Talking Paranormal in Poland with Nathan from A State of Mind – Part 2

In Part 1, Nathan from A State of Mind gave some background on what drew him to the paranormal and his affiliation with it. In Part 2, he answers my questions about the paranormal in Poland –as well as a few other things. (I can’t help it. Inquiring minds want to know, so…I ask!)

What’s the general belief about ghosts in Poland? How would people there view us over here or even in England traipsing all about historic places and such on ghost tours? Would they think that’s nuts? Silly? Dangerous?

That’s an interesting question, Courtney! Common belief is that ghosts doesn’t exists, and everyone who beliefs in them is either crazy or stupid. But such belief results in pressure caused by society. When people have the opportunity to talk with an expert behind the scene (meaning, when nobody’s looking), they start asking questions – why, how, when etc. Even more, they start sharing their own experiences, and they have a lot of them – within few minutes of talk, you know enough to admit that Poland isn’t a “paranormal desert”, but it’s haunted like hell!

But ghost tours? I wouldn’t recommend that, not yet. There is not enough books about ghosts and hauntings in Poland yet (and it will take some time before I’ll publish my first book) and as I said above, ghosts are not very public subject. They’re not discussed in books, not mentioning TV or radio. Mentality of polish society is still in very early development. 20 years ago we earned ourselves freedom from communism. It will take some time before our society will be ready for acknowledging existence of hauntings, and even more years before ghost tours will become popular. But we’re moving forward, along with Anomalium, and other people interested in serious approach to paranormal.

Since my blog is about paranormal tourism and travel, I’m curious: if I were to take a Haunt Jaunt over to Poland, where would be some places you’d recommend I visit? (I know you once said you’re not key on checking out public places, but just to tell a tourist about neat historic sites that may have stories of paranormal activity attached to them, where would you suggest I see?)

Well, in Wroclaw city there’s a haunted hotel – Tumski, tourists often reports weird noises and even ghosts walking through corridors. In Warsaw, there’s a haunted hostel for students of University of Warsaw. It is said that some time ago group of students were performing a ritual of some sort (or playing with Ouija, as some other sources reports) and they summoned some spirits or even more negative entities. Next, there’s a Niedzica Castle standing above Dunajec river with its White Lady walking through corridors, there’s a mount Sleza (which I’m about to investigate this Spring) that is said to be the place where Lucifer was cast out of heaven. It was a place for Sabbats of Witches (as legend stands), and a place of some celtic cult (archeological findings supports that). Some locals says the mountain is haunted. And there’s Wawel Royal Castle in Cracow, with ghosts of kings and queens of Poland. Those are the most interesting public places that are said to be haunted, but if I would dig deeper into my Librarium, I could find few dozens of castles and palaces with ghosts. Actually, my girlfriend sitting 2 meters on my left is reading “The Ghosts of Poland” now, the book describing few haunted castles.

Oh wow! Thanks for sharing the ones you did. They all sound wonderful. Places I’d like to Haunt Jaunt to, you betcha!

Now, for a non-Haunt Jaunt related question…On one of your Tweets you said how you added geotagging to your site to help people in Europe find you. What’s geotagging and how do you do it? (Both how could I as a user looking to find things use it, and as a blogger use it on my blog?)

Geotagging is about tagging a website, an image or any other media file with geolocation data so it could be used by search engines for example to display results from specific country only. There is a meta tag to be placed in website HTML code in HEAD section – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotagging. It’s being used by some browsers like Bing (but as far as I know, not yet by Google). I’ve set it to ‘Europe’ so hopefully, some browsers will display my site higher in search results for visitors from Europe.

What are five of your favorite posts? (That you wrote on your blog.)

Here they are:

1. True knowledge comes from the books, not from the internet
2. Why do people see ghosts & energies
3. Not every psychic is hearing voices
4. I felt the God
5. How does psychic reading looks like

Why I like these?

1. Because it remind me that not everything can be found in internet yet. There are many things that are in books, but nobody published them in the web, and if anyone want to learn something about occult or paranormal, he must read books.
2. One of my theories explaining why people see ghosts and energies. Probably the best theory I ever came up with (not mentioning these that are buried deeply in my Librarium’s archive).
3. Because I felt people must know not every psychic is hearing voices.
4. Because it reminds me the best spiritual experience I ever got!
5. Because people could use the knowledge about reality of psychic readings.

Nathan, THANKS SO MUCH AGAIN FOR BEING WILLING TO DO THIS!

It was a pleasure!

Courtney Mroch

Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.

Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.