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DANI HARPER author of paranormal romance

Danika Harper

Last Updated: 8/17/2009

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September 3, 2009 - Thursday

Tales from the Psychic Toolbox --- The Ouija Board

“The magic is inside you. There ain’t no crystal ball.” Dolly Parton

Crystal balls, Ouija boards, tarot cards, etc. --- objects like these have become clichés in our culture, objects to play with at parties or decorate with at Halloween.

But perhaps there’s something more to them.

If psychic ability exists, then why not psychic tools? Because that’s what these really are. If I’m examining my finger in search of a splinter, I might use a magnifying glass in order to see it more clearly. It certainly focuses my view on minute details. I’m thinking that psychic tools might be used in this way as well. Some people use them to focus their abilities. The power is not in the tools themselves but in the persons wielding them – or perhaps in the energies they connect with.

Did you know that the topic of psychic tools causes controversy even among psychics? Apparently there are two schools of thought. One, the intuitive camp, maintains that only the gift itself should be used. Others feel that whatever helps the psychic to access and express their gift is as acceptable as a plumber using a pipe wrench or an artist using a brush.

Over the next few blogs, let’s explore these psychic tools one at a time.

OUIJA BOARDS

Ouija (wee-JA or wee-GEE) as we know it today is likely made by Parker Brothers and marketed as a game. (Hands up if you got one for Christmas or giggled over one at a slumber party! Is there any girl who hasn’t asked who she was going to marry?) It consists of a rectangular board on which the alphabet is printed, and a planchette – a small wooden triangle or heart supported on castors or wooden feet. The participant rests his fingertips lightly on the planchette and it glides over the board, pointing to various letters and numbers to spell out a message or answer questions.

Also called a spirit board, talking board or witch board, the planchette on its own was a popular psychic tool and widely used in the Great Spiritualist Movement of the mid-nineteenth century. Sometimes the wooden planchette had a pencil affixed to the pointer so that messages could be physically spelled out on paper. A teacup with a handle was often used as a planchette in a pinch, or a pendant necklace gently swung like a pendulum. Either would point to letters of the alphabet or basic yes and no answers on a piece of paper. The idea of having a preprinted board to use with a mass-produced planchette wasn’t patented until 1890.

By the way, no one had heard of the name Ouija until the board and planchette were marketed as a set. In fact, no one really knows to this day what the word means or who exactly came up with it. The name itself is not patented – it’s long since passed into the language of pop culture.

So how does it work? Is the Ouija’s planchette guided by the person’s subconscious mind, or does it tap into their psychic energy? (And if you’re psychically inclined, is there a difference?) As a writer I can visualize ideas coming to me just because my mind is quiet and focused – but some people have written entire books using an Ouija board! Of these, most claim to have “channeled” the work from an unseen entity.

Mediums suggest that the Ouija board can also be used to channel messages from beyond. Does it work? I read recently that renowned psychic Sylvia Browne strongly recommends against the use of an Ouija board. Her analogy is that it’s like throwing open your front door to absolutely anyone and everyone – and not everyone is friendly. Certainly there is no shortage of scary anecdotes about the device.

When I was fifteen, a group of us (all nerdy members of the library club) held a candlelight session with an Ouija board in a very old house on the outskirts of town. We each took a turn with the planchette. The more outgoing of us would embellish what the board was “saying” for the entertainment of our friends. The shyer ones would pass it to the next person quickly.

Then it was Cliff’s turn. He was the nerdiest of all of us and uncrowned king of the skeptics. He hadn’t wanted to play with the Ouija board in the first place, but agreed finally. He worked the board, delivering witty little answers to our questions – and then he got very quiet. The planchette slowed.

“Someone’s here,” he said.

We thought he was playing. Joanna asked the board to spell out who was here, but it didn’t get a chance. Cliff began speaking, slowly but steadily. He felt a presence and identified it as Grey Squirrel, a native man who claimed to have once lived near where the old house now stood.

