Each night before I went to sleep, I would say my prayers, and when I was done, I would often see and sometimes feel an angelic being or a spirit around me. I was raised Catholic and thought it perfectly normal that I would see my guardian angel at night before I went to sleep. I assumed everyone saw spirits and ghosts, and I talked with my angel each night before going to sleep.
Photo of Kala Ambrose with her mother in front of the window where the young ghost boy would appear (Photo by Kala Ambrose)
The first ghost I remember seeing lived right outside my childhood home in Louisiana. In our dining room was a window that looked out to the front yard. My mother had planted orange daylilies out there, and I loved to look at them while sitting at the table in the dining room. One day while I was eating my lunch, I noticed a young boy standing there at the window, looking at me. I smiled and waved at him, and he waved back to me. A moment later he was gone. The next time he appeared, I noticed something was wrong with part of his head. I called out to my mother to tell her that he was hurt. When she looked through the window, she said no one was there, yet I could still see him standing there. I remember seeing this boy around our home for as long as we lived there. He was very shy and would not speak much. He liked my younger brother and would often appear around him as my brother played outside or in his room. I would always either see him around my brother or standing outside the dining room window in the orange daylilies.
From that point, my experiences continued to grow, from prophetic dreams at night to waking up and realizing that my grandfather was passing away. I experienced his death empathically before anyone else knew it had happened. By the time I was seven, I remember seeing auras, sensing positive and negative energy around people and places, and seeing ghosts and spirits around people, places, and things. I had the good fortune to be raised by parents and grandparents who encouraged my spiritual exploration and education. I was allowed to attend and study almost all forms of religions and their places of worship, and I explored them in depth, beginning in my teen years. My parents also supported my unique abilities. At the age of 13, I began to study the tarot and astrology and was creating astrological charts the old-fashioned way (before computers), along with reading tarot for friends. I also began to study the symbols in dreams and dream interpretation, as I have consistently had at least three dreams a night that I can remember. I’ve classified them into three categories: teaching and prophetic dreams, which I refer to as “going to night school;” subconscious dreams, which allow us to work through situations here on the earth plane; and dreams with others, where we encounter beings from the spirit world. In my adult years, I began to study many forms of spirituality, including Eastern mysticism, esoteric teachings, earth wisdom, and many others. My connection and interest in the metaphysical, supernatural, and paranormal has only grown over the years, never diminishing.
Along my journey, I came to this understanding: “Spirit does not exist in just one location; rather, it is all encompassing, living within and among us in each moment, thought, and action. I believe that Spirit is raised to its highest level when individuals gather with wisdom, compassion, and a discerning desire to provide service to humanity.”
This understanding led me to study and later become a teacher of the ancient wisdom teachings and the hidden mysteries. It also guided me to create the Explore Your Spirit with Kala show, where I speak with authors, teachers, researchers, and other experts on metaphysical and paranormal topics.
I’ve lived in North Carolina for the past 15 years and have met up with many ghosts who wander this great state. Over the years I’ve worked to help people here who have experienced problems of a supernatural nature, which led to my founding of The Rowan Society in 2004. The Rowan Society (TRS) is a private organization founded to research and explore paranormal phenomena in many of its forms, including hauntings, psychic development, and ancient mysteries. We respond to reports of paranormal activity and are dedicated to scientific and compassionate research in these areas. In our endeavors, we present what we believe to be documentation of paranormal activity. This includes, but is not limited to, ghost activity, folklore, exploration of ancient sites and cultures, and other paranormal research.
What we’ve discovered over the years with our research is that with all of the highly technical equipment available, the best receiver to detect ghosts is still someone with the psychic ability to see or sense the presence of a noncorporal entity. Since my childhood, I’ve seen ghosts and restless spirits. As an adult, I’ve had many experiences with the supernatural and paranormal realms. I’ve interacted with powerful beings of light, faced encounters with beings from the dark side, and seen ghosts from every walk of life. In my work, I share my experience and training in workshops around the country. I teach others how to become more intuitive, how to connect with the other side, how to sense negative energy in a home or building, and, more importantly, how to discern whether the energy can be removed and cleansed or whether it is best left alone.
Over the past decade, I have seen a rise in paranormal activity, which corresponds to the lifting of the veil between the earth plane and the spiritual realms at this time. I believe that a conscious evolution is occurring at the mind, body, and spirit level, and as this evolution continues, many people will connect with their intuitive abilities and be able to communicate with the spirit world, including with ghosts that have remained on the earth plane.
I write about some of these experiences in Kala’s Bohemian Blog, and it is now my pleasure to share with you these stories from the ghosts of North Carolina. Each haunted site here has a profound and deeply moving story to tell.
So gather your family and friends, and join me as I share what I see and what I experience as I go ghosthunting across the state of North Carolina. The journey begins in the coastal wetlands of East Carolina, where I explore haunted lighthouses, battleships, and the shipwrecked beaches where Blackbeard and his pirates still roam. Next I journey across the Piedmont area of North Carolina, where I spend the night in the most actively haunted capitol in the United States and interact with the ghost of a former North Carolina State Governor. My research continues west into the Blue Ridge Mountains, where the ghost known as the Pink Lady and her friends await your presence at the historic Grove Park Inn, where many presidents, celebrities, and ghosts have stayed over the decades.
I visited more than 100 reportedly haunted sites located in North Carolina and culled this list down to the 25 chapters here in this book. My reason for choosing this particular 25 had to do first and foremost with finding historical research that confirmed some of the details of the legend of a reportedly haunted site. The second most important criteria in my selection process included being able to confirm reports of ghost activity around the site from a variety of people over a generous span of time. After each site made the cut on these two selections, the final decision then came down to my personal experiences at each of these locations, including what I psychically experienced firsthand at each location relative to paranormal activity. My intent in this book is to provide you with all three of the above-listed criteria in order to assist you in your paranormal research and investigations.
As a psychic and paranormal researcher, I have often been asked what it’s like to see or sense a ghost. The best way I can describe the experience is that most of the ghostly activity I immediately feel when entering a new space or building is the time loop/energy imprint type of haunting activity. That’s the easiest to detect because it’s like seeing a projector playing a movie in the home. To imagine what it looks like to me, picture walking into a home that you have never been in before. You don’t know your way around