When the Land Remembers
A Remote House Cleansing Case Study in Stockbridge, Georgia
Two spirits. Three pieces of music. An unusual energy spiral. And a story that appeared to begin more than a century before the present house was built.
To protect our client's privacy, the address, property identification and certain identifying details have been omitted. Throughout this case study, documented historical research is distinguished from the intuitive and energetic findings that emerged during the clearing.
When the Story Is Older Than the House
We were contacted to perform a remote house cleansing for a residential property in the Stockbridge, Georgia area.
The present home was built in the 1980s.
But as we worked through our 54-point energetic assessment, it became apparent to us that some of what we were encountering appeared to be considerably older than the house.
The investigation began leading us backward through the history of the land.
This is one reason our work often feels more like being an Energy Detective than simply performing a cleansing ritual.
We don't begin by deciding what is wrong with a property.
We ask questions.
We assess the house and the land.
We follow what we find.
And sometimes what we find leads us into history.
Looking Back to the Civil War
Our research into the surrounding Stockbridge area took us back to the Civil War.
This region of Georgia experienced enormous upheaval during the Atlanta Campaign of 1864, when Union forces under General William T. Sherman moved through north-central Georgia toward Atlanta.
By late August, major fighting was taking place around Jonesboro as Sherman's forces attempted to sever the remaining railroad supplying Atlanta. The Confederate evacuation of Atlanta followed in early September.
The countryside surrounding what is now metropolitan Atlanta was a very different landscape then—farms, roads, small settlements and communities that existed long before today's subdivisions.
But written history can tell us only part of what happened to the people who lived within that landscape.
That became important when we encountered the first of two spirits during the clearing.
Letty
During the energetic assessment, we encountered what we perceived to be the spirit of a young Black woman.
Her name came to us as Letty.
Our assessment indicated that she was approximately 16 years old when she died and that her presence appeared connected with the Civil War period.
As we continued working with her, the information that emerged was deeply disturbing.
According to our energetic findings, Letty had been raped and murdered or left to die following the assault.
We did not locate a surviving historical record identifying a 16-year-old woman named Letty or documenting her death on this particular land.
We therefore do not present the circumstances of Letty's death as established historical fact.
They were findings that emerged through our energetic assessment.
That distinction matters.
Historical research can establish the circumstances surrounding a place and time. Energetic assessment is a different form of investigation. Sometimes the two appear to intersect, but we do not present one as proof of the other.
We also recognize something important about historical records.
The individual experiences of enslaved and formerly enslaved Black people—particularly women—were frequently poorly documented. Sexual and racial violence could occur without leaving behind the kinds of records we might expect today.
For the purposes of the clearing, however, our concern wasn't proving Letty's identity.
It was helping the young woman we had encountered.
“Is There Anything I Can Do for You?”
There is something I routinely do when conducting a spirit release.
I call upon Archangel Michael and his band of angels to assist the spirit in making the transition.
But I don't simply tell someone that they need to leave.
I ask:
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
And I often ask another question:
“Is there music you would like to hear?”
Sometimes there is.
With Letty, two songs came forward.
“Steal Away”
The first was the African American spiritual “Steal Away.”
The song comes from the African American spiritual tradition developed during slavery.
Within the context of the clearing, its themes of leaving, being called home and preparing to depart felt remarkably appropriate.
But I hadn't selected the song because its lyrics fit the circumstances.
It came forward when I asked Letty what she wanted to hear.
“Michael, Row the Boat Ashore”
The second song was “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore.”
This selection was particularly striking.
The spiritual was documented among formerly enslaved African Americans in the Sea Islands during the Civil War era. Its imagery of Michael, water, crossing and reaching the other shore carried extraordinary meaning within the context of a spirit release.
Again, we had not gone looking for a historically appropriate Civil War-era song.
We asked what Letty wanted.
This was what came forward.
We played both songs for her.
With Archangel Michael and his angels assisting, we acknowledged the suffering associated with her story, worked to release the traumatic energy that appeared to be holding her to the land, and assisted her in moving peacefully onward.
When the spirit release was complete, we no longer detected Letty's presence on the property.
The Second Spirit — A Young Man
There was one other spirit on the property.
Our assessment indicated that he was a young Black man, approximately 20 years old, whose story appeared connected with the Stockbridge area around 1916.
His personality felt very different from Letty's.
There was a playful, somewhat mischievous quality about him—what we affectionately came to think of as a “tricky spirit.”
But as we continued working with him, a much darker part of his story emerged.
According to our energetic findings:
The young man had died by hanging.
We didn't know his name.
And we didn't have a historical record documenting his death.
So we began researching the history of Stockbridge during the period in which he appeared to have lived.
What we found was unexpected.
Martin Luther King Sr. and a Lynching Remembered
Our research led us to Martin Luther King Sr., father of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Before becoming the prominent Atlanta minister known as Daddy King, he was Michael King, born in Stockbridge, Georgia, in 1899.
He grew up in the area.
And in his later recollections, King Sr. described something he had witnessed during his youth:
the lynching of a Black man.
According to historical material preserved by the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, King remembered witnessing a Black man being lynched by white mill workers.
Researchers later looked for a corresponding contemporary account.
They couldn't find one.
Local Henry County newspapers examined by researchers contained no report of a lynching or murder matching the event King Sr. remembered witnessing.
And yet King remembered it.
That discovery became one of the most remarkable moments of our investigation.
When the Energetic Findings and Historical Research Met
We had begun with an energetic finding:
A young Black man.
Approximately twenty years old.