This was a great tale! We watched Cliff’s face in the flickering candlelight, as he described the man’s features, his life, his home, his family. Then in mid-sentence, he screamed out “Smallpox!” and jumped into the middle of the circle, rolling and flailing. It would have been a great prank, an expertly-delivered fright at the end of a scene-setting story...

Except it wasn’t. We turned on the lights and our 6’2” skeptic was ashen-faced and huddled on the floor, clutching a blanket around himself. Crying. “What was that?” he asked repeatedly. “What was that?”

We didn’t know.

Later, after he’d settled down and caught his breath (and had a stiff drink), Cliff revealed that at first he’d been intrigued as words and descriptions seemed to “just come” to him. That ended abruptly as complete terror took hold with a single word, a word that had struck fear and death into the hearts of many in centuries past. “His family all died,” he said. “And Grey Squirrel too. All of them. I just suddenly knew it. I knew it. I’ve never been so f---ing scared. What the hell was that?”

I still don’t know. Did our friend tap into residual energy of a long-ago occurrence? Was there a ghost still wandering the area who just wanted to be heard? Or had we all taken a step into the Twilight Zone? One thing I do know – Cliff didn’t make it up. Believe me, I’d seen him onstage in theatre group and he just wasn’t that good of an actor.

So now it’s YOUR turn. Did you have an Ouija board as a kid? (By the way, there are PINK ones now, apparently designed for little girls!) Do you have a story of your own to share? Or you could suggest a topic for a future blog – what paranormal object, creature or occurrence do YOU want to learn more about?

Dani Harper
http://www.romancingthewolf.com/

4:02 PM

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May 11, 2009 - Monday

Got Psychic?

“Eenie Meenie, Chilly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak!” Bullwinkle J. Moose

Although I adored the supernatural from Day One, my childhood experience was pretty much limited to Halloween, sci-fi and monster movies, and old episodes of the Twilight Zone on TV. It was a nine-day wonder when a classmate brought a Magic 8 Ball to school. When I was fifteen, some friends and I scared ourselves silly with an Ouija board at a party. And there you have it -- the sum total of my exposure to psychic phenomena as a kid. I mean, there weren't any books in our small town library on the subject. No internet either (my god, how did I LIVE?) and nobody was talking about psychic visions at the beauty shop.

Things are very different now. There’s been a worldwide upsurge in interest in psychic phenomena, particularly in what some call second sight. Check the movies for instance. Next (Nicholas Cage), The Gift (Cate Blanchette), and Suspect Zero (Ben Kingsley) all deal with psychic abilities. Television fiction includes Medium, Ghost Whisperer and The Dead Zone. Television non-fiction has John Edwards Cross Country and Psychic Detectives. There are countless books on the subject, many of which have hit best seller lists. Across the country, you can take courses and seminars in developing your own psychic gifts. And by conservative estimate, there are a gazillion internet sites devoted to the subject...

No doubt about it, the concept of psychic ability has become almost mainstream. Nearly respectable. If you had visions, dreams, feelings or intuitions about something, you’d find at least a few people in your immediate circle of friends, family and co-workers who would take you seriously. Even the highly popular spiritualist movement of the 1800s, which flourished in the United States and Britain, produced only a scant fraction of the psychic interest we're seeing now.

There are even pet psychics. One was in the news recently when a 6-pound chihuahua was carried away by 70 mph winds at a Michigan flea market in late April. Many volunteers searched for “Tinker Bell”, but without success until Tink’s owners consulted a pet psychic. They credit the psychic with helping them to locate the little dog about ¾ mile away in a wooded area. (Tinker Bell’s all right, by the way.)

I’ve had occasion to witness psychic ability in unexpected places – even in my own kids. For instance, there was the time that my youngest daughter, Sammy, then age 3 or so, had disappeared. We turned the house upside down, but my second oldest daughter – Jaime, age 14– ran outside. She went straight to a strange car that was parked in the driveway and flung open the door. Sammy was locked inside! Somehow our toddler had managed to get in the vehicle but couldn’t open the door to get out again. The heat in the car was intense and another few minutes would have had dire consequences. Jaime said that it just came into her mind where Sammy was. This wasn’t the first time such things had popped into her head either. She found someone else’s lost child in the mall not long after. She overheard the parents panicking, and again, the knowledge simply came to her where the child was. So she went to that location, collected the child and brought him back to his folks.

