This is the fourth reading in a series of five that focuses on specific hauntings that exist throughout the continental US. In an attempt to execute paranormal research from a distance, as well as improve my intuition and mediumship abilities I will be performing these readings with very limited prior knowledge of the places I am reading. Each location I’m attempting to go in as “blind” as possible, so I’m choosing places where I have little to no knowledge about. I’ll go more into depth about what I know from just random experience before reading these places fully with cards.
Prior Knowledge
Coursing through the thicket of Capricorn season felt like the opportune time to take on a reading involving a horned goat entity. Capricorn is the tenth sign in the zodiac, marked by their practicality, persistence and, of course, horns. Horns represent salvation and immortality. They speak for victorious strength, fertile abundance and are considered the royal oil of God’s spirit. Horned deities pervade all throughout history, not just Wicca. Pan and the Satyrs, the mythical Greek companions of Dionysus. There’s the Egyptian cow Goddess Bat, also, a common emblem of her is depicted on sistrums, the ancient instrument of ritual worship.
With this in mind, there’s a lot less to fear surrounding the idea that horns imbue evilness. In fact, they bring you closer to Spirit and all there is. If there is something haunting this strange little bridge that's folded nicely away about forty minutes northwest of Dallas, it’s more likely to be a collection of lost souls with a large gathering of negative energy disguised as some type of existence in goat shape. While I’m not even sure if a Goat Man even has anything to do with the stories and history of the bridge, I do get the sense of confusion and feeling astray.
This was an energy I sat with for several days trying to pick and poke through. It was annoying. I almost gave up again like with the Bell Witch. There was shifting and shuffling, rising and falling, spinning and languishing the effects of feeling disoriented. When you’re as busy-bodied as a person like I am, mothering three children while working from home, while trying to have any sort of spiritual practice or life outside the routine, spending several days energetically with the bridge was literally ill treatment of myself. If anything it was a lesson in needing to up my sleeping and self care regimen and maybe start taking some vitamins.
As a matter of fact, this isn’t even my prior knowledge before I started this reading. This is after pulling cards and feeling like shit for the following week. Of course, there’s a million other things going on in a person’s life, but it’s interesting the turn of events that take place in synchronicity once I’ve decided to put the work in and connect with a location. Once you open the door to the other side, watch your step, it’s dark and easy to fall.
The Reading
With the Caroline Myss Archetype Cards, suddenly the hastening, the rushing, the inevitable pitfall, the Addict card made perfect sense to me. A powerful addictive hold on the crown chakra, a fixation so strong that it’s deep within the recesses of the mind, infiltrating most thoughts and consciousness. Archangel Uriel, solemn and indestructible, holds the Akashic records in her hands, this book holds the karmic ties and contracts authored by our own higher selves, to teach our souls the necessary lessons we need to have in order to reach levels of understanding otherwise not accessible. 12. The Hanged Man from the Aquarian Tarot by David Palladini rests at the bottom of the spread, a signal of stagnation and a very specific length of time where a sacrifice is being made while feeling like nothing is being reciprocated. I’m sensing a problem.
The absolute center card being a woman on a bridge almost escaped me until I really sat down with these cards and felt through the muck to get to some sort of information on this place and how to filter through all of the deliriousness I was receiving. The Journey card is about movement and travel, not currently being experienced as depicted by the Hanged Man in the column of cards to the left. The Storyteller has a message, mainly in relation to their own personal experiences. There are deep, emotional wishes and dreams here that weren’t answered. It’s as if happiness and satisfaction was found to be elusive throughout the physical incarnation of this life, if that’s what we are dealing with.
Exorcist holding feather wands in either hands in the top right deals with confronting evil while also being able to recognize the darkness within yourself. This usually signals an individual capable of extreme and violent type anger. Alongside the Door to Value and 19. The Sun in reverse, there’s a threatening type of energy caused by an unbridled sadness stemming from unrealistic expectations regarding wealth and materialism. It’s not really giving a demonic horned goat creature, it’s reminding me more of someone with a nasty drug habit and who isn’t afraid to lash out, maybe even violently, as the victim. This is someone who has lost or has very little faith in the Divine. They have yet to surrender to the Universe, they fight every tug and nudge in the right direction of freedom and add to another chapter of their story as the misbegotten downtrodden.
