this experience because she didn't dare ask her dismissive
and judgmental parents. The doctor reported these were
hallucinations brought on by thefever.
I don't think she really believed this because she
refused to sleep in that room again for the rest of her
(10:00):
childhood. She also refused to have any
books in her room when she sleptthat referred to ghosts or the
supernatural in any way. This scared the shit out of her.
Yeah, so this is an odd detail to keep in mind as we move
forward in the story, and I'm hoping Stephanie can give us
some insight into that, because it sounds to me like this is a
medium experience she had and itscared the shit out of her.
(10:21):
I did a history tour there last year.
But yeah, I remember them sayinglike she wrote ghost stories,
but she was like no, go on the spirits.
Like she it did freak her out. I think probably.
Too, It sounds like she wasn't living in an environment where
she could feel openly comfortable to talk about things
like that. I wonder if, like, yeah, I mean,
you probably figure she's a little kid.
(10:41):
She's scared, but then she's notallowed to talk about it.
And then her imagination probably makes it worse in her
mind than what it was. And then she kind of like buries
it. Just the fact she asked her
doctor instead of her parents tells you something about yeah,
how she saw being supported in that house.
Right. For sure, for sure.
Definitely. The first time you had your
experience, was it scary? I wouldn't call it scary.
(11:02):
I just, I was more like the visions and the images and I
just was like, I literally was sitting there the whole time.
I'm like, I'm like, I don't knowwhat this means.
I don't know what this means, but my mom, my mom knew what it
meant. Before you had your visions,
were you aware of your mom's? You were aware of your mom's
visions, correct? When you had them, you were
probably more comfortable and open to it.
Yeah. I mean, I'm assuming totally
(11:23):
assuming that. Like my mom, yeah, my mom's been
like very supportive of it actually.
My grandmother was actually veryopen to this.
My mom actually threw a reading,found out that my grandma had
gone to a psychiatrist at one point because she was getting
stuff but it freaked her out andshe thought she was going crazy
so. She had nobody to kind of guide
(11:44):
her through it, so she thought she was having some kind of a
mental breakdown. Yeah.
And then my mom with her, her stuff, it was, it was coming in
through dreams, but it was like very graphic deaths she was
seeing. So she would see something
before it happened. And it was like from people from
like all over the world. So I'm like why am I getting
these dreams and these graphic like these graphic images of
(12:05):
people dying. I don't even know who they are.
Like I can't help them. Yeah, and it's in a different
language in a different country.Yeah, it's like it's she's like,
I don't know what to do with this so.
It's it's sort of like your grandmother probably experienced
something similar to what Edith did where she was in an
environment that it was something talked about or, or
known or someone else had it. So as a little kid, I'm sure
(12:28):
like Edith was probably. To figure out what it meant.
Yeah, Edith loved to read. She also fell in love with the
written word and had aspirationsof becoming an author.
It's interesting because she became a fictional novelist, and
fictional books were banned in her childhood.
Maybe that was the ultimate act of defiance against her parents.
Good for her. Yeah, she describes some of her
(12:49):
fictional characters in the books as overbearing and
hypocritical and controlling authority figures.
She would later in autobiographycredit her parents for the
inspiration. Some things don't need to be
read, yeah. Some things just explain
themselves. Yeah, she did not exactly have a
loving, carefree childhood. Say least.
By age 16, her parents allowed her slash force Edith to start
(13:13):
going to public events and dances, hoping she'd find a
suitable husband. Her parents were quick to
criticize her and her aspirations of becoming a
writer, instead urging her to focus on finding a husband and
give up on our foolish childhoodand hobbies.
Which is great, because she became one of the most important
writers in American history. So fuck them, she.
Kind of end up giving than the big middle finger and so.
(13:35):
Being hypercritical of Edith must be a family trait, because
Edith was one of our own harshest critics.
She now famously would write anonymous reviews or our own
publications, completely trashing it.
She was very hard on herself as a writer, and there might be
countless pieces of important American literature that she did
not publish and we will never see because she was so hard on
(13:56):
herself. She would publish reviews of her
own work, trashing herself. Anonymously, yes.
Just just completely trashing her work.
She was a bit of a torture soul.Do you think it was sort of like
a reverse psychology? She's going to put bad things
out there so that other people then turn around, be like, no,
this is great. This is this is really good.
(14:16):
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what her
motivation was, but I do know that she had written some really
awful reviews of her own work over the years and it got
published anonymously and we didn't find out till much later
it was her that did it. In her early 20s she was able to
get some articles published in travel magazines and she wrote a
screenplay, but the play actually never got made.
(14:39):
So not much success early on as a writer.
By the age of 23 she was fast approaching old maid status and
not married yet. Her parents put even more
pressure on her to find a husband. 23's old, 23 she's.
Going to be an old maid. She should be pushing our kids
by now. Past her prime. 23 which is
crazy today but I guess at the Times Now her parents are still
(15:00):
Dicks for the time. I can't defend that.
So this is when she met Teddy Walton.
He was 16 years older than her. They dated briefly and then
married and traveled for the first few years of their
marriage. She continued to write during
this time but not really ever finding any success or traction.
She later wrote in her iography she was not happy in her
marriage but rather doing what was expected of her.
(15:21):
But not exactly romantic. Love at first sight lives here.
That's sad. She also explored themes of
sexual repression, unreturned feelings, and forbidden love in
her fictional novels and short stories, maybe giving you some
insight into her thoughts of herown marriage.
Now. Teddy was diagnosed with manic
depressive disorder and he wouldexperience long periods of not
being able to get out of bed, lack of motivation, not being
(15:44):
interested in life, and suicidalthoughts.
With Teddy's depression, the couple decided to leave the busy
pace of the city and bought 113 acres in Lenox, Massachusetts.
They then started construction on their home.
The amount estates design of thehouse was left up to Edith.
She based the design of the house on the Belton House, a
famous 17th century English country home in Lincolnshire,
(16:06):
England. The house itself was almost
17,000 square feet and holds 42 rooms for two people.
They never had any children so. What would you do a 42 room?
A house that big, she has servants.
She's not dusting her own. House so like the main house,
the mounts large stable was a modeled on the Belton house as
well. It's original purpose was the
sheltered the Waltons horse and carriage, but in the next decade
(16:29):
it was transformed into a garagefor Teddy's large collection of
motorcycles and cars. The gardens, in Edith's own
words, or an elegant series of outdoor rooms in harmony with
the house and the surrounding landscape.
And of course, when Edith was designing her home, the
librarian writing room received special attention.
It's both decadent and comfortable.
(16:50):
It has oversized chairs and a marble fireplace, somehow
inviting you to sit and read or even write for a while.
So she put a lot of time and effort into this place,
incredibly upscaled, well planned out, and based on
Edith's travels and senses and preferences.
So the Waltons lived at the Estates for the next 10 years.
A very interesting thing happened at this time.
(17:11):
She started to crank out true masterpieces of American
literature. In the next 10 years she wrote
and published 22 full novels, 87short stories, and published
numerous poems and magazine articles.
These included The House of Marth and The Age of Innocence,
both best sellers the year they were published and she won a
Pulitzer. Her Age of Innocence.
So you might say she was a womanpossessed.
(17:32):
She went from not getting a couple articles to literally
putting out 22 books in 10. Years.
And at this point, she's at the Linux property, yes.
So it's almost like being there.It's like channeling something.
Yeah, inspiration. Something is like pouring
through her and away. Almost.
You guys might be psychic because that's kind of where I'm
(17:53):
going. So Edith's work explored social
themes and relationships in highsociety, but she also started to
write ghost stories. At this time.
She remember about hauntings andpossessions in the spirit world,
as well as unresting souls that could not move on.
She even wrote a guide on how tomake ghosts appear.
Writing ghosts to make themselves manifest require 2
conditions, adherence to a modern mind, silence and
(18:16):
continuity. So what should I say?
I have absolutely no idea what that means, but it's an
interesting shift in genre for the ever careful and proper
edits we've got to know so far in the story.
OK, so they built the house. Do we know anything about the
land that was there? I do not.
Because I'm just like wondering like all of a sudden she's
talking about like spirits and like helping them move on and
helping them to be seen. But.
(18:38):
She's also saw the spirits when she was younger.
When she was younger. So maybe they're attacked to
her. Maybe like, yeah, like not
attached to her, but like tryingto channel through her.
Maybe. I mean, we've got a
professional. Here, Yeah, yeah.
I think spirits know when we're open.
So like I think they do attach themselves to us even if we
don't realize we're open at the time.
Feel like I had spirit attached to me at a young age.
(18:59):
It was coming out as anxiety. So at the time I didn't know
what this was. So until like years later, it's
like, no, you're just very sensitive to energy.
And they, they know. And that's kind of confirming
the story so far, right? Because she had this experience
when she was 10 years old. I was just a few fever and then
all of a sudden she's writing books on how to summon ghosts.
It's almost like she left us clues through her writings.
(19:21):
You said that her husband suffered from some mental
illness, right? So maybe when he was kind of
unable to be present because of that, for the first time she had
a sense of control of her environment because she was the
one that was in charge. Well, either way, after a 10
year marriage that Edith described as well what was
expected of her, Edith and Teddydecided to go in their own ways.
(19:43):
Edith moved to France and while she published new work on
occasion, she never really put out the volume or quality of
work she did in a short time when she lived at the Mount.
