Ghost Hunt - August 2018

Last night 19 of us met in Japantown to meet the San Francisco Ghost Hunt's curator, Christian Cagigal. The promise of the night was that we'd get an opportunity to hear some of the more interesting ghost stories of San Francisco, and perhaps (if we were lucky) experience a ghost in the process. When the call to the guild went out, we had a bold crew assembled and with that we were locked in.

I met with everyone initially to make sure we were prepared for the coming events of the night. We conducted our primary ritual of crossing the line in the sand, making sure we were ready for the rigors ahead of us, then followed it up by hearing the story of the Lady of Stow Lake. With our mindset primed, we headed off to meet our guide for the night.

Sharply dressed, Christian greeted every last one of us personally. Many of us were especially taken aback by the striking hat he wore as it felt like it fit in with our loosely encouraged jaunty hat dress code (perhaps this was just me).

Our night began at the plaque for Mary Ellen Pleasant, an extraordinary woman who lived an influential life. As we heard about her life, the struggles she endured and the changes she made, it became clear that this was perhaps the most incredible woman that most people in California had never heard of. I know as Explorers we were engaged and taken aback, slack jawed in amazement.

Christian walked us around the neighborhood and pointed out landmarks and the stories that accompanied them. We were presented everything from haunted houses, whose past inhabitants were still sending messages, to apparitions who would appear from time to time to those in the neighborhood. Skepticism was high, but little of that seemed to matter. Our imaginations were running on overdrive and each of us would occasionally gasp or go silent in wonder as we were told the details of the experiences.

As the night began to close and the stories grew in intensity and detail, we were given two last stories. One was of Gertrude Atherton, whose husband died at sea and came back in a most unusual way, but her story also focused on her legacy as she became a prolific writer and activist. The other was of the Hotel Majestic and the haunted room 407. Inside, we were given accounts of strange activities and stories of a mysterious specter, Lisa. We also heard about the hotel's storied history and how it was San Francisco's longest continually running hotel.

Without a direct question presented there was one that that hung in the air as if it was an extra member of the troupe: What stays longer, our stories of extraordinary hauntings or the stories of the actual differences we made in the world? Mostly it is our ghost stories after all who isn't drawn into the extraordinary and scandalous. Perhaps though we should all reconsider. On this night we heard several stories whose legacy of ghosts overshadowed their changes in the world.

Even in my initial talks with Christian he noted that people come to ghost stories for the promise of life, not death. Though we all came in searching for ghost stories, we all left with a better understanding of the lives who helped shape our world. That, in the end, felt more worthwhile.