Stairs

[poliphilo]

Alfred Hitchcock loved staircases. They're everywhere in his work. Suspicion, Vertigo, Psycho, Topaz, Frenzy, Family Plot (I'm only listing movies I've seen recently) all feature important and/or climactic sequences involving stairs.

Nothing is more suspenseful (and Hitchcock's business was suspense) than a person on the stairs. Ooh, don't go up there! Ooh, don't go down there! Stairs are transitional. Uncanny. In Limbo. As Christopher Robin says of
his special place halfway down the stairs-

"It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"

Unsurprisingly a lot of hauntings focus on staircases. You lie in bed and hear the footsteps come creaking up- to stop (if you're lucky) just outside your bedroom door. One of Hans Holzer's "true" stories has a woman turning on the stairs to see the bloodstained figure of a man below her reaching out his hand for help.

I remember crouching at the top of the stairs to hear my mother and father arguing at the bottom. "You are the most selfish person I have ever known," she said. In that moment I realized that they and I were separate. They could tear one another to pieces and it didn't have to affect me. My heart stopped hammering and I felt peaceful. I had a soul of my own. There were stairs between us.

My grandmother told me of a flight of stone steps going down to the river in her home town of Maidstone. Folklore said that it you climbed it 13 times you would be doused with a bucket of blood. Of course, no-one had ever actually put this to the test...

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Your man sounds remarkable.

And you have now written a book and will, I think, get it (or another book) published.

I went to see him one more time, three years later. He told me my aura color, which was just like before (gold) and my sister's was the same (white).

I didn't want to go back after that. I was beginning to want to make that connection through him--it was very seductive.

I dreamed about him, that I went to his house, and that he came out and was no longer gentle and unjudgmental. He had short hair, like a businessman. He frowned at me.

That was, I think, his persona coming through. I just didn't want to go back anymore. I'd learned something stunning: that there was a depth in us that can be seen and understood. It was enough to make me wonder even more about God.

Yes! I have written a book, after all! :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Perhaps your subconscious was warning you off.

People can get addicted to consulting psychics.

I worked briefly on a Tarot phone line. We had one woman who phoned up several times a day to speak to her favourite "psychic". She told us she worked for the Government in Whitehall.

I guess the tax payer was funding her habit.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

People can get addicted to consulting psychics.

Some people went to see him regularly, like seeing a therapist!

He charged, back then--it's been 15 years--$80 for thirty minutes.

I worked briefly on a Tarot phone line. We had one woman who phoned up several times a day to speak to her favourite "psychic".

A Tarot phone line! Wow!

I can imagine that lonely people (or bored government employees!) find such connections to feel almost like (never quite, but close) love.

I took Contact training years ago, for crisis phone line volunteer work. We were told that many mentally ill people would be calling us daily (and sometimes several times daily), just to make a connection with someone who cared.

After completing the training, I made the decision not to take part. I didn't feel tough enough to deal with the weird calls we were warned we'd be getting.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It was a strange set-up. We occupied a couple of attic rooms next to the railway station. One room was for Tarot, the other was for "chat" which meant talking dirty. Male employees weren't particularly welcome because they were only of use in the one room. Most of the women plied between the two.

I lasted three weeks. Most of the clients (even the Tarot folk) wanted to talk to a woman and a lot would hang up when they heard my voice.

I felt that what I was doing (on the odd occasions when I got to do it) was a kind of therapy.

They sacked me because I wasn't productive enough. I can't say I was sorry.