When Hollywood movie star Elke Sommer and her reporter husband Joe Hyams moved into their new home in Beverly Hills in 1964, they almost immediately began to experience strange and eerie events. Inexplicable noises came from empty rooms at the now notorious house at 2320 Bowman Drive, Benedict Canyon, and visitors claimed to see apparitions, which couldn’t be explained away as prowlers.

But neither Elke (24) nor Joe (43) were credulous or believers in the paranormal. As Joe explained in a Saturday Evening Post article, he was a hard-boiled journalist of some fifteen years experience and she was a practical young woman who had once “killed a rattlesnake in our backyard with a pair of garden sheers.”

But the events that occurred in their house over the following two years would ultimately convince them in the existence of ghosts…

It all began when the German-born actress was being interviewed at home by German magazine writer Edith Darhlfeld. As Elke poured coffee for them both, Darhlfeld asked her why she hadn’t introduced her to the man.

“What man?” asked Elke. Joe was out at the time, so the writer couldn’t have been referring to him.

“The one who was standing in the hall and just went into the dinning room,” Darhlfeld replied.

“It must be Joe,” said Elke who went to see if he’d returned unexpectedly. He hadn’t.

Although Elke searched every room of the house and found no one, Darhlfeld insisted that she had seen a “husky” man in dark slacks, white shirt and black tie. He also had a “potato nose”, which ruled out Joe even if he had been home.

That evening, Joe and Elke puzzled over the incident, eventually dismissing it as “one of those inexplicable things you shrug off and forget.”

Prowler
Two weeks later Elke’s mother, who was staying with the couple at the time, claimed she had been woken up in the downstairs bedroom where she was sleeping by a man standing at the foot of the bed staring at her. Before she could scream, he disappeared.

Joe managed to convince her that in her drowsy state she might have confused a prowler at the window for a man in the room. When he examined the ground beneath the window, however, it was smooth and unmarked – despite rain the night before making it soft – which ruled out his theory.

Around this time, Joe himself started to hear strange sounds coming from the dining room. Almost every night he would wake up to what sounded like chairs being dragged across the floor, as if a group of diners had finished their meal and were getting up from the table.

Bugged
Later that year, Joe decided to take some direct action. Elke was on location in Eastern Europe, so he was alone in the house. Not only was he still hearing the nightly noises from the dining room, but he also found windows flung wide open which had bolted the night before.

In a bid to solve the mystery once and for all, he decided to bug the house. He bought three miniature transmitters from a firm specializing in electronic detection/surveillance devices, and set up three FM radios attached to tape decks to receive and record whatever the bugs picked up – if anything.

He placed one of the transmitters in the drive to detect the arrival of any intruder. Another was put near the front door of the house, while the third was placed in the dining room.

Lastly, he carefully arranged the chairs in the dining room, marking the location of their feet on the floor with chalk.

That night he waited upstairs in the bedroom. As if to order came the now all-too-familiar noises of chairs scraping on the dining room floor. Taking his .38 revolver from the bedside table, Joe quietly made his way down the stairs and along the hall to the dining room door, which he’d left open.

With the gun in one hand, he flicked on the lights with the other. As light flooded the room, the noise abruptly stopped. Joe then burst into the room, crouching low, aiming the gun in all directions. But there was no one in the room and no sign that anyone had been there. Even the feet of each chair stood undisturbed within the chalk outlines he’d drawn.

As Joe made his way back to the bedroom the chairs began their ghostly shuffling again.

Listening back to the tapes later, Joe found no unusual sounds from the two transmitters placed by the front door and in the driveway. The transmitter in the dining room, however, told a different story. The moving and scraping of the chairs could clearly be heard – up until the room went suddenly silent when he switched the lights on. Also on the tape was Joe’s nervous cough before he entered the room, along with the resumption of the chairs scraping after he left.

Secret intruder?
Over the next year various house guests reported seeing the heavyset man with the white shirt and black tie. Some were so terrified they fled the house. Still skeptical, Joe hired an architect to inspect every inch of the house. Termite inspectors were also brought in to crawl under and through every part of the building to rule out the possibility that an intruder was using a secret entrance into the property. All drew a blank. Furthermore, geologists and building contractors assured Joe that the house and ground it was built on were sturdy and were not moving (subsidence could have explained the scraping chairs).

