People of the Page

Has Anne Rice use to open up her postings use to say, “Hello people of the page.” The world is a duller place without Anne for sure. Don’t you agree? I got the opportunity to interview her once. It was something I will always cherish.

We have a lot of new people following my page here and I wanted to take a moment to address what this page actually is. This is my personal page where I share with my family, friends and anyone who might care to listen. It is not that is doesn’t deal with my work, but it doesn’t deal with my work only. My author page does that more so than this one. This page has more of a potpourri flavor to it. Here you will get my personal thoughts on just about everything. Here I share different things going on in my life. This page is me sharing my thoughts and feelings on just about everything you can imagine just in the way you do on your personal pages. It is not scripted or meant as promotion. It is just me sharing my ideas and life with you.

I think it is funny when people ask things like, “Why did you post a recipe you made last night? I want to hear about the supernatural.” Well if you stick around long enough you might learn to cook some new things and get some creepy stories somewhere in the mix of it all. lol I am a human. The supernatural is only a part of my life. You will also find I am a husband, father, grandfather, mentor, friend with so much more to offer and share than just the spooky stuff.

So welcome to everyone new and thank you to those who have stayed with me through the years. I like coming here and talking with you. Some of you came here because of the books, shows and film. My hope is I have given you a lot more of who I am than just those things. For better or worse. lol This is who I am. Blessing to you all.

A Quick Thought About God

God is not going to condemn me for being gay. God made me gay. God makes no mistakes and to say otherwise is a sin. We were taught that God created all of us in his own image. Am I suppose to believe there was a fine print on this which said, “Not my Queer children?” No of course not, there was no such sub text.

God made it very clear that we were created in his image and we are loved no matter what and God makes no mistakes. So why do the hypocritical religious bigots always try to use God to attack us? Oh right they have a political agenda instead of a religious one. For anyone to say God made a mistake is blasphemous. I don’t know about you but I see the Glory in my gay creation. I hope you see it in yours as well.

A House

My house in St. Louis was sold five years ago today. This house meant a lot to me and we worked hard to update it for sale which gave us even more memories. Thank you my friend Kim of the Kim DeLapp team for finding this house for me and selling it for me when it was time to move on. Thank you Tina for helping me with its financing.

This is the house where I was living when I met Rick. This is the house I left to get married. This is the house we sold when we moved to Mexico. A house is not just a house. This is the last house I lived with my now grown son and father Elliot. This is the house we were living when Elliot met his wife Stevie. This house was very much a part of our lives.

This is the house where I sat on the front porch and decided to write my book Confrontation with Evil. This was the neighborhood of the Exorcist and this is where I wrote the book about it. Just down the street from the house was the hospital where it happened. Confrontation has the energy of the story in it because of where it was written.

Our homes hold our hearts and our memories. This house had a big heart. This house was a very important part of our lives. We will always hold a place for this house in our hearts and in our memories.

My Written Voice

When I wrote my first books. I wasn’t thinking about writing horror books. My intent was first to tell my story, which in my mind had supernatural elements but I never considered my life story to be considered horror books. Last thing anyone wants is for their life to be considered a horror. lol But here we are even though it was not the intent.

All of my books are autobiographical in a sense. Part of me and my life is in all of them. The Uninvited and Blessed are literal autobiographies.

Crazy has a lot of autobiographical moments in it. I need to do a video discussing Crazy. I think readers would find it interesting to know the reasoning and the true stories behind the book. Crazy is a different book in how I told it but it still was very much in my voice and from my personal experience and research.

Confrontation with Evil starts with true experiences from my life and ends with my research into the case. It also tells the story of the possessed boy and what I experienced during the research into it. I think what worked so well in this book is I am telling you my thoughts and sharing research with you as I explain what happened to the boy. I find it interesting that up until Confrontation was released most authors just wanted to regurgitate the same story without ever really looking into it and researching the causes and impacts on this boys life and how it relates to us as humans, in spirit and religion.

My book Odyssey is going to be a completely autobiographical travel adventure. I am finding I have a whole to say and share in this book that it is even surprising me more and more as I write it. It’s going to be a different kind of book than what you usually expect from me. But keep in mind, the supernatural is part of my everyday life so it will have it’s fair share of those moments as well.

Gorilla is going to be interesting. The center section of this book will have a character completely based on personal experiences in my life. A very difficult time actually. It will be sandwiched between two sections which are taken from true stories and in some cases off front page headlines. This one is going to be one scary book.

