My grandparents were born and lived in Lithuania before World War II. In 1940 communist Russia occupied Lithuania, and then Nazi Germany took it over. Near the end of WW II the Russians came back and reoccupied the nation. There was a lot of fighting between the Russians and the Germans with Lithuanian collaborators on both sides.
Eventually my grandparents with their children fled Lithuania, never to return. My grandmother had a strange story from those days, the time before they became refugees. She considered it divine intervention by a guardian angel.
When there was fighting in the local area it was obvious by the sound of gunfire in the distance. The family would go into the basement of the simple house where they lived. The basement was more a hole in then what we’d think of as a basement. But when things were quiet again, everybody would return upstairs.
One quiet day grandma was sitting in the house chatting with some family and neighbors. According to grandma, she was sitting on a couch by herself when she suddenly felt something invisible nudge her, pushing her on her right side. There was nobody there, but she got up anyway and moved over a seat on the couch. Literally seconds later, there was the sound of gunfire in the distance, and a stray bullet broke through the window and landed in the couch seat right where grandmother had just seconds before.
Everyone was startled. They checked to see if grandmother was ok and she was fine. Had she not moved, that bullet would have ended up in her midsection. Back in those days, there were no emergency room to run to. She would have died. They checked the couch and found the rifle bullet embedded in it.
Guardian Angel
She thought this incident was very strange and for many years kept that bullet as a good luck token. Since she was a deeply religious person, she believed it was an angel that saved her by pushing her to move out of the way of a random stray bullet. God saved her life.
Did a guardian angel save her life? Or did grandma have a life saving premonition?
I have a problem with the idea of God directly intervening in a person’s life. It is the problem of divine favoritism. In a war, many people suffer and die unjustly. Why would God favor one person to live over another? Is that fair? Why would God spare my grandmother’s life but not countless others? The answer from some would be God works in mysterious ways. Perhaps so.
There is another possibility that removes the problem of favoritism. We are our own guardian angel.
There is a belief in esoteric thought that we all consist of different levels of existence: physical, mental, astral, and spiritual. This spiritual aspect of our existence exists outside of time and space as part of the universal Divine. We have no direct contact with this version of our self. If we encountered this aspect of our self, it would seem as if it were a separate entity.
Yet this guardian angel, our higher self, does interact and communicate with us through our intuition. Insights, premonitions, answers to problems, the correct path to take are often available from our higher self if we listen to our intuition. Everyday our higher self tries to guide us if we are open its messages.
Grandma’s life may have been saved by a premonition, which she acted on. It was her choice to move. Life changing intuition happens to many people many times. If divine intervention is essentially in our own hands, then life is fair. We can’t blame God anymore. We have to listen to the quiet voice inside us all.
The supernatural has long been a staple of movies. Yet movies that treat the paranormal as reality are not common. There is a distinction between using the magical as grist for special effects and considering them thing as real. As an example, The Exorcist was a film about the spiritual/supernatural while a film like Poltergeist or Ghostbusters were great entertainment that had nothing to do with the genuinely paranormal. Poltergeists might be real, but they don’t open gateways to other dimensions or make houses vanish.
A couple of movies that tackle the topic of the paranormal are Paranormal Activity and The Men Who Stare at Goats.
Paranormal Activity is famous for having been made with a budget of $15,000 and making over a hundred million dollars at the box office. Its limited budget is part of the movie’s appeal since it had to portray the paranormal in a realistic manner without over-the-top special effects. Scares come from little things…lights turning on spontaneously in the hallway or the sound of unseen footsteps by the bed while the couple sleeps. Paranormal Activity does bring up a question.
Can ghosts be dangerous?
It is said true ghosts are harmless, and so they are. There really is nothing to fear from a ghost. But this movie is not dealing with a ghost but demonic activity. Inhuman, infernal entities can be quite dangerous.
The movie portrays what is called demonic obsession. Demonic obsession is different then demonic possession -exorcist style. Spiritualists believe negative entities can sometimes latch onto an individual like a parasite and try to inject the entity’s thoughts into the mind of their host. The obsessed individual will feel these are his or her own ideas when they are actually the entity’s. These thoughts will be irrational, self-destructive, and harmful to others. Spiritual obsession is a danger involved with opening one’s self to contact with the spirit world. It may occur more often then anybody imagines. If someone is passive in the face of obsession and allow these thoughts to persist, they could become entrenched.
Another paranormal film is The Men Who Stare at Goats. This film is loosely based on actual government programs to develop psychic abilities like remote viewing as tools for spying or as weapons. The film views such activities as a farce. The movie also brings up a question.
Can anyone harm another by simply willing it?
This may seem impossible but it could happen in real life. In the past I wrote about something like this. I know someone who was cheated in a business deal. This person was so upset, everyday for months she visualized the person who wronged her would trip and fall backwards on their back outside the office. This was not done with the intention of actually causing anything to happen; it was just her response to deep-seated anger.
Three months later this happened almost exactly as she visualized. The person tripped by their office and broke their back, ending up in a body cast for months. The power of intense, persistent visualization can cause harm. However, this is not instantaneous like staring at a goat and having it drop dead. The lesson here is beware whom we wrong because not every misfortune we suffer might be just an accident.
Anyone can try this as an experiment on somebody we don’t like, but there is a danger involved. There is a long-standing tradition that if a curse fails, the effect will return onto the curser. Blowback. In addition, dwelling in negative energy is not good for our soul or body. Negativity can cause all types of physical illnesses.