Joe began to wonder if the whole thing was a matter of “overheated nerves reinforced by a few coincidences.”

Although he and Elke were reluctant to believe in ghosts, they did change the decor of the dining room after being told that ghosts prefer familiar surroundings. The sounds continued, however, and when the couple’s dogs were taken into the dining room they barked and became highly agitated.

Mediums
In the end, Joe put his skepticism to one side and asked the Los Angeles branch of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) for help. During the months that followed, a series of mediums were brought to the house by ASPR investigators.

The mediums were not given details about the nature of the haunting (nor were they told who owned the house), yet several were able to provide a reasonably accurate description of the ghostly presence that had been seen in the house. One described a heavyset man, “a European, who spent his past life giving of himself.”

Two others described a large man of about 58-years-old who had died of heart disease. One medium said that he was a doctor who had died before completing a task with the “man of the house” (Joe). A few years earlier Joe had been working on a book with a doctor of that age who had died of a heart attack.

Another medium described a large untidy man – a “monster” who was full of hate and “quite drunk”.

Yet another came up with something totally different – a young blond girl who had died of a lung problem and whose home had subsequently burned down. Curiously, this also had some basis in Joe and Elke’s lives. Elke did have a young friend who had died some time before and whose house had been destroyed by fire.

Exorcism
By this time, Elke was terrified. Joe had discovered that two previous owners of the house had sold it not long after buying it – in both cases because they believed it was haunted. As a last resort, Joe arranged for one of the mediums sent by the ASPR, Mrs Lotte Von Strahl, to come and perform an exorcism.

The ceremony was brief and businesslike. Von Strahl sat at the head of the table and promptly told those gathered that the “horrible, brutal monster” was standing next to her. She asked Elke to join her in a short silent prayer, then she spoke to the entity directly: “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave this house at once,” she said. “Leave these good people here alone and stop disturbing their house.”

After a few more words of a similar nature, followed by a brief silence, Von Strahl triumphantly declared, “He’s leaving.”

That night, Joe and his wife locked the doors and windows and went to bed. Joe was dozing off when Elke heard something. “Listen,” she said. It was the sound of chairs moving again in the dining room. Presumably, the “brutal monster” had decided not to leave…

Joe was forced to admit that he was “reluctantly convinced that we have at least one ghost in the house, but we don’t intend to move out.”

Fire
About a year later, they were forced to reconsider their decision to stay in the house. On the morning of 13 March, 1967, Joe and Elke were woken up by a loud banging on their bedroom door. Joe leaped up to investigate. As he opened the bedroom door – revolver in hand – he heard what sounded like laughter coming from downstairs. When he went to look, no one was there.

Then he noticed smoke billowing up the stairs from the ground floor. He ran frantically back to the bedroom, shouting “The place is on fire.” He and Elke escaped out of the bedroom window and slid down a roof which sloped almost to ground level.

The dining room was engulfed in a fierce blaze which investigators later put down to “mysterious origins”. Neither the fire not the loud knocking on the bedroom door that saved the couple’s lives was ever explained. But Joe and Elke decided that enough was enough and put the property up for sale. According to Hollywood gossip an actress friend of Elke’s bought it from them, and to this day the house has a reputation for being haunted.

Almost fittingly, on the evening of the fire, the couple had been watching The Haunting on ABC’s Sunday Night Movie…

Elke and Joe divorced in 1981 after nearly twenty years of marriage.

Further Information

Joe Hyams

Joe Hyams (1923-2008) was a prolific writer. As a long-time Hollywood reporter, he interviewed movie stars from Humprey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to Katharine Hepburn and Frank Sinatra. He was a long-time columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle and in 1991 published Flight of the Avenger, an acclaimed biography of George Bush Sr. Hyams was also accomplished at martial arts. His book Zen in the Martial Arts (1979) vividly recounted the guidance he received from such celebrated masters as Ed Parker and Bruce Lee.

Elke Sommer

Elke Sommer is a German-born actress best remembered for such films as The Prize (1963) with Paul Newman and A Shot in the Dark (1964) with Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau. Now 68, she still lives in Los Angeles, but spends more time painting than acting. She has major exhibitions of her work all over the world, and says: “I would rather be known as an artist that acts, than as an actress who paints.”

