Seeking spirits

Tualatin ghost hunter wants to share her knowledge of the spirit world with others

By Stover E Harger III

The Times, May 28, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

Jaime Valdez / The Times

GHOST HUNTING — Madonna Merced, founder of the paranormal group, Believers of Oregon Spirit Society, uses her “Ghost Meter” to search for electromagnetic fields, which she believes tell her where ghosts are located.

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She walks through a long, dark corridor at the Oregon Caves Chateau, armed with a tape recorder and infrared thermometer. As a wind blows around her in the rustic lodge, Madonna Merced hears something. A faint scratching and what she thinks is a whisper. She believes she has found what she is looking for. A ghost.

“What is your name?” the Tualatin resident asks.

She gets an answer.

To some it may sound like a mere creak or some other unexplained natural noise, but not for Merced. This self-proclaimed psychic hears the response as clear as day.

“Jeremy…” the voice says to Merced.

Merced is the founder of Believers of Oregon Spirit Society (BoOSS) a paranormal investigation group that has been exploring areas of reported hauntings in Oregon since January. They have completed five trips, including one last weekend to Wolf Creek, Ore.

Her pursuit is one that she believes answers – at least in part – that long-standing question: What happens when we die?

Will we be in the eternal company of a god? Reunited with lost loved ones? Or will we simply decompose like all other natural organisms and enter into nothingness?

Merced is certain – death is not the end. Energy does not cease, so why would we?

Merced’s goal is to find answers for herself and for others. The practicing Catholic finds that with a certain knowledge that there is life after death, she has more of a desire to be good because of the potential repercussions.

“It is good to prepare for the unknown,” she said before pausing and adding. “I mean that literally.”

She says this solemnly and quietly. She feels she has to share her knowledge of spirits with a world that often moves too fast to acknowledge their existence.

Spirits in a material world

Merced’s belief in the supernatural started as early as she can remember when she was growing up in Missouri. Her dad, who died when she was 10, believed in paranormal experiences and would share them with her regularly.

It wasn’t until her teens growing up in Oregon that Merced realized this talk of ghosts was not something the family discussed in public. Starting at an early age she began to feel that she had the ability to communicate with the dead (something she says is possible for everyone) but she didn’t want the stigma that is often attached to psychics.

So she pushed it down.

Then in college she started giving psychic readings to friends. After receiving an MBA from Marylhurst University Merced decided to become a part-time medium in 1998. Along the way she has penned numerous books on paranormal subjects.

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