Zombie Road will also have personal experiences reflected in it with so much more. Just wait until you see the story I have to tell about this very real place in the woods.

My hope is one day people will be able to look back at my body of work and see my voice and character was always central in everything I did. My books are really me trying to share my view of the world. It wasn’t my intent in the beginning but I think it is how the body of work should be looked at in the future. Doesn’t seem like that is going to change anytime soon. I have so many stories and experiences to still share with whomever cares to read them. I hope you continue to like them as much as I like telling them to you

Make a Wish

Our house is paid for. We have money in the bank and plenty of food for us to eat. We are clothed. We are safe. We are able to travel around the world wherever we want to go. We need nothing more in our life. So what do we have on our Christmas list this year?

Peace would be a good starter. There are too many hungry children in the world. If hunger could be abolished that would be great and while you are at it could you house the homeless? We still have people dying from all sorts of disease. We could use some cures here. It seems there are a lot of people walking through this life with hate in thier hearts. It would be nice if for just a moment they could see it is better to love their neighbor than to hate them. Please take care of those who are sad this season for whatever reason. Give someone considering suicide one more day to understand life is worth everything and not all is lost. So many things to wish for. The world needs so many things.

One last wish if you don’t mind. Our wish is that you find peace and happiness in your lives. May you be blessed just as much or more in your life than what we have experienced in ours. That would be a good place to start.

Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to you all. We love you all.

A Choice

In November 2011, I lay in a hospital bed with a collapsed lung after open heart surgery. The doctor told me I had died on the table. I was not doing well. I had complications from the surgery and there were moments I felt for sure I was dying. At this point in my life I was standing at the crossroads. I was being given a choice. Live or die. I knew without question the decision was mine. I felt as if God and the universe had stood me at this decisive inflection point purposely to make this decision. It felt, as though through my death on the operating table, I had been somehow cleansed. Almost like a spiritual reset button of sorts had been pushed. The following few months after were the hardest and the most difficult of my life. The struggle from the previous ten years after the Union incident was gone. The sorrow and anger from the previous twenty years no longer weighed down everything about me as a person. It is funny because you would have thought in those acts alone I would have felt better. However, chaos is just as addictive as happiness and I was going through withdrawals. It was then I really understood the impact of what everything negative had upon my body because it had been all been lifted from me. However, the question still lingered for myself. Was it a death or was it a rebirth I was going to chose?

Over the next few months I went through a transformation which included serious reflection, conversations in my dreams with those I loved who had passed, the most vivid waking memories I had ever experienced in my life or since. At times it felt like the worst depression I have ever lived through. Physically the doctors would tell me I was making an excellent recovery. They could not see the battle which was happening within myself. Some serious al-encompassing healing was occurring and I could not put into words what was happening. I still am having difficulty describing it to you at this moment a decade later. Understand – it was personally and spiritually profound. 

On Tuesday February 28, 2012 I woke at 6:00am with my decision made. I chose life. That early morning I stepped out my front door and I went for a walk through Union,Missouri. I knew at the point I had a lot to rebuild physically and I also had to figure out how to get the hell out of this town and away from the house and the memories of a marriage which almost killed me. In my mind still today, I do agree with the Church when they said they believed both things were connected and the catalyst of what they believed was a demonic attachment. I walked out my front door that morning into a new life and I never looked back. Yes, there were supernatural influences which helped guide me to that moment, but the choice was mine. 

It has been over ten years since that early February morning. I now look back at how my life and my soul itself were changed for the better. The blessings and the changes through these past ten years cannot be denied. I am no longer a religious man. I do not believe religion serves me well at all. I think a whole lot of programmed pain from religion helped open the door to the evil which entered my life. I have found the truth for me is found within spirituality and not religion. My relationship with my God is strong, without religion being involved. My conversation with the spirit is a continual conversation, not one which happens only on one day a week, holy days or holidays Today I live a blessed and happy life with my husband Rick and my family. I am glad I chose to remain around. I have also learned the value of self-forgiveness, forgiveness and the importance of blessing the wicked to move away from healing into truly living. The final point. Do not let the devil or evil rent space in your head. Only you can kick them out and lock the door. Trust me, it really is up to you. Make your choice.

