Prt 3. Digging into the Birth of An American Haunt

Why ghosts might be attracted to the Lemp Mansion

This week we will complete the feng shui journey into the property to see what else we can learn that may contribute to the plethora of ghosts who allegedly haunt the mansion. Perhaps the building’s energy blueprint we talked about last week indirectly contributed to the suicides in the home, which in turn became the source of the haunting. But there is more to the property that could have also played a role in attracting the dead. Feng shui is all about energy movement and balance. And this is why it is interesting to look at hauntings through feng shui principles. It is a way to identify the property’s energy (a.k.a., chi) and it helps explain why spiritual energy gathers at this location.

The oldest known feng shui application was for selecting burial plots, called Yin House feng shui (the dead being passive energy). Yang House feng shui, is for the living (life is active energy) and it Yang house principles described in my articles.

The philosophy of yin and yang and the interaction of the two energies are a core understanding of feng shui. This is important for our discussion this week as it relates to hauntings. Yin corresponds to chi which is passivity, dark, cold, death, and night. Whereas, yang describes energy associated with activity, light, hot, life, and day. Yin and yang energy work together, sort of like fluidity where sometimes there will be more yin energy, with little yang, and vice versa. While opposites, yin and yang energies are not absolute from each other. They need each other to exist. But too much of either is not a good thing in feng shui. We are trying to understand why spirits are attracted to the property, so it helps to define the ghosts in feng shui terms…ghosts are yin energy.

What we will be looking at are the types of features that would create an overly passive energy on the property that could attract ghosts (hypothetically speaking). A building without beneficial energy becomes stale and passive, like what abandoned homes often feel like. Passive, or “yin” properties accumulate similar energy and it may even explain why ghosts seem to be more active in the still of the night since night is passive energy. But, a property doesn’t have to be abandoned to be overly yin.

Feng shui defines energy movement: wind disperses energy, and water carries it. Moving water is considered a vital aspect of good feng shui. Meandering water is good because it brings fresh “chi" onto the property to mingle with existing energy. Stagnant water is bad feng shui because it just accumulates old energy. Fast-moving rivers take beneficial energy away from a property. It is easy to understand this principle if you have ever stood on the banks of the Meramec or Mississippi rivers during a thunderstorm and witnessed how quickly and violently the water moves downstream. Or stand next to a pond of stagnant water and you can almost feel the dead energy. They both feel quite different than walking next to a meandering stream.

Roads are considered virtual rivers in feng shui. They carry chi, and they are easy to define as good or harmful just by imagining the road as a river. A highway with lots of fast-moving cars would be similar to a fast-moving river. It would strip energy away from the property. Since Hwy 55 butts up to the backside of the Lemp Mansion property, it would act as a fast river, stripping away vital new energy. In turn, the property would contain more stagnant (passive) energy. The trees on the backside of the Lemp property do provide some protective barriers for retaining the property’s new energy it receives through the other virtual rivers, like DeMenil Pl.

Another correlation to feng shui is the impact of renovations. Feng shui has specific instructions for renovations, mostly regarding timing and location. For example, disturbing the earth at the wrong time is supposed to trigger negative events. While I don’t have any experience directly with this being a problem, I do think it is interesting that feng shui acknowledges that renovation does disturb energy. Renovations are well-documented in the paranormal field as triggering hauntings. The first-hand account of the Lemp ghosts comes during the renovation period in the late 1970s.

Environmental rules of feng shui are pretty straightforward, including dealing with spirits. Don’t build a house near a cemetery or on land where there has been lots of death. (And don’t buy a house where there have been violent deaths.) It’s hard to know what kind of deaths and violence occurred on the Lemp property before any structure was erected. But there is something we know that existed beforehand—an extensive cave system running under their property.

Stock cave picture, and not the actual Lemp Cave, but you get the picture.

Historically, cave systems were used as part of the Underground Railroad for slaves seeking freedom and Native Americans for shelter. Whether are not there were any that came through the underground cave system that runs through South St. Louis City and under the mansion is not well known. Any artifacts were likely cleared away when Adam Lemp began using the cave system for storing lager in the 1840s, or when William Sr. converted its use for entertainment and the private path to and from the brewery.

According to feng shui, never build a house on unstable ground (cliffs, sinkholes, and caves) because it can cause nervousness and stomach diseases. Primarily, the potential for a collapse could subconsciously create anxiety. William Sr. suffered from stomach disease, at least according to one news article at the time of his death. Billy and Elsa were reported as being ill before they committed suicide. It's possible all three suffered from a hereditary gastrointestinal illness. Coincidentally, they were all reported as suffering from “nervousness” (a.k.a., anxiety). Living above a cave could have made all of these illnesses worse due to long exposure.

I managed to track down one feng shui book that focused solely on haunted property features. According to the research presented, the magnetic properties of caverns tend to be different due to their connections to fault lines. Also, limestone caves were noted in haunted cases. Limestone is a well-accepted theory in the paranormal world as material that holds energy. Towns considered very haunted, and that have a lot of limestone, are Alton, IL, and Eureka Springs, AK.

Caves, at least under the principles of feng shui, are very, very passive. With virtually no way to effectively carry and disperse fresh energy from the outside, caves are an overly passive energy conduit. Generally, they are dark and cool and gather stagnant water in various spots. Theoretically, it makes sense a cave system would attract spirit energy as a yin property. The Lemp cave may gather mostly stagnant energy, but it is still part of a cave system capable of carrying water underground. Perhaps this is also a means for carrying spirit energy to and from multiple places, with the mansion being just one source, and other buildings and homes connected to the system being other potential sources.

It would be interesting to know how many other properties in the same area where the caves are located have experienced paranormal activity. We already know the Lemp Mansion, and the Brewery are considered haunted. But I am curious if there have been private reports involving properties that sit along or on top of the known cave systems in South St. Louis.

It sounds crazy to use the word “logical” when talking about hauntings and/or feng shui. But, according to how energy moves per the rules of feng shui, a dark passive, limestone cave system would seem to be the logical channel for passive energy (ghosts) to hang out and possibly move to and from different locations. If so, that could explain why there are ghosts that hang out at the Lemp Mansion, but may not belong to the Lemp family (ahem…Zeke?)

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Previous Posts for Digging into the Birth of An American Haunt

Part 1. Seeking the Truth Behind the Lemp Mansion

Part 2. What feng shui reveals about mansion that house raised the Lemp family