2011 Chinese Horoscope, 2011 Astrology Signs, New Year of the Rabbit

Archive for September, 2010

GHOSTS...

There is one tragic quality shared by every ghost in every corner of every country around the world: Not one of them has the slightest idea that they're dead. Unlike most spirits who, when their bodies die, eagerly proceed through the tunnel that will take them Home, ghosts turn away from the tunnel, refusing to acknowledge its existence for reasons of their own and, as a result, remain earthbound, desperately confused and lonely, often angry, sometimes aggressive and petulant, trapped in a futile effort to make sense of an existence that by definition makes no sense at all...

Of course, ghosts do leave their bodies like all of us do when our bodies stop functioning, and by leaving their bodies they also leave this earthly dimension. But by rejecting the tunnel and God's loving, healing white light on The Other Side, they don't transcend to the higher-frequency dimension of Home, either, which means that their spirits are left quite literally "neither here nor there." That fact alone makes them very different from spirits from The Other Side in a number of ways:...

Living in neither earth's dimension nor the dimension of The Other Side, ghosts are typically more visible and distinct than spirits. I've used this analogy several times, but it seems effective enough that I'll unapologetically use it again: The easiest way to picture the three dimensions we're talking about-earth's dimension, ghosts' dimension, and the dimension of Home-is to visualize an electric fan. At its slowest speed, the fan's blades are well defined and easy to see. That represents the dimension on earth, the one we all function in and are accustomed to...

At the fan's medium speed, the individual blades begin to blur into each other and are harder for our eyes to distinguish. That represents the dimension in which ghosts are trapped. Turn the fan to its highest speed and its blades seem to disappear completely, creating the illusion that the blades aren't there at all, as false an illusion as the idea that The Other Side and its resident spirits don't exist just because we can't readily see them. The fact that some people are able to see and hear ghosts and spirits while others aren't doesn't prove that some people are crazy while others aren't. It just proves that some people's physical senses are more finely tuned than others'...

Because they haven't yet experienced the love and healing of The Other Side, ghosts will bear visible signs of any injuries or illnesses or deformities that were present when their bodies died. You will never see a spirit from Home who's wounded or sick or in any kind of physical or emotional pain...

When spirits are among us, their ultimate motivation is their love for us, and their efforts to get us to notice them are meant to express that love. Ghosts, on the other hand, are much more complicated. Their reasons for turning away from the tunnel and refusing to accept the fact of their death on this earth are widely varied. Some stay behind out of a confused sense of deep loyalty to a loved one or a property or a job for which they felt responsible during their lifetime. Some stay behind for revenge. Some stay behind to search for or wait for a lost love. Some stay behind out of fear that God is too displeased with them to embrace them into the blessed joy of Home (which is impossible, by the way-He embraces all of us who let Him)...

Whatever their confused purpose for rejecting the truth that they're dead, they're among us out of a distorted sense of reality. The world through a ghost's eyes is locked in a time warp of their own disturbed creation. From their point of view, we are the intruders in their world, not the other way around. So we shouldn't be too surprised that in their encounters with us, they're sometimes angry, desperate, resentful, cranky, or annoying...

Occasionally, when they realize that someone is seeing, hearing, or acknowledging them in any way, they can be appreciative and even playful, especially with children. But overall, like most unhappy, chronically disoriented beings, they can be unpredictable, not to mention depressing...

By not transcending to The Other Side, ghosts deprive themselves of the ability to bi-locate. There are no simultaneous appearances of a single ghost as there can be with a single spirit. In fact, by their own design, ghosts are usually too attached to whatever place they're frequenting to wander far away from it anyway...

Also, having not transcended, ghosts exist in our dimension, not in the dimension of Home three feet above our ground level on earth. That's why, while spirits appear to be "floating" as they move along the ground level of The Other Side, ghosts accurately appear to be functioning on exactly the same level we are...

As we discussed earlier, spirits, because they're so eager for us to know it's them, will appear in a form that will help us recognize them. Ghosts, on the other hand, couldn't care less whether we recognize them or not, since they're among us out of desperate confusion having nothing at all to do with comforting us...

They might show up as very distinct images of their own earthly bodies, they might appear rather faded and unformed, or they might even present themselves as balls of heavy mist, almost as if they were smoke rings with the centers filled in. They have neither the divine skill nor the self- control of spirits from Home, so the physical appearance of ghosts is simply one more way in which they can be frustratingly unpredictable...

Now that we've covered the basics of how and why most souls become spirits and a relative few become ghosts when their bodies die, and the basics of how to tell spirits and ghosts apart, you might think that's pretty much all you need to know to prepare yourself for dealing with any unexpected visitors from the spirit world who come along...

The fact is, though, that we've only just scratched the surface...

SPIRITS...

As I mentioned earlier, when our bodies die, most of us experience the brilliantly lit tunnel, not descending from some faraway place in the sky but actually rising from our own bodies and leading much more "across" than "up," at about a twenty- or thirty-degree angle. We travel with gorgeous, weightless freedom through this almost sideways tunnel, never for one instant feeling as if we've died but instead feeling more thrillingly alive than we could ever imagine here on earth. All our worries, frustrations, anger, resentment, and other negativity melt away, replaced by the peace and all-loving, unconditional understanding we remember and are about to reunite with at Home...

God's sacred white light waits to embrace us at the end of the tunnel, along with loved ones from every lifetime we've ever lived. Even our pets from every lifetime are there to greet us, so eager with the joy of seeing us that the human spirits have to wait their turn to get to us. And once we've arrived on The Other Side, we resume the busy, active, exquisite lives we temporarily left behind to further our spiritual education in the tough school earth provides...