The 1. Magician, the master of the elements, the director of his own reality, he embodies the saying, “As above, so below.” In regards to the particular type of message Spirit brings when presenting the Magician in a reading, it's a reminder of our inner power and how what we think becomes what we see and ultimately live. Three of Pentacles symbolizes collaboration, meaning the Magician worked closely and masterfully with the speed and hastening of the Eight of Wands. This was a chain smoker, maybe to the point of developing cancer or emphysema. Death was quickened, a lifetime was cut short, because there were just too many bad habits that just couldn’t be broken.
Page of Pentacles in the center exposes the lesson that had to be learned through introspection and conscientiousness. The King of Cups to the left demonstrates another vice, another talent or skill they were able to utilize in order to gain financially. The Ace of Pentacles, however, displays excessive spending, deficiency and instability. Almost as quickly as the money came in, the money was spent and lost, drank, smoked, snorted. Not necessarily out of the realm of possibility when dealing with addiction. The Six of Swords cites a deep desire to emancipate oneself from the throes of dependence, by stepping in the vessel of escape, a brief trip across placid waters leads to liberation. There are hints throughout this reading that this was not accomplished and there was failure instead.
Queen of Swords in the bottom center, the Belladonna of the bridge. She’s seen in the Journey card as well in the reading above, fleeing from her oppressive and devilish goat man. With all of the scarcity and bad financial decisions of the Ace of Pentacles reversed brought to the relationship, she had no choice but to run away. The Devil is represented as a giant towering bat, an animal that is symbolic of high sensitivity and needing to take on transitions for healthy change. As one of the more feared cards in the tarot deck, it’s almost laughable in tandem with Goat Man Bridge. Truely, the 15. Devil is about oppressing oneself with addictions, excess, and dependency. It’s of no consequence to the giant bat towering above the naked figures below if they choose to stay or go, the Devil is simply meant to exist as guide, as an example of what may not be serving.
Lastly, at the bottom of the deck, the betrayed Ten of Swords mutilated violently on the cracked rocks of a river bed. It’s not so much demonic as the outlier issue of this person, place, or thing that is residing at the bridge. It seems more so due to failure and bitterness, ruin and defeat. If the Devil were to be the one residing on the bottom, maybe I would reconsider my stance on evil taking place here as a result of satanic rituals. It’s not, though, it’s part of the message from Spirit.
Conclusion
There are a multitude of different spirits that are attested to haunt Goatman’s Bridge. This bridge is officially known as the Old Alton Bridge, located a few miles south of the city of Denton, Texas. Once used for herding, crossing cattle at a shallow end of the Hickory Creek. The bridge provides a single lane and iron trusses built all the way back in 1884. A man named Oscar Washburn is said to haunt the bridge. Affectionately referred to by locals as the “Goatman” he reliably sold milk, meat and cheese to them to the point of catching the attention of Ku Klux Klan members. It’s reported that Washburn was hung on this bridge, murdered while his family was burned to the ground inside their home. Washburn’s body was allegedly never found, certain Ku Klux members involved in the lynch mob died under mysterious circumstances as well. However, there is no physical or historical evidence of Washburn ever having existed or these crimes and murders having taken place.
There’s a woman that is described as haunting Goatman Bridge as well. Her children were lost in the river, and so she cries out in the dark, cursed to search eternally for them. Some claim she is the wife of Oscar Washburn, others say it was the unspeakable horn headed monster that stole and killed them all one fateful night, consuming every drop of their flesh and leaving nothing behind to prove any of this actually happened.
It’s also not a troll that dwells underneath the murky depths of the Old Alton Bridge, but a goat headed demon with the torso of a man and the lower half matted with fur and cloven hooves. He is supposedly terrifying to witness and he comes out around the witching hour of 3 am. There are different stories purporting different incidents that it’s no wonder the Storyteller Archetype was serving front and center in the energy reading at the beginning. His red eyes, his terribly mutated figure, and he harbors an undying hunger for those who knock three times on an iron truss or those who dare call his name out loud in the night. It’s also told that Pan, one of the goat-like Gods of Olympus, possessed enormous strength, shapeshifting abilities and could easily teleport between Mount Olympus and Earth. He was well known for his sense of humor and shrewd senses.
