Keeping the spirit of Halloween alive at Monmouth, this past weekend the Student Activities Board (SAB) hosted a three day event focused around paranormal activity, horror and the unknown. The event included psychic readers, a movie showing, and a paranormal investigator guest speaker which drew huge crowds of students and some from the local community.
On Thursday at 9 pm the doors of Wilson Hall opened to those wanting to know and ask questions of their unknown past, present and futures. In the Pompeii room, students flooded the space and had a line out the door waiting to get their palm and tarot cards read by the three psychics. According to the responses of multiple students, the psychics were very accurate and so real that it resulted with them leaving the room in tears from shock.
Senior Samantha Kofsky got her palm read and said, “I think SAB’s psychic night was a huge success and after talking to those who got readings, and based off my own, it really uplifted people’s spirits. I personally got many of my questions answered and was so thankful to have gotten this experience in college.”
According to SAB executive board members, the organization was really pleased with the large turnout for the psychics on Thursday. SAB was not expecting to have to turn people away due to the time restrictions of the psychics.
On Friday at 9 pm the doors of Wilson Hall opened again, where students visited the Wilson Auditorium in the basement for a movie screening of James Wan’s film, The Conjuring. In preparation of Lorraine Warren’s arrival the next day, SAB thought that showing the movie to the students would be a good incentive to see Warren speak at the school and to learn more about what she does for a living.
Warren is an American paranormal investigator and author who is associated with prominent cases of hauntings from around the world. She is a professed clairvoyant and a light trance medium who worked very closely with her late husband, Edward.
The Conjuring is a horror film based on a paranormal phenomenon that occurred at a family’s home in Amityville, New York. The Warrens were the paranormal investigators on the scene who tried to rid the home of demonic spirits, in which the film depicts the entire storyline and occurrences.
Sophomore Dylan Vargas said, “The event being in the Wilson Hall basement set the mood perfectly. Having other people being just as anxious to see the movie and having a large number of people in close proximity screaming during the movie made the big moments that much more highly enjoyable and scary.”
On Saturday night at 8 pm in Pollak Theatre, students were graced with the presence of Warren and her son-in-law, Tony Spera. Her speech discussed all the different cases and paranormal phenomena she had been through and seen throughout her career, mainly focusing on the one talked about in the movie The Conjuring, but also including a house she had attended the previous night.
Her speech also included never before seen pictures of the Amityville house, ghost pictures, videos from The Conjuring and Warren’s life and an actual exorcism that the Warrens had previously attended back in the day.
Freshman Gina Cromwell said, “Lorraine’s experiences were like nothing I’ve ever head; she’s incredibly brave.”
SAB advisor Megan McGowan stated, “Students react very well towards paranormal events so we wanted to continue the Halloween spirit with a psychic weekend the first weekend of November. There was a lot of positive feedback from students that was great to hear.”
PHOTO COURESY of Lucy Russo
