The Old Hag
Scott Walter, founder of Great River Institute, shares a childhood experience, conveyed in an early excerpt from his upcoming book.
The Old Hag’s appearance happened when I was between 12 and 15 years old. It always happened spontaneously and was easily the most terrifying thing in my entire youth.
We had a busy house with a family of eight. There were six kids, three boys and three girls, and we only had one bathroom along with three modest sized bedrooms for the whole family. My parents had the biggest room. The three girls had a room and us three boys had a room. The kid’s rooms were small, each one stuffed with three beds and dressers. My bed was positioned on a wall with just enough open space at the foot for a closet door to swing open. When this woman appeared, she would appear in that small space.
She was a spiritual being, but it wasn’t a vague wisp of light nor was it a shadow. What I observed was a fully featured woman, clothed and sitting in a rocking chair. Any time she appeared she was seated, rocking and knitting. And never directly facing me.
She was scary beyond words. I still vividly recall her distinct features, sitting there, poised and facing the closet wall.
The first time she appeared I was already in bed. I could only see her from behind. My brothers were both sleeping nearby. What’s happening, I wondered? I peeked again and again. She was always still there until at some point she simply vanished. I was so frightened that I got up and ran to awaken my mother. But since the old woman in the rocker was gone, my mother insisted I was dreaming. I was a vivid dreamer and knew this was no dream. Ordered back to bed, I reluctantly returned but I remained frightened.
A few nights later it happened again. Once again she just sat there, facing away from me, rocking and knitting. This happened many times, but I was the only one who saw her. Everyone else was asleep.
Then one evening I entered my bedroom earlier than usual. My whole family was downstairs. Obviously I was wide awake and as I rounded the corner there she was. But this time, instead of lying in bed I was entering the room which gave me a full profile view of her.
She rocked as she always did. But this time I could see her clothes, hands, legs, shoes, hair, plus the chair details. I was affixed as she rocked. I backed up, looked over my shoulder down the hall behind me, and then looked back in the room. She was still there. Rocking.
And then… ever so slowly, she began to turn her head toward me in what felt like super slow motion. Finally she reached 90 degrees left. In that moment, she locked her eyes with mine. Never had I felt what I felt then. We were locked eye to eye. It was terrifying.
So, yes, she was an old hag. I had never used that term before but the sight of her face was shocking. She looked more than a thousand years old, with a face of thin skin on bone. There was no smile, only the most frightful face, with her eyes locked in a contact that seemed to be transmitting information.
The intensity grew to a point that I could not bear. I pulled away and ran downstairs in terror. Some of my family came up immediately but she was gone.
I started having trouble sleeping. Sometimes she would just appear again and I would feel her overwhelming gaze. This continued over a couple years.
Occasionally her intrusions would slip out of my mind and then pow, she was back. Sometimes I might be in-between waking and sleep, or maybe I was wide awake when she appeared. Sometimes I awoke to check if she was there; sometimes she was there and more often not. Finally a time came when I never saw her again.
No matter how many times I saw her, I felt terror, yet she never threatened me, never spoke to me and never once moved from the rocking chair.
I thought about her on and off for years and she is still indelibly etched in my memory and senses. Decades later I was reading some esoteric study material and it spoke of rare sightings of what is called, “the old hag”. I can attest that it affected my life, but decades had to pass before I had the slightest reconciliation with what had been happening in those three years.
Scott Walter, Sensei
© 2022 by Great River Institute
Excerpt Used with Permission
Similar: The Old Witch