She would go on to start and support many organizations that
supported the poor in France andin Europe, and she focused
mostly on helping orphan children from World War One.
Edith would later describe her time at the Mount as the only
(20:04):
time in her life she truly felt happy.
So this is the story of Edith and I want to talk about the
hauntings at the Mount next. But first I want to review some
facts so far in order to draw a kind of a clearer picture about
Edith and her work. So Edith, as we discussed, at 10
years old had typhoid fever. And she reports at this time in
her life, visiting the spirit world and having ghosts come and
visit and communicate with her, almost like a media.
(20:27):
Leadership experience Then as a writer who had a few articles
published, but never having really had any success, she
moved into the mountain. Then writes some of the most
important American literature inour history.
Not only incredibly successful works, but writing 22 full
novels and 87 short stories in avery short 10 years after she
left them out. For all intents and purposes,
(20:47):
she didn't publish anything of note.
While living at the Mount, she started to write about the
supernatural and ghosts in the spirit realms, a sharp departure
from her usual genre. I cannot find anything in her
writings What Edith proclaimed that she was a medium.
I think she left us clues of hermediumship abilities throughout
her writings. She wrote short stories The
Ladies Maids Bell and the Eyes, which both explore fictional
(21:11):
characters haunted by ghosts manifested by the past misdeeds
and having to help the apparitions by confronting the
misdeeds so the apparitions could move on into the
afterlife. So your theory is that she was
actually a medium and now she's writing these stories.
So do you think the characters, the spirits in her stories were
real life spirits that she was helping move on?
(21:32):
That is a fantastic question andthat's that's the one we're
asking here today, right? I still like have a hard time
telling people I'm a medium. So like, I can imagine being
around at that time and like, no, you're like being thrown in
the freaking mental asylum, you know?
Hearing her say and reflect on her life and be like that was
the happiest time of my life also makes me go well that's not
someone in a bad. Man, that's in a bad place
that's feeling isolated and alone.
(21:54):
And this is someone who's like feeling good and channeling
something beautiful maybe and having these interactions.
This is where I go from. Also, I'm sketching, I don't
know about. Him and and then excuse the pun,
but the dead giveaway from me was her book on the guide on how
to summon spirit. She's literally telling us in
the book she knows how to summonspirits, so I could suggest she
(22:15):
was in contact with an actual ghostwriter if you will.
I also believe her strict upbringing in her carefulness
about her public image, she would not share this claim in
her public life. However, the more I dug into the
evidence, the more it looks likeshe might have been channeling
ghosts in her time at the Mount.So the Mount continues to have
paranormal activity after the Waltons moved out in 1922 and it
(22:39):
continues to this day. So in 1942, the Mount became the
Fox Hollow School for Girls and quickly rumors and stories about
the paranormal began. Word spread amongst the students
of strange noises, footsteps, apparitions appearing and
disappearing. An apparition of a man dressed
in a tuxedo was reported severaltimes near the side entrance of
the building. Rumors that this could be
(23:00):
Edith's extra and marital affair, waiting for her for all
eternity to come to the door, circulated amongst the children
like wildfire. What?
We're talking about ghost sex. Well, we wouldn't need That's a
marital affair. What's happening?
You don't think ghosts get busy strong?
I don't think. I've never had a sexual
encounter with a ghost. You do OK Tom, if I did have a
(23:21):
sexual encounter with a ghost, did I cheat on my girlfriend?
Yes. But it's a ghost.
Is it real? I don't know.
And you have to tell the story on the podcast because we're
going viral with that thing. These rumors circulated amongst
the children, but also more quietly and conservatively by
staff and teachers at the schoolas well.
Now interesting to me, the house, no longer under Edith's
direction, became a home for girls, given Edith's work with
(23:44):
orphans in Europe and her own difficulties and traumas during
her childhood, almost like it manifested this way.
So by the 1970's, the girls homeless shut down at the
Estates of the Mount, became thehome for a theater group who
performed Shakespeare. The paranormal occurrences
continued or even escalated at this time.
Cameras and recording equipment that worked perfectly off site.
(24:06):
Seeing the malfunction on the property.
Performers and staff reported feeling watched when they were
alone in the bedrooms while staying at the Mount.
Some actors and actresses refused to walk through the
Great Hall alone after a report by their acting coach, who said
he was touched by an invisible hand when he was walking through
the Great Hall. So interesting, right?
So again, the next iteration of the house was a tribute to
(24:27):
fellow writer and influence for Edith.
Almost like Edith continued to have have an influence in how
the house manifested itself. One of the most unusual
encounters took place in 1979. This is a story of Andrea
hearing Andrea who was an actress and voice teacher for
the theater group. She reported she laid down to
rest late one night on a mattress and he just otherwise
(24:49):
empty library writing room. She reports she awoke at 4:00 AM
and since the presence in the room, she also noticed the room
had become extremely cold. She opened her eyes to see three
figures in furniture that included a desk and a chair
appear in the empty room. A woman who Andrea recognizes
Edith, was talking. A man with mutton chops and a
(25:10):
whiskered beard was sitting at adesk, writing and gesturing to
Edith. Standing was armed.
Folded was another man who Andrea recognizes, Teddy.
The three of them seem to be completely engaged in
conversation, as though they could hear each other, but
Andrea could not hear anything they said.
Andrea thought about leaving theroom.
As soon as that thought popped into her head, the three ghosts
turned and stared at her, clearly acknowledging her
(25:32):
presence, then resumed the conversation as if she wasn't in
the room. Andrea this point quickly got up
and left, now in the hallway, summing up all her courage and
curiosity. She returned back into the room
a minute later to find it empty again and warm again.
So a very interesting story there.
The one thing that is interesting to me is the fact
that it's not just people or Spears that appearing, the
(25:52):
furniture appeared. Yeah, like that's that sounded
residual. But then the girls clearly
acknowledge her presence in the room.
They all stared at her. Yeah.
Which made you know it sounds like it is a mix of the two.
Yeah, there's definitely a mix in that house.
It just makes me think too, likeif you remember back in the
story from The Conjuring episodethat I shared, Andrea would
(26:13):
frequently see people inside of the dining room literally
sitting at the dining room tableand they'd be eating.
And I've always thought back to that imagery of them doing that
and her being like the dining room tables there and she's
seeing go sit at her table. Is the table part of the
spiritual experience or? They say that like objects can
(26:33):
have energy and spirits attachedto it.
So like, like if you have like an armoire and you bring that
armoire into your house, that's from, we'll say the mount,
right? And that has energy and that has
a spirit attached to it. And then you bring it into your
house. You're now bringing that in.
So whatever is interacting with that maybe you would be seeing.
(26:54):
My great, great Pepe built this house and it's been our family
since. So I get I get the family in
here like all the freaking time.My mom and dad, the time
building a house in Belchertown,they were staying here.
Pepe was still alive and my mom was actually sitting in this
room using it as her office and she had told me she goes.
I could not walk through the front living room because it
(27:18):
felt like I was walking through a freaking party.
Not that energy, but it just felt like it's a lot of energy.
It was too much. I couldn't walk through.
I had time to sage the room because it was just it was so
crowded. Based on what you're talking
about, South in the house that we currently live in, there's
been times where I've been in our bedroom and it's almost like
(27:39):
the room gets heavy and our dog will sort of react and will kind
of do this weird cower down typething where he'll put his head
down, his tails between his legsand he's kind of looking over
towards the bathroom. I will literally.
Is that why I have to sleep on that side?
Yes, but I will literally turn around and I will say out loud
(27:59):
and it it, it sounds kind of absurd, but I will turn around
and I will say if you are here, you can stay here.
But this is my house. But you can't bother me.
You can't scare me. You can't scare my dog.
You can't scare people. Because if they do, I'm going to
have to find a way for them to not stay here.
And they're going to have to move on and they're going to
(28:20):
have to go someplace else. I don't know if it's I'm
actually talking to a spirit or if it's me doing that out loud
makes my mind feel better. But very shortly after, within
seconds, the room kind of just that heavy feeling like goes
away. The dog chills out.
But it's even happened where I'll be like in my bathroom
(28:41):
brushing my teeth. So you talking about your
grandmother walking through the room sort of reminded me of
that. Today, the house offers tours.
It holds venues and weddings, and the reports of hauntings
continue to circulate. Strange noises, rustling, thuds,
footsteps. I've been heard by visitors and
staff alike all over the property.
Reports of young girls laughing when there's nobody else in the
(29:03):
house have been heard. Accredited to the residents of
the Fox Hollow School in apparition of a hostile, angry
man dressed in a black coat havebeen seen roaming around the
house as many bedrooms. There have been reports of him
holding people down in the bed as they sleep in a terrifying
and violent manner and then justdisappear hearing.
So that part fucked me up. There has been apparitions
(29:24):
accredited to Teddy Walton. He's been claimed to be seen
wandering around the grounds andon the property.
He's been seen in and around thecarriage house as well as all
over the house, and people will report a very heavy dark
presence when they see his apparition.
The ghost of Edith herself has been seen walking back and forth
on the terrace late at night, seemingly deep in thought and
(29:45):
unaware people are watching her.And then the last story of
asking Stephanie to share with us.
Stephanie, can you walk us through your experiences there
and what you noticed? Well, I'm going to start by
saying I went on 2 ghost tours at the mount.
