Chapter Six: Carrie
– Eden Phillpotts
Carrie spotted them first – a herd of deer crossing the long, dark country road ahead. She slowed her car, giving them time and space. She knew she had to get going – her great-grandmother lay in the hospital, the family having been called to say their final goodbyes. But something told her not to rush this herd.
Deer weren’t an unusual sight in this rural area, but what followed was. Bringing up the rear of the herd was an albino buck, its white coat gleaming in the glow of her headlights.
Something stirred within Carrie. Without thinking, she parked her car and stepped out, leaving the headlights on. The rest of the herd was already moving into the tobacco fields on the side of the road, but the white buck remained. He turned to face her, his eyes seemingly reflecting an otherworldly intelligence.
Carrie held out her hand, her pregnant belly a silent witness to this moment suspended in time. The buck moved closer, defying all natural instincts. They were so close now, Carrie could almost feel the warmth of his breath. Just as they were about to make physical contact, a doe stamped her foot behind him, breaking the spell.
The buck shook his head as if coming out of a trance and turned away, disappearing into the night. Carrie stood there, her hand still outstretched, wondering at the magic of what had just transpired.
That night, Carrie’s great-grandmother passed away. The albino buck was never seen again. For Carrie, it was a profound reminder of the mysterious connections between life, death, and the natural world.
Long before the night of the white deer, Carrie’s life had been touched by the extraordinary. Growing up in her grandmother’s house, surrounded by antiques and the echoes of history, young Carrie developed a peculiar habit that she now recognizes as her first forays into the spiritual realm.
“I would go into my grandma’s hallway,” Carrie recalls, her voice tinged with a mix of wonder and nostalgia. “I’d just sit still and say to myself, ‘Go to where you were before you were here.’ And then, I would leave my body.“
These out-of-body experiences, occurring when Carrie was between six and eight years old, took her to places beyond imagination. One vivid memory stands out: a realm of beings made of pure white light, towering so high that Carrie barely reached their ankles. “They didn’t know I was there,” she says. “They were just doing their thing, walking around. I was like an ant to them.”
But these unusual childhood adventures weren’t without their dangers. One fateful day, Carrie found herself unable to return to her body. “I couldn’t come back,” she remembers, the fear of that moment still palpable in her voice. “My consciousness was just floating around in what looked like space – blackness with stars everywhere.” Eventually, she managed to return, but the experience left her shaken. “I was like, ‘I’ll never do it again,’” she says. And she didn’t – not for decades.
It wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic hit that Carrie’s dormant abilities began to stir once more. Working as a microbiologist, a career she had pursued for 20 years, Carrie stumbled upon a podcast that would change everything.
“The ladies were talking about signs that you might be psychic or a medium,” Carrie explains. “They listed off some of the things they went through, and I was like, ‘Yes… yes… yes…’” This moment of recognition sparked a journey of rediscovery, leading Carrie to take classes and meet others with similar gifts.
As she delved deeper into her psychic development, memories of her childhood experiences resurfaced, taking on new meaning. The strange sensations, the vivid dreams, the inexplicable knowing – all began to fall into place like pieces of a cosmic puzzle.
But Carrie’s journey into the paranormal wasn’t limited to her own experiences. The house where she raised her children became a hotbed of supernatural activity, despite being a new build – challenging the notion that only old houses can be haunted.
“We had a lot of shadow people there,” Carrie recalled. “My oldest son and I both saw them. I remember sitting downstairs by myself when everybody would be asleep, and I’d see one peek around the upstairs corner.”
The activity wasn’t limited to visual phenomena. “We would hear it constantly,” Carrie continues. “Somebody running or walking upstairs above the living room in our kids’ room, but nobody was there. The kids were at the neighbors’, and we would just look at each other like, ‘They’re playing again.’”
Even visitors to the house weren’t immune to its strange occurrences. Carrie’s niece once reported hearing someone in the living room, picking up and throwing down objects, though no one was there when she looked.
These experiences, while unsettling, became a part of daily life for Carrie and her family. At 16, Carrie’s exploration of the paranormal took a more tangible form when she and her friends Jane and Andrea began experimenting with a Ouija board. What started as teenage curiosity quickly became an obsession that would lead to some of the most chilling experiences of her young life.
“We took this Ouija board everywhere with us,” Carrie recalls, a hint of regret in her voice. “We were 15, 16 years old, and it got super addictive.”
