Spiritual superheroes (continued)

In a bustling coffee shop in downtown Portland, White Noise crouches over his iPod and listens to the thin audiotape of ghostly spirits in the city’s sleeping cemeteries, morbid places he frequents to send lost souls into the Light. After seconds of grainy noise, he hears what he thinks is a child’s voice, drifting from the void between time. "Sing to us," it says…

"We all know people out there who’ve had some kind of [supernatural] experience and don’t know where to go," Del Parker says. "Spiritual Horizons is someplace where people aren’t looked at in a strange light. It’s kind of like a chosen family. We’re all people who are seeking something greater and we’re all able to share that. We can do things we wouldn’t necessarily do on our own."

Lately, Parker’s become interested in Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP), otherwise known as "white noise." White noise is the phenomenon of communicating with the spirit world through audio recordings or photographs.

The son of a congregationalist pastor, Parker wasn’t always a fan of the supernatural. In his childhood, he thought it was all fake. But, starting at age 17, he began to frequent metaphysical bookstores in his hometown of Newburyport, Massachusetts. He devoured dozens of books on the nature of reality, supernatural powers, pagan religion. He read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, the Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu, the Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, the Conversations With God series by Neale Donald Walsch.

Parker is a nocturnal baker. During the day, he prowls the city’s cemeteries, iPod at the ready, reading gravestones out loud and recording the response. Later, with the volume jacked up to the maximum, Parker sometimes hears what he thinks are voices talking to him. Voices from beyond the grave.

"I’ve spoken with a Reverend," he says. "Or what I think was a Reverend."

Parker describes reading the gravestone of the Reverend in the Stroudwater Village Cemetery. He couldn’t make out the date of death – 1863 or 1883? Later, when he listened to the recording on his home stereo, he thought he heard the Reverend correcting him.

"It sounds like what he says is ‘83’," Parker says, growling the numbers from behind his closed fist to recreate the sound.

He shrugs.

Intuition reveled in the comforting crackle of snapping twigs as he trudged through the thick woods. His rifle was at his side, his orange cap and vest strapped on for the hunt. Arriving at a thick, aged tree, Intuition crouched to the ground.

"I call on you, Deer Spirit," he whispered to the skies. "Send me your weakest deer, so that I may skim the herd for the betterment of all."

Tom Peterson is a home designer and construction worker, by trade. He lives in a house in the middle of the woods on the Portland/Westbrook town line. He has a wife and children and, admittedly, some strange hobbies. Peterson, for example, has studied various metaphysical and spiritual subjects since his childhood in New Hampshire. According to his record, he’s versed in UFOs, abominable snowmen, the Lock Ness monster, astral projection, and telepathy. Peterson says some of his coworkers know about his alter ego, and they don’t really give him a hard time about it.

One of Peterson’s strongest abilities is talking to animals and carpentry tools. When he hunts, which he rarely does anymore, he calls upon the spirit of the deer he is pursuing and asks permission and guidance on the hunt. A couple of years ago, his crowbar spoke to him one morning. It asked to go along to the house Peterson was building at the time. He didn’t take it, and needed it later that day. These days, he listens to the tools when they ask to join. He says his intuition is accurate about 75 percent of the time.

"I don’t hide it," he says. "This is what I believe in. You can believe in what I believe or not."

Peterson, along with Moulton, founded Spiritual Horizons to bring together spiritual people they knew in Portland. He says, whether you think he’s weird or not, you have the same powers he does. You just might not have developed them.

"Everybody’s got psychic powers," Peterson explains. "It’s whether you listen to or ignore them that separates one individual from another. It’s listening to that crowbar. Follow what you hear and see what happens."

Medium was overcome at the crime scene. The local police had brought him in to sense something, anything, about what happened to the victim. Medium saw pain and fear and the residue of unfinished business. His spirit guides fought for his attention, yelling.

There’s a sign the size of a business card posted over the doorbell to Don King’s home in Portland’s North Deering neighborhood. "Medium," it reads.

King, according to his accounts, has been that for 27 years. For awhile, in his teens and early twenties, he thought the talking in his head was made up. He saw a psychiatrist; he thought he might be schizophrenic. And then, he says, he started to listen.

"I would hear voices, see very strange things, see shadows move," he says. "When we find out we have an ability, we don’t know what way it will manifest itself until it does."

King says he can see his own spirit guides and those of other people. He regularly speaks with a wise angel called Ram. Ram has helped King sort out a number of different problems for his clients — from marital strife to medicinal allergies.

But listening to the guides can be hit or miss for King. Sometimes, he comes up with a word or phrase which means as little to his client as it does to him.

Still, he’s right enough of the time, by his estimation, to keep up his part-time psychic practice. He says he’s been called to crime scenes by some police departments, although he won’t say which ones in the interests of "confidentiality."

King, who is one of the core members of Horizons, hasn’t attended a meeting in about a month because he’s been preoccupied with other commitments. But when he does go, he feels comforted to be around people with the same skill sets. According to his guides, Horizons is part of a greater, growing squad of spiritually-minded folk in Portland.

"I was told by Ram, it means ‘the exalted,’ that Portland was going to be a hotspot for spiritual activity that would come to surpass all others in this country," King says. "There are a lot of people focusing in on spirituality because they’re unsatisfied and unhappy with the way life is going."

King pauses and looks to the left of the person sitting on his couch. He bows to nothing.

"Welcome," he says.

"We are being watched," he announces smoothly. "There are watchers all around."

Sara Donnelly can be reached at sdonnelly@phx.com