Rory O’Neill Schmitt, Ph.D., the co-author of a number of books with her mother Rosary O’Neill, Ph.D. has a fascinating release which may chill you to the bone. Published by the History Press, it is The Haunted Guide to New Orleans. If you love New Orleans, and who doesn’t, you surely will love this guide. If you love or are intrigued about ghosts, the spirit realm and going beyond the veil that spiritual leaders in all religions have negotiated and broken, then this book is for you.

On every page, you will read about how the ancestor spirits of New Orleans inhabitants live among the current residents and tourists. Most of the times you don’t hear a whisper into the other consciousness of the ghostly inhabitants of NOLA. Other times, they nudge you and make their presence known, then evanesce. You think you saw or felt something, but then assure yourself that you didn’t.

Well, Rory O’Neill Schmitt and Rosary O’Neill (both possessing doctorate degrees in their own right) and I plan to dispossess you of the notion that “ghosts and spirits and haunts, oh my,” are real. And if you approach them with a respectful attitude, after all they certainly are relatives to the family of humankind, then you will accept that all of what is in another consciousness and all that is in our own consciousness and material realm join together and impact each other. Indeed, quantum physicists are proving there are many dimensions. And physicists indicate that quantum particles impact and even change particles under certain circumstances, indicating that everything is related to everything else.

This brings me to The Haunted Guide of New Orleans, and shadowing Rory O’Neill Schmitt in Paris where she is presenting her findings about New Orleans and the myriad number of places where bona fide ghostly encounters have happened and continue to happen. Also, I am shadowing her as she continues to do research on other projects that tie Paris and New Orleans.

One project of Rory and Rosary’s concerns a 6-episode Franco-Italian TV series about painter Edgar Degas with Serein Productions. The producer is Carol Bidault’l de L’Isle (seen above) who makes her home in New Orleans. The series focuses on family and the early years of the painter, which both Rosary and Rory have written about extensively (play, musical, history). Other projects they currently work on now are essentially profiles of incredible, forward thinking women, some of whom made their lives in New Orleans. One is the Baroness Pontalba (Micaela Almonester Pontalba of New Orleans). The other fascinating woman caused an absolute scandal. She is Amélie Gautreau of New Orleans.

Of course if you are not from New Orleans or are not familiar with the painter associated with Amélie Gautreau, you won’t recognize her name. However, the famous John Singer Sargent who did numerous sketches and studies of Amélie Gautreau before he finalized his oils of her and presented her in the Paris salon as Madame X, never imagined the extent to which he and she would be party to a scandal when the painting was unveiled to polite society. His painting was considered indecent, and demands for it to be altered and taken down created an ironic furor. Today, celebrities welcome such controversy because nowadays, controversy sells. Sargent and Ms. Gautreau were not looking for publicity, but it found them.

So back to the Paris – New Orleans connections. I’ve been shadowing Rory, as unfortunately, her mom Rosary wasn’t able to make the trip this time. What follows in this article and others is a compendium of the days in Paris that Rory spent getting ready for her presentations and following up on her research connected with her projects. What a delight this working trip has been thus far.

As a group of us walked home, we enjoyed Paris before nightfall right around the surreal time of sundown. Paris is even more amazing at dusk. How many spirits are haunting this magical city? Too many to account for, perhaps.