We’d like to show the side of the world you don’t normally see on television.

Queen Of Heaven Update

I have always considered Queen Of Heaven one of my personal favorite sites out of the circuit of famous haunted locations that remain supernaturally active within my immediate proximity ...and while repeat visits to these sites may seem redundant or at times even moribund to some,
I feel that making one visit to a location for a couple of hours is less likely to yield any data or enable even the most astute of “paranormal investigators” to make any sort of an assessment as to the voracity of a clients claim of “activity” and to suggest such is simply absurd at best,
thus making the multi trip methodology that I embrace one of prudence and obviously one of preference ...

There is a confluence of energies here that fluctuates between negative, positive and nondescript ...the south end of the property that still attracts a fairly steady stream of the devout faithful making their pilgrimage to the famous apparition site that was formally investigated by the Chicago Archdiocese in the early 90's and deemed inconclusive yet has engendered enough interest to necessitate a separate parking lot and circular platform for those that continue to flock to the location to pray in silent vigilance hoping to catch a glimpse the miraculous manifestation similar to that alleged by Joseph Reinholtz in 1990 ...his quest to remedy his ailing vision lead him to war ravaged Bosnia in the late 80's to visit one of the 6 children alleged to have experienced a Marian vision ...a vision that subsequently attracted over 11 million globally, much the way the purported repeat visits to three children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917 precipitated the continuing pilgrimages there by those seeking spiritual alternatives to medical convention as a cure to the incurable or terminate illness deemed terminal...Mr Reinholz’s eye sight returned when he returned to the states after being prayed over in Bosnia by one of the Medjugorje, 6 ( Vicka )...this miraculous and inexplicable return of his sight prompted him to return to Bosnia and “Vicka” a second time in ‘89 where she instructed him to pray and hold vigils at a location near his home in The States where there is a solitary large crucifix next to a three branched tree.

His search for the location prognosticated by the youth on the other side of the globe lead him to Queen Of Heaven 1990 where he experience repeated Virgin Mary and Angelic visions that increased in frequency to a being a daily occurrence before the Archdiocese invoked a sanctimonious seeming “restriction of obedience” order prohibiting Reinholz from returning to the site and launching an official investigation into the validity of the sightings reported ( deemed inconclusive) but as the multitude of those motivated by faith and curiosity alike flocked to the site, the reports of these visions have not relented and the allegations range from the appearance of the effulgent lady to the inexplicable remission of progressive, later stage cancer...the photos continue to surface on the net, some interesting if not compelling, others not so much, in fact one of my fledgling journey there yielded a photo of an image containing an “item” (spotted by an ardent believer) that bore a remarkable likeness to a cherubic angel complete with wings and hands fixed in prayer-like repose (so not metal, but I was intrigued none the less)...a common thread at all of the apparition sites of this propensity are the intermittent, recurrent appearances, anomalous photos, the unmistakable aromatic presence of roses when there are none to be found anywhere nearby ... many claim to experience a sense of renewed spiritual vigor following a site visit and this rejuvenated dedication to their faith would
in some instances manifest itself days, weeks or even months later in the form of Rosary beads changing colors commonly interpreted as encouragement to remain pious ...

The psychology of mass hypnosis/hysteria is one of complexity and of course controversy when the precepts of religious ideology is involved, yet one wonders what the precise mechanics,
environmental factors or atmospheric conditions are conducive to lull thousands into believing the have experienced a common sighting or collective vision ...While locations such as Queen of Heaven, Bosnia, Fatima, Guadalupe and the more famous of these apparition sites are often cited as suspect by skeptics because the visionaries are often small groups of children, the ill stricken, the indigent or those relegated to the lower economic strata of third world origin, the cases of mass sightings such as the one in Cairo Egypt where biblical histrionics contend that Mary, Joseph and Jesus fled the infanticidal tyrant Herod and in 1968 Marian apparitions were viewed by thousands gathered at the site and over a million watched one of these broadcasted on Egyptian television...while the accusations of hoax perpetration abounded following the broadcast, there were scouts dispatched to search the 15 mile radius of the site in an earnest attempt to detect or spot a device capable of projecting this image that would shimmer and coalesce into recognition, but none were located although the integrity of the “scouts” were later scrutinized by a coalition of skeptics claiming it to all be an elaborate ruse intended to infuse tourism into the depressed (at the time) local economy...