There's a simple, logical reason that the legendary tunnel takes us more "across" than "up"-our destination, The Other Side, that paradise for which we're Homesick from the moment we leave it until we return, is another dimension located a mere three feet above earth's ground level. This very real, idyllically beautiful place exists at a much higher vibrational frequency than we do here, which is why we don't perceive our intimate proximity to it, any more than the normal human ear can hear the extremely high-frequency pitch of a dog whistle...

If you've had encounters with spirits from The Other Side, or talked to or read accounts from those who have, you've noticed that very often the descriptions include the impression that the spirits were "floating" a few feet above the ground. While that's often exactly what it looks like through our eyes, what's really happening is that the spirits are simply moving on their ground level at Home, three feet higher than ours...

To truly understand how to recognize a spirit visitation, and how to distinguish it from other experiences with the afterlife, you have to keep in mind that by the time they've come back to say hello and let us know they're still very much alive, they've already transcended to and been living in a place of emotional and spiritual bliss, not to mention perfect physical health...

Any unhappiness they experienced during their latest lifetime on earth, any negativity they carried around, any illnesses or infirmities or injuries they suffered, have all been resolved. What that means is that any entity we encounter who seems to be sad or angry or mean or negative in any way, or who shows any signs of wounds or pain or disease, is something other than a spirit from The Other Side. What it also means, by the way, is that we never need to spend a moment wondering if our deceased loved ones at Home are well and happy. In the blessed perfection of Home, they can't possibly be anything less...

Spirits at Home live in a world unobstructed by our earthly limitations, so there are qualities about them that set them apart from any other kinds of visitors. Because their minds and thoughts are so powerful they can communicate brilliantly with each other, and with us on earth, through the use of telepathy-the immediate transference of information from one entity to another without the use of any of the five physical senses. One of the most common observations you'll hear from people who've had visitations from spirits is that the spirit talked to them without using words or even making a sound...

Another talent spirits have that we'll often experience from them, and that we have to look forward to when we're spirits again, is that they can bi-locate, i.e., be in two places at the same time. It's not unusual for family members or others who were close to a deceased loved one to receive simultaneous visits from that loved one on opposite sides of town or opposite sides of the world, with both visits being completely real and completely unique...

Spirits are invariably eager for us to recognize exactly who they are, which means they'll either appear in a form that's familiar to us, they'll create a scent we'd associate with them, they'll offer a light touch to our hair or the back of our neck or our shoulder that was their habit during their lifetime, or they'll manipulate an object that will offer hints to their identity...

They'll repeatedly move a framed photograph of themselves so that it's facing a different direction or lying flat on a table or dresser, play with the flame of a candle we've lit in their honor, superimpose their face on a painting or snapshot, rock their favorite rocking chair, play a music box they gave us-the possibilities are as limitless as the imaginations of our loved ones themselves, and all we have to do is be receptive and pay attention...

Because spirits have to cross back into our dimension in order to visit us, they often attach their energy to such powerful conductors as electricity and water in order to help with their "reentry." Eager to make their presence known, they'll create bizarre behavior in TVs, appliances, telephones, and other objects and electrical devices, and they're especially active between the hours of 1:00 A.M. and 5:00 A.M., when the night air is at its dampest and the dew is at its heaviest...

Please don't misunderstand should you experience your telephone chronically ringing with either no one or static on the other end when you answer, or your television set suddenly doing a full rotation of all its channels while its remote control sits idle on the coffee table. Your belongings are not "possessed," any more than they're "possessed" when you use them yourself. Instead, it's very possibly a spirit, simply manipulating something tangible that you'll be sure to notice, to say, "I'm right here, watching over you." (I'm too much of a realist not to add that the spirit world is hardly responsible for every malfunction around the house. Sometimes all you need is a good repairman.)...

And speaking of "possessed," don't ever believe that a spirit from The Other Side, or any other entity from anywhere else, can possess you without your awareness and permission. I promise you, it's impossible, no matter how entertaining exorcist legends, books, and movies might be. As many of you know, I sometimes allow my Spirit Guide, Francine, to occupy my body for short periods of time. It's a matter of pure practicality, and another distinguishing characteristic of spirit visitations-because of the significant difference between The Other Side's vibrational frequency and ours here on earth, Francine's voice, like all other spirits' voices, sounds to our ears like an audiotape played at fast-forward speed. Frankly, it's annoying, hard to understand when you're not accustomed to it, and probably why the majority of spirits communicate telepathically...

But when Francine has a lot of information to share, rather than put myself and everyone else through what might resemble a performance by one of the Chipmunks, I'll essentially "step aside" through trance and allow Francine to use my body, or more specifically my vocal cords, for the duration of what she has to say. Without my knowledge, permission, and cooperation, it couldn't happen. Should you hear a high-pitched, tinny, rather distant voice that seems to be coming from out of nowhere, though, as I know so many of you have, you can count on it that someone from Home has stopped by to say hello....

Finally, just as spirits from The Other Side are incapable of negative thoughts and actions, they're also incapable of visiting us for anything but the most positive of reasons. Even though it can be startling to see or hear them when you're not accustomed to it, spirit visitations are never intended to frighten or intimidate or threaten or chase us away. All they want is to love us, comfort us, reassure us that they've never really left us and never will, and most of all to try to prove to us by their very presence, no matter how subtle, that by God's grace, eternal life is a simple, sacred, indisputable fact...