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Across the Great Divide

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Spiritual Work and Paranormal Investigations

With the popularity of ghost hunting shows offered today it is difficult for many to look at ghost hunting as little more than a hobby or fad.  Parapsychology is a science comprised of a complex set of theories and terminology that has been around for 100 years.  I attempt through this column to show both the skeptical and the believable sides of parapsychology and to teach ghost hunting techniques and tips in a manner that most can understand and enjoy while learning about the subject.  Some of these terms and concepts are a bit confusing and hard to swallow but I have faith in the intellect and integrity of my readers.  Ghost hunting is a passion but it must also be respected.

Spiritual work in paranormal research is subject to intense debate.  It’s tendency to be dangerous and a matter of faith makes it controversial and its subjective results often questionable.  This is the first of a three part series exploring this area of research. Part one will touch on some basic concepts and practices of spirit communication that can aid in paranormal investigations.  Some topics such as soul rescues, possession, atavism, and exorcisms are particularly complex and hazardous.  These will be covered in part two.  Part three will conclude the series by looking at dream analysis and spirit contact through dreams and other trance states.

As a species, regardless of culture, we have a tendency to anthropomorphize events.  This is the human-centric trend of imposing human perceptions and qualities upon spirits and other-worldly creatures or forces, assuming that all consciousness must be similar to humanity on some basic level.  Nevertheless, if it is an explainable natural event or the presence of an intelligent and free-willed entity- good or evil- it must be dealt with accordingly.  The risks to ghost hunters are not just physical due to any environmental conditions, but are also dangerous to their emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being as well.

True hauntings have an impact on us in many ways.  For instance we begin to either question our faith or strengthen our beliefs.  When we are confronted by things that can not be fought through logic or physical intervention we are left feeling afraid, vulnerable, and fragile.  An old saying is that “the dead can not hurt you, only the living can”.  But fear can cut far deeper, and leave a scar that no mere band-aid can heal.

Sometimes an area of investigation already has the entity present and active but often we’ve seen that members of a group may attempt to provoke or agitate the entity into reaction by harsh language or insults.  The idea here is that if the entity gets emotionally charged enough it can draw on the energy to manifest itself for purposes of the team to document it.

This practice is foolhardy and dangerous for an adept spiritual worker to try, let alone your average person.  Those who spend their lives studying theology, whether via academia or as a practicing member of clergy, follow a very simple rule: Don’t call up anything that you can’t send back!

Most shamans study for their entire lives and their knowledge of their particular craft or realm is second to none.  Their knowledge has been passed down to a highly selective group for generations and most have known for thousands of years what science is only beginning to understand.  Shaman and scientist alike both see the same thing but through different terminology and cultural understanding.

There are many objects associated with religious, spiritual, and psychic work.  Varying cultural aspects obviously come into play here but we will focus on some of the more well-known and most-often-used of these terms and objects.

An amulet is a symbol with magickal significance worn as a pendant or ring.  Examples of these are religious insignia such as the Cross, the Star of David, and pentacles.  A talisman, specifically, is a drawing or inscription that is worn or carried for the purpose of summoning strength, power, protection, or the aid of spirits.  Runes are ancient characters inscribed upon a stone or clay tablet, signifying some virtue or property, and used for divination.  The most well-known pre-Christian runes are of Norse origin and continue to be used to this day by followers of that region’s old religion, known as Asatru.  An oracle can be a prophet, seer and visionary.  Moses was an oracle by receiving and relaying information from God.  An oracle can also be a special device or place which aids in prognostication, such as a crystal ball.  The Oracle at Delphi is a famous example from Greek mythology.

Many Native American and other shamanic cultures make reference to totems.  These are animal, plant, or natural objects that serve as a crest of a clan or family and sometimes revered as its founder, ancestor, or guardian.  A totem can also be the personal guardian or guide of an individual while they walk through life and provide spiritual centering and counsel.  A fetish is a shamanistic tool most commonly found in the form of a figurine, animal part, or a pouch containing items with magickal associations.

There are several spirit beings associated with matters of the afterlife; the first such being is called a psychic construct.  It has been theorized, and experimentation has been conducted to support this premise, that through directed psychic energies a responsive spirit-like entity can be created, continuing for a time to exist independently.  A doppelganger, German for “double-goer.”, may be seen as an example of a psychic construct or perhaps originating from some other place, person, or factor.