Are there fake psychics? Of course, just like there are charlatans in all walks of life. But while I'm not ready to pay for advice from an alleged psychic on the internet, I have a very healthy respect for true psychic phenomena. And some people are now theorizing that psychic abilities have a sound basis in science. After all, according to Einstein, the future already exists. Is it so far-fetched that some people can plug into it? Perhaps we all can, if we just knew how.

How about you? What do you think of psychics or psychic ability in general? Have you had any experiences with it?

Dani Harper
www.romancingthewolf.com/
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April 30, 2009 - Thursday

Do Ghosts Observe Daylight Savings?

We’ve all heard them – urban legends about ghosts that show up at a certain time of day – or rather night. It’s a regular part of many campfire stories, like the spirit of the Hook-handed Killer who haunts Lovers Lane at exactly midnight. In fact, when the clock strikes 12 a.m. in any story, TV show or movie, you automatically know things are about to get scary.

But what about real ghosts, spirits, poltergeists, apparitions and manifestations? When you read accounts of recurring paranormal events, they also seem to take place at very specific times. For example, one of the most recent stories I’ve come across concerns the spirit of a young girl who was said to appear in her former room at exactly 11:30 p.m. Another person reported that her pantry cupboard was opened at exactly 12:34 a.m. every night by an unseen hand.

Why 11:30 p.m.? Or 12:34 a.m.? Or ANY particular time? Nobody knows.

It isn’t hard to understand why human beings have associated the dark (and therefore the night) with scary or odd things. And if there are spirits to connect with – or seeking to connect with us -- it stands to reason that night time may offer more opportunity. Our brains are less busy, the surroundings are quieter, and we may be far more sensitive than we are in the daylight hours. But what about a specific hour?

The idea of a connection between paranormal events and time is not new. Just read Hamlet, for example. The ghost of Hamlet’s father, the king, appears at midnight each night and leaves as the cock crows to signal dawn. In the same play, Shakespeare draws a connection between the paranormal and a certain hour: "Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.” Since Shakespeare’s works reflected the culture of the time, does that mean that the general populace assigned supernatural attributes to certain hours?

In trying to research this intriguing topic, I quickly discovered that “prime paranormal time” may be in the eye of the beholder. The so-called witching hour – allegedly the best time to connect with the supernatural, work spells, and perform rituals – varies from source to source, and encompasses pretty much anytime between dusk and dawn. Some accounts claim that spirits are at their most active between the hours between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. Curiously, midnight seems to take a backseat to 3 a.m. as prime time for encounters with paranormal forces.

Even Hollywood is aware of this strange wee hour. “The Amityville Horror” and “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” both refer to 3 a.m. as being some sort of activating signal to supernatural forces (to be accurate, it’s 3:15 in Amityville). Is life imitating art or the other way around? Has pop culture influenced people to expect supernatural occurrences at that time of night?

I wondered if heightened paranormal activity had anything to do with time of death. If someone died at 3 a.m., would their spirit be more likely to show up at that time? With so many ghost stories (real ones, not Hollywood ones) reported as happening at 3 a.m., I thought for sure that 3 would be the most common time of death. However, there’s a persistent rumor that more people die around 4 a.m. than any other time. Recent hospital stats are tough to come by, but some sources declare that the most common time of death from all causes is 8 a.m., and the second most common time is 6 p.m. Guys under 65 are most likely to die at midnight. A gal in that age bracket would be most likely to go an hour earlier at 11 p.m. Three a.m. doesn’t get a single mention. So much for my time of death theory...

