December 2020 - America's Most Haunted Hotel

January 8/9 and January 15/16 2021

Examining deeper the history & hauntings of the Crescent Hotel

All Discussions will be held in the Crystal Dining Room (located on the 1st floor) with social distancing and masks required.

At Check –

Expect to receive: Program, Covid Guidelines, contest rules and Mask

*Photography Contest – Send in your photos or stories of ESP weekend and enter for a Chance to WIN Free Participation to Next Year’s Event. (one image or story per person) Please email to Amanda.haley1@gmail.com and include in Subject Line: ESP Photo Contest

AGENDA:

Friday

4:30PM – Check In

5PM – Welcome Introduction

5:15PM-6:00 PM – History of the Crescent Hotel

6:30PM – 8:00 PM Paranormal Expert Dave Harkins

“Mental Impressions and the correlation to Ghost Activity”

Free Time – On Your Own For Dinner

9PM and 9:30PM Mini Ghost Tour – Introduction

10PM “Toast to the Ghosts”

Groups Divided Up for Investigation with Paranormal Investigators

Dave Harkins & Larry Flaxman:

(Group A) 10:30PM-12:30AM & (Group B) 12:45AM-2:45AM

3AM – 5AM Investigation on Your Own

Refreshments & Snacks Available from 10PM-2:30AM

Saturday

5PM – Welcome Introduction

5:15PM-6:15PM – Historian Keith Scales

A Deep Dive into the History of Norman Baker

6:30PM – 8PM Paranormal Expert Larry Flaxman

“Transcommunication – History to Now”

Free Time – On Your Own For Dinner

9:00PM and 9:30PM Mini Ghost Tour Introduction

Groups Divided Up for Investigation with Paranormal Investigators

Dave Harkins & Larry Flaxman:

(Group A) 10:30PM-12:30AM & (Group B) 12:45AM-2:45AM

3AM – 5AM Investigation on Your Own

Refreshments & Snacks Available from 10PM-2:30AM

Sunday

10:30AM Meet in the Conservatory for brief summary of the night

*Collect Photography Contest Submissions – photos or stories

(one image or story per person)

WINNER TO RECEIVE Free Participation to Next Year’s Event.

Please email to Amanda.haley1@gmail.com and include in Subject Line: ESP Photo Contest

Dining Options:

Breakfast – One Breakfast Vouchers is included with your Registration. Breakfast available in the Crystal Dining Room 7AM -11AM

Dinner – Crystal Dining Room Open 5PM-9PM

SkyBar Gourmet Pizza – Open Noon – 10PM

Vending Area available in lobby level.

Speakers & Investigators

KEITH SCALES

AEA; AFTRA; SAG

Born and raised in London, professional theatre artist Keith Scales has acted in more than two hundred plays and directed nearly a hundred, receiving numerous awards. Study Fellowships have taken him to Ireland, Greece, Japan, Prague, the west of England and the south of France in preparation for various theatrical projects. He was awarded the first Masters Fellowship in Theatre by the Regional Arts Council of Oregon. From 1993 – 2009 he served as artistic director of the Classic Greek Theatre of Oregon, for which he wrote line-for-line English versions of sixteen ancient Greek plays. In 2011 Keith relocated from Oregon to Eureka Springs to concentrate on the creation of original works for page, stage and screen.

He was Ghost Tour Manager for the Crescent and Basin Park hotels and organizer of ESP (Eureka Springs Paranormal) weekends and other events from 2011 to the Covid Outbreak.

He is the author of a collection of short stories set in the Crescent Hotel, House of a Hundred Rooms; Tales the Ghost Tour Guides Do Not Tell, and will soon release Seven Story Hotel, set in the Basin Park. Writing as Julian Keith he recently released John Dee’s Back Leg; a Metaphysical Farce. For the Crescent Hotel he wrote and directed the one-act: Not Really a Door and developed Flickering Tales, a regular storytelling program.

FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS

2010: Presenter at the South Coast Writers Conference, in Gold Beach, Oregon

2008: Winter Writer-in-Residence at Fishtrap, Oregon.

2006: His play What Mad Pursuit, produced at West End Theatre, Portland, Oregon, 2006, was a finalist for the Oregon Literary Arts Award for Drama.

2002: First recipient of the prestigious Regional Arts and Culture Council Masters Fellowship. He used the grant to visit sites associated with the Grail legend in Cornwall and the South of France, in order to develop an original stage production of the Perceval legend.

1992: Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship to travel to Kyoto to study Japanese traditional and avant-garde theatre.