The Hooker from Crazy

Excerpt from Chapter 10 – The Hooker from Crazy, A Prayer for the Dead

“She wiped the tears from her eyes. Hell, she hardly remembered who she was anymore. She was some man’s fantasy for a short time and that was about it. She didn’t even use her real name while she was working. “My name is Candy, but I will be anything and anyone you want me to be,” she would often say to her tricks. Her real name was Margaret, a name that she hated more than anything in the world. There was nothing exotic or even interesting about Margaret. Margaret was someone that she had left behind a long time ago. Margaret was innocent and shy. Candy was loose, carefree and, to the johns she fucked, she was one sweet piece of ass. Freud would have had a field day with her, she thought, as she took another drag from her cigarette.”

When I wrote the chapter about Margaret the truck stop prostitute I had to write it within the confines of her life. She was a real person who experienced a horrible death. She was also a compilation of others as well. But in her essence she was Margaret (Candy) and she broke my heart to write her.

Margaret was the most sympathetic person I have ever written about. She was caught up in the middle of some very ugly things just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was some insensitive and judgmental people might have called a lot lizard. All of the rest of the characters who come to a bad end in the book paid a karmic price. Margaret was different. Margaret was a true victim without question.

When I began digging into her thoughts and what her life must have been like, I felt such heartache for her. Her character I think works in the book because she is that part in all of is that is a little broken. What was even harder was diving into her dreams knowing that after I was done writing her in this chapter I was going to kill her in the next.

I write with music playing to evoke a feeling or emotion as I write. This was very important in writing the book Crazy. I wanted the writing to reflect different rhythms and music to achieve this. It also helped to make each character very distinct in the writing because they each had their own rhythmic voice. For Margaret I picked the song Something by the Beatles. It was late at night as I sat writing about her with that song playing. Tears were rolling down my cheeks as I wrote. It flowed out onto the page within thirty minutes. Margaret was once again alive on paper.

Never before or after as a character crawled into my psyche like she did. Her death in the book is the most senseless. Margaret was a true innocent bystander who gets caught up in the horror of one messed up night.

All of the characters in Crazy were real living people or in a few cases, a composite of people. I think that is why this book packs such an emotional punch and why many readers talk about walking away from the book haunted by it afterwards. At least I hope so.

I tried to be as authentic with their lives and feelings as I could. After all, the horror of the story deals how we connect in this world and the horrors we inflict upon each other. The real monsters in this world are almost always other people. Like Jean-Paul Sartre said in his play No Exit, “Hell is other people.” He was right. Think of it this way – what if all the hurt you caused another in your living life came back to haunt you in death? Now that is what I call Crazy.

This excerpt is from Crazy, A Prayer for the Dead by Steven LaChance

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” The steaming water from the showerhead was stinging his skin as Walter sat on the floor of the shower reciting the Lord’s Prayer. His whole body, from head to toe, was trembling uncontrollably. Continuously reciting and crying the Lord’s prayer which he had been taught so many years ago as a boy, in the hopes that, in combination with the water, it would somehow wash away all of his sins.

He could hear Ben’s voice in the hall coming closer. His voice sounded low and guttural, crazy like. Out of fear Walter reached out and placed his hand on the pistol that lay next to him, not even a full arm’s length outside of the shower stall. He had watched from around the corner and seen what Ben had done. He saw Ben murder the girl. He saw Sarah’s blood begin to percolate everywhere as the knife slid across her throat. He saw it all. And he did nothing. He could not move, he just stood there and watched in fear. He knew if he tried he would be next. He was just as guilty as Ben. He might as well have been right there with that knife in his hand. He might as well have taken her life because when it comes out in the wash it was just as much his fault as Ben’s. He had her blood on his hands too. She wasn’t supposed to die, she wasn’t supposed to die. This was crazy. It kept going through his mind again and again. He could feel the old feeling of guilt starting to creep once again throughout his body, that sick feeling which would not go away. The room began to spin as the cold hand of guilt grasped his insides and began to rip and tear and shred what little of who he was that remained. 

He could feel the cold of the gun upon his hand, a sharp difference to the stinging water that hit his body from the showerhead above. He knew what he had to do. The voices in his head were telling him what he had to do. 

“Do it you worthless piece of shit. Do it…”

Over and over the voices were overlapping telling him what needed to be done. 

“Do it…” 

His hand reached around the gun. 

“It’s all your fault.”

