“A Psychic Tapestry”: A Review of Somewhere the Dead Are Singing by Karl Petry

 

(New Milford, CT: Visionary Living Publishing, 2021). ISBN: 978-1-942157-54-0

Having just read and reviewed Karl Petry’s first book, Absent Witness, and learning that he is very much the “real deal,” I immediately noticed the title of his second book—Somewhere the Dead Are Singing—and felt instantly compelled to read it.

It was during the Mothman Festival in 2019, after cohosting a memorial event for Rosemary Ellen Guiley after her passing several months earlier, that I first experienced the accuracy of Petry’s title. While walking near the igloos in the fabled Point Pleasant TNT Area with a dozen colleagues—many of whom had been close with Rosemary—my PSB11 spirit box (Ro’s personal choice) spontaneously switched on. I placed my voice-activated digital recorder over the speaker as a communication began to emerge.

Back in the hotel a few hours later, I played the tape and distinctly heard a mix of ethereal and a single human voice singing: “We’re here with you.” The four notes that comprised the melody were similar to the five-note sequence in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I played the recording for half a dozen trusted colleagues that weekend (with no setup… just: “have a listen and tell me what you hear”). Not only did they all hear the same phrase, they all said that they recognized the single human voice.

It was our deceased mentor and beloved friend, communicating in the place where she had bonded most strongly with each of us.

With such a high expectation for the book based on this anecdote, I could have found myself disappointed. But not only is there a heartfelt tribute to Ro by the author, there is a foreword written by her husband, Joseph Redmiles—a treasured friend—that speak to common ground and substantial integrity. Somewhere the Dead Are Singing is filled with stories about Rosemary’s collaborations with Petry. Although I knew her for a decade, there are stories that were new and that make a very strong case that Petry is one of several established, respected professionals carrying Rosemary’s torch.

The tone and structure of Petry’s second book is different than his first. This one is more of a survey of his life in the field, with short chapters and a broader range of material. He opens the book with some interesting people in the paranormal/entertainment industry in a chapter called “Cast of Characters.” We get more details about his early life and his coming to terms with his abilities, which were rarely well received. We also get to visit some bastions of paranormal activity, such as Cape May in New Jersey, and several interesting haunted houses, some of which are inhabited by members of his family.

Petry also covers other aspects of the paranormal world, such as remote viewing and haunted objects such as cars.

Fans of Rosemary Ellen Guiley will be interested in the chapter “Ronald Devon House,” which contains a transcript of an investigation she did with Petry and Redmiles (a talented investigator and sensitive in his own right). The following chapter, “Van Winkle House,” is about hauntings at a Masonic Club. A Mason, Petry also wrote about a haunted Masonic Lodge in Absent Witness.

If you are like the hundreds of thousands of other people around the world who are Team Mothman, then the chapter on Point Pleasant, West Virginia (where this beloved cryptid was first seen in autumn 1966) will be of special interest. One of the few years I did not attend the festival in the past decade, Petry did. His experiences of seeing the town psychically as it was in the past and the psychic/transdimensional hotspots that are present in certain areas within the city limits will confirm what many researchers such as John Keel and Guiley herself have theorized for a very long time… Point Pleasant is a portal area. Petry also mentions his stay at the haunted Lowe Hotel, where I have often stayed.

Petry then gets into some increasingly hot-button paranormal topics such as Shadow People (if there is anything more frightening to seasoned paranormal investigators, I can’t image what), Time Slips, and his visits to famous High Strangeness areas, such as Hellfire Caves, Gettysburg, and Stonehenge. I have encountered Shadow People over the years (once with Rosemary in Point Pleasant, and several times there with other investigators) and they are nothing one ever forgets.

Of all his experiences, Petry’s own time slips… where he finds himself a witness to burials, gatherings in long-ago taverns, and a participant in conversations with his deceased grandfather are the most provocative because—like his experience being pulled to another time and other dimensions in Point Pleasant—you can feel how unsettling and at times frightening he finds them.

In moments of terror, he wonders if he’ll make it back safely (or at all) to his own time and place.

So far, so good for him. But if you consider the many people who go missing each year in national parks, from midnight city streets, and from places like Alaska under mysterious circumstances, you have to also wonder if some of these people are not as fortunate as has been Petry, who has honed his talents over many years.

Regardless—what Petry and other legitimate psychics and seasoned investigators do is sometimes unsettling, frightening, or dangerous. The best ones do it, not for money or fame (there’s little of either even for those who crave it), but to be a bridge between the living and those who have shed their bodies and reside in other dimensions, and to guide humanity to the undisputable truth that consciousness survives death.

Since hearing the message “We’re here with you” in the TNT Area in 2019, I have since been in hotels, a library, and other active locations where the dead were also singing.

They appreciate being heard, especially by those like Petry who do so with respect.