All you need to do is put your full concentration on the activity of the moment – and not let it wander. So long as what you are doing right now is actually what you’re doing right now (i.e. you’re not distracted), you will be at one with yourself.

This is the state that leads to frequent peak experiences, those moments when you feel indescribably inspired, vibrant and alive.

Traiteurs say they can pass on their power at the hour of their death – but only to a member of the opposite sex.

They’re very secretive and tend to become hostile when pressed for information, or if they’re asked too many questions. You can’t blame them. It’s good to keep some things to yourself. Too many people these days are blabbermouths.

Sadly, the tradition of the traiteur is dying out.

If you’re as much of a gambler as BB King used to be, you’ll know that when you hit the tables – be it poker, blackjack, roulette, or whatever – there’s a very definite frame of mind you go into when you’re on a winning streak. Many gamblers say it’s a feeling of looking down on yourself from above as you play – as if your higher-self is at the helm, directing things.

So how do you get into this “winning frame of mind” more often? With a little bit of hoodoo conjure mind trickery, that’s now! Next time you go gambling, try the following to gain the edge:

(1) Come up with a few suggestions (phrases) geared to induce a winning mindset more regularly. Create something along the following lines:

“I am going to enter a winning frame of mind more often when I play [Poker, Black Jack, Roulette, or whatever]. I am going to develop mental poise and the ability to concentrate and think more clearly whenever I gamble.”

Commit your suggestion to memory.

(2) At a fixed point each day, say after lunch, close your eyes and count to three. Now recite your suggestions in your mind over and over again for a few minutes.

(3) When you are finished, simply open your eyes and carry on with whatever you were doing.

Another method is to write your suggestions on a piece of paper. Then, last thing at night, read them out loud or inwardly ten times, placing the piece of paper under your pillow to sleep on it. Or simply repeat your suggestions over and over again until you fall asleep.

Try it. It’ll make you a fistful o’ dollars…

It is said that you need to believe in the power of a voodoo doll curse for it to work. Therefore, if you truly think it is all nonsense, you’d have nothing to worry about. Even if someone’s laid one hell of a hex on you with a voodoo doll, you’d be able to brush it off without a problem.

There’s a lot to be said for that argument – and evidence to back it up.

But then you come across a case that makes you wonder whether the effect of voodoo dolls isn’t all in the mind – that there might be some unseen and terrifying force at work, which can be harnessed.

Voodoo doll experiment
An acquaintance of mine, an occult bookseller and magical supplies retailer, for example, claims to have proven that you don’t need to be a believer for a voodoo doll curse to work.

When I spoke to him a while back he asked not to be named. So I’ll refer to him as “Mike”. He also wanted me to make clear that he and his small staff are all Christians (somewhat unusual for a company that supplies books on magic and witchcraft paraphernalia, but refreshing in its eccentricity).

Anyway, some years ago Mike was talking about voodoo dolls and curses with one of his staff – who I’ll call “Phil”. Phil dismissed it as “all rubbish”.

“We had some Voodoo dolls in stock,” Mike told me, “so I took one out and wrote Phil’s name on the label and tied it around the doll’s neck. I then turned my back on Phil and stuck a pin in the doll and put it away in a drawer. I turned back to Phil and said, `Right, let’s see what happens’.”

Excruciating pain
At that point, Phil went upstairs to make a pot of tea for everyone. When he came down he looked suspiciously at Mike and told him that, while upstairs, he’d had a sudden, excruciating pain in his left leg. He said it was so painful he couldn’t put his foot on the floor.

Mike went over to the drawer, pulled out the voodoo doll and showed it to Phil. The pin had been pushed through its left leg.

Phil was aghast – the curse had apparently worked. Voodoo curses were no longer down to a psychosomatic reaction, as he had previously believed.

Karmic consequences
Mike told me that there had been a “consequence” for his experimentation with cursing.

“I was ill for three days afterwards,” he said. “I was full of aches and pains. I think that was the comeback. You see, I believe there is a karmic balance. If you throw a stone in a pond you make a splash and that is the magic. But there’s a price to pay for disturbing the balance. You can’t control all the ripples – the repercussions – of the stone hitting the water. And that’s the danger and is the reason why, as Christians, we say don’t do magic because you’re interfering with the natural order.”

