This sacred basket with monkey skulls has a scary feel to it and could carry residual energies too powerful to handle outside of a museum setting.
A few years ago, I was called on to feng shui a building belonging to a Hollywood post-production company. I pulled up in front of a very sleek building with 60’s modern glass block façade in Burbank not too far from Disney Studios. The client’s business was editing film for features and commercials, so, naturally most of the space was filled with electronic equipment used for that purpose. The bold design of the building matched the high-tech business occupying the space perfectly. Or so I thought.
Within a few minutes, during my interview with the client in his office, I began to experience a strange sensation. I kept hearing the word “mortuary” in my mind and became distracted by the persistence of this thought. I struggled to keep my focus on the client and asked him what the building’s history was, who occupied the space before him, etc. He told me that the building had been his for more than twenty years and that prior to that it was also used for film editing for at least a dozen years.
“Mortuary” kept getting louder in my head and I began to feel uncomfortable in this office. I said to my client, “Okay. So this building has always housed your type of business then. Let’s move on to the next question.” He then said, rather casually, “Well, but originally it was built to hold a mortuary.” He eyed me nervously, noting my skin had just turned a shade whiter, and asked me, “Is that bad feng shui?”
Here’s the bottom line: it’s not good feng shui to have stagnant, dead, negative energy in any space, let alone your work space. Residual energy was lingering even decades after the mortuary had been closed and replaced by high tech businesses.
There could very possibly have been ghosts in that space, too, although I didn’t see or feel any at the time. We did a feng shui space clearing ceremony and blessing ritual and cleared out all negative vibes. Often, that is all that needs to be done to reset the energy to a clean and positively charged space.
Recently, I have come across more cases of corporate office buildings inhabited by ghosts and sane working people who are encountering strange energies. Maybe it’s just the onset of the Halloween season, but, there does seem to be a heightened awareness of spirit energy around this time of year. A technician at a computer chip company told me that he was sitting in his office and felt a strong tap on his shoulder. He turned around expecting to find a colleague only to discover there was nobody there. At a bank in Santa Monica, a Vice President told me she had felt a presence hugging her at her home and she was afraid to return to her apartment. Also, she was concerned the entity might follow her to work. I worked with these clients on strengthening their feng shui and clearing their space with a Native American smudgestick and reclamation ceremony. They’re now ghost-free.
However, some situations involve much darker forces. Heavy—maybe even “evil”—energy does exist. To clear a space of this type of energy takes an experienced healer or a spiritualist with ghostbusting knowledge. Deita Klaus and her partner Deirdre Devlin are two such people. Their company, Hollywood Ghostbusters, handles calls from individuals and corporations desperate to remove paranormal energies from their homes and office buildings. Although Deita said they have encountered poltergeists and demons, most cases they work on involve simply helping the spirit of a departed person move on.
Their fees depend on the size of the job and the type of entity to be ousted and each case is different.
I asked Deita if there were any notoriously famous haunted buildings in LA that she knows of. She told me that The Brewery Arts Complex, Paramount Studios, and the Comedy Store all have spirits residing there. She also claimed that the Hollywood Hills area has many haunted homes because they were built above sacred Native American burial grounds. “The Magic Castle has many spirits, too, yet they want them there. The magic you see there is really the ghosts!”, Deita said.
Deita and Deirdre have been practicing their gifts for a long time. I asked Deita if it is dangerous to deal with paranormal energies? She told me, “Oh yes, they can take over your spirit…you must know how to protect yourself and not be afraid. Fear is what they invoke and then they try to get into you.” Is it dangerous for someone to do their own ghostbusting? “Yes, we ask people, unless they have the experience, do not try and take the energy out.”