First one was in July of 2022. This was more of a tame
experience. When you go on a tour, they
(30:05):
first start you off carriage house.
After that you go to the pet cemetery.
Edith Wharton's dogs are buried on the property and it's up on a
hill a little bit. The mount is actually gorgeous.
And then after the pet cemetery,you go to the main house and
they take make you on this ground floor.
Then there's the second floor and then there's like the top
with the bedrooms. So my first tour I went on, we
(30:26):
started off in the carriage house and we got little taps
here and there, nothing crazy. And then we moved on to the pet
cemetery. I didn't didn't feel anything
there. I don't feel like ghosts hang
out in the cemetery. They're not they're waiting for
us. They're off.
You know where the action is. They're off where where everyone
is. So we went into the house.
My first big like feeling was actually Teddy's office.
(30:49):
We were in that office and I just started getting like wicked
depression vibes. I was just feeling really down
and just not great, like just didn't want to be in the room.
Then we moved on to the rest of the tour, went up to the second
floor, you know, toward some of that rooms up there.
And then at the end we're at thetop of the stairs and our tour
guide said we're going to stop, we're not going to talk and
(31:10):
we're just going to listen to the house.
So everyone just like was just paused.
It was quiet. And as we're doing this, I all
of a sudden felt a dog on my ankle just chilling up on my
ankle. This dog would not leave.
And I was like, holy crap. Holy crap.
So at the end of the tour, we went back down the stairs in our
coaster. He's like, did you did anybody
feel anything like at all? Did anybody hear experiences?
(31:32):
And my husband John, he is like with me.
He's like, he's like just for mefor like, you know, say
something, something. And I was like freaking out
because I had just opened up themonth before to doing readings
for people. I just started my site.
So I was still like, you know, Idon't know if I can tell people
I do this was freaked out. So I didn't end up saying
anything. And then on the drive home, I
was like, oh crap. Like, you know, I should said
(31:52):
something like, so our second tour was actually last August
2024. We did like a Berkshire trip
because I freaking love the Berkshire that's gorgeous out
there. And we were staying in an Airbnb
in Great Barrington. So I should note we stay in this
Airbnb all week. I didn't feel anything.
It was our last stay in the Berkshires and we did the the
ghost tour. We started the ghost tour in the
(32:15):
carriage house. The only difference was that we
were told that they got permission to take tours up on
the second floor of the carriagehouse.
We start off in the first floor.I got tapped and staying like
kind of in the back of the groupand I was getting tapped and
John said to me, he's like, I thought I heard someone talking
behind us. I'm like I said, well, someone's
here. So so then we go outside and we
(32:38):
go up to the second floor. There's a fire escape.
We walked up and we walked into the 2nd floor and there's this
big room. Our tour guides are talking
about the stuff that they saw and all their stories.
And as they're talking, I am just getting hit with like this
wicked anxious feeling to the point where our tour guide
stopped and said, are you OK to me?
(32:58):
I didn't want to draw attention to myself.
So I was like, no, I'm fine. Like so they kept going.
They open up the door, they stand behind them and this door
at least to this long hallway with all these rooms off of it.
So we start walking down immediately as I enter the
hallway, I am just hit with likestomach pains, but I want to
throw up. So I'm I'm trying to like walk
(33:20):
down this hall. I'm trying to like follow our
tour guide into the one of the rooms.
They was talking. I'm I'm in there for a little
bit and I was like, Nope, I needto get the fuck out of here.
So I ran to John and I'm like, Ineed to get out now.
Like I'm going to throw up. We had another tour guide behind
us and I said, are we going out the same way?
And she goes, no, we're going upthe side staircase.
I go out the door, go up the staircase, I'm standing on the
top of it. And I just start dry heaving.
(33:42):
Like I'm like, holy crap. And John's like he's like, are
you OK? I'm like, no, like I'm like
fucking. I just ran down the stairs, went
out the door. And as soon as I get out the
door, I'm like putting the whitelight around, like, you know,
they're putting up the barrier. And the stomach pain stopped.
So we continued on, went to the main house.
I felt the dogs again, the dogs,I swear they rain on the 2nd
(34:03):
floor because they're, they're running up and down the second
full of crazy. Still getting the depression
vibes in Teddy's room. That hadn't changed.
I said to, I said, I said, OK, I'm, I need to say something
this time because like that was,that was like really intense.
That was too much. So I said something to our tour
guides afterwards and they were like, Oh my God, like it's
crazy. Like they've had other like
psychics and people have had experiences, like some crazy
(34:25):
experiences up there. So that was not so we probably
left around 11:00. So drive back to our Airbnb.
It was our last night. Get home, probably get to bed
around like like midnight. Fall asleep around 2:30 AMI am
woken up. I sit up in the bed and I
realize I'm hearing clear as day.
(34:47):
I'm hearing somebody whispering at the bottom of the stairs to
the point I was not thinking spirit, I was thinking somebody.
Someone's in the house like I. Thought someone was downstairs
breaking into the house or someone came in.
I was like, Oh my God. And I'm, I'm sitting there
trying to process it. Am I hearing this?
And I'm like, no, no, I'm hearing this.
So I'm like John up. I'm like, I'm like John God.
(35:10):
I wouldn't be doing the same thing that's.
Exactly what you're doing. I heard something.
Oh my God. So I woke come up and he's like
what? I'm like there's someone at the
bottom of the stairs or whispering someone broke into
the house. So he he was fucking flying out
of the bed. He ran downstairs about right to
beat a motherfucker and I'm likerunning behind him.
We get downstairs, it's like this small house, it's like
there's like 2 rooms upstairs. So we get downstairs, we flip on
(35:33):
all the lights, we're looking around, there's no one
downstairs. We start checking all the doors,
all the windows for signs of break in, no signs.
We look outside to see if any ofthe sensor lights were on
outside, no pitch black. And I just want to be clear I
was in this house all week didn't feel anything.
So John says to me he's like were you dreaming?
(35:53):
I'm like babe I swear to God I'mlike I freaking heard
whispering. There was someone downstairs.
He's like, well, there's no one here.
And then I was like, oh shit, I think something followed us
back. Were you able to understand what
they were saying? Couldn't.
Hear words. But like, just that something
was there, someone was. There, do you know who it was?
I was not going to read this because it was someone that was
following me home. I was like, no, I'm like, I
(36:15):
don't is. That like a sign of like it's a
negative energy or spirit or. The fact that they were making
me sick, I was like, I was like,I was not going to go there.
I got pissed so near the top of the stairs and screamed get
Outback to where you came from. Like you're not doing this,
you're not attaching yourself tome.
You need to go back to where youcame from.
So that's get the crap out of me.
(36:36):
So need to say I didn't sleep the rest of the night.
John freaking cocked out. At least he ran down the stairs.
He played his role. He played his role, what he
needed to do, yeah. I laid there in bed the whole
night like the rest of the nightI could not fall asleep.
So finally at 7:00 AM my mom calls me and I told her what
(36:57):
happened. I told her the whole story and
she was like you like you were too open, like Oh my God, you
mean to shut down? I'm like, I'm like, I'm sorry.
I was not expecting like that because you know, those are
second time there, like, you know, I wasn't the first time.
It was but the crazy. I mean, you know that, but that
was insane. And she's like she's like you in
the sage the house now and all this stuff.
(37:17):
I'm going to be out by 10:30. This is an.
Airbnb. I don't own this bit, I'm
running. On 2 1/2 hours of sleep I'm
like, I can't. I think I felt like dry sage in
the cabinet somewhere. I don't think that's a clause in
the Airbnb contract as you can'tleave ghosts, so I think you're
good. Steph, can I ask a question?
So you walked into a room and you said you felt like the
(37:40):
depression of the room. What do you, what do you think
that is? Is that like a spirit like
attaching themselves to you? Is that like the spirit is just
in the room and it's making its feelings be felt by other
people? What?
What? What do you think's happening
when you feel that well? Sure.
Remember, Teddy had been diagnosed with manic depression.
You know, that's what I'm wondering.
Like the interesting point for me is it's like, is Teddy
(38:02):
attaching himself to Steph or isTeddy just in the room?
And because he's in the room, hewants other people to feel what
he's he's felt and and to know he's there.
So he makes them feel depressed.Well.
Sort of like his energy is sort of, yeah, staying there.
It's sort of like. Projection or injection?
Yeah. What is this?
So I that's why I said like I feel like there's both like the
(38:23):
residual energy and spirit there.
So like I feel like, I feel likehis office, I feel like that is
residual energy. I feel like that room just like
soaked up so much of his like depression because he spent most
of his time in there. What happened up in the carriage
house on the 2nd floor, like that was that was obviously very
like Oh my God, like that was just like someone attaching to
(38:44):
me. Do we know what happened in the
carriage house? They believe a girl hung herself
up in the rafters. Oh.
Geez, I do highly recommend doing a ghost tour because they
do such a great job. All the I'm always down for a
ghost tour. All the tour guides hit like
share, like they've all had experiences.
So like one of the tour guide, he actually told me a story.
(39:05):
He was on the 2nd floor. He was like, they were closing
down for the night after one of the tours and all of a sudden
they had heard the sound of the paws on the floor from one of
the dogs. And they turned around and he
said he saw one of the dogs, like, clear as day.
As I say, the dogs, that's theirspot.
Like their second floor. They're like running up and down
that hallway. You don't think it was the man
(39:26):
in the hooded cloak that followed you home, do you?