Time isn’t always measured by the clock face, however. An ancient astrological system of planetary hours exists, where day and night are divided by dusk and dawn. Each section is then divided into 12 “hours” (not the sixty-minute variety) and each hour is ruled by one of seven “planets” (actually the five planets visible to the naked eye plus the sun and the moon). For instance, the hour influenced by Mercury would be particularly good for writing – I’ll have to remember that – and magic spells are often worked at the hour most compatible with their goal. A love spell would naturally be done during the hour ruled by Venus, for example. But a spell for fertility would be best done in a Moon hour. Some sources point to the hours influenced by Saturn or Jupiter as potentially good times for paranormal phenomena. Yet phantoms, spirits and specters don’t seem to restrict themselves to those times.

Overall, it looks like ghosts can show up any time they darn well please. And I have no idea why spirits would be concerned with time anyway – aren’t they beyond that now? (I sure hope I’m not checking my watch when I’m on the other side!) As you can see, my research so far has left me with more questions than answers. But overriding them all is this one:

Does the netherworld observe daylight savings time? If a spirit usually shows up at 3 a.m., does it make adjustments to its schedule when we turn the clocks forward or back?

I’m afraid that one is going to be stuck in my head for a long, long time…

Dani Harper http://www.romancingthewolf.com/

What do YOU think? Are some times of the day or night more prone to supernatural activity? Or are we more susceptible to the suggestion of it then? Why do ghosts seem to care what time it is?

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March 23, 2009 - Monday

All you really need is a good psychopomp...

One of the oldest cities in Mexico is a charming place named Colima (koh-LEE-mah), which means domain of the ancestors or domain of the old gods. I'd never heard of it until I had a chance to visit the country a few weeks ago, but as soon as someone mentioned there were no less than nine museums there, my husband and I (who are addicted to history) had to go check it out.

The first thing we learned is that Colima was founded in 1527 by Hernan Cortez. The second thing we learned is that the conquering Spanish were far from the first ones in the area. A group of Olmec people lived in the shadow of the area's towering twin volcanoes (only one of which is extinct) over 3500 years ago. They were followed by several other cultures and subcultures, including the Toltecs, Mayans and Aztecs.

Most importantly, we learned that you had to have a psychopomp.

The word psychopomp (from the Greek word, psychopompos) literally means guide of souls. In Greek mythology, that might be Charon, who ferried the dead across the river Styx in the underworld. Or it might be the versatile god, Hermes, who sometimes acted as a guide to the underworld. The Norse had the Valkyries, those warrior-maidens who plucked fallen soldiers from the battlefield and whisked them off to drink mead in Valhalla.

The number one spiritual guide to the afterlife in ancient Colima, however, was not a god or goddess. Instead, it was a little red clay dog that looks like an inflated chihuahua. In fact they're called perros cebados (round dogs) and have been unearthed by the thousands in this area of Mexico.

There were dozens of these red clay dogs in the museums in Colima. The plump canines are depicted in many positions -- sleeping, sitting, standing, and even dancing on hind legs. Most are smiling but all have one important thing in common. There's always an opening in the clay creature. Sometimes the mouth is open, sometimes the tail has been made into a tube or a funnel, or perhaps there's even a funnel in the top of the dog's head! Anyone who's worked with clay knows that a piece has to have a vent in it somewhere to release heated gases during firing to avoid breakage, but these openings have a much higher purpose: to allow the entry of a soul so it can then be carried to the afterworld.

In ancient Colima, the dead were buried in tombs, and they were provided with everything they might need for their journey to the next life. So, not only were they given a psychopomp (or two or ten) to guide them , the dead were also given supplies for the trip. Here, the round little clay dogs were performing double and triple duty because in real life, small dogs were fattened and used as food. Some were valued as watchdogs. And some, believed to be holy and have healing powers, were kept to safeguard the family home from evil spirits. (That is one all-purpose dog!)

Just in case the clay dogs weren't enough, real dogs of the same breed were sacrificed and placed in the tomb as well.

The single most amazing thing we learned, however, is that it simply did not matter what kind of a person you'd been in life. No matter how virtuous a life you'd led, if you weren't buried with one of these little clay spirit guides, you were hooped. Doomed never to enter paradise, but to wander the unknown realms and be lost. The inverse was true too. Even if you were a truly horrible person, your safe passage to the heavenly realms was assured as long as you were buried with a plump little clay dog.

