History Goes Bump: Ghost Tours For The Mind

Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia became a part of the rural cemetery movement shortly after it started, becoming the third garden cemetery in America to be founded. This was not long after Mount Hope Cemetery in Maine was dedicated and revealed that the movement was spreading along the East Coast. The cemetery was much needed as the growing city had already filled up most of its churchyards. L...

Lake Lanier in Georgia is an extremely popular recreational area. This is a man-made lake that was created when the Buford Dam was built in 1956 and covers 50,000 acres. Many lakes across America have been fashioned in this way without causing hauntings. That's not true for Lake Lanier. What is it that makes this lake so haunted? Was it the destruction of the black community of Oscarville? Could i...

The Peoria State Hospital opened in 1901 in the village of Bartonville in Illinois. The asylum was home for the mentally ill for seventy-two years and it provided state of the art care for the time, but it was also the scene of some very tragic circumstances. Many people died here, both patients and staff. Peoria State Hospital is rumored to be haunted and it very well could be for a number of rea...

Dr. Natalie Atwell has over 20 years of experience in the field of mental health. She created Mental Warrior Consulting providing training and courses to help individuals become mental warriors. Dr. Atwell has written the book "I Can Do Anything in the Right Pair of Shoes" and her upcoming "Mental Health and the Unseen Realm: Using the Divine Council Worldview to Understand and Treat Mental Health...

Benedict Canyon. What isn't haunted about this place? Actress Elke Sommer and her husband at the time, Joe Hyams, moved into their Benedict Canyon Drive mansion in 1964. Not long after they unpacked their boxes, they became aware of strange things happening in the house. Some were subtle, but others woke them up in the middle of the night. The couple tried cleansing the house, but ended up running...

Muriel C. Pfeil is buried in the Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery next to her husband Emil, who preceded her in death by 47 years and her namesake daughter who died 25 years prior. That daughter had been the victim of domestic violence and a bitter divorce and custody battle ended with her blown to bits in downtown Anchorage, Alaska. It was a shocking murder and so it is no wonder that Muriel's sp...

The Beattie Mansion in St. Joseph, Missouri has stood for more than 170 years. This began as a home for the Beatties and later became a home for unwed women and orphans and then an assisted living facility that occasionally served the addicted and people with mental health issues. The current owner wanted to open a boutique hotel, but he had trouble keeping help. Something was scaring them all off...

The Cachtice Castle lies in ruins in Slovakia, but was once a home to royalty. This then became a prison for Baroness Elizabeth Bathory. Her family was known for cruelty and she knew violence from the time she was a child. Legends claim that she grew up to become the "Blood Countess," a prolific female serial killer. But was she really that or has history given her a bad rap via a story concocted...

Ghosts. This is a topic with which the church does not like to deal. And this is whether people are asking tough questions like, "What is a ghost?" or asking for help with a haunting taking place in their homes. Most churches treat the topic as a whole with a couple of simple answers. These are demonic entities, and we shouldn't have anything to do with spirits or ghosts don't exist. But is that w...

The McCune Mansion sits perched atop a hill on Main Street in Salt Lake City, Utah. This splendid Victorian is unique both outside and inside. The interior features exotic materials from around the world. The home has not only been privately owned, but served as a dance studio, art gallery, office space and now wedding venue. And what would a Victorian mansion be without some ghosts stories? Join...

George Bernard Shaw wrote in The Doctor's Dilemma, "Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." Death shows up in gallows humor often. There is indeed, humor in death. Many times it can found in cemeteries. On this Stones and Bones, we're talking graveyard humor.  Intro and Outro music "Stones and Bones" was written and produced by Hist...

The Houghton Mansion in North Adams, Massachusetts was named for the family that commissioned its construction. Their biography is ripe for ghost stories with a tragic car accident leading to further deaths from broken hearts and suicides. The house then spent nearly a century hosting a chapter of the Masonic Order. The Masons have always carried an air of mystery around their organization with ru...