Because he sounds terrifying. Teddy's energy is just down and
depressed, and you could feel that when you walked into his
office. Yeah, but this sounded like a
more scary. Yeah, yeah.
I didn't obviously experience that this was your experience
and it made you feel like it wassomething negative.
(39:46):
But I also wonder too, like if someone was sick, right, And
when they pass and they were sick and say that was one of
their symptoms, was feeling nauseous and feeling heavy and
weighed down, could that spirit project that onto you because
that's what they were feeling intheir like last days?
That's possible. You know what they think?
(40:06):
The girl that hung herself was pregnant.
Pregnant. Yeah.
Be from the Fox Hollow School. Yeah, I'm wondering like, yeah,
do I swear, I do recommend taking.
They're so well put together. And it's one of the rare ghost
tours. I feel like you can actually be
in the space because a lot of the ghost tours I've been on,
I've been on like a number of ghost tours.
It's like you're walking the street just outside the you
(40:28):
know, the places, you know this one, you get to be in the space
and really kind of pick up on the energy.
So yeah. And they do, they do an awesome,
awesome job. They really do.
So and the mountain itself, it'sit is gorgeous, like the ground.
They're gorgeous and they do a lot of cool events since, you
know, throughout the spring, summer and fall in the early
winter. So is the Mount of State a
paranormal hotspot? Do restless souls search the
(40:50):
property for salvation and to find closure?
Could Edith have been a medium who conferred with the spirit
world to author some of the mostfamous works?
If you believe, the answer seemsclear, and if you don't believe,
the answer also seems clear. All I can say for sure is I want
to take a road trip to the Berkshires and experience the
amount of states for myself and I'm hoping you guys will come
with me. Doing this episode on the Lennox
(41:12):
and on Edith, what is your like key take away?
Are you do you think this place is haunted?
I mean Steph is here sharing these like true experiences that
that she's felt. What is your thought?
I got to be honest, I believe Edith was a medium and I think
she was channeling ghosts at hertime at the Mount.
And I think that energy still isthere today.
(41:33):
And I think that's what we heardabout from Stephanie today.
And I also believe that Teddy being depressed, her feeling
that that energy and then havingthat confirmed by other people,
they've seen his ghost and they've felt that really heavy
feeling that the press feeling really leads credence to the
reports. Chris, thank you so much for
sharing this story here today. We definitely appreciate it.
(41:54):
And Stephanie, thank you so muchfor joining us and bringing some
color and and bringing all your experiences.
Before we do like a complete wrap, we want to roll out the
red carpet for you. Tell us a little bit about
yourself. Where can people find you?
If they want to get a reading, where can they go?
Yes, so my site is mediumship with stephanie.com.
(42:14):
You just go on, you sign up withme and it's all done through
Zoom. I'll send you the Zoom link and
then we just do our reading together.
Also, if you're in the Western Massachusetts area, I also do in
person readings in Northampton, MA.
It's a shop called in Spirit Crystals.
It's located at 219 Main St. in Northampton, Mass.
You can visit their site in spiritcrystals.com to schedule a
(42:36):
reading walk. Insurance are also welcome.
It's a really cool shop. They have like watch the like
cool. Also stuff they also do like
other readers like tarot cards and psychic.
I believe right now I'm the onlymedium there.
But yeah, everyone there's like super down to earth and
Northampton. It's just like an awesome place.
It's just so chill. I love.
It I love that. I love that we'll throw them the
show notes. And do you have any socials you
(42:57):
want people to reach you out potentially, Stephanie?
On Facebook and Instagram, Mediumship with Stephanie.
My name's Stephanie Jack Year. All right, well, gang, we hope
you enjoyed this episode as muchas we did here today.
As always, if you are looking tointeract with us or talk with us
or other listeners who are interested in this podcast just
like you, we are out there building some communities so you
(43:20):
can visit us over on Facebook, Reddit or Instagram.
That is at Weirder After Dark and on all those sites.
Chris will be going ahead and dropping some information about
his episode today on Edith and the Lennox and the Mont, so be
sure to look at that. And as always, we are always on
the lookout for your stories. Have you walked into a room and
then all of a sudden ghost objects appear like a table?
(43:41):
Or do you fear, you know, ghost dogs like clawing at your
ankles? I don't know if you do.
We want to hear those stories and you can go ahead and send
them to the gang at weirderafterdark.com and we will
share them on an upcoming episode.
As always, if you are liking this shit, no, no, no.
If you are absolutely loving this shit, the best thing that
you can do for us is go ahead and share this with a friend and
wherever you're listening, whether that is Spotify or Apple
(44:03):
podcast, go ahead, leave us a five star review if you think we
are deserving of it and drop in there a comment.
It would mean the absolute world.
And don't forget, it always getsa little weirder after dark.
Bye. Thank you guys.
This is a story of a turn of thecentury novelist Edith Wharton
in our home that she lovingly and carefully designed, The
Mount Estates, the Victorian style mansion in Lenox,
Massachusetts. This property to this day is
reported to be a paranormal hotspot.
With first hand accounts and insights from my expert guest
Stephanie, we'll be exploring Edith's life and why so many
(00:20):
spirits seem to frequent the property at the Mount.
I'm Chris. I'm Kathy.
I'm Sean. And this is Waiter after dark.
(00:42):
Today we're going to be talking about the haunting at the Mount
Estate Mansions, and we have a special guest who's had personal
experiences that could create some insight into what we're
talking about because she's actually a medium.
Stephanie, welcome to the podcast.
Good to have you. Thank you for having me guys.
So excited this dog is high. Well, Steph would love to know a
(01:04):
little bit about you and Chris, said Medium.
Like, tell us about that. So I am a practicing medium,
both me and my mom. I actually started doing this
through her. I started practicing in 2016.
She practiced a little bit longer than I did from a young
age. She started from like I think
like around like 11-12 started like sense of like, you know,
(01:25):
presences. And then it wasn't until I think
she was 16, the dream started happening.
So she started getting visitations.
She like, and they were very like vivid and very detailed,
also a little bit graphic. In fact, didn't know really what
to do with it until years later.So years later, she joined a
spiritualist church in Springfield, MA.
And through there she was able to connect with some people who
(01:46):
were practicing mediumship circles.
So she, you know, started like sitting down and like learning
techniques on how to connect andall that stuff.
So then I, I was at the time living in Eastern Mass.
I just got out of college and I ended up moving back because,
you know, the Boston area is so like freaking expensive.
Yeah. So so then I said I'm going to
join you too because I'm really curious and like I've had an
interesting paranormal my whole life, I think is 14.
(02:09):
I went on my first ghost tour, which was in Salem, Mass.
And I was like, I think from then on it was like my dream
job. So cool.
I mean, we've got to dig in. So I assume everyone probably
has like their own experiences or how mediumship works for
them. What is it?
What does it look like for you? So for me earlier on, I started
like sensing stuff. Like my mom has always told me
she's like when you were a kid, you just anxiety like all the
(02:30):
time. I was like very sensitive to
like just being around people. So if I had like a lot of like
people coming at me, it was justlike high energy.
When I first started doing this,it was on a much more visual
basis. I think on over time as I
practiced it, like started getting more like, you know,
feelings, I could hear more stuff.
But like, you know, it's very visual based.
And for my mom and my mom, it's like more she does more like
(02:51):
factual stuff. For me, it's like more on the
emotional side. I tell people all the time that
like, the reason why I do this, the reason why my mom does this,
it's for healing purposes. So it's, it's not to be
negative. I've heard people say they've
gone to mediums or psychics and say like, you know, you have all
this bad energy around you. That's not what this is for.
It's for just knowing that your loved ones on your side, that
(03:11):
they're safe, they're looking out for you.
I do tell people we get what we need, not what we want.
So it's whoever comes in, comes in, whatever they give me, I
will give to you. I don't control like, you know,
what's what comes through or whocomes through.
At times it can get emotional. I mean, it depends on who I'm
reading and depends on who, you know, what's going on in their
(03:33):
life or what's happened in theirpast or connections with people
on the other side. I just do this for like,
positive. I don't like when people say
like, you know, like, oh, it's like you're going to predict
when I'm going to die and all that stuff.
I'm like, no, that's not what I do.
Yeah, it's a nice message. I mean, it sounds like you, you
take this ability that you have and you're using it to try to
help people heal or find closurewith anything that they may be
(03:56):
struggling with after people have passed.
Was there a moment that you knewlike, hey, this is something
that's real, that I need to explore more?
Yes, when I first started going to my spiritual circle, like it
was like small little things like here and there, but I
wasn't getting that aha moment like right away.
So when I probably like either late 2016, maybe early 2017, I
(04:17):
was at circle and we were we were going around doing our
readings and it came my turn. They say to you when you start
practicing this, it's like, you know, just give what you get
like don't think about just get something right away.
You give it so immediately I hadthis vision of being in a car
and it was raining and one of the things that stood out, I was
(04:38):
just smelling fast food grease like just make it fast food
grease like it just smelled. And then I had a picture of the
pool I had when I was a kid growing up and I had an image of
a motel room. So I'm saying all this stuff
saying out loud, but I don't know what this means.
I don't know like what I'm why I'm saying this, but my mom who
(04:58):
sit next to me, she goes like keep going, keep going.