Elementals are beings in magickal tradition and ceremony which are spirits that govern over the four corners of the Earth and are associated with, or reside within, the four basic elements. They are called sylphs (the east, air), salamanders (the south, fire), undines (the west, water), and gnomes (the north, earth).

Guardians are spirits who return to warn family members of imminent danger. These may be deceased relatives who offer messages or aid during moments of distress to their loved ones.  Similarly, a harbinger is a ghost of the future that brings warning of impending events.

An influence is an invisible entity of undetermined nature, affecting the inhabitants of a dwelling. This may initially manifest as an inexplicable feeling of uneasiness, then be followed by more definite signs which reveal a haunting.

There are a number of events and skills through which direct and subjective contact can occur with the spiritual realm.  The person through whom a spirit communicates is known as a channeler; this is a modern term for ‘medium’.

The etheric body is a layer of the physical body, mimicking its design, but composed entirely of energy.  This etheric body is similar in many respects to the aura, an all-encompassing invisible and colorful energy field surrounding the outer bodies of all living things.  The aura-world is a reflection of our own sphere of existence, composed of the electromagnetic emanations of physical matter, and most likely influenced by thought and emotion.  It is another dimensional plane proceeding from one in which we exist.  This is directly tied to the phenomenon of the Out of Body Experience.  The current terms for OBEs are astral projection or astral travel.  When out-of-body you are said to be traveling on the astral plane- the Earth’s body double which vibrates faster than the physical planet and penetrates to its core.  While in this realm or dimension you have an astral body which is an ethereal duplicate of the physical body, remaining connected by what is called the “silver cord,” and experience things in other locations, time frames, or dimensional planes.   The energies involved in this practice build up over time resulting in the need for Aura cleansing, a metaphysical ritual that clears an aura of all negative energies which may attract negative spirits.

Previously referred to as ESP, or “extrasensory perception”, clairvoyance is the ability to obtain knowledge based on an unexplainable intuition or vision beyond the normal range of human perception about people, things, places or events before they appear or happen.  There are some specific subsets of ability associated with a clairvoyant’s knowledge or skill.

Clairaudience is the ability to hear spirit communications or noises.  Clairsentience is the ability to feel tactile sensations of a spirit’s presence, similar to psychometry in many respects but the difference is in that with clairsentience you are sensing the actual real-time presence of an entity, whereas in psychometry you are seeing reflections of the past whether visually or emotionally.

Where clairvoyance offers psychic communication more associated with the five physical senses, an empath is an individual who is particularly sensitive to the psychic and emotional emanations of his or her surroundings.

Some paranormal investigators have attempted automatic writing sessions on various occasions and it’s an interesting technique to use when conducting an investigation.  This is the process of writing material that does not come from the conscious thoughts of the writer and is believed to be direct spiritual contact.  Believers say that the writer’s hand forms the statement, with the person being unaware of what will be written. Usually done by people in a trance state; other times the writer is mentally aware of their surroundings but not of the actions of their writing hand.

John B. Newbrough, a New York dentist, claimed that he wrote the book “Oahspe by the process of automatic writing on the newly invented typewriter during 1882.   Rosemary Brown, an English housewife, claimed to compose music automatically.  She could play the piano, though not very well, and felt that great composers were writing through her.  Elsa Barker published a collection of letters during 1914 that she said that she had produced by automatic writing. She said the letters came from the deceased Judge David Patterson Hatch.  Her book was reprinted in 2004 as Letters from the Afterlife: A Guide to the Other Side.  I, myself, took part in a past life regression many years ago.  I began writing with my left hand (I am entirely right handed) and signed the name John, claiming to be a colonial farmer in 1762.

Skeptics such as James Randi note that there is little evidence distinguishing automatic writing claimed to be of supernatural origins from a parlor game that is little more than sparks of creativity in the minds of the participants. The Encyclopedia Britannica article on Spiritualism notes that “…one by one, the mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud, sometimes employing the techniques of stage magicians in their attempts to convince people of their clairvoyant powers.”

Skeptics assert that it is nothing more than the subconscious of those performing the writing influencing their actions and that there is no evidence that messages are coming from anywhere other than the minds of the person holding the pencil.  This is yet another example of the ideomotor effect. A 1998 article in Psychological Science described a series of experiments designed to determine people who believed in the ideomotor effect could be shown that it was not true. The paper indicated that “our attempt to introduce doubt about the validity of automatic writing did not succeed.” The paper noted that “including information about the controversy surrounding facilitated communication did not affect self-efficacy ratings, nor did it affect the number of responses that were produced. In this sense, illusory facilitation appears to be a very robust phenomenon, not unlike illusory correlation, which is not reversed by warning participants about the phenomenon.”

Even considering the authorship as really belonging to a spirit, automatic writing does not guarantee the literary merit of the works produced, which can range from good to atrocious depending on many circumstances.

Attempts at spirit communication are done most commonly through meditation or hypnosis.  Unlike meditation, which is an act of introspective relaxation done for and by the self, hypnosis is a state of profound mental focus that is self-induced although through an external agent, or “hypnotist”, who acts as the catalyst for the subject entering this state.  As concerns paranormal investigation, hypnosis is sometimes used as a vehicle for past life regression and memory restoration.

The following meditation can be used to facilitate a spiritual journey and communicate with spirits.  I want to stress again that mediation and spiritual work takes a lot of patience, practice, and caution.  Use the following at your own will and note that your experiences will vary.  There are a great many books for learning meditation techniques such as Meditation for Starters by Swami Kriyananda.  I would suggest you start by doing introspective exercises many, many times before attempting to use these on an investigation to contact spirits.

Sit down and relax.  Begin to breathe deeply and slowly.  In through the nose, hold it, count to 3, and slowly release through the mouth, allowing yourself to relax.  Repeat this several times until you are completely relaxed.  Once you are relaxed visualize, feel, and sense yourself walking through a beautiful forest.  You can hear the birds singing in the trees; you can smell the freshness of the forest; you can see the spotted sunlight filter through the leaves.  As you walk you are looking for a special tree, a tree that is so large that its branches reach the sky, a tree whose roots are so big that they seem to grow to the center of the Earth.  And now, in the distance, you see this Tree of Life.  You approach the tree and realize that there is an opening, a small hollow doorway at the base of the trunk.  You enter the tree and see that you can climb down the hollow roots into the realm of spirits.  You begin to journey down, down… deep down… into the heart of Earth Mother.

When you arrive in the realm, look around and familiarize yourself with this world.  If you meet any animals, plants or other spirit beings, greet them and speak to them.  Listen for their answer in return.  Their answer might come in words or in actions.  Speak to them and notice what they say or do in response. Then ask how you might serve them and all of nature.  When you are through, thank any beings you saw or interacted with, and return the way you came.

To see spirits, I have also used a specific herbal mixture by combining aloe, pepper, musk, vervain, and saffron and burning it in a smudge pot.  A mixture of sweet grass and tobacco can also be used.  Use this on the anniversary of the death of an individual if it is a specific person you wish to contact.
Repeat this incantation to encourage the spirit’s presence:

“Spirits (or specific name) hear my plea, come forth and speak to me.  Come join me in this place, and show yourself in this sacred space.”
Repeat the request three times and then wait quietly for indications of a presence.  Signs include the scent of flowers or cologne, a cool wind, movement of curtains, and candles going out or twitching erratically.  Check equipment to see if anything is reading activity.
Once you feel sure the spirit is with you, do not make it stay long.  Take care of your business, say farewell, and thank them for their assistance.

Whether invoking or communing with spirits, dealing with demons or other malicious entities, or meditating to develop keener psychic skills, keep in mind that you must seek out experts and masters of the crafts, conduct extensive study, practice, and attempt all things in moderation.  You are solely responsible for your safety, physically as well as mentally, and ultimately your success.

As always, keep your senses sharp, your minds open, your objectivity alert, and your heart, body, and mind healthy.  I hope your ghost hunting and spiritual activities continue to grow and encourage you to seek higher levels of understanding and enlightenment.

For further reading on the topics covered you can visit http://dfps.deepforestproductions.com/phenomena.html for a glossary of common terms and topics.  I would also suggest Speak with the Dead: Seven Methods for Spirit Communication by Konstantinos and How to Communicate with Spirits by Elizabeth Owens.