Fort Edmonton is a settlement that dates back to the true beginnings of Canada becoming an official country and to Alberta becoming a province. This would be a series of trading posts that were built on the north bank of the North Saskatchewan River. It played a key role in history with both European settlers and the natives that lived on the land. Today, this is a cultural center and museum that...

There are several important mountains in the area that we today call the Holy Land. Mount Hermon is one of these mountains and has been considered sacred for all of recorded history. This is where the fallen Watchers made their descent, not only from the heavenly realm, but a descent into sin that would land them in chains in Tartarus. The River Jordan's headwaters launch from here, El lived here...

One can't miss the S.K. Pierce Mansion in Gardner, Massachusetts. This magnificent mansion is a huge Victorian that takes up the whole corner of West Broadway and Union Street. The grand exterior makes it very inviting, but the ghost stories connected to this place might just make you think twice before entering. There are those that claim this home is the second most haunted house in Massachusett...

Old Hollywood and mysterious deaths seem to go hand in hand, whether it's the case of the Black Dahlia or the mysterious "suicides" of Marilyn Monroe and George Reeves. In the same vein as the mysterious suicides of the latter stars, comes the tale of the mysterious death of movie star Thelma Todd. It is a story that contains all the elements of a perfect Hollywood drama: fame, fortune, gangsters,...

We had the chance to visit San Juan Capistrano and the mission there, as well as the Los Rios Historic District in April 2025. The historic district still hosts three original adobe homes, along with quaint shops and distinctive eateries. Much of the mission is in ruins today, but the colorful gardens, swallows and beautiful interior of the Serra Chapel make this a mission not to be missed. And th...

Boone, North Carolina is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, in an area of the state locals refer to as the "High Country." Boone and the surrounding areas seem to be a hotbed for strange occurrences, tragic deaths, and hauntings almost as chilling as the mountain air. Two prominent locations that we covered from this town are Moses Cone Manor, featured on Ep. 62, and Appalachia...

Leviathan and dragons have already been featured in their own episodes, but they aren't the only fantastical animals in the Bible. There are several mythic beasts in the Bible, from Behemoth to Ziz Shadai to Re'em, which are creatures so large, they appear to be mountains or block out the sun. Hebrew mythology elaborates on them, but was there more than just myth to these creatures? Did they exist...

James Dean's star burned bright, but fast. He starred in three amazing films, earning two posthumous Academy Award nominations, before his untimely death in 1955 at the age of 24. One can only wonder what heights his performances would've reached with that kind of trajectory. Dean loved speed and that would bring his ultimate demise. Perhaps because he had much still to do, his spirit still seems...

On this Stones and Bones, we are focusing specifically on the cemeteries that name themselves Old Burying Ground. These Old Burying Grounds offer a snapshot of what life was like during the Colonial Period in America and they don't use the term "cemetery" in the name because the term wasn't in use yet. Garden cemeteries were a couple hundred years away from being planned, so many of these cities o...

Water can be dangerous for anyone, even the best swimmers in the world. Water has a cunning to it and when you add currents and rocks and other things, a mild brook can turn into a raging river. An ocean that regularly meets the beachline and recedes can become a tsunami that wipes out a city. Or it can become a great flood that wipes out nearly all of humanity as so many myths have recounted. Wat...

Just north of Yellowstone National Park, in the heart of Paradise Valley in Montana, lies the Chico Hot Springs Lodge. The property stretches over 700 acres of land that still remains pristine. This has been a vacation getaway for over a century with its main draw being its hot springs. For years people came seeking cures for various maladies, and today they enjoy the relaxation that a hot soak ca...

When most of us think of angels, we picture these figures of light, wearing white with enormous wings on their back. Most people believe that they have a personal guardian angel. We also assume that angels come in a couple of varieties: archangels, standard and fat little babies with wings. When an angel falls it becomes a demon, right? But are any of these assumptions biblical? What the Bible say...

Edith Wharton was a woman ahead of her time when she was born into her upper-class New York family. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and is considered one of America's greatest writers. She inspired countless other authors and gave the world a glimpse into the rich of the Gilded Age. Wharton also wrote ghost stories. She believed in ghosts. The home that...