In other words, all you really need is a good psychopomp.

Dani Harper

http://www.romancingthewolf.com/

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February 24, 2009 - Tuesday

DAY OF THE CRYPTIDS

What is a cryptid? It's an unknown animal, and cryptozoology is the study of such undiscovered creatures. The root of both words comes from the Greek word kriptos, meaning hidden.

Cryptozoology encompasses three fields of investigation. One is the search for still-living examples of animals generally thought to be extinct. For instance, stories of giant grizzly bears in northern regions have led some to theorize that there may be remnant populations of the giant short-faced bear – a creature that went extinct 12,500 years ago. In Africa’s Congo, stories of the mokele-mbeme appear to describe a species of dinosaur. And is the megalodon, a giant prehistoric shark, still swimming in the unexplored depths of our oceans?

The second area of cryptozoology concerns animals which are known to exist, but are being sighted in areas very far from their usual habitat. Are black panthers roaming the English countryside? And what about the stories of giant black cats in Illinois? In recent years, a few jaguars were confirmed to be present in Arizona and New Mexico – areas where the species once lived many years ago. (So far, however, the confirmed jaguars were all spotted, not black.)

The third area of cryptozoology, which tends to capture most of the media attention, concerns the search for animals which are alleged to exist but are not confirmed. We’ve all heard of the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, but these cryptids are just the tip of the iceberg. The Beast of Bray Road is a werewolf-like creature reported to live in Wisconsin. The Ogopogo is a legendary lake monster in British Columbia, Canada. You may hear about the Chupacabra in Mexico, which allegedly drinks the blood of goats and other livestock. And if you’re really lucky, you might catch a whiff of the Skunk Ape of Florida.

My personal favorite? The Mongolian Death Worm. Who couldn’t love a title like that? Well, maybe the residents of the Gobi Desert – they consider it bad luck to even mention this large snakelike creature. Said to be attracted to the color yellow, the Death Worm itself is bright red and kills at a distance by spraying an acid-like venom. In some stories, it kills by electrocuting its victims!

Here are some links if you’d like to learn more about the world’s cryptids:
http://www.cryptozoology.com/cryptids.php
http://www.lorencoleman.com/top_cryptids.html
http://www.wyrdology.com/cryptozoology/list.html
http://cryptozoo.monstrous.com/
http://www.monstermania.org/cryptoemp/main-emp.htm

http://www.paranormal51.com/

I’ve always been a huge fan of cryptozoology – it sparks both imagination and wonder. I like the idea that everything in our world hasn’t been documented and catalogued, that we don’t know everything there is to know about the creatures who share the planet with us. How about you?

Dani Harper

www.romancingthewolf.com

5:46 AM

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December 27, 2008 - Saturday

CHRISTMAS SUPERSTITIONS II –------ THE SEQUEL!

Last week I brought you Christmas Superstitions I, The Good, the Bad and the Scary. This week's installment brings you The Innocent, the Odd and the Downright Creepy! (As before, here's the official disclaimer -- Remember, these are folktales and traditions, and not intended to be taken as truth!)

The Innocent...

Taking three sips of salty water before Christmas dinner brings good luck. (Three sips of Alka-Seltzer afterwards helps even more, LOL). Many cultures throughout Europe and the British Isles believe that all water turns into wine at midnight on Christmas Eve. It's lucky to eat an apple on Christmas Eve. If you're single, eating a roasted apple that night will allow you to hear the voice of your future spouse in your dreams. It's bad luck to refuse a slice of mince pie, and good luck to eat a slice of pie in every house you visit – the more houses, the more luck!

People used to mix in silver charms when making the Christmas pudding, and objects also went into the mince pie. The items predicted the future of whoever found them in their piece of pie or pudding. A coin meant good luck, a thimble meant prosperity, a ring meant a wedding.

