Recently Pat Robertson weighed in on the question of buying used clothing. He wasn’t against saying a prayer over your used clothing purchases. He felt, while probably not necessary with every piece of clothing you bought used, it couldn’t hurt. I recently bought a used Orvis quilted jacket at the Salvation Army for $7. A new Orvis quilted jacket costs $140. I don’t care if this jacket is possessed by a Bezzlebub himself and drips blood on occasion, I’m wearing it. I love it.

The sad fact is sometimes I walk into our local Salvation Army and find a whole crop of nice new stuff in my size. I smile and think, “Well someone with my taste in clothing just died! This is great!”

Seriously, it’s the circle of life. When I die, my clothing will end up where? The Salvation Army. They are the only game in town for taking your used clothing, and I like to think when I die someone else will walk into the store and go “Oh yeah! Someone died in my size!”

This fear of demons or spirits of the dead infesting used clothing or anything not new, is not just restricted to viewers of fundamentalist TV shows. It also happens to new agers.

My cousin is horrified by my love of used anything. When I lived in Wisconsin, she would come visit my home, only to be upset at my home quickly filling up with items once owned by others. She informed me more than once of the HAUNTED BUNK BEDS! Horricon Wisconsin in 1988 was the scene of a horrible haunting in a ranch style home (I can’t see any ghost worthy of the name haunting a ranch house!).

The focal point seemed to be bunk beds that were purchased used. I favored the snow blower, thinking as interesting as haunted bunk beds are, it’s far more in keeping with the culture of Wisconsin to have the snow blower be the focus of demons. “Honey, I can’t clear the driveway, the snow blower is spitting blood again!”

My cousin warned me again and again about buying new items only, or only items that I knew the history of. I lived in a home that was already considered haunted, by a Mr.Hubbard, that I was filling the home with antiques had her worried about my safety.

I was simply thrilled that Manitowoc Wisconsin prices for antiques were so much less expensive that antique prices on the East Coast where I had lived before. I happily did the rounds of the antique shops, my favorite was Viking Antiques, and filled the old home with my bargains. It was far cheaper to buy a good piece of real wood furniture, than a new bit of laminated furniture.

I had inherited this love of used furniture bargains from my grandmother, who had bought a beautiful antique sofa for 50 cents in the 1930’s. I of course inherited it and spent over a thousand getting it refurbished! Even so that was fine with her as obviously I knew where it had come from, and since my grandmother had no problems with the spirits that owned it before, it was “safe”.

Every time my cousin came to visit, she spent the night shivering in her bed, obsessing not only over our ghost, Mr. Hubbard, but also all the new to me antiques I had purchased. She would bring crystals to put in front of her bedroom door so Mr.Hubbard would not just pop in to say hello.

Sometimes she would chant an “Ancient Indian purification” prayer and light some sage to cleanse a recent purchase. I would point out that Native Americans didn’t tend to go antique shopping in “ancient” times, so I doubt the prayer was doing any good. Plus, the sage smoke made me sneeze. She was only allowed to purify if the weather was nice enough for the windows to be open.

I let her do it, but didn’t hold back my laughter. Her own home was filled with brand new items. I would tease her that the spirits of the Chinese workers that made her mass produced brand new products in their sweatshops filled each item. She pointed out they were alive, I would point out when they died she was really in for it!

There is an actual phobia some people have for antiques. Billy Bob Thornton downplays his famous phobia about antiques in this article, but it’s fairly typical. Most phobias for vintage items seems based on the belief that some spirit of the former owner still clings to the item. Also that this spirit can influence what happens to you in your life.

My home, I now live back on the East Coast, is too new to be haunted. It is filled with all the wonderful used items I purchased in Wisconsin. I even filled a small cabin I bought with items picked off the streets of Boston (when the colleges go to summer break, the streets of Boston are filled with furniture and countless items with FREE signs on them). I have rugs (well cleaned by myself), bookcases galore, end tables, coffee tables and a TV stand all found for free and full of the spirits of drunken college orgies. Well that one rug sure looked like it had seen an orgy or two before I steam cleaned it.

There are items that are haunted, and then there is a bargain. Bargain wins every time.

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