OCCULT BOOKS & TAROT SINCE 1997
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Selected news items from our haunted past
There's ghosts in them thar' shelves
Grapevine, State Library of Victoria newsletter, 25 February, 1999, pp 2
By Jim Badger, State Library Services
Melbourne's Haunted Bookshop proprietor Drew Sinton is an expert on CBD ghostliness.
They are keen to include the State Library on the itinerary, which covers around 50 of Melbourne's known ghostly inhabitants.
Since the State Library dates back to 1854, you would expect that it should have attracted its share of ectoplasmic regulars.
In fact, according to Drew there are at least three ghosts in residence.
In the Arts library Angela has sensed the presence of a benevolent elderly lady called Grace, a former librarian who loves to keep an eye on the children's books.
A rather more confronting spirit holds court in the southern end of the closed Arts stack.
A correctly-attired moustachioed gentleman is fiercely protective of the music stack and the music room and piano.
It has not been unknown to find music books spread on the floor in the mornings after one of his visitations.
In the S200 area a clairvoyant sensed the malevolent earthbound spirit of a man who delights in frightening people.
Other less defined presences apparently lurk in the stack areas, switching off lights and playing pranks.
Speculating on the causes of supernatural infestations, Drew advance the theory that, far from being repositories of supernatural knowledge, ghosts are just as confused as living people.
They stay in their old haunts because it has not been suggested to them politely that it is time to leave, or because they feel they need to keep an eye on things, or even because they believe that their living successors are doing things properly.
Sometimes, according to Drew, the ghosts seem to think that it is they who are being haunted by the living.
It sounds as if we have a fascinating community of ghosts with a variety of motives for sharing the building with us.
Keep an eye out for the Haunted Bookshop's tour of the State Library if you would like to find out more about our unseen colleagues and clients.
He and his assistant clairvoyant run a hugely successful series of tours of Melbourne's haunted haunts, which include both the likely places such as the Old Melbourne Gaol (heaps of ghosts) and the unlikely, such as the site of the Grollo tower (John Batman - wondering, perhaps, what's happened to his village?) and the National Gallery (one musical ghost).
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