An old Irish belief says that the gates of Heaven are wide open on Christmas Eve and that anyone who dies then will go straight to Heaven.

The Odd...

First person downstairs on Christmas morning was to take a broom, open the front door and sweep all "trouble" from the doorstep. A variation on this is to sweep all the bad luck out of the house.

English folklore tells girls to knock on the henhouse door on Christmas Eve. If a rooster crows, she'll marry within the year. If there is silence, she'll never marry!

It's unlucky to receive a gift of new shoes or tanned leather on Christmas. However, some people in Greece ward off bad luck in the upcoming year by burning their old shoes during the Christmas season (Hmmmm... I know a pair of my husband's shoes I'd like to burn!) Another footwear superstition says that all the family's shoes should be placed neatly side by side on Christmas Eve to prevent quarreling in the new year.

In Wales, the plough should be brought into the house and kept under the dining table during the entire Christmas season. This assured a good harvest in the coming year.

If you eat a raw egg before eating anything else on Christmas morning, you'll become exceptionally strong.

And the Downright Creepy!

Dogs that howl on Christmas Eve will go mad before the end of the year. A candle or a lamp should be kept burning all night on Christmas Eve to avoid a death in the house in the following year.

Instead of water turning into wine at midnight on Christmas Eve, some hold the belief that the water in streams and wells turns into blood! Not only that, if you witness this change, you'll die within the year!

A Scandinavian belief states that it's dangerous to go out on Christmas Eve because of the many supernatural beings that come out of their hiding places that night. Trolls, witches, goblins and ghosts roam freely, some of which are the spirits of the dead revisiting their previous homes. Gifts must be left outside – bowls of pudding and cream, clothes, tobacco and even ale – in order to appease some of these creatures. The most perilous time occurred between cock's crow and dawn, when supernatural beings were at the peak of their power. To go outside meant risking death or being carried off by them, never to be seen again.

Swedish folklore puts a chilling twist on this story. On Christmas Eve, they prepare their dining room with food and ale and blazing fire – and leave it overnight to enable the spirits of the dead to celebrate. The family checks the chairs in the morning for traces of earth, proof that the dead have come calling!

A once popular parlor game gave everyone an apple after dinner, which was then cut in half across the middle to reveal the pattern of the core. If the core is star-shaped (most apples have this), the owner of the apple will see another Christmas. If the core is a different shape, the owner's death will occur in the next twelve months! The appearance of a four-pointed cross was worst of all – although what was worse than death is never mentioned.

Parlor games including keeping tabs on everyone's shadow throughout the evening. If anyone's shadow were to appear headless, that person would die within the coming year.

An old Breton tale tells the story of a blacksmith who refused to stop working after the church bell had rung for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Suddenly a tall man entered his shop with a scythe that needed mending. The blacksmith did the work, and instead of paying him, the mysterious man told him to send for a priest because this work would be his last. By the time the roosters crowed on Christmas morning, the blacksmith was dead. He had mended the Scythe of The Reaper himself.

To avoid bad luck, all Christmas decorations should be taken down by Candlemas (Feb. 2). However, make sure you clean up after them --- every needle left behind in the house from the Christmas tree will cause the sighting of a spirit or a demon in the coming year. (A good case for having an artificial tree!)

Dani Harper

www.romancingthewolf.com

Congrats to Bella. Her name was drawn from last week's comments as the winner of a download of HEART OF THE WINTER WOLF, my first novel.

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December 22, 2008 - Monday

The Good, the Bad and the Scary - CHRISTMAS SUPERSTITIONS I

As you know, I just can't resist anything related to the paranormal. But Christmas? Who would have suspected that there was anything supernatural about such a warm fuzzy holiday? I mean, a big jolly fellow travels all over the world with his flying reindeer in a single night, squeezes down tiny chimneys with a neverending bag of presents, knows if you're naughty or nice but is never seen himself… Come to think of it, that IS pretty paranormal!

I had a lot of fun researching Christmas superstitions and I was amazed by how MANY there were! In fact, there's so much material I've decided to blog twice about this topic. Here then is the first installment. (By the way, here's the official disclaimer -- Remember, these are folktales and traditions, and not intended to be taken as truth!)