1989: Named by the state newspaper, the Oregonian, “the theatre artist who made the most significant contribution to theatre in Oregon in the decade”

1988: Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship to attend the Yeats festival in Sligo, Ireland in preparation for an unprecedented production of the entire Cuchulain Cycle at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, and a symposium: The Theatre of Myth, at Portland State University.

SELECTED WORKSHOPS

Screenwriting with Cynthia Whitcomb, founder of the Willamette Writers’ Conference

Portland, Oregon 2006

Playwrighting with Irene Maria Fornes,

Seattle, Washington, 1990

Presenting Classic Greek Drama Today

Getty Center, Los Angeles, 2004

DAVE HARKINS

A published author, accomplished researcher, and investigator of the occult and paranormal realms for over 40 years, Dave Harkins brings his love of lost legends, history, and the supernatural to almost every aspect of his life. Dave’s journey with the paranormal started in childhood, as his family has always embraced the supernatural. His lineage stems from American Indian Ancestry, and Dave is a tribal member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. In 1980, Dave’s fascination with the occult led him and some friends to start-up an occult bookstore in Fresno, California, that is still in operation today.

After moving from Fresno in 1985 to the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, Dave created several small informal paranormal groups, and in 2007 Dave founded The Ozarks Paranormal Society, which is still very active today. Dave is also a Team Manager for the world-renowned TAPS Family based out of Rhode Island, investigating the paranormal for many years before starting the popular SyFy network “Ghost Hunters” television show as well as their new hit show “Ghost Nation” on Travel Channel.

Dave has researched and investigated hundreds of locations in the United States, Europe, and the Indian Subcontinent. He has also been featured in print, on radio and has appeared on several network television shows based on the paranormal. The quest never stops for Dave, at least as long as there are answers to be had.

LARRY FLAXMAN

Best selling author and researcher, Larry Flaxman, is on a mission to inform, empower, and entertain those fascinated by the paranormal and “fringe” science!

Best-selling author of nine books including “11:11 – The Time Prompt Phenomenon: The Meaning Behind Mysterious Signs, Sequences and Synchronicities,” “The Grid: Exploring the Hidden Infrastructure of Reality,” and “Viral Mythology: How the Truth of the Ancients was Encoded and Passed Down through Legend, Art, and Architecture,” Flaxman continues to write ground-breaking books on cutting-edge research that leave readers, researchers, and reviewers open-mouthed in disbelief of the truth as it’s presented to them.

For nearly two decades, Flaxman has been actively involved in paranormal research and hands-on field investigation with a strong emphasis on attempting to apply the scientific method to unexplained phenomena. Flaxman is redefining the field of paranormal research with his focus on connecting quantum physics (specifically entanglement and the observer effect) to human consciousness via the use of “real-time” EEG analysis of the experiencer. He is the President and Senior Researcher of the Arkansas Paranormal and Anomalous Studies Team (ARPAST) which has become one of the nation’s most respected paranormal research organizations.

Widely respected for his advances in the field, Flaxman has appeared on the Discovery Channel’s “Ghost Lab” as well as the History Channel’s popular show “Ancient Aliens”, and the History Channel special expose “Time Beings: Extreme Time Travel Conspiracies.”

Flaxman has appeared on hundreds of radio shows worldwide include Coast to Coast AM, The Shirley MacLaine Show, The Jeff Rense Show, X-Zone Radio, TAPS Family Radio, and Paranormal Podcast.

As a staff writer for Intrepid Magazine, Flaxman’s work appears regularly in TAPS ParaMagazine, Fate Magazine, New Dawn Magazine, and Phenomena Magazine. Flaxman is often called on to provide expertise for dozens of other publications including “The Times Herald News,” and the “Villager Online.”

Flaxman is the founder of The Bridge of Compassion Foundation, a nonprofit 501c(3) charity dedicated to bridging the gap between those in need and those with a compassionate heart willing to make a difference. Positively impacting and improving the quality of life for the homeless and indigent by providing basic human necessities. Delivered with compassion, dignity, and respect.

Flaxman is an avid collector of all things unusual – whether it be historic antiquities, medical collectibles, funerary items, or even the completely bizarre, he likely has it in his collection! In fact, he maintains one of the largest collections of Pre-Columbian artifacts in the United States! Oftentimes you can find some really cool items for sale in his online shop as he clears space to make room for more!

In his spare time, Flaxman dabbles in a diverse range of hobbies. While some people like to fish or collect stamps, he has always had a deep-seated passion for motorsports – specifically, anything that is FAST AND LOUD! He has been fascinated with cars and motorcycle since a young age and is addicted to the visceral sound and feel of a motor at redline! Larry maintains an impressive collection of vehicles and can often be found at charity events and car shows with some of his toys!