“Everything is always all your fault.”

“Do it…” 

“Crazy.”

With his hand around the gun he continued his prayer in hopes of blocking out the voices. “Thy kingdom come…Thy will be done….”  It was not helping. The voices kept coming stronger and stronger. 

“Do it. Do it now.”

“No time for prayers.” 

“Crazy.”

“Not for you.”

“Your fault.” 

“Crazy.” 

“Do It. Always your fault…” 

The gunshot echoed as Walter put the gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger, splattering the back of his head and brains all over the back of the shower stall. A small puff of smoke released from his mouth as he collapsed half in and half out of the shower. A puddle of blood instantly began to mix with the water flowing in a circular motion down the drain. The voices had stopped with the shot of the gun.

The Hooker came busting into the shower room with her shirt undone, bra showing, standing there shaking as the blood began to flow around her tacky red platform shoes. She did not utter a sound. Not a word. Her eyes were wide, taking in what was left of Walters’s brains upon the walls and the gaping hole in the back of his head. She covered her mouth, afraid to scream and not wanting anyone to hear her. She began to move back out the door slowly, never taking her eyes off of the horror of the scene in front of her, one tacky red platform step at a time. Until she was stopped by something large which was standing right behind her. She could feel a wet sticky cloth with her right hand. She felt the sensation of someone’s warm breath on the back of her neck. She slowly turned around to see who was standing behind her. There was a man with a blood-covered face. A man completely covered in blood. She had backed up straight into Ben. He looked at her with wild white eyes through his blood-covered face. Wild eyes and blood is all she saw as she began to scream.

This is an excerpt from the book, Crazy – A Prayer for the Dead by Steven LaChance. It is edited from Chapter 11 titled, Suicide. It is a very small portion taken from that chapter.

The Supernaturalist and Paranormalist

What is the difference between supernatural and paranormal ? I am going to keep this simple.

Supernatural

Definition of supernatural
1 : of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe
especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
2a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature
b : attributed to an invisible agent (such as a ghost or spirit)

The definition of the paranormal is closely the same, but the difference is found in the beliefs surrounding both.

When I say I am a Supernaturalist instead of a Paranormalist that means I do not believe things outside the natural world are going to be solved with science or pseudoscience. I also believe just because we do not understand something it does not mean it does not exist or is not naturally occurring.

This is not without skepticism. The Supernaturalist mistrusts paranormal research because we have seen those who will falsely claim evidence or proof. And we know their desire for proof often out weighs their reason.

It is my belief there are things in this world we can experience we are not going to have an understanding of or about. The reason is because we are either not supposed to or the time is not right for us to understand.

I’ll give you an example to help to define the two terms and roles. Two shows.

1. The Exorcism of Roland Doe was a supernatural show because what happened to the boy cannot be explained away by scientific proof. You cannot scientifically prove the existence of God and the Devil. You cannot disprove the feeling of Faith either. It falls into the realm of supernatural without question. Make sense so far?

2. Sorry guys. I know I alway pick on you but you are so diametrically different from me. Ghost Adventures. Is it supernatural or paranormal? Right, it is paranormal. The GAC crew believe they can eventually prove the existence of ghosts by scientific, or, in their case, pseudoscientific means. They have not yet – and most likely will not – because they are not scientists and do not follow scientific protocols at all of their experiments. No one will ever believe Zac Bagans if he actually finds real proof because he has become the ring leader of the circus. The majority will not believe him. I am not picking on him either because Jason Hawes and many others fall into this category. Sorry guys but it’s the truth.

Those examples are a clear defining difference in the two beliefs and terms.

There is no right or wrong here. However, I would like to spend my time experiencing the natural and supernatural world around me without being bound by this need of finding proof or playing with toys which have no basis in science and will never hold up as empirical evidence.

Like I have always said, I could pull a real ghost out of a box in front of an audience. Some of the audience will stand defiantly and scream the ghost is a complete fake. Then there is another group who is going to stand and scream that it is the proof of ghostly existence without question. The third group is going to be very confused and frustrated. They will say they really don’t know either way. The point is – you are not going to prove anything completely or it would have happened by now.

For me, I would look at the experience and wonder how it fits into our world. Is it something I am supposed to understand? Or do I just accept it as unexplainable and move on? Does it fall with the realm of faith or belief? It comes from a much more personal and analytical place.