The Good….

Unmarried girls can cut a twig from a cherry tree on St. Barbora's Day (Dec. 4th) and put it in water. If it blooms by Christmas Eve, marriage will follow within the year. Counting the stars on Christmas Eve will foretell the number of sheaves in your harvest. And if you see the sun shining through the limbs of the apple trees on Christmas Day, there'll be an abundance of fruit the following year.

If you dream on any of the 12 nights between Christmas and Epiphany (Jan. 6), your dreams will come true in the next year. The first person in the household to hear a rooster crow or anyone who hears a cricket chirp on Christmas Day is going to have a very lucky year. Good luck follows those who give money to the poor on Christmas Day, to those who eat their breakfast by candlelight, and to those who stir the Christmas pudding.

The Bad….

Bad, bad fortune follows those who leave the dishes unwashed on Christmas Eve (and that's on top of what Mom will do to you!). On Christmas Day, it's unlucky to leave the dinner table before everyone has finished. A full moon on Christmas predicts a scanty harvest in the year to come. If Christmas Day falls on a Thursday, a year of windy weather is forecast.

On Christmas Eve it's said that you can hear the bells of lost churches that have been covered by floods or buried by landslides and earthquakes. Picking up nuts or fruit from the ground will bring bad luck. So will sending carolers away without treats or money. And you really don't want to be the first one home from church!

And the Scary….

A piece of winter greenery (holly, mistletoe, evergreen, etc.) must be brought into your home during the Christmas season, to keep away evil spirits. However, every winter leaf left in the house after Candlemas (Feb. 2) will result in the sighting of a ghost, or perhaps even a death in the house during the coming year! Mistletoe must be burned, or those who kissed beneath it will become enemies.

Those born on Christmas Day are rumored to be able to see ghosts and spirits. And those who are born on Christmas Eve are said to turn into ghosts themselves on that day every year! (Wow, this sounds more like Halloween, doesn't it?) The only way to avoid this odd fate is to remain awake the entire night until Christmas Day dawns.

I'll be back soon with another installment of Christmas superstitions!

Dani Harper
http://www.romancingthewolf.com/
Your turn! What Christmas superstitions or folklore have you heard of over the years? All commenters will be automatically entered in a random draw to win a download of my first novel, HEART OF THE WINTER WOLF. Draw will be made when the next blog is posted, and a winner will be announced at that time.

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December 14, 2008 - Sunday

Just Released: THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT

I'm so excited! THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT was just released today from Cobblestone Press

When is a ghost not a ghost?

Kerri Tollbrook counsels the newly departed, but what happens when the tall, dark and handsome spirit she meets at the shopping mall refuses to be counseled?

Firefighter Galen McAllister feels like The Invisible Man when a malicious spell separates him from his still-living body. Kerri is the first person he's met who can actually see him. Now if only he can get her to listen to him…

Can they create enough magic in the nine days before Christmas to break the spell, or will Galen remain a ghost forever?

READ THE FIRST CHAPTER or buy the download from http://www.cobblestone-press.com/catalog/books/holidayspirit.htm

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December 7, 2008 - Sunday

Dani’s guest blogging at Coffee Time Romance

Tis the season for... Ghosts?

That's the title of my blog when I make a guest appearance over at Coffee Time Romance's Coffee Thoughts on Tuesday, December 9th.

I'll be talking about my fascination with the paranormal and about my upcoming release, THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT, which comes out on December 14th. THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT features love, magic, presents – and a sexy ghost who claims he isn't dead. What more could you want for Christmas? Okay, okay, free books....

Listen, I'm giving away a download of THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT as part of the guest blog. If you go over and leave a comment on my blog at Coffee Thoughts on Dec. 9th, you'll be entered!
http://coffeetimeromance.com/CoffeeThoughts/

Thanks to all my readers -- you rock!

Dani Harper
http://www.romancingthewolf.com/