WARNING: Spoiler alert for
LOST series finale beyond this point. Read at own risk!
"Previously...on LOST."If you were like me, you may have been following last night's series finale on the critically acclaimed (and criticized) show
LOST. A show that has lost signifcant viewership with every passing season pretty much because it leaves it's fans with the same feeling as the title. For me it marked a conclusion to a six year fantatical following of the adventures of the island-bound survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, the "Others" and the Dharma Initiative. It was bittersweet and of course still left me scratching my head about somethings...
Pretty much, I was both impressed and disappointed. For five seasons the show maintained the allure of a mysterious island filled with all sorts of unexplained, supernatural curiosities (70's style underground bunkers with mysterious buttons, unexplained health cures, black smoke monsters and of course...polar bears). Season 6 did explain a lot of things, we understood that
LOST was willing to accept the existence of ghosts (Charlie and Michael coming back to lead Hurley like they were something out of
Sixth Sense), time travel and alternate realities were also possible, but we also delved into a side that until recently, was simply the beliefs held by the all believing John Locke...faith.
LOST took an unexpected turn into mythos and the aethereal. It felt like Jacob and his evil twin brothers were something from a biblical story and we were expected to accept the existence of this "light" (the macguffin that Jacob was charged to protect) that came through the ground at the heart of the island. It wasn't the fact we COULDN'T believe it could happen on
LOST it was the bizarre feeling of thinking: "Why has the island gone from being something paranormal in nature, to biblical?"
But perhaps the most shocking of the events that happened in the finale was that in the end,when all was said and done and the alternate reality (flash sideways) was nothing more then a sort of purgatory for the dead characters (which the
LOST creators swore it wasn't) and all our heroes moved on to a new existence together (heaven?), we realize that the island we've come to think was so important, the island that we spent six years believing mattered...didn't. It was nothing more then a place after all, not a character unto itself and everything that happened there was just a mechanism for the characters to rediscover themselves.
But for it's many oddities, I was touched by how "The End" ended. In a lot of ways
LOST touched on subjects that were close to me: the paranormal; the answer to life, death and the beyond; and the battle between science and faith and all the in betweens. Anyone studying the paranormal should consider this show a sort of theory as to what we percieve as existence and what that means to us as a people.
We are social creatures, and whether we choose to accept it or not, we are altered and changed by the events and people around us. LOST was an example of human life, changing the lives of those characters involved, all of which who were lost...and are now ultimately found.
It appears that 108 Ocean Avenue in Amityville is up for sale. You know it better as the Amityville Horror House, the iconic windows of which have recently been altered to sway tourists and fans of the film to stay away.
But, it's not the only house up for sale that fits in the category of "exorcised estate". The Hampto-Lillbridge home here in Savannah, Georgia is also up for sale. This house isn't as famous as the Amityville home, but the owner responsible for the restoration back in the 60's, Jim Williams, is best known in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, played in the film by Kevin Spacey. Williams restored the house a block from it's original location, right onto a plot of land that had a burial of over 10 bodies. The house supposedly has poltergeist like hauntings, and Williams himself had it exorciseds before he moved to his more famous estate, Mercer-Williams on Monterey Square. If you walk by the home, you'll notice that there are glass shards along the outside wall...supposedly Williams had a friend in the VooDoo community who might have been responsible for that. Glass shards placed along the outside of a wall are supposed to ward of evil spirits.
Got a chance to speak with Jim Harold of Paranormal Podcast! Jim was the first ever radio host I interviewed with a year or so ago in the paranormal field about Flagler's Few. Check out our chat about my book, fiction in the paranormal/supernatural field and my thoughts on the direction of paranormal television.