The Lumber Baron Inn & Gardens was originally built by John Mouat, a Scottish lumber tycoon in 1890. In 1970, the 8,500 square foot mansion was converted into an apartment complex. One of the tenants was a seventeen year-old runaway, who was raped and murder inside her apartment. A friend of hers happened to stumble upon the murder as it occurred and was also killed. Their killer(s) was never caught.

Dina Everling and Christopher Moon of The Haunted Times Magazine have visited this place many times in order to learn the details of this brutal double murder. Using a specialized piece of equipment, the team was able to pick up EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) recordings from the girls, who gave them details about the double murder.

“The Lumber Baron experiences are always tough. We want so desperately to help the two murdered girls come to some peace with their deaths. Until the murderer is finally arrested and convicted, I don’t think that will happen. The girls replay their attack every day, and you can always feel the horror they felt on that fateful day.”

Brett Nease became interested in the paranormal when he and his ex-wife stayed at Gettysburg’s Cashtown Inn, which has been featured in videos such as “Ghosts of Gettysburg” and “Haunted Gettysburg.” While staying at the hotel, he heard the sounds of footsteps alongside his bed and watched a cake fly off the dresser. He met Kathy Rothenberger, who shares his interest in the paranormal, about three years ago.

Together, they founded the Paranormal Activity Research Association, or PARA, which specializes in detecting and deciphering Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). According to the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena, EVPs are voices that are detected in electronic devices that cannot be explained with known physical principles. The voices typically utter a few short words in response to a question or comment about occurrences in their environment.

This phenomena is considered a form of after-death communication. Many people confuse EVPs with a haunting, but they are not. A haunting is a recurring paranormal event that is experienced by different people (or groups) at different times.

Nease approaches each of his cases with a healthy dose of skepticism and hates the term “ghost hunting,” which to him, smacks of amateurism and sensationalism. “Ninety percent of what you see on TV is false,” he said in an interview. He also refutes another popular paranormal myth in regard to conjuring spirits. They don’t come when you call them, but communicate on their own terms.

On a good day, Nease and Rothenberger will receive 20 to 25 EVP recordings. Then their work begins.

Lance Segundo’s midlife crisis takes a bizarre twist when he catches a glimpse of his brother, Art, and sister-in-law while driving down a mountain road. Both are long-dead. When he tries to discuss the incident with his psychiatrist, he is met with skepticism and admonished for mixing alcohol and prescription drugs. He accepts the doctor’s reasoning because there are pieces of his life that he can’t remember, such as why he and his brother had become estranged as well as the reason why he stopped partying with his friends.

Another part of him refuses to believe that the sighting of his brother and sister-in-law was an hallucination. His life takes another twist when he meets Naomi Lake at work. They take an instant liking to each other, which quickly turns into a romantic relationship. When he confides in her about his experience, she helps him try to understand it and face it.

Naomi goes with him to the spot where he saw his brother, but stays behind when she sees Art waiting for him. The brothers slip twenty-five years back in time, when they are trying to hike to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, a trip which their father had tried and failed. It is here where we begin to see the other side of Lance Segundo and experience his journey toward redemption.

Overall, this is a very good book. The authors try to cover a lot of ground in terms of the afterlife, the paranormal, spiritualism, and near death experiences. They succeeded, for the most part, although at times I found myself reading information dumps that interfered with the story. Despite this irritation, I was riveted to the story, its supernatural elements, and especially the plot twists. Recommended.

Rhea A. White’s life took an unexpected turn in 1952, when she was involved in a bad car accident. This accident caused her to have a near-death experience, which changed her outlook on life after death. After she recovered from her injuries, she entered into the field of parapsychology, first studying mysticism, religion, psychology, psychiatry, philosophy and literary criticism. Later, she founded the Parapsychology Source Information Center, Parapsychology Abstracts International and Exceptional Human Experiences Network.

In 1990, she realized that traditional science wasn’t going to answer her question as to why she experienced the NDE and what it meant. Rhea began studying the reports of other people who had experienced NDE’s, along with other non-ordinary and anomalous experiences. She classified this study as “Exceptional Human Experiences,” which students of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology rely heavily on to write their dissertations. Rhea’s career spanned nearly 40 years, earning her the respect of colleagues and students alike.

Quoted from Palyne Gaenir:

From her early studies in Jung’s writings to her research work with J.B. Rhine, she was a driven thinker from very young. Editor of professional Ph.D. level journals much of her adult life, and founder of the Exceptional Human Experience Network, an organization dedicated to recognizing and better understanding the things that move us and evolve us, Rhea was one of those people who put out more work for good causes in the world than any one person will ever know about.

Rhea White passed away on February 24 of an undisclosed illness, which she battled for several years.