Ghost-hunting in abandoned asylums is super messed up

Don't do it. Just don't.

St. Alban's Sanatorium, Radford, Virginia.
(Image credit: CC BY: Dan Grogan, via Flickr)

Where I live, there are two psych hospitals named St Albans. One is an active hospital; the other is abandoned and serves mostly as a site of paranormal research. It's been called "the most active site on the East Coast." I used to imagine joining one of the paranormal research groups there. I'd borrow equipment so I could pick up EVP from psych patients past. I'd check how much the temperature dropped in certain rooms. I'd stare into mist and fog and think I saw faces staring back at me.

Now I'll never go. I'll never play voyeur to the ghosts and the energy of the abandoned St. Albans. And that's because of the still-open St. Albans.

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Erin Lyndal Martin

Erin Lyndal Martin is a music journalist, poet, and visual artist. Her music journalism has appeared in Salon, No Depression, bandcamp, The Rumpus, PopMatters, Drowned in Sound, She Shreds, and elsewhere.