As Southern Living Magazine recently boasted, “The 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa is Known to Have Ghostly Guests”. Many of these ghostly guests have become well-known thanks to nearly 20 nationally and internationally syndicated paranormal television programs that have produced and broadcast episodes on “America’s Most Haunted Hotel”. However, here are a few new tales, as told to the hotel’s ghost tour guides; stories that even the paranormally savvy might not know but will enjoy, nonetheless.

Paranormal Report 1: Last week I met a couple that was staying here at the Crescent on the first floor near the Governor’s Suite. They said the first night of their multi-night stay nothing happened; explaining that they had heard that you need to be in the hotel at least a couple of nights before anything strange happens. They said on their second night, when they were going to bed, they folded the blanket and comforter back onto the foot of the bed and just slept with only the sheet covering them. The husband awoke in the middle of the night sweating, turned on the bedside lamp, and woke up his wife in dismay. The blanket and comforter were not only pulled up over them but someone or something had tightly tucked them in. He said that happened three times that same night. Whoever or whatever was in the room, he said, wanted them tucked in and tucked in tightly. After that, during the rest of their stay, they would discover upon awakening or returning to their room that things would had been moved around in the room from where they were before going to sleep or departing from the room. They said that items moved were just small insignificant things but enough to let them know someone or something was or had been there. They concluded by stating that they really enjoyed their stay and that they would indeed be returning to the Crescent.

Paranormal Report 2: Room 419 is the room said to still be inhabited by the spirit of Theodora, a prim and proper woman. She is believed to have been a live-in member of Norman Baker’s “Cancer Curable Hospital” staff during the late 1930s and Room 419 was her room. Records show that Room 419 is the Crescent Hotel’s second most requested room because of Theodora’s rumored “housekeeping service”, tidying up after guests who stay in that room but only if she enjoys their company. I have been told by guests staying in Room 419 that they conduct experiments in that room, purposely leaving messes in hopes that Theodora will make her presence known by folding their clothes, organizing their closet and/or attractively arranging personal items that had been scattered around the room. All told me that, evidently, Theodora must not have given them the ghostly nod of approval. Then, just recently, a couple told me they had purposefully scattered their loose change around the room on tabletops, nightstand, etc., shortly before leaving for dinner downstairs in the Crystal Dining Room. Upon their return, they were overjoyed to find their coins neatly reorganized in stacks of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies and all placed together atop their dresser. No one knows how Theodora determines whom she favors but this couple, it appears, had managed to make a good impression which they said was “quite cents-able”!

Paranormal Report 3: Guests who revisited our hotel recently and retook the ghost tour took delight in recounting a story that had happened to them at the Crescent some 10 years earlier. They said that they had arrived around two o’clock one spring afternoon for an early check-in. They got their one key to Room 221 and proceeded to take the elevator to the second floor. When the elevator door opened, standing there, seemingly waiting for them, was a man in an all-black Victorian-style outfit. The man asked if he could show the couple to their room. Thinking he was a hotel employee; they told the man they were in Room 221 and handed him their key. Upon arriving at Room 221, the helpful man unlocked the door and pushed it open. The man remained just outside the doorway, smiling and tilting his head side to side repeatedly. The guest quietly turned to her husband and suggested that perhaps the man wanted a tip. In the nanosecond that it took the husband to turn to hand the man a tip, the man had disappeared, nowhere to be seen down the long hallway. Puzzled, but not concerned, the couple relaxed in their room until they left for their scheduled evening ghost tour. Following the tour, they returned to their room only to discover that their key would not unlock their door. They went down to the front desk where the clerk apologized that, by mistake, he had given them the key to Room 321 at check-in. The couple explained that the key worked for the employee who let them into their room, describing the helpful man and his attire. The front desk clerk informed them that they had no employee who fit that description and no employees wear that kind of attire. The couple never saw that “helpful man” again.

Bill Ott, the hotel’s director of marketing and communications, said, “Guest experiences such as these are quite varied and numerous, and guests seem thrilled to share them with hotel employees. What makes them believable, unbeknownst to them, is that many of their individual experiences are often identical to a story that was shared two weeks, two months, two years ago by someone they never knew who stayed in the same room or visited the same locale in the hotel.

“And oh, and by the way, the most requested ‘active’ room in the hotel is Room 218, Michael the Irish stonemason’s room. He is said to have died in the footprint of that room into which he fell while helping build the Crescent Hotel back in 1885… but you’ll have to take our ghost tour to get the full story.”