One spirit that frequently communicated through the board was a boy named Burke – but everyone knew him by the nickname “Bug.” Bug had been a grade or two above Carrie in school before tragically drowning in a nearby lake. While Carrie didn’t know him personally, her friend Andrea did.
It was during one of these sessions that Carrie received undeniable proof that something truly inexplicable was occurring. “Jane and I were on the floor talking to Bug,” she recounts. “Andrea had her own phone line in her room. Her phone rang, and she jumped up on the bed and answered it.”
What happened next sent chills down Carrie’s spine. “Bug on the Ouija board spelled out ‘TELL DARIUS HI.’” recalls Carrie. “I looked at Andrea and asked, ‘Is that Darius?’”
It was Darius. There was no way Carrie or Jane could have known. But Bug apparently did.
Not all spirits they encountered were as benign as Bug. An entity calling itself Inez claimed to be Carrie’s daughter from a previous life. “She said that I either had her beheaded or I’d beheaded her,” Carrie says, her voice tinged with disbelief. “She would only refer to me as ‘Bitch.’ She would never call me by my name.”
Inez’s presence was often accompanied by strange animal behavior. “They had this huge living room with a sectional in the middle and this random chair in the corner,” Carrie explains. “They also had an old Scottish Terrier who was blind, didn’t have any teeth, and was deaf. Every single time Inez would come on the board, he would just face that chair and bark at it the whole time.“
Perhaps the most terrifying experience came when something sinister made its presence known through the board. “I remember feeling this overwhelming sensation of dread just come into the room,” Carrie says. “Whatever it was claimed to be the Devil himself.”
“You’re addicted,” it said, referring to their obsession with the Ouija board. When Carrie glanced down at a gold cross necklace she was wearing – borrowed from a boy she liked – the entity ominously declared, “That won’t save you now.”
As Carrie grew older, her experiences with the Ouija board continued, but they took on a different tone. In her own home, she began to sense a presence that made her uncomfortable, particularly when she was alone or vulnerable.
“I always felt like there were eyes in my walk-in closet attached to my bathroom,” she confesses. “I always felt like something was watching me in there.”
It was around this time that Carrie began having vivid dreams of Jesus, despite never having been particularly religious. In one of these dreams, Jesus showed her a vision of all nine planets (Pluto was still considered a planet then) lined up in the sky, glowing a brilliant royal purple.
“He said if you ever see all nine planets lined up, the sky this purple color, just know that’s when we decided to call it quits,” Carrie recounts. “We’re gonna start over.”
Whether it was due to these dreams or a growing unease with the energies she was inviting into her life, Carrie eventually felt compelled to get rid of her Ouija board. “I just put it in the dumpster and never picked one up ever again,” she says with finality.
As Carrie left behind the Ouija board, she didn’t abandon her connection to the spiritual world. Instead, she began to cultivate her natural abilities in a more controlled and positive manner. Her journey led her to explore various forms of spiritual practice, including shamanic journeying and channeling.
“Shamanic journeying is probably my favorite,” Carrie says. She describes how, guided by drumbeats, she enters a meditative state and allows visions to come to her. “You don’t make things happen. You just allow them to happen,” she explains.
In these journeys, Carrie often encounters animal guides. While sometimes she sees other animals, her primary guide is a horse – an animal she’s felt connected to since childhood. “I remember being a little kid, I’d pretend I was a horse. I can make the sound perfectly,” she says with a laugh.
One particularly vivid journey stands out in Carrie’s memory. “A deer led me to what looked like a dying tree trunk, and I got in. It was almost like a little elevator inside of it, and it took me down and just dropped me out into a body of water.”
Despite her fear of deep water, Carrie found herself feeling tranquility and peace, surrounded by whales. “It was not overwhelming… it was a sense of calm.”
As Carrie developed her abilities further, she began to explore channeling and what’s known as “light language.” She describes light language as a form of communication that taps into past lives and connections with various beings, from nature spirits to extraterrestrial entities.
“I’ve talked to dragonflies,” Carrie says matter-of-factly. “I’ve talked to what we would consider alien beings, like Arcturians and Lemurians.”
While she doesn’t always understand the specific words or messages, Carrie describes feeling the essence of the communication. “Sometimes I just get the feeling of what the words are,” she explains.
Carrie’s spiritual journey eventually led her to work in a metaphysical shop, a place that seems to be a magnet for paranormal activity. Built in 1902, the building has a rich history and, according to Carrie, a vibrant spiritual presence.