Psychosomatic reaction?
Presuming Phil’s leg pain was not coincidental (and it could well have been), then the curse would appear to have worked, despite a lack of belief on Phil’s part.

But, in reality, some degree of belief is likely to have been there. After all, Phil was involved in selling occult books and magical supplies. At some level, Phil probably couldn’t control the nagging doubt that “maybe there is some truth in voodoo?”

He may also have felt edgy about the whole thing and considered that they were “playing with fire”. This could easily have set off a psychosomatic reaction.

But who knows.

Graveyard work is a very secretive, but extremely powerful form of magic in hoodoo. It involves going to a cemetery to call on the spirits to help you in matters of the heart, money or luck and personal power.

Although it might sound dark and scary, it’s actually an old tradition that can be traced back through the hoodoo of the American South to ancestral worship in Africa.

The practice is still common today. Conjure workers tend to see it as the “TNT” of magic, and view it as the best way to get things done.

There are two key things to remember when doing graveyard work:

1. To leave an offering to the spirits, such as flowers or coins, when your job is done.
2. To avoid looking back when you exit the graveyard – otherwise the spirits might catch your gaze and follow you home.

Choosing a graveyard
The most important thing is to be respectful. Going to a busy modern cemetery is fine if you’re calling on your late grandmother to help you in matters of love. After all, she was your relative, so no one can complain.

But if you’re asking for assistance from a deceased stranger – say a business magnate for a money spell – then it’s wise to go to a disused graveyard, perhaps one dating back to the Victorian era.

Graveyard work is essentially a solitary form of magic. And so the less populated the cemetery the better. The secret is not to draw attention to yourself. If you recite an incantation, murmur it under your breath, or simply say it in your head.

If the cemetery is totally deserted, then of course you are free to burn candles, incense or anything else you feel would add to the working.

Timings
As with other forms of spellcasting, timing can be crucial to the success of a graveyard working. Midnight is traditionally one of the most powerful times to do graveyard work. Not just for hexing and cursing, and other black work, but for attracting wealth and money, and even love and romance.

That said, going to a graveyard at midnight isn’t crucial. There’s a good argument for doing a love spell before noon, for example. The day would be waxing, which would be symbolic of love growing.

And a spell to banish depression or anxiety would work well during the late afternoon as it would represent negative emotions slowly ebbing away.

Back in the 1980s when I lived for a while in Bristol, in the West of England, my friend Hal and I, had a disturbing experience as we walked back from a pub late one evening. We decided to take a short cut across Purdown, a large area of green space overlooking the city.

The route we chose passed the local psychiatric hospital, a large gothic looking building bordered by woods. As we walked through the cold and misty night, I remember feeling unusually nervous, like something bad was about to happen.

As we passed the hospital, Hal suddenly stopped and grabbed my arm. “There’s a woman over there,” he said quietly. I looked towards where Hal was pointing and saw the woman moving through the hospital gates towards us. She had very long black hair and was wearing a long white Victorian-style nightdress, that shimmered in the moonlight.

She started to beckon to us in a menacing way, a dreadful, macabre smile on her face. It was then I noticed something else. I turned to Hal and said, “She’s not walking, she’s floating…”

Although Hal was an ex-army man and no stranger to earthly dangers, the sight of this spectral woman proved too much. He started to run. “We’ve got to get out of here!” he shouted, pulling me along with him. Although I was curious, I decided not to stay behind and investigate. Something about the woman spelled danger.

Looking back I half-wish I hadn’t let my friend Hal drag me away from the menacing woman beckoning to us in the darkness outside the Bristol psychiatric hospital. But what if I’d gone with her? What would have happened? Would I have been transported into the very depths of Hell? I’ll never know. And for that I should probably be grateful.

When my hoodoo-zen mentor, the late Earl Marlowe (the Trinidadian singer featured in my Voodoo Spellbook), and I were sick of the frantic nature of playing gigs and hustling in the music business, we would jump on a London subway train and ride out to a large park on the outskirts of London – a quiet haven.

