Robbi Courtaway
Of the Suburban Journals
Kirkwood-Webster Journal
Wednesday, Nov. 30 2005

A gentle soul with long, white hair and a matching cat named Angel,
Carmelita
Brubaker likes to call herself a "Christian Buddhist."
"Christian" represents her religious belief, while "Buddhist" represents
a way
of life she admires.
"I don't push anything down anybody's throat; I go my merry little way,"
said
Carmelita, 72, who has lived in a quiet Kirkwood subdivision for more
than 40
years. "I respect others' beliefs."
Some see her differently. She has been called a witch, an evil person, a
devil-worshiper.

"You don't believe in God," one woman insisted after she completed a
tour led
by Carmelita at the Payne-Gentry House in Bridgeton, a home reputed to
be
haunted by upward of 20 ghosts and a spirit dog.
Carmelita says her psychic abilities bother her critics. The daughter of
a
southern Illinois coal miner and his wife, she said she has always
sensed
otherworldly presences.

"There are people with narrow minds who are going to say I'm the work of
the
devil," she said. "I can't let that disturb me. I always know when I'm
in a
haunted house, and I know what to do. If you use the word 'intuition,'
it's
fine. It's the same thing."

She said she has never dabbled in witchcraft or voodoo, although she did
buy a
book on witchcraft to keep on the coffee table as a joke. This is, after
all,
the woman who keeps a "Mental Ward" sign in her plant-lined breakfast
room.

In the last 44 years, Carmelita said, she has visited more than 700
homes and
other locales said to be haunted, either to identify spirits or to
convince
them to move on to the next world.
"Everybody is born psychic," she insists. "Most people have had at least
one
psychic experience in their life."

For most, the ability has gone dormant for various reasons, she said.
When
children report meeting "invisible" friends, often their parents credit
the
experience to imagination or fibbing.
"My mother was psychic," she said. "She understood. It wasn't stifled.
It's so
natural, it's like eating or sleeping, but it does have drawbacks. I've
sensed
things with my family that have not been happy."

Carmelita said she has met up with many ghosts who don't realize they
have
died, and many living residents who are at wits' end trying to deal with
them.
Some stay with a property, she added.
"I've been in brand-new homes where there shouldn't be anything," she
said.
"People will actually sell their homes (due to hauntings). They don't
realize
there's people like me."

Depending on the age or belligerence of a spirit, convincing them to
depart
"for the light" can take anywhere from 45 minutes to 12 hours, she said.
She
said she never charges for her services.
In one case, Carmelita's mother's home in St. Louis was haunted by a
little
girl. The girl was scared to leave, and Carmelita's mother cried in
sympathy as
she felt the girl hugging her hips. Finally, the girl departed, and
Carmelita's
mother went to the bathroom. When she came back, she was crying again.

Carmelita asked why. Her mother pulled her pants from her hips,
revealing tiny
red finger marks on her skin.
That evening, while meditating, Carmelita said she received a visit from
the
little girl.
"My mother couldn't come, but she told me to tell you, 'Thank you,'" the
little
girl told her.

Most hauntings are not inspired by revenge, but there are exceptions,
Carmelita
said. Two soldiers in Vietnam detested each other, and one shot and
killed the
other before he was discharged and returned to St. Louis.
"I don't know how he got by with it, but he did," she said.

Back at home, the man was haunted by this soldier, who had played the
harmonica
in life. Harmonica music could be heard, the radio would turn on and
off,
faucets would come on for no reason and the man's pregnant wife -- who
had no
problems with bleeding -- found blood spots around the house.

"He had told us he had known a guy in the service that played the
harmonica and
was killed," Carmelita said. "This guy actually was getting to the point
where
he couldn't handle (the secret); we never felt comfortable with him."
One day, Carmelita received a call from the wife, who said her husband
had just
turned himself in to military police for the murder.

"It was totally dumbfounding," she said.
Antiques and other objects can carry impressions with them from the
people who
have owned them, said Carmelita, an antiques dealer. One time, she was
asked to
perform an exorcism on an unlikely source -- a telephone.

"We unplugged it, and it rang when it wasn't plugged in," she recalled.
The phone would ring in the wee hours of the morning, the same time the
resident had been notified that her son had died.
"We felt it was the son who was possibly trying to say goodbye,"
Carmelita said.
Carmelita said she realizes many people will not believe her stories.

"If you have had situations, you understand," she tells people when she
lectures. "If you don't believe in spirits, I'm just here to entertain
you. All
I know is what's happened to me in my life."
One time, an obnoxious heckler accused her of being a bored housewife
with
nothing better to do. Carmelita silenced him by alluding to an unsavory
impression she had picked up.

"I said something about a trip he'd made," she recalled. "I asked,
'Should I
pursue this, or should I keep quiet?' He just froze."
Elsewhere in the audience, Carmelita's husband, Lee Brubaker, just
grinned. A
gifted artist and "open-minded skeptic," Lee Brubaker has been a great
support
over the years, she said.

"I believe in heaven, but I think we're still learning," she said. "I
have had
experiences with my mother since she's passed away. These are
visitations, not
hauntings; these people still love you, still want to comfort you.

"Love does not die because a person has died. The connection has been
there,
and always will be."
How to get in touch with your intuition
Carmelita Brubaker has a word of advice – meditation -- for those who
want to
develop intuition, relieve stress or improve decision-making abilities.

The act of clearing one's mind of the day's distractions is neither
wrong nor
occult, she said.
"Intuition is what helps you to survive, make the right decisions, tell
the
good guys from the bad, and helps you to heal," she said. "Once you get
rid of
the stress, you're going to be healthier and a lot happier. "

Carmelita conducts classes from time to time, and taught her own
children to
meditate when they were young. She believes the practice should be
taught in
schools.
"Twenty-four hours a day, your mind's going a mile a minute," she said.
"It's
hard to turn that off."

Meditation helps people eliminate crutches such as alcohol or drugs, she
said.
It also helps people connect with their spiritual nature.
"We're all born pure and innocent," she said. "When you meditate, you're
dropping that (programming). You're getting inside yourself. You're
becoming
the person you were born to be."

To take it a step further, Carmelita suggests playing guessing games
with decks
of cards or colors of M&Ms, always relying on one's first impression.
"There isn't a person on the face of the earth that doesn't have
(intuition or
psychic ability) in them," she said. "Meditation pulls it out of
dormancy, and
when you play these little games, you're forcing it to the surface."

You can contact Robbi Courtaway at rcourtaway@yourjournal.com.