The cemetery has a variety of both famous and infamous alike interred and represented in memoriam, including the innocent young souls victimized by the fire that ravaged the West Side: “Our Lady Of The Angels” school on a cold December morning in 1958, claiming the lives of 92 children and 3 Nuns most of which perished by way of smoke inhalation while some fell to their death jumping from upper floor classroom windows to escape the raging inferno that quickly engulfed the antiquated building...a building that was slated to be retrofitted with proper fire escapes, sprinklers and alarms assorted budget constraints and uncertainly concerning the school’s future ...many municipal regulatory changes were made pertaining to fire code adherence and enforcement following this tragedy ...a tragedy that was later determined to be resultant of a boy playing with matches whom was a student of the school and later admitted to
setting fire to the school in 1962 under interrogation ...

There are a couple of pro football players from the early days of organized leagues and the NFL , here...there are senators, luminaries from literary circles, decorated war heroes , Bishops, Cardinals, Priests, Nuns and even a Monk or two ...There are of course nefarious characters such as the Spilotro Brothers, the older of which Anthony (a.k.a. Tony The Ant) was the model for Joe Pesci's character, “Nicky Santoro” in “Casino”...And yes, both him and his younger brother met with a rather unpleasant and ignominious demise at the hand’s of fellow gangsters that left them in a shallow Indiana corn field grave ...There are numerous other mobsters from the annals of Chicago’s illustrious organized crime history too numerous to mention, plus I would prefer to restrict that aspect of local lore to Mt Carmel across the street where Al Capone rests along with his North Side arch rivals ...

The mausoleum was my initial interest there, being situated so close to the road have always been aware of it even when glancing the other direction or engrossed in a cell phone conversation the sensations I experienced would always be enough to prompt me to stop in mid sentence and glance toward the ominous structure that has always insinuated harboring concealed secrets from within ...that is when the call didn’t drop ...
I remember the first trip there ( especially the late August aroma ) and the feeling of almost static shock and rush of anxiety I felt in a staircase when I made the turn at the mid flight platform between floors and touched the brass knob attached to a small wooden door and turning to shoot the camera in mid back-step upwards that yielded one of my first really “interesting” photos from the site, as I was evidently being pursued up the stairs ....

There are varying energies suffused into this building and the many religious icons represented in paintings, etchings and assorted saints in repose that invoke reactions in even those that consider themselves the most impervious to this aspect of symbolic theosophical provocation...often this much of a visceral representation of our inevitable mortality when aesthetically confronted with the endless rows of rectangular crypt embedded in the walls can prove efficacious when viewed by even the most that comport themselves as un effected by such....

the Madonna statue in the basement holding the Christ child has evoked a multitude of differing reactions from a plethora of many adept mediums, clergy and shaman alike...regardless of how diverse the beliefs, cultural backgrounds and ideological perspectives, most seem agree that it is imbued with a vibrant, radiant force or cursed with an unsavory attachment or two ...I have in more than one instance been informed by seemingly culpable sources and unsubstantiated rumors that the early morning hours there, have in the past played host to surreptitious acts of ritualistic desecration...rumors range from live animal sacrifice by occultists attempting to extract the life force released in the death throes and writhing agony of the sacrificial animals to blood basted orgies the likes of which sound more like the sub plot to Roman Pulanski film than reality ...this mammoth, death cult edifice of a building has been the source of much yarn spinning as long as I can remember, in fact the first time I have ever heard of the concept of an EVP came from an older sibling relating the story of older kids hiding cassette recorder inside and hearing moaning voices on the tapes when they retrieved them the following day ...

There has been much speculation, theories, conjecture and even channeled messages tossed around in the assorted forums I have lurked in the past years whenever this site in particular resurfaces ...The Gnostic architecture of the mausoleum and other satellite buildings situated at almost polar vectors of the periphery the property is believed by some to hint at pre Christian, Paganistic influences that those of the more traditional faith orthodoxy have lamented as contributory to the harmonic variable and energies intrinsic to the site while the more metaphysically oriented have speculated that the geometric design of the buildings, the triangulation of ley line vectors, geomagnetic polarity and other assorted unseen forces may contribute to the activity here when this site is the focus of discussion...I personally find myself spending more time trying to differentiate the metaphysical from the metaphoric when these discussions transpire, but I digress ... I personally have postulated the theory that the intersecting networks of Chicago land/Illinois expressways that all converge and bottleneck adjacent to the cemetery in what locals has dubbed
“The Hillside Strangler” (being located in Hillside Ill.) And the endless infusion of negativity that constantly flows from this notorious traffic gridlock continues to reanimate the lower vibrational forces that like to dwell and feed on psychical duress emanating from the suffering survivors of the recently interred ...I have seen many question why a cemetery would be “haunted” ...much of it can be directly attributed to the unintentional channeling you see as in the case of those that make daily or weekly trips to the cemetery in the wake of a recent loss that tend to languish grave side
carrying on a conversation with an unseen participant ....stages of grief effect people in different ways but the emotional state of those in a cemetery is seldom one of unadulterated joy and exultation...if this presiding psychical state resonating from funer repeat visitors that attracts those recently departed ones, personal “guides”, angels or the less savory opportunists of the etheric realm or lower vibrational plains is a matter of personal belief but I am personally of the opinion that there are components of all of these as described above using the closest words I can conjure to definitively describe what I feel may be at work in some of these larger, ecclesiastically themed sites, and the added complication of the almost incessant communal group meditation/genuflection at the apparition site has certainly suffused an energy into the mixture that as at least diversified the almost rainbow tinted aura that encapsulates the site with a luminosity that is visible to some up to a mile away...