On one of the occasions we did this, he told me that being able to enter trance at will was essential to raising consciousness to higher levels. He believed you need to leave western rationalism behind and enter a world view that accepts the validity of alternate dimensions and the idea of a “multiverse” rather than a singular “universe”. According to Earl, the best way to do this is to enter trance.

“Trance is part of everyday life,” explained Earl. “People fall into it all the time. Look at people on the subway. Their eyes are glazed. They’ve gone into trance to avoid the embarrassment of looking at the people sitting opposite them. They’re in their own private fantasy world. And let me tell you, it’s as deep a trance as any hypnotist can put you into.”

But why do you need to go into trance to expand consciousness? I asked.

“Well, spiritual enlightenment is best described as an art, not a science,” he replied. “It’s not logical. So you need to gear down your conscious, everyday awareness – your ego-self – and let your unconscious mind come to the fore.”

Earl said that the unconscious aspect of ourselves knows no limitations. It believes in other worlds, other realities and a magical universe. Whereas everyday awareness has doubts. Trance brings you into contact with your unconscious. And, in turn, your unconscious can bring you direct experience of alternate dimensions.

“And that is when you really get things done,” said Earl, with a meaningful wink.

Earl always carried a doctor’s medical bag, stuffed full of herbs and powders and other paraphernalia associated with being a herbal doctor. Out of it he took a large uncut quartz crystal and held it in front of my eyes. It twinkled in the late summer sunlight.

“Look into the crystal,” whispered Earl. “See it glisten, see the clouds reflected in it, and see your own eyes reflected in it…”

He then instructed me to keep my gaze fixed on the crystal, but to focus my attention on the sounds around me. I could hear the bird song, the gentle hum of the millions of insects which surrounded us, and I heard the occasional dog bark in the distance.

He then told me to focus my attention on my body – on what I could feel. My kinesthetic experience. I felt the warmth of my hands as they rested on my thighs and I could feel gentle breeze on my cheek. I also had a peculiar feeling of anticipation that seemed to course up and down my spine.

As I bathed in the sensations of my senses I began to feel more and more drowsy. And soon I was totally entranced. The only thing I was aware of was that the world around me had taken on a golden glow. All the trees and shrubs seemed more alive, more animated, and were emitting a majestic light. The clouds above shone golden and all around me were tiny specs of light that danced like fireflies. Nature was alive…

“Good evenin’, my name’s Peetie Wheatstraw, the Devil’s son-in-law…” That’s how the legendary 1930s bluesman described himself to everyone he met. Yeah, he could be a jive talker, but he was also a poet. He had a way with words.

Born “William Bunch” in 1902 in Ripley Tennessee, Peetie Wheatstraw is thought to have grown up Arkansas, moving to St Louis, Missouri in the late 1920s where he started his musical career. The only photograph of Peetie shows him playing a National Resonator guitar. But although an accomplished guitar player, he mostly played piano.

Peetie began recording in 1930 and soon became very popular – despite the Great Depression which saw the numbers of blues recordings plummet and put paid to many a budding career. In all, Peetie recorded 161 songs, making him one of the most recorded blues artists of the time.

By the time he’d moved to St Louis he’d lost his birth name William Bunch for good. Peetie Wheatstraw was his new name. Like many blues players the change of name was a transformative, almost magical act, which bolstered them psychologically, bringing greater confidence and charisma.

It didn’t end there. Like fellow bluesman Robert Johnson, Peetie aligned himself with dark forces. On all but two of his recordings he dubbed himself either: “Peetie Wheatstraw, the Devil’s son-in-law”; or “Peetie Wheatstraw, the High Sheriff from Hell”.

Peetie tended to mix humor and menace both in his songs and in his personality. To some degree this may have been a publicity move, but he also had an interest in the supernatural, which came out in many of his lyrics. Blues singer Henry Townsend recalled Peetie’s real life personality as being similar to his public image and to the lyrics he sang. “He was that kind of person,” Townsend said. “You know, a jive type person.”

In recent times, blues critic Tony Russell took it a step further, saying, “Wheatstraw constructed a macho persona that made him the spiritual ancestor of rap artists.”

As a lyricist, Peetie often dealt with the social issues of the time – the repeal of prohibition, the New Deal, unemployment and urban renewal.

He died on his 39th birthday in a car accident in 1941 – the Buick he and some friends were riding in hit a station freight train, killing all of them.