Before I describe Mariechen Al-An’ I need to describe how Evansville, Indiana was run when I was growing up. Firstly, it was segregated. Southern Indiana might be in a northern state, but it was still living in the south. After all, it was only a short drive down Highway 41 and across the bridge that spanned the Ohio River to Henderson, Kentucky.
According to some stories I heard, during the Civil War, soldiers on one side of the river had various ways to warn the soldiers on the other side that they were about to fire rifles or cannons in their direction. The river might separate North and South, but family loyalties were more important.
Leading families could get away with thing others couldn’t. The most blatant example I can remember was a young man who literally got away with murder. He was a friend of a friend and visited my family home for a night watching television while my dad and stepmom were away. He was home on leave after completing boot camp in the marines. Later, I learned he’d been forced to decide between jail or the marines after an agreement between his influential oil business father and a cooperative judge.
After a few beers and watching a WWII war movie he seemed to get a bit strange and as my friend and his friend left the house to walk down to the street where their car was parked the guy suddenly let out a scream and rolled down the front lawn as if he was carrying a gun, shooting and yelling “Gooks. Gooks! GO .. GO! I’ll cover for ya. Kill the Gooks!”
His behavior was a concern, but as long as the neighbors weren’t upset (and no one reported it) I let it slip from my mind because he was due to return to his base for further training.
A week later, I heard the news that he’d killed his father in the driveway of their substantial home. There had been some sort of disagreement that escalated into an argument that led to the young man getting his .22 semiautomatic rifle and shooting his father several times before leaving the house.
The father was badly wounded, but not dead and stumbled out to plead with his son on their driveway where the gun jammed. Then he beat his father to the ground with the rifle butt, rushed back into the house and got another .22 and emptied that into his father. When the police arrived the father was barely alive and pleaded with them not to charge his son with murder.
The son was charged with discharging a firearm in the city limits, paid the fine and was sent back to the marines.
So it’s not surprising that, decades earlier, the the Bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Evansville was able to get Mariechen jailed for “practicing witchcraft” and was the last person in Indiana to have been charged with the offence under an old state law. The Catholic Church was major part of the power structure back then and the presiding bishop at the time would have wielded a huge amount of influence with politicians and the legal system.
Mariechen was a spiritualist, clairvoyant and a member of an international group of spiritualists called the “White Angels” who helped guide the spirits of those killed suddenly in events like plane crashes, explosions and crimes of violence to “transition.” The way she explained it to me was that many of these spirits are confused and lost. They’re unable to understand the sudden strangeness. They need someone who can help them understand their new circumstances and move on to the next dimension. Spirits that don’t make the transition because they don’t realize or accept that they’re no longer living physical beings are those that become a “ghost,” “poltergeist” or “lost spirit.”
In addition to being a spirit guide Mariechen seemed to attract young people who wanted to learn what she had to teach. Before her arrest some of those who would gather at her little cottage and enjoy cookies and cups of tea were young men from the Roman Catholic seminary. They were being taught religion at the seminary. But what they wanted was spiritual training and revelations.
The Church found out about this and had Mariechen was arrested under the old law that hadn’t been used for decades. She was also the last and known as “the last person jailed for witchcraft in Indiana.”
The courts weren’t as easily manipulated as the local police nd, although Mariechen spent a few days in jail, she was released and the charges dropped. Years later the law was dropped from the statute books.
So Mariechen came with an edgy dose of notoriety and street-creds when we were introduced.
I’ll save the stories about the adventures I experienced with my college friends for later. But it was because I accompanied them to a session at Mariechen’s cottage that we formed a bond that connected us for years.
Mariechen Al-An’© Robert R. Feigel 2022 – All Rights Reserved
Pieces from a Puzzling Life 