So I'm just saying the stuff andthen all of a sudden I had a
female come in and she slammed the door to the motel room in my
face. And Carol, she was our head
medium. She's pushing me to like keep
going forward. As she's pushing me.
This female was telling me no, like we're done.
(05:19):
Like this is it? We're done.
And I'm saying I'm like Carol, I'm like I can't go forward
anymore if she's not letting me.She's not showing me anything.
So I'm like, like, that's all I'm getting finished my thing.
And my mom says to me, I know exactly what that was.
And I was like, what is it? She had a friend sadly murdered.
She had met this guy in a rehab center and he ended up
(05:42):
kidnapping her, took her to a motel in somewhere in West
Springfield's, tied her up and basically killed her.
So that's what. You were seeing.
That was the first real experience you had that's I was.
Like, yeah, so I'm like, well, what is the pool?
Me, Because I'm seeing the pool that we had when we were kids,
and she goes, she was the one that came over to my house and
went swimming all the time. That's why the pool means a lot.
(06:04):
And she goes, the fact that you're smelling the fast food,
Grace, she goes, that answered aquestion that I had because I
didn't know which motel it was that he took her to.
She was. I know which one.
It was the one near McDonald's in West Springfield.
That was the one, Yeah. You can smell like the French
fries in the. Which went Connell.
Like, that's what it was. It was crazy.
(06:24):
He let her call her mom to say goodbye.
Like, shit, kids. It was just like, yeah, it was
crazy. Like I'm saying all this stuff
like not knowing it. And then my mom was like sitting
next to me and my mom was actually saying when Carol was
pushing me to, you know, push forward, my mom in her head was
was saying like she just don't, don't show anything, don't show
her anything. Like like, Nope, that's it.
Like that's all you're showing her.
So I went home and then my mom like calls me and she goes I
(06:46):
just realized today's her birthday I got.
So Goosebumps, I don't know if that's a fan or Wow, yeah,
that's that's a lot too. That was the big one.
That was the big one. I was like OK like I can do
this. So how long did it take for you
to like kind of hone in on this?I imagine it's a skill, right?
Like, like the more you work on it and like, it happens, the
(07:07):
better you get at it. Oh yeah.
How long did that take? Or are you still working on it?
Is it a craft for life to? I mean, we're still learning
when you never stop learning. So I mean, like, I'm better than
I was before. But like, you know, I, my mom
and I still like will discover like new stuff about like how we
communicate with spirit and, youknow, sometimes dealing with
difficult spirits then also dealing with people.
I definitely say it's harder to read people who are close
(07:29):
minded. I had read a girl one time, came
in for a reading and like everything I was giving her, she
just was like shooting down, shooting down.
And at the end of the ring she said to me she was, I didn't
want to do this. A friend pressured me into it.
So I tell people if you're goingto come in for reading, just
make sure that you like really want to do this.
This is for you, not for anybodyelse.
You guys want to dig into the store, Let's do it.
(07:52):
So I'm really excited to have a medium who's also been to this
property and has had personal experiences as we get into the
story. But today we're digging into the
hauntings at the Mount Estate mansion.
To understand these hauntings, first we have to understand the
builder and designer of the Mount Estates novelist Edith
Wharton. Edith was born in 1862 into a
(08:14):
prominent family from New York. Think dinner parties with the
Rockefellers and Carnegies and countless maids and butlers
running around. So she rich.
Yeah, she got money raised to begraceful in high society and to
marry well from early childhood.To say it was a strict
upbringing is an understatement.Today, we would probably call it
emotional abuse. All depictions of her
(08:35):
relationship with her parents, Ifound described her parents as,
well, Terrible people. Yeah, they were overbearing,
micromanaging work to criticize and push her down.
For example, Edith was banned from reading fictional books or
novels as a child and was restricted to the books her
father approved of. How come?
Because it was the wrong vibe for the times.
(08:55):
So despite her father's strict controls over her approved
reading list, Edith was a prolific reader.
And Edith's autobiography calledThe Life and I, she wrote as a
child. My books were my closest
friends, and I had a painful longing for a friend to speak to
me, as my books did. That just kills me.
And I hate her parents all. Can you imagine, though, being
like, what made you a bad kid? You're like, I smuggled books
(09:17):
and read that it was nonfiction.It wasn't any nonfiction.
Fairy tales. So she clearly had an affinity
for the limited reading she was allowed to do in the spark, the
love of the written word. Now, interestingly, when she was
10 years old, she came down withpneumonia and she had a very
high fever and she was bedriddenfor weeks.
She wrote later of this time, and I'm paraphrasing here, she
(09:40):
was in and out of consciousness.She would enter a world of the
spirits and ghost would communicate with her when she
was in that state. She later asked her doctor about
this experience because she didn't dare ask her dismissive
and judgmental parents. The doctor reported these were
hallucinations brought on by thefever.
I don't think she really believed this because she
refused to sleep in that room again for the rest of her
(10:00):
childhood. She also refused to have any
books in her room when she sleptthat referred to ghosts or the
supernatural in any way. This scared the shit out of her.
Yeah, so this is an odd detail to keep in mind as we move
forward in the story, and I'm hoping Stephanie can give us
some insight into that, because it sounds to me like this is a
medium experience she had and itscared the shit out of her.
(10:21):
I did a history tour there last year.
But yeah, I remember them sayinglike she wrote ghost stories,
but she was like no, go on the spirits.
Like she it did freak her out. I think probably.
Too, It sounds like she wasn't living in an environment where
she could feel openly comfortable to talk about things
like that. I wonder if, like, yeah, I mean,
you probably figure she's a little kid.
(10:41):
She's scared, but then she's notallowed to talk about it.
And then her imagination probably makes it worse in her
mind than what it was. And then she kind of like buries
it. Just the fact she asked her
doctor instead of her parents tells you something about yeah,
how she saw being supported in that house.
Right. For sure, for sure.
Definitely. The first time you had your
experience, was it scary? I wouldn't call it scary.
(11:02):
I just, I was more like the visions and the images and I
just was like, I literally was sitting there the whole time.
I'm like, I'm like, I don't knowwhat this means.
I don't know what this means, but my mom, my mom knew what it
meant. Before you had your visions,
were you aware of your mom's? You were aware of your mom's
visions, correct? When you had them, you were
probably more comfortable and open to it.
Yeah. I mean, I'm assuming totally
(11:23):
assuming that. Like my mom, yeah, my mom's been
like very supportive of it actually.
My grandmother was actually veryopen to this.
My mom actually threw a reading,found out that my grandma had
gone to a psychiatrist at one point because she was getting
stuff but it freaked her out andshe thought she was going crazy
so. She had nobody to kind of guide
(11:44):
her through it, so she thought she was having some kind of a
mental breakdown. Yeah.
And then my mom with her, her stuff, it was, it was coming in
through dreams, but it was like very graphic deaths she was
seeing. So she would see something
before it happened. And it was like from people from
like all over the world. So I'm like why am I getting
these dreams and these graphic like these graphic images of
(12:05):
people dying. I don't even know who they are.
Like I can't help them. Yeah, and it's in a different
language in a different country.Yeah, it's like it's she's like,
I don't know what to do with this so.
It's it's sort of like your grandmother probably experienced
something similar to what Edith did where she was in an
environment that it was something talked about or, or
known or someone else had it. So as a little kid, I'm sure
(12:28):
like Edith was probably. To figure out what it meant.
Yeah, Edith loved to read. She also fell in love with the
written word and had aspirationsof becoming an author.
It's interesting because she became a fictional novelist, and
fictional books were banned in her childhood.
Maybe that was the ultimate act of defiance against her parents.
Good for her. Yeah, she describes some of her
(12:49):
fictional characters in the books as overbearing and
hypocritical and controlling authority figures.
She would later in autobiographycredit her parents for the
inspiration. Some things don't need to be
read, yeah. Some things just explain
themselves. Yeah, she did not exactly have a
loving, carefree childhood. Say least.
By age 16, her parents allowed her slash force Edith to start
(13:13):
going to public events and dances, hoping she'd find a
suitable husband. Her parents were quick to
criticize her and her aspirations of becoming a
writer, instead urging her to focus on finding a husband and
give up on our foolish childhoodand hobbies.
Which is great, because she became one of the most important
writers in American history. So fuck them, she.
Kind of end up giving than the big middle finger and so.
(13:35):
Being hypercritical of Edith must be a family trait, because
Edith was one of our own harshest critics.
She now famously would write anonymous reviews or our own
publications, completely trashing it.
She was very hard on herself as a writer, and there might be
countless pieces of important American literature that she did
not publish and we will never see because she was so hard on
(13:56):
herself. She would publish reviews of her
own work, trashing herself. Anonymously, yes.
Just just completely trashing her work.
She was a bit of a torture soul.Do you think it was sort of like
a reverse psychology? She's going to put bad things
out there so that other people then turn around, be like, no,
this is great. This is this is really good.
(14:16):
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what her
motivation was, but I do know that she had written some really
awful reviews of her own work over the years and it got
published anonymously and we didn't find out till much later
it was her that did it. In her early 20s she was able to
get some articles published in travel magazines and she wrote a
screenplay, but the play actually never got made.
(14:39):
So not much success early on as a writer.
By the age of 23 she was fast approaching old maid status and
not married yet. Her parents put even more
pressure on her to find a husband. 23's old, 23 she's.