“We have seen this woman in a kind of Victorian dress, like a big skirt and a bonnet,” Carrie recounts. One night, while closing up alone, Carrie had a startling encounter. “I was putting something down on the desk, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her, a woman standing there. I look up real quick, and we made eye contact.” When she glanced away and then back again, the figure was gone.
The shop also seems to have what Carrie describes as a spiritual portal in its storage room. “It’s where the storage room meets the building that it was built off of. It’s like a little corner there, and there are some bricks that have fallen off that building for some reason. There’s a little portal there.”
This portal was even confirmed by a visiting medium from Canada, who identified its location without any prior knowledge.
As Carrie has embraced her abilities, she’s become more attuned to the signs and messages that seem to surround her daily life. She describes how animals often appear at significant moments, carrying spiritual meanings.
“There are hard decisions that I’ve had to make recently,” Carrie shares. “Part of the decision-making process, of course, that being me, I’m gonna involve spirit. So I’m like, ‘Okay, I need signs. I need confirmations.’” She recounts asking to see two yellow butterflies within one week, as a sign.
“By the time I got to the end of my driveway, there’s a big yellow butterfly. It wasn’t like a monarch. I know they’re orange and black, but it had no black on it. It was just solid yellow, and it goes right in front of my windshield.” A few days later, while doing a tarot reading for a client, the first card she drew was a yellow butterfly. “Um, I think this card was meant for me,” she told the client.
Even extraterrestrial encounters have found their way into Carrie’s life. She recalls a night when she and her sister saw an unidentified flying object. “It was out on the street, shaped like this,” Carrie says, making a sort of flattened diamond shape with her hands. “Kind of more pointy than what my fingers can do, and it was black in the sky.”
The sighting was brief but impactful. “I stopped the car, and then I backed up, and it was already gone. It was like boom! And we both saw it.”
As Carrie looks back on her life, from the curious child who left her body at will to the seasoned psychic medium she is today, she sees a kaleidoscope of experiences that have profoundly shaped her understanding of reality.
“I’m like a kid in a candy store,” Carrie says, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. “I want to know, I want to do everything.” This curiosity, which began in her childhood, has never waned. She recalls a defining moment from her youth: “Me and my friend loved ghost stories and loved anything spooky. I remember us going to dinner with my grandparents one night. We’re in the backseat of the car when we learned the term ‘paranormal psychologist,’ and we’re like, ‘That’s what we want to be when we grow up.’”
In many ways, Carrie has fulfilled that childhood dream, though her path has been far from conventional. Her journey has led her from the fear and addiction of Ouija board sessions to the controlled exploration of shamanic journeying, from unexplained phenomena in her family home to running a metaphysical shop buzzing with spiritual energy.
Talking about her children's acceptance of her abilities, she says, “I think since they were kids, they’ve just learned that I know things sometimes.” This matter-of-fact approach to the extraordinary seems to be a hallmark of Carrie’s outlook. She views her experiences not as something to be feared or sensationalized, but as a natural part of a wider reality that most people simply don’t perceive.
Carrie’s experiences have also deepened her connection to the natural world. From the profound encounter with the albino deer on the night of her great-grandmother’s passing to the regular appearances of animals at significant moments in her life, she sees these as reminders of the interconnectedness of all things.
“Spirit can really do things with nature to let you know that they’re there,” she muses. “You just have to ask for it.”
Perhaps most significantly, Carrie’s journey has led her to a place of empowerment. No longer the scared teenager, she now actively engages with the unseen world, helping others to navigate their own spiritual paths.
“I am one hundred percent certain we all have these abilities,” Carrie asserts. She likens psychic abilities to athletic talent – some may be naturally gifted, while others might need to work harder to develop their skills, but the potential is there in everyone.
As for the skeptics, Carrie remains unfazed. “I know this sounds crazy,” she often says when recounting her experiences, “but it’s true. I mean, it works.” Her conviction is born not just from belief, but from a lifetime of extraordinary experiences that she can’t ignore or explain away.
In the end, Carrie’s story is one of transformation – from fear to understanding, from confusion to clarity.
For Carrie, the paranormal is not just a fascination or a career – it’s a way of life, a lens through which she views the world. And through her experiences and her willingness to share them, she invites others to open their eyes to the extraordinary that might be hiding just beneath the surface of their everyday lives.
“If you’re drawn to it, then it’s there,” Carrie says, encouraging others to explore their own potential. “You just have to figure out what your trigger is.” And with that, Carrie continues on her winding path, ever curious, ever open to the next mysterious encounter that awaits her.
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