Early twentieth century.
Death by hanging.
Only afterward did our historical investigation uncover the recollection of a young Michael King—later Martin Luther King Sr.—who said he had witnessed the lynching of a Black man in Stockbridge during his youth.
We cannot say that the young man we encountered was the same person King Sr. remembered seeing lynched.
There is no documentation that would allow us to make that identification.
But the intersection was impossible for us to ignore.
Perhaps even more important was something else the research demonstrated.
The event King Sr. remembered apparently did not appear in the surviving local newspaper record examined by researchers.
That gave us a very different perspective on the absence of documentation surrounding the people we had encountered.
A missing historical record does not prove that an event occurred.
But neither does the absence of a surviving record necessarily prove that it did not.
Sometimes an event survives because someone remembered it.
The Young Man Asked for Music Too
When it was time to help the young man move onward, I followed the same process I had used with Letty.
With Archangel Michael and his band of angels assisting, I asked:
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
And then:
“Is there music you would like to hear?”
His answer was completely different from Letty's.
The music that came forward led us to the African American Gullah-Geechee ring-shout tradition. Today, one of the best-known groups preserving Georgia's ring-shout tradition is the McIntosh County Shouters. Ring shout combines call-and-response singing, rhythm, percussion and movement. Its roots reach through generations of African American spiritual and communal life.
We played the music for him.
Where Letty's requested songs carried themes of leaving, crossing and going home, the young man's music felt different.
There was rhythm.
Movement.
Community.
And joy.
It also seemed remarkably appropriate to the playful quality we had experienced from him during the clearing.
We honored his request and completed his spirit release.
The Energy Spiral Near the Driveway
There was another unusual aspect to the young man's presence.
Our map work had identified an energy spiral near the northwest area of the driveway.
Our assessment indicated that the young man appeared to use this energetic area as a place through which he would come and go.'
Helping him move onward therefore wasn't the end of the work.
Once his release was complete, we returned our attention to the energetic structure itself.
The spiral was:
cleansed, harmonized and sealed.
This distinction is important in our work.
A spirit and an energetic feature of the land aren't necessarily the same thing, even when they appear to interact.
We addressed the young man as an individual.
Then we addressed the spiral as an energetic condition of the property.
The Land Had Its Own Story
The assessment revealed other features of the property that had nothing to do with the two spirits.
Through our map work, we identified an underground water vein.
We also located an area of beneficial energy.
That distinction matters because house cleansing isn't about finding everything unusual on a property and removing it.
Land has its own energetic character.
Some areas may require cleansing or harmonizing.
Others may be naturally supportive.
Our objective isn't to make a property energetically blank.
The objective is harmony.
Completing the 54-Point Assessment
We continued through our complete 54-point assessment rather than stopping once the spirit work was finished.
This allowed us to systematically evaluate the different energetic influences affecting the house and land and address those requiring attention.
By the completion of the clearing:
Letty had been acknowledged and assisted in moving onward.
Her requested songs, “Steal Away” and “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore,” had been honored during her release.
The young man had received his own individual spirit release.
His request for ring-shout music had been honored.
The northwest energy spiral associated with his coming and going had been cleansed, harmonized and sealed.
The underground water vein had been identified.
The beneficial energetic area had been recognized.
The complete 54-point assessment had been finished.
But there was one final piece of work.
It concerned the trees.
Honoring the Trees Before They Leave
Several trees on the property needed to be removed because they had become heavily covered with poison ivy.
We didn't feel that the clearing should end with someone simply arriving and cutting them down.
They had stood on this land through seasons and years of change.
So we created a separate ceremony for the homeowner to perform before their removal.
The ceremony acknowledges the trees, thanks them for their years upon the land, explains that their physical removal has become necessary, and gives them permission to release their connection with the property peacefully.
This was very different from the ceremonies we performed for Letty and the young man.
And that seemed appropriate.
The trees weren't something that needed to be cleared.
They needed to be thanked.
What This Clearing Taught Us
This property became a remarkable example of why we don't assume that whatever is affecting a home began with its current occupants.
Sometimes it didn't begin with the previous owners.
And sometimes it didn't even begin with the house.
The present home was built in the twentieth century.
Yet the oldest presence we encountered appeared connected with events occurring more than a century earlier.
We encountered two individuals from two different periods.
They had different stories.
They carried different experiences.
And when asked, they wanted different music.
Letty's story appeared rooted in profound trauma during the Civil War era.
The young man's story led us into the history of racial violence in early twentieth-century Stockbridge and, unexpectedly, to the childhood recollections of Martin Luther King Sr.
The land itself revealed another layer through an energy spiral, underground water and a beneficial energetic area.
And finally, the living landscape asked for consideration as several trees prepared to leave the property.
There wasn't one solution for all of it.
That may be the most important lesson from this case.
We don't believe a house cleansing should begin with the assumption that everything unusual is negative and needs to be removed.
We investigate.
We listen.
We distinguish between the house, the land and the individuals we encounter.
Then we respond according to what each appears to need.
Sometimes that means clearing.
Sometimes it means harmonizing.
Sometimes it means sealing an energetic disturbance.
Sometimes it means calling upon Archangel Michael and his angels and helping someone who has remained connected to a place finally move onward.
Sometimes it means playing a song.
And sometimes it simply means asking:
“Is there anything I can do for you before you go?”
Sometimes the story of a home begins long before the house was ever built.
About Sharon
Sharon Sinclair and Larry Hitchcock are founders of House Cleansings, and Energy Detectives specializing in remote and on-site house and land clearings.
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