Going to be an old maid. She should be pushing our kids
by now. Past her prime. 23 which is
crazy today but I guess at the Times Now her parents are still
(15:00):
Dicks for the time. I can't defend that.
So this is when she met Teddy Walton.
He was 16 years older than her. They dated briefly and then
married and traveled for the first few years of their
marriage. She continued to write during
this time but not really ever finding any success or traction.
She later wrote in her iography she was not happy in her
marriage but rather doing what was expected of her.
(15:21):
But not exactly romantic. Love at first sight lives here.
That's sad. She also explored themes of
sexual repression, unreturned feelings, and forbidden love in
her fictional novels and short stories, maybe giving you some
insight into her thoughts of herown marriage.
Now. Teddy was diagnosed with manic
depressive disorder and he wouldexperience long periods of not
being able to get out of bed, lack of motivation, not being
(15:44):
interested in life, and suicidalthoughts.
With Teddy's depression, the couple decided to leave the busy
pace of the city and bought 113 acres in Lenox, Massachusetts.
They then started construction on their home.
The amount estates design of thehouse was left up to Edith.
She based the design of the house on the Belton House, a
famous 17th century English country home in Lincolnshire,
(16:06):
England. The house itself was almost
17,000 square feet and holds 42 rooms for two people.
They never had any children so. What would you do a 42 room?
A house that big, she has servants.
She's not dusting her own. House so like the main house,
the mounts large stable was a modeled on the Belton house as
well. It's original purpose was the
sheltered the Waltons horse and carriage, but in the next decade
(16:29):
it was transformed into a garagefor Teddy's large collection of
motorcycles and cars. The gardens, in Edith's own
words, or an elegant series of outdoor rooms in harmony with
the house and the surrounding landscape.
And of course, when Edith was designing her home, the
librarian writing room received special attention.
It's both decadent and comfortable.
(16:50):
It has oversized chairs and a marble fireplace, somehow
inviting you to sit and read or even write for a while.
So she put a lot of time and effort into this place,
incredibly upscaled, well planned out, and based on
Edith's travels and senses and preferences.
So the Waltons lived at the Estates for the next 10 years.
A very interesting thing happened at this time.
(17:11):
She started to crank out true masterpieces of American
literature. In the next 10 years she wrote
and published 22 full novels, 87short stories, and published
numerous poems and magazine articles.
These included The House of Marth and The Age of Innocence,
both best sellers the year they were published and she won a
Pulitzer. Her Age of Innocence.
So you might say she was a womanpossessed.
(17:32):
She went from not getting a couple articles to literally
putting out 22 books in 10. Years.
And at this point, she's at the Linux property, yes.
So it's almost like being there.It's like channeling something.
Yeah, inspiration. Something is like pouring
through her and away. Almost.
You guys might be psychic because that's kind of where I'm
(17:53):
going. So Edith's work explored social
themes and relationships in highsociety, but she also started to
write ghost stories. At this time.
She remember about hauntings andpossessions in the spirit world,
as well as unresting souls that could not move on.
She even wrote a guide on how tomake ghosts appear.
Writing ghosts to make themselves manifest require 2
conditions, adherence to a modern mind, silence and
(18:16):
continuity. So what should I say?
I have absolutely no idea what that means, but it's an
interesting shift in genre for the ever careful and proper
edits we've got to know so far in the story.
OK, so they built the house. Do we know anything about the
land that was there? I do not.
Because I'm just like wondering like all of a sudden she's
talking about like spirits and like helping them move on and
helping them to be seen. But.
(18:38):
She's also saw the spirits when she was younger.
When she was younger. So maybe they're attacked to
her. Maybe like, yeah, like not
attached to her, but like tryingto channel through her.
Maybe. I mean, we've got a
professional. Here, Yeah, yeah.
I think spirits know when we're open.
So like I think they do attach themselves to us even if we
don't realize we're open at the time.
Feel like I had spirit attached to me at a young age.
(18:59):
It was coming out as anxiety. So at the time I didn't know
what this was. So until like years later, it's
like, no, you're just very sensitive to energy.
And they, they know. And that's kind of confirming
the story so far, right? Because she had this experience
when she was 10 years old. I was just a few fever and then
all of a sudden she's writing books on how to summon ghosts.
It's almost like she left us clues through her writings.
(19:21):
You said that her husband suffered from some mental
illness, right? So maybe when he was kind of
unable to be present because of that, for the first time she had
a sense of control of her environment because she was the
one that was in charge. Well, either way, after a 10
year marriage that Edith described as well what was
expected of her, Edith and Teddydecided to go in their own ways.
(19:43):
Edith moved to France and while she published new work on
occasion, she never really put out the volume or quality of
work she did in a short time when she lived at the Mount.
She would go on to start and support many organizations that
supported the poor in France andin Europe, and she focused
mostly on helping orphan children from World War One.
Edith would later describe her time at the Mount as the only
(20:04):
time in her life she truly felt happy.
So this is the story of Edith and I want to talk about the
hauntings at the Mount next. But first I want to review some
facts so far in order to draw a kind of a clearer picture about
Edith and her work. So Edith, as we discussed, at 10
years old had typhoid fever. And she reports at this time in
her life, visiting the spirit world and having ghosts come and
visit and communicate with her, almost like a media.
(20:27):
Leadership experience Then as a writer who had a few articles
published, but never having really had any success, she
moved into the mountain. Then writes some of the most
important American literature inour history.
Not only incredibly successful works, but writing 22 full
novels and 87 short stories in avery short 10 years after she
left them out. For all intents and purposes,
(20:47):
she didn't publish anything of note.
While living at the Mount, she started to write about the
supernatural and ghosts in the spirit realms, a sharp departure
from her usual genre. I cannot find anything in her
writings What Edith proclaimed that she was a medium.
I think she left us clues of hermediumship abilities throughout
her writings. She wrote short stories The
Ladies Maids Bell and the Eyes, which both explore fictional
(21:11):
characters haunted by ghosts manifested by the past misdeeds
and having to help the apparitions by confronting the
misdeeds so the apparitions could move on into the
afterlife. So your theory is that she was
actually a medium and now she's writing these stories.
So do you think the characters, the spirits in her stories were
real life spirits that she was helping move on?
(21:32):
That is a fantastic question andthat's that's the one we're
asking here today, right? I still like have a hard time
telling people I'm a medium. So like, I can imagine being
around at that time and like, no, you're like being thrown in
the freaking mental asylum, you know?
Hearing her say and reflect on her life and be like that was
the happiest time of my life also makes me go well that's not
someone in a bad. Man, that's in a bad place
that's feeling isolated and alone.
(21:54):
And this is someone who's like feeling good and channeling
something beautiful maybe and having these interactions.
This is where I go from. Also, I'm sketching, I don't
know about. Him and and then excuse the pun,
but the dead giveaway from me was her book on the guide on how
to summon spirit. She's literally telling us in
the book she knows how to summonspirits, so I could suggest she
(22:15):
was in contact with an actual ghostwriter if you will.
I also believe her strict upbringing in her carefulness
about her public image, she would not share this claim in
her public life. However, the more I dug into the
evidence, the more it looks likeshe might have been channeling
ghosts in her time at the Mount.So the Mount continues to have
paranormal activity after the Waltons moved out in 1922 and it
(22:39):
continues to this day. So in 1942, the Mount became the
Fox Hollow School for Girls and quickly rumors and stories about
the paranormal began. Word spread amongst the students
of strange noises, footsteps, apparitions appearing and
disappearing. An apparition of a man dressed
in a tuxedo was reported severaltimes near the side entrance of
the building. Rumors that this could be
(23:00):
Edith's extra and marital affair, waiting for her for all
eternity to come to the door, circulated amongst the children
like wildfire. What?
We're talking about ghost sex. Well, we wouldn't need That's a
marital affair. What's happening?
You don't think ghosts get busy strong?
I don't think. I've never had a sexual
encounter with a ghost. You do OK Tom, if I did have a
(23:21):
sexual encounter with a ghost, did I cheat on my girlfriend?
Yes. But it's a ghost.
Is it real? I don't know.
And you have to tell the story on the podcast because we're
going viral with that thing. These rumors circulated amongst
the children, but also more quietly and conservatively by
staff and teachers at the schoolas well.
Now interesting to me, the house, no longer under Edith's
direction, became a home for girls, given Edith's work with
(23:44):
orphans in Europe and her own difficulties and traumas during
her childhood, almost like it manifested this way.
So by the 1970's, the girls homeless shut down at the
Estates of the Mount, became thehome for a theater group who
performed Shakespeare. The paranormal occurrences
continued or even escalated at this time.
Cameras and recording equipment that worked perfectly off site.
(24:06):
Seeing the malfunction on the property.
Performers and staff reported feeling watched when they were
alone in the bedrooms while staying at the Mount.
Some actors and actresses refused to walk through the
Great Hall alone after a report by their acting coach, who said
he was touched by an invisible hand when he was walking through
the Great Hall. So interesting, right?
So again, the next iteration of the house was a tribute to
(24:27):
fellow writer and influence for Edith.
Almost like Edith continued to have have an influence in how
the house manifested itself. One of the most unusual
encounters took place in 1979. This is a story of Andrea
hearing Andrea who was an actress and voice teacher for
the theater group. She reported she laid down to
rest late one night on a mattress and he just otherwise
(24:49):
empty library writing room. She reports she awoke at 4:00 AM
and since the presence in the room, she also noticed the room
had become extremely cold. She opened her eyes to see three
figures in furniture that included a desk and a chair
appear in the empty room. A woman who Andrea recognizes
Edith, was talking. A man with mutton chops and a
(25:10):
whiskered beard was sitting at adesk, writing and gesturing to
Edith. Standing was armed.