Some aspects of the paranormal are best left alone.
Orbs can be the result of many things; a camera’s flash reflecting off dust, raindrops or some shiny surface. Yet from my experience, on rare occasions an orb could be something more, perhaps the reflection of an invisible energy, or even paranormal. Is it possible to tell if an orb is natural or that rare instance of the paranormal?
It would be great if there were some clues that might hint an orb is more then just an orb. There are many clues when an orb is a trick of the camera. A strong clue orbs are only natural are when many orbs appear in a photo. That is very likely a cloud of dust at work. Take a flash photo in the rain and you’ll see for yourself. If a reflective surface is reflecting the flash, guess what, that orb is nothing.
If detecting natural orbs are fairly easy, is it possible to assess if an orb is more then natural? That is tricky. Most orbs seem to be flat, pale and “lifeless” and so they are. The more intriguing orbs seem to have a feeling of solidity to them. Even at best nothing is ever really conclusive. The best, maybe only clue is the context in which the orb appears. What is happening at the time and what is its significance?
Here are examples of orbs that seem interesting even if they are only tricks of the camera, taken at a Halloween party at a nightclub. There are so many possible sources of reflection that nothing can be trusted. Yet examples with interesting patterns emerge.
In the photo above it looks like somebody is pointing at the orb…only coincidence? Then there is an orb that seems too symmetrical with concentric circles. Finally a jolly green giant has an orb over his shoulder. It is hard to imagine these orbs are anything other then an optical effect. Yet in my imagination I like the idea spirits visited a costume party.
At the bottom is an orb taken at daytime in a cemetery. This cemetery had a reputation for haunting. Orbs taken without a flash in the light of day are pretty hard to catch. Daylight orbs get my attention. Another intriguing clue would be if an orb were partly covered by something so that it could not be an optical effect. Then again anybody could digitally manipulate any photo, so nothing can be trusted unless we took the picture ourselves. In the end encountering the paranormal is really a personal experience.
Halloween is my favorite American holiday. Christmas is great, except we spend too much money. Thanksgiving is about family and food but turkey makes me sleepy. Halloween is for fun, without stress or worry. We may not get the day off from work like the other Big Two holidays, but Halloween does not cost much either. Our investment is in some trick-or-treating candy and perhaps a costume and some holiday decorations. Some people really get into the Halloween spirit and do a great job with their home’s Halloween decoration.
Halloween started as a pagan European holiday to celebrate the end of summer and honor the denizens of the spirit world. For some strange reason, modern America took this holiday to heart and turned it into a big deal. This is odd considering American is essentially a Christian nation. Then again, Christmas is partly a pagan holiday too. It seems paganism has not been completely extinguished from the popular imagination.
However, there are people who frown on Halloween. Some Christians understand the pagan background of Halloween and resist its allure. Others don’t like the scary side of the holiday. An example below is an article from a Chicago Tribune writer who does not like the fact that Halloween celebrates ghoulishness.
“The spirit of the Halloween holiday is exactly what I hate about it.”
If anything, I think Halloween has been watered down and made too nice. There was a time long ago when people actually believed in the reality of the Spirit World. The autumn traditions were to celebrate our ancestors and placate the Unseen World. People were in touch with the cycles of nature along with our connection to the spirits.
Now, Halloween is a joke! The scary aspects of nature and the spirits have been reduced to cartoons. This can be summed up with breakfast cereals using cuddly monsters on them (Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry). The mighty faeries of the past became Disney characters. There are still some scary parts to Halloween which evokes the dangers of the spirit world, but just as commercialism has watered down the meaning of Christmas, so it has with Halloween.
Yet the spirit of Halloween still endures. One example is the Wiccan celebration of Samhain. I want to wish my Wiccan and pagan friends a wonderful Samhain! And everybody else, have a fun Halloween. This year Halloween is on a Saturday, so party on…Happy Halloween!
Are out-of-body and near-death experiences true or are they simply a trick of the mind? Throughout all cultures individuals have experienced the strangeness of the OBE. These are so widespread science has taken an interest in the topic and has done some studies on it. Most scientists claim the out-of-body experience is imaginary, only in the mind, and can be duplicated by stimulating parts of the brain.
It’s nice science has looked into this and they have their theories. Is there any proof the out-of-body experience is an objective reality? That consciousness can actually exist outside the physical body? The many out-of-body stories contain powerful evidence, except these stories are not subject to the scientific method and thus can’t be replicated thru experimentation.
An example of such a story was my father’s own out-of-body experience he had as a child. In 1943 my father was 12 years old. His family was living in Europe during World War II. During these difficult times my grandfather’s family, as war refuges, ended up moving to a small village.
Soon after they moved to this village my father got ill with the mumps and came down with a high fever. During his high fever he lost consciousness for hours.
Worried about their son, my grandparents called a doctor from another village for help.
During his unconsciousness, my young father had an out-of-body experience. He recalls hovering over his body. He saw his parents and a doctor he never saw before. They were putting wet towels on him trying to lower his fever. He said he watched from overhead without any real thought to what was happening; he was just an observer.
Next, his awareness rose much higher. Suddenly he was high above the village. He was looking down as if he had an aerial view of the town. He saw the entire village, all the streets and houses in detail. What was odd was this happened at night, and the village did not have streetlights. I asked dad how did he see anything if it was dark. Dad said that was very peculiar. He saw everything even in the dark.
This is an interesting detail. What does that say about the OBE? The participant does not view with world with the physical senses. The disembodied consciousness can seemