I want to be a part of an occult.

You may or may not know, but I am a person very interested in the occult. Whether it be Bigfoot, Mothman, ghosts, aliens, skin walkers, you name it I am interested. Not necessary because I believe in them, but because I really, really want to believe in them. I am not sure where it all spawns from, I suppose its seeded in my childhood somewhere. I remember having kind of ghostly things happen to me as a kid in my house. For example doors would slam randomly, the TV would start flipping through channels by itself, the curtains moving by themselves, the doorbell ringing on its own. However, despite how bad I wanted to believe in the supernatural powers lurking within my house, most of the time it turned out to be anything but supernatural. The doors slamming were because of the attic fan, or the doorbell ringing was my highly trained cat conveniently named "Demon".

Anyhow, as I grew older I kind of sought out these experiences. Near my home in Colorado where I grew up there was a buffalo reserve. On the reserve there were rumors of an Indian burial ground. So, naturally I wanted to find out if these rumors were true. I decided to drive the dirt road looking for any signs or any indication of where these burial ground was. Now don't get me wrong, I am someone who is a religious person and I fully respect the dead and I consider that ground to be sacred, but the lure of a supernatural experience seems to trump everything else. I should take a second to explain that I am not by any means looking for "evil" spirits or practice witchcraft or any of that kind of stuff. I like to think of myself like Egon from Ghost Busters without the ability to actually trap or extinguish ghosts. I like to think of it like bird watching v.s. working at a raptor training center or actually owning a hawk.

Nevertheless, the Indian burial ground seemed to be the perfect place to see a ghost. Now, if you are going to go to an Indian burial ground you want to make sure that you set yourself up as much as possible for a spooky time. Naturally you will want to plan on visiting the area at night, preferably around midnight. Secondly you will want to make sure the date of the actual visit coincides with a spooky date like Halloween or Friday the 13th. Since my interest to visit the alleged burial ground peaked sometime in the spring, I choose to go with the Friday the 13th date.

I tried to recruit my friends to come with me that night but somehow something came up that night for all of them accept my good ol' pal Ben.

Ben said he would drop me off on the dirt road and come back to pick me up in an hour. So, of course I agreed and as I saw his tail lights disappearing over the hill, I felt like this could be my first real supernatural experience. I hopped the fence and walked through the woods on a dirt path until I came to a clearing of trees. Off in the distance I could see a figure standing wearing a white robe... I jumped into the bushes and tried to get a closer look. I was convinced I was seeing a freaking ghost, but just like my childhood experiences it turned out to be an electric box of some sort. I was close but no cigar, but at least I could enjoy the adrenaline rush for a few more moments. As I surveyed the area I found an old log cabin and of course I decided to explore it. It seemed like something out of the Blair Witch Project, but to my disappointment there was nothing inside that would be considered ghostly.

After I left the log cabin I found a dirt path and followed it into a dense grove of trees. As the path winded through the forest it opened up to a small meadow where there were some Indian type structures. Littered on the ground were animal bones and fire pits. Not having a flashlight, my mind began to see and hear things that were consistent with what my eyes were seeing. I snuck up on of the structures and lifted the animal skin flap covering the entrance. It was pitch black and I couldn't see anything inside the structure, I pulled out my cellphone and by the glow of the phone explored inside. I kept feeling ahead as if to feel for someones foot or leg. As I look back on the event, like most high school antics, it was extremely stupid of me to go into the hut of some person living in the woods. As it turned out they must have been out for the night because I didn't find anything. Again, I was close but no ghost or supernatural event occurred that night.

Maybe I am too much of a skeptic to ever see or experience more than my imagination will allow.
Anyhow, last night I threw out my back and today I spent watching a bunch of ghost hunting shows on Hulu and Netfix. It's funny because I am always expecting them to actually find Bigfoot or a ghost by the end of the show but they never find anything. Maybe I should start my own show, or better yet become a clairvoyant. This would be an awesome job, to just walk around and say things like, "Over here I feel something" or " It was a man named Joe, or John or Jack or something, perhaps it could be his last name or the name of one of his relatives, maybe even a pet he once owned..." Then someone could be in the room and say, " Yeah there was a man who lived here and his name was Clifton but his friends called him, Ju Ju bean." Then I would say, "Ju Ju Bean" right after they said it, then we would all look at each other in the room with our eyes opened all big. Then the camera would catch a firefly outside and we would all run away cursing up a storm while pointing the camera at our faces. Yes...