Folded was another man who Andrea recognizes, Teddy.
The three of them seem to be completely engaged in
conversation, as though they could hear each other, but
Andrea could not hear anything they said.
Andrea thought about leaving theroom.
As soon as that thought popped into her head, the three ghosts
turned and stared at her, clearly acknowledging her
(25:32):
presence, then resumed the conversation as if she wasn't in
the room. Andrea this point quickly got up
and left, now in the hallway, summing up all her courage and
curiosity. She returned back into the room
a minute later to find it empty again and warm again.
So a very interesting story there.
The one thing that is interesting to me is the fact
that it's not just people or Spears that appearing, the
(25:52):
furniture appeared. Yeah, like that's that sounded
residual. But then the girls clearly
acknowledge her presence in the room.
They all stared at her. Yeah.
Which made you know it sounds like it is a mix of the two.
Yeah, there's definitely a mix in that house.
It just makes me think too, likeif you remember back in the
story from The Conjuring episodethat I shared, Andrea would
(26:13):
frequently see people inside of the dining room literally
sitting at the dining room tableand they'd be eating.
And I've always thought back to that imagery of them doing that
and her being like the dining room tables there and she's
seeing go sit at her table. Is the table part of the
spiritual experience or? They say that like objects can
(26:33):
have energy and spirits attachedto it.
So like, like if you have like an armoire and you bring that
armoire into your house, that's from, we'll say the mount,
right? And that has energy and that has
a spirit attached to it. And then you bring it into your
house. You're now bringing that in.
So whatever is interacting with that maybe you would be seeing.
(26:54):
My great, great Pepe built this house and it's been our family
since. So I get I get the family in
here like all the freaking time.My mom and dad, the time
building a house in Belchertown,they were staying here.
Pepe was still alive and my mom was actually sitting in this
room using it as her office and she had told me she goes.
I could not walk through the front living room because it
(27:18):
felt like I was walking through a freaking party.
Not that energy, but it just felt like it's a lot of energy.
It was too much. I couldn't walk through.
I had time to sage the room because it was just it was so
crowded. Based on what you're talking
about, South in the house that we currently live in, there's
been times where I've been in our bedroom and it's almost like
(27:39):
the room gets heavy and our dog will sort of react and will kind
of do this weird cower down typething where he'll put his head
down, his tails between his legsand he's kind of looking over
towards the bathroom. I will literally.
Is that why I have to sleep on that side?
Yes, but I will literally turn around and I will say out loud
(27:59):
and it it, it sounds kind of absurd, but I will turn around
and I will say if you are here, you can stay here.
But this is my house. But you can't bother me.
You can't scare me. You can't scare my dog.
You can't scare people. Because if they do, I'm going to
have to find a way for them to not stay here.
And they're going to have to move on and they're going to
(28:20):
have to go someplace else. I don't know if it's I'm
actually talking to a spirit or if it's me doing that out loud
makes my mind feel better. But very shortly after, within
seconds, the room kind of just that heavy feeling like goes
away. The dog chills out.
But it's even happened where I'll be like in my bathroom
(28:41):
brushing my teeth. So you talking about your
grandmother walking through the room sort of reminded me of
that. Today, the house offers tours.
It holds venues and weddings, and the reports of hauntings
continue to circulate. Strange noises, rustling, thuds,
footsteps. I've been heard by visitors and
staff alike all over the property.
Reports of young girls laughing when there's nobody else in the
(29:03):
house have been heard. Accredited to the residents of
the Fox Hollow School in apparition of a hostile, angry
man dressed in a black coat havebeen seen roaming around the
house as many bedrooms. There have been reports of him
holding people down in the bed as they sleep in a terrifying
and violent manner and then justdisappear hearing.
So that part fucked me up. There has been apparitions
(29:24):
accredited to Teddy Walton. He's been claimed to be seen
wandering around the grounds andon the property.
He's been seen in and around thecarriage house as well as all
over the house, and people will report a very heavy dark
presence when they see his apparition.
The ghost of Edith herself has been seen walking back and forth
on the terrace late at night, seemingly deep in thought and
(29:45):
unaware people are watching her.And then the last story of
asking Stephanie to share with us.
Stephanie, can you walk us through your experiences there
and what you noticed? Well, I'm going to start by
saying I went on 2 ghost tours at the mount.
First one was in July of 2022. This was more of a tame
experience. When you go on a tour, they
(30:05):
first start you off carriage house.
After that you go to the pet cemetery.
Edith Wharton's dogs are buried on the property and it's up on a
hill a little bit. The mount is actually gorgeous.
And then after the pet cemetery,you go to the main house and
they take make you on this ground floor.
Then there's the second floor and then there's like the top
with the bedrooms. So my first tour I went on, we
(30:26):
started off in the carriage house and we got little taps
here and there, nothing crazy. And then we moved on to the pet
cemetery. I didn't didn't feel anything
there. I don't feel like ghosts hang
out in the cemetery. They're not they're waiting for
us. They're off.
You know where the action is. They're off where where everyone
is. So we went into the house.
My first big like feeling was actually Teddy's office.
(30:49):
We were in that office and I just started getting like wicked
depression vibes. I was just feeling really down
and just not great, like just didn't want to be in the room.
Then we moved on to the rest of the tour, went up to the second
floor, you know, toward some of that rooms up there.
And then at the end we're at thetop of the stairs and our tour
guide said we're going to stop, we're not going to talk and
(31:10):
we're just going to listen to the house.
So everyone just like was just paused.
It was quiet. And as we're doing this, I all
of a sudden felt a dog on my ankle just chilling up on my
ankle. This dog would not leave.
And I was like, holy crap. Holy crap.
So at the end of the tour, we went back down the stairs in our
coaster. He's like, did you did anybody
feel anything like at all? Did anybody hear experiences?
(31:32):
And my husband John, he is like with me.
He's like, he's like just for mefor like, you know, say
something, something. And I was like freaking out
because I had just opened up themonth before to doing readings
for people. I just started my site.
So I was still like, you know, Idon't know if I can tell people
I do this was freaked out. So I didn't end up saying
anything. And then on the drive home, I
was like, oh crap. Like, you know, I should said
(31:52):
something like, so our second tour was actually last August
2024. We did like a Berkshire trip
because I freaking love the Berkshire that's gorgeous out
there. And we were staying in an Airbnb
in Great Barrington. So I should note we stay in this
Airbnb all week. I didn't feel anything.
It was our last stay in the Berkshires and we did the the
ghost tour. We started the ghost tour in the
(32:15):
carriage house. The only difference was that we
were told that they got permission to take tours up on
the second floor of the carriagehouse.
We start off in the first floor.I got tapped and staying like
kind of in the back of the groupand I was getting tapped and
John said to me, he's like, I thought I heard someone talking
behind us. I'm like I said, well, someone's
here. So so then we go outside and we
(32:38):
go up to the second floor. There's a fire escape.
We walked up and we walked into the 2nd floor and there's this
big room. Our tour guides are talking
about the stuff that they saw and all their stories.
And as they're talking, I am just getting hit with like this
wicked anxious feeling to the point where our tour guide
stopped and said, are you OK to me?
(32:58):
I didn't want to draw attention to myself.
So I was like, no, I'm fine. Like so they kept going.
They open up the door, they stand behind them and this door
at least to this long hallway with all these rooms off of it.
So we start walking down immediately as I enter the
hallway, I am just hit with likestomach pains, but I want to
throw up. So I'm I'm trying to like walk
(33:20):
down this hall. I'm trying to like follow our
tour guide into the one of the rooms.
They was talking. I'm I'm in there for a little
bit and I was like, Nope, I needto get the fuck out of here.
So I ran to John and I'm like, Ineed to get out now.
Like I'm going to throw up. We had another tour guide behind
us and I said, are we going out the same way?
And she goes, no, we're going upthe side staircase.
I go out the door, go up the staircase, I'm standing on the
top of it. And I just start dry heaving.
(33:42):
Like I'm like, holy crap. And John's like he's like, are
you OK? I'm like, no, like I'm like
fucking. I just ran down the stairs, went
out the door. And as soon as I get out the
door, I'm like putting the whitelight around, like, you know,
they're putting up the barrier. And the stomach pain stopped.
So we continued on, went to the main house.
I felt the dogs again, the dogs,I swear they rain on the 2nd
(34:03):
floor because they're, they're running up and down the second
full of crazy. Still getting the depression
vibes in Teddy's room. That hadn't changed.
I said to, I said, I said, OK, I'm, I need to say something
this time because like that was,that was like really intense.
That was too much. So I said something to our tour
guides afterwards and they were like, Oh my God, like it's
crazy. Like they've had other like
psychics and people have had experiences, like some crazy
(34:25):
experiences up there. So that was not so we probably
left around 11:00. So drive back to our Airbnb.
It was our last night. Get home, probably get to bed
around like like midnight. Fall asleep around 2:30 AMI am
woken up. I sit up in the bed and I
realize I'm hearing clear as day.
(34:47):
I'm hearing somebody whispering at the bottom of the stairs to
the point I was not thinking spirit, I was thinking somebody.