You know, I looked for a very long time for true scientific answers to what happened to my family and friends in the Screaming House. There is no scientific explanation that can tell us why it happened. There just isn’t. However it did happen. Even though I cannot explain why it happened completely to you, I can tell you about my experience and how it impacted me personally. From that information you can then deal with it in your own way and in your own mind. Because that is what we all do anyhow as people. No one is going to prove anything completely. All of these hobbyists and paranormal shows running around in the dark talking to their flashlights is not going to answer the questions of life and death. They will not find the answer to spirit because they are too busy looking outside instead of looking within.

Still with me?

I find it much healthier and logical to present things in my own manner from my own analysis. And in doing just that I have come to understand why I have always felt like I didn’t belong in the paranormal. It was because I didn’t. I was not a part of it at all. I was something else. I was a Supernaturalist and not a Paranormalist.

This understanding helped to explain why I cringed every time the EMF guy wanted to show me his meter to prove spirit activity during an investigation. To me it proved nothing and he might as well been trying to make alien contact with his tv remote. It was, and is, silly to me. These people have been so misled and misguided with these gadgets they are told are going to help them prove something. Science – and I am talking real science – has not proven it yet. No paranormal puck is going to change that.

So now you have a complete understanding of the difference.

I am going to continue sharing my experiences of the world with you. It is just going to be low on the pseudoscience gadgets and that ever-failing ever-elusive search for proof. I want to share experience, not the continually misleading information that is shared from the EMF-puck-loving gadget guys who watch way too much TV. That is not for me at all.

That is why I have always told you to put away the gadgets. I tell you to use all of your senses. You cannot experience your world distracted by silly things. Tune into the world around you. Let your experience change you and mold you. That is how you learn. Then share your ideas. Talk about it and write about it. Trust me, you are never going to experience anything real by focusing on a manufactured tool which was devised to convince you that something is true which isn’t.

Think of it this way, Anything left unanswered in your living life will be answered at the moment of your death. Enjoy the ride and don’t rush the ending. It will all make sense later. Stop looking for proof and start looking for ideas, theories and answers. Your search for proof is causing you to miss what is right under your nose. Become a member of the supernatural and leave all of that paranormal nonsense behind. Blessings to you all.

A Message From Rosie

“Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are.”

I have never really discussed the passing of our baby puppy Rosie publicly before, but last night she was running around in my dreams and I woke up with that familiar heartache of grief and missing her.

The picture is of our Rosie. She left us three years ago. She was only four years old at the time she passed She had a birth defect no one could have known. She had her first stroke in my arms in May 2019. She had her last also in my arms in July 2019. She went to sleep in our arms on July 5, 2019.

I have never felt grief for any other dog like I felt and still feel for her. I refuse to call her a pet because she was so much more to us than that’ll just a pet. In many ways she will always be our baby. I still even today am having trouble writing this because the hurt is still very real. A deep hurt which is hard to shake when it sneaks back in.

Rosie is still with us in many ways. Believe what you will but here is what is and has been happening in our home. We at times can hear her running around the house. You occasionally see her running down the hall or standing looking down from the top of the stairs. You will walk into a room a smell her. She would always get this smell which smelled a lot like Fritos when she needed a bath. That smell still occurs from time to time. Mainly in the bedroom where her ashes are kept. I sometimes can feel her jump up onto the bed and spin around to get comfortable against my legs at night.

At first I thought it just must be the grief playing tricks with my mind, but after three years I know now that it isn’t. Rosie is still with us and we find comfort in that.

I picked this picture of her because it shows her doing something she always loved doing which was going for a ride in the car. She loved going in the car to grandmas house where she would stick by my mom for snacks which would mysteriously drop from the sky as my mother cooked. She was always ready for a ride and to see grandma. It is a fitting tribute to show her in the car. The car was a very happy place for her. This was her last happy car ride. I took the photo that day but knowing it would be one of her last.

This wasn’t easy to share. I been seeing a lot of people sharing your photos of those who passed on social media. Maybe it influenced me because after last nights dreaming I woke up with the need to write about Rosie.

Update: In Mexico today is the day they believe our pets come back from the dead. They call it, Dia Dr Muertos Para Las Pets (DAY OF THE DEAD FOR YOUR PETS) I had no idea about this until after I posted this morning. Rosie was obviously sending us another message. Love you sweet baby girl. Message received.