The late morning/mid-day visit this time around started as tradition now dictates with the apparition site...this heathen still clings to the notion of good luck charms and the implied protection of dogmatic observances by way of reverence to religious patronage...the section at the southeast corner bordered by the freshly tilled dirt of an undeveloped portion of the property was relatively inactive for a pre spring, unseasonably mild day, save for a couple of somber looking elderly visitors that were departing upon my arrival leaving me and an unoccupied yellow lawn chair positioned facing the crucifix alone to photograph the area uninhibited ...The Madonna statue that has been present at the edge of the asphalt circle has now been elevated to full blown shrine status by way of a new wooden enclosure protecting from the elements the diminutive effigy and a plethora of floral adornments, rosary beads, religious metals and other trinkets offered as symbolic tithing...

I neglected to pinpoint the precise location of the Our Lady Of Peace memorial and had only a vague reference of it by way of the section number to guide me, but being the intrepid traveler that I am, and much the way I located the grave of Mary Alice Quinn (The Miracle Child ) at Holy Sepultre when I got out of the car and wondered blindly into the middle of a huge section of stone markers and found my self standing in front of it; I folded up the targeting array and “used the force” thus driving right to it...I no longer consider this coincidence or simple chance fortunate happenstance his sort of thing occurs as it has happened way too many times for it to be such...

The older section to the north remains stoic in it’s antiquity, yet there is evidence of almost iconoclastic vandalism most prevalent in the Madonna statues with broken off thumbs, fingers or
other extremities...the decapitated statues are usually effigies of Saints while the Arch Angels seem to have their hands removed ...there appears to be symbolic dismemberments meant to insinuate impeded dexterity and disfigurements intended to butcher that revered as most beautiful and putrefy the pulchritudinous ....

The Mausoleum is surreal in it’s abstract opulence albeit the fact that there is almost always a brooding presence perceivable that is immediately imposing and intrinsically deleterious to those sensitive to it ... beyond the defiant, lethargic wooden doors of the main chapel entrance is a foyer with a portrait of a vehement looking late Cardinal whom is almost sneering with disapproval at Mr Halfhand’s impudent irreverence (gulp) ...the chapel has an other wordily purple hue and the wooden crypts flanking the pews are beset by carved wooden figures of Saints either beseeching or exulting God or exhibiting a expression that was intended to be one of contemplative composure yet almost all of them imparted an almost dour grimace in the uneven lighting of the chapel and reflective varnish veneer sheen ...the smell is always the same and is relived with even a cursory glance at any one photo of the interior...it is a stale, rank odor that words cannot be conveyed
adequately by words but it ineluctably etched into my memory and I one I start to experience as soon as the building comes into site in my windshield or Photobucket album index ....

There is only one floor above the chapel that leads to a small concave of crypts and platform overlooking the chapel from the dual pane, tinted opaqued windows ...as I made my way up that solitary staircase leading to this room that beckoned me from below, I was immediately disconcerted by the dank darkness beyond the opened stairwell landing above ...much to my chagrin; the motion sensor lighting failed to activate upon my entry into the room ...the sinewy wooden statue of Mary that is contorted in abstraction is one that I have always found vexing even in the full illuminated lighting of past visits, but now appeared as nothing more than a dark, hooded figure backlit by that chapel balcony windows ...whatever dwells in that observation promontory seems to linger near the statue in a sort of abject mockery...it also seemed to take particular delight in chipping away at my inured composure while I stood there in the darkness ....

Here are the unedited (compressed) photos from my mid March 2010 return to Queen Of Heaven (311 total)....b
http://s745.photobucket.com/albums/xx91/MrHalfhandRulz/Queen%20Of%2...