Someone's in the house like I. Thought someone was downstairs
breaking into the house or someone came in.
I was like, Oh my God. And I'm, I'm sitting there
trying to process it. Am I hearing this?
And I'm like, no, no, I'm hearing this.
So I'm like John up. I'm like, I'm like John God.
(35:10):
I wouldn't be doing the same thing that's.
Exactly what you're doing. I heard something.
Oh my God. So I woke come up and he's like
what? I'm like there's someone at the
bottom of the stairs or whispering someone broke into
the house. So he he was fucking flying out
of the bed. He ran downstairs about right to
beat a motherfucker and I'm likerunning behind him.
We get downstairs, it's like this small house, it's like
there's like 2 rooms upstairs. So we get downstairs, we flip on
(35:33):
all the lights, we're looking around, there's no one
downstairs. We start checking all the doors,
all the windows for signs of break in, no signs.
We look outside to see if any ofthe sensor lights were on
outside, no pitch black. And I just want to be clear I
was in this house all week didn't feel anything.
So John says to me he's like were you dreaming?
(35:53):
I'm like babe I swear to God I'mlike I freaking heard
whispering. There was someone downstairs.
He's like, well, there's no one here.
And then I was like, oh shit, I think something followed us
back. Were you able to understand what
they were saying? Couldn't.
Hear words. But like, just that something
was there, someone was. There, do you know who it was?
I was not going to read this because it was someone that was
following me home. I was like, no, I'm like, I
(36:15):
don't is. That like a sign of like it's a
negative energy or spirit or. The fact that they were making
me sick, I was like, I was like,I was not going to go there.
I got pissed so near the top of the stairs and screamed get
Outback to where you came from. Like you're not doing this,
you're not attaching yourself tome.
You need to go back to where youcame from.
So that's get the crap out of me.
(36:36):
So need to say I didn't sleep the rest of the night.
John freaking cocked out. At least he ran down the stairs.
He played his role. He played his role, what he
needed to do, yeah. I laid there in bed the whole
night like the rest of the nightI could not fall asleep.
So finally at 7:00 AM my mom calls me and I told her what
(36:57):
happened. I told her the whole story and
she was like you like you were too open, like Oh my God, you
mean to shut down? I'm like, I'm like, I'm sorry.
I was not expecting like that because you know, those are
second time there, like, you know, I wasn't the first time.
It was but the crazy. I mean, you know that, but that
was insane. And she's like she's like you in
the sage the house now and all this stuff.
(37:17):
I'm going to be out by 10:30. This is an.
Airbnb. I don't own this bit, I'm
running. On 2 1/2 hours of sleep I'm
like, I can't. I think I felt like dry sage in
the cabinet somewhere. I don't think that's a clause in
the Airbnb contract as you can'tleave ghosts, so I think you're
good. Steph, can I ask a question?
So you walked into a room and you said you felt like the
(37:40):
depression of the room. What do you, what do you think
that is? Is that like a spirit like
attaching themselves to you? Is that like the spirit is just
in the room and it's making its feelings be felt by other
people? What?
What? What do you think's happening
when you feel that well? Sure.
Remember, Teddy had been diagnosed with manic depression.
You know, that's what I'm wondering.
Like the interesting point for me is it's like, is Teddy
(38:02):
attaching himself to Steph or isTeddy just in the room?
And because he's in the room, hewants other people to feel what
he's he's felt and and to know he's there.
So he makes them feel depressed.Well.
Sort of like his energy is sort of, yeah, staying there.
It's sort of like. Projection or injection?
Yeah. What is this?
So I that's why I said like I feel like there's both like the
(38:23):
residual energy and spirit there.
So like I feel like, I feel likehis office, I feel like that is
residual energy. I feel like that room just like
soaked up so much of his like depression because he spent most
of his time in there. What happened up in the carriage
house on the 2nd floor, like that was that was obviously very
like Oh my God, like that was just like someone attaching to
(38:44):
me. Do we know what happened in the
carriage house? They believe a girl hung herself
up in the rafters. Oh.
Geez, I do highly recommend doing a ghost tour because they
do such a great job. All the I'm always down for a
ghost tour. All the tour guides hit like
share, like they've all had experiences.
So like one of the tour guide, he actually told me a story.
(39:05):
He was on the 2nd floor. He was like, they were closing
down for the night after one of the tours and all of a sudden
they had heard the sound of the paws on the floor from one of
the dogs. And they turned around and he
said he saw one of the dogs, like, clear as day.
As I say, the dogs, that's theirspot.
Like their second floor. They're like running up and down
that hallway. You don't think it was the man
(39:26):
in the hooded cloak that followed you home, do you?
Because he sounds terrifying. Teddy's energy is just down and
depressed, and you could feel that when you walked into his
office. Yeah, but this sounded like a
more scary. Yeah, yeah.
I didn't obviously experience that this was your experience
and it made you feel like it wassomething negative.
(39:46):
But I also wonder too, like if someone was sick, right, And
when they pass and they were sick and say that was one of
their symptoms, was feeling nauseous and feeling heavy and
weighed down, could that spirit project that onto you because
that's what they were feeling intheir like last days?
That's possible. You know what they think?
(40:06):
The girl that hung herself was pregnant.
Pregnant. Yeah.
Be from the Fox Hollow School. Yeah, I'm wondering like, yeah,
do I swear, I do recommend taking.
They're so well put together. And it's one of the rare ghost
tours. I feel like you can actually be
in the space because a lot of the ghost tours I've been on,
I've been on like a number of ghost tours.
It's like you're walking the street just outside the you
(40:28):
know, the places, you know this one, you get to be in the space
and really kind of pick up on the energy.
So yeah. And they do, they do an awesome,
awesome job. They really do.
So and the mountain itself, it'sit is gorgeous, like the ground.
They're gorgeous and they do a lot of cool events since, you
know, throughout the spring, summer and fall in the early
winter. So is the Mount of State a
paranormal hotspot? Do restless souls search the
(40:50):
property for salvation and to find closure?
Could Edith have been a medium who conferred with the spirit
world to author some of the mostfamous works?
If you believe, the answer seemsclear, and if you don't believe,
the answer also seems clear. All I can say for sure is I want
to take a road trip to the Berkshires and experience the
amount of states for myself and I'm hoping you guys will come
with me. Doing this episode on the Lennox
(41:12):
and on Edith, what is your like key take away?
Are you do you think this place is haunted?
I mean Steph is here sharing these like true experiences that
that she's felt. What is your thought?
I got to be honest, I believe Edith was a medium and I think
she was channeling ghosts at hertime at the Mount.
And I think that energy still isthere today.
(41:33):
And I think that's what we heardabout from Stephanie today.
And I also believe that Teddy being depressed, her feeling
that that energy and then havingthat confirmed by other people,
they've seen his ghost and they've felt that really heavy
feeling that the press feeling really leads credence to the
reports. Chris, thank you so much for
sharing this story here today. We definitely appreciate it.
(41:54):
And Stephanie, thank you so muchfor joining us and bringing some
color and and bringing all your experiences.
Before we do like a complete wrap, we want to roll out the
red carpet for you. Tell us a little bit about
yourself. Where can people find you?
If they want to get a reading, where can they go?
Yes, so my site is mediumship with stephanie.com.
(42:14):
You just go on, you sign up withme and it's all done through
Zoom. I'll send you the Zoom link and
then we just do our reading together.
Also, if you're in the Western Massachusetts area, I also do in
person readings in Northampton, MA.
It's a shop called in Spirit Crystals.
It's located at 219 Main St. in Northampton, Mass.
You can visit their site in spiritcrystals.com to schedule a
(42:36):
reading walk. Insurance are also welcome.
It's a really cool shop. They have like watch the like
cool. Also stuff they also do like
other readers like tarot cards and psychic.
I believe right now I'm the onlymedium there.
But yeah, everyone there's like super down to earth and
Northampton. It's just like an awesome place.
It's just so chill. I love.
It I love that. I love that we'll throw them the
show notes. And do you have any socials you
(42:57):
want people to reach you out potentially, Stephanie?
On Facebook and Instagram, Mediumship with Stephanie.
My name's Stephanie Jack Year. All right, well, gang, we hope
you enjoyed this episode as muchas we did here today.
As always, if you are looking tointeract with us or talk with us
or other listeners who are interested in this podcast just
like you, we are out there building some communities so you
(43:20):
can visit us over on Facebook, Reddit or Instagram.
That is at Weirder After Dark and on all those sites.
Chris will be going ahead and dropping some information about
his episode today on Edith and the Lennox and the Mont, so be
sure to look at that. And as always, we are always on
the lookout for your stories. Have you walked into a room and
then all of a sudden ghost objects appear like a table?
(43:41):
Or do you fear, you know, ghost dogs like clawing at your
ankles? I don't know if you do.
We want to hear those stories and you can go ahead and send
them to the gang at weirderafterdark.com and we will
share them on an upcoming episode.
As always, if you are liking this shit, no, no, no.
If you are absolutely loving this shit, the best thing that
you can do for us is go ahead and share this with a friend and
wherever you're listening, whether that is Spotify or Apple
(44:03):
podcast, go ahead, leave us a five star review if you think we
are deserving of it and drop in there a comment.
It would mean the absolute world.
And don't forget, it always getsa little weirder after dark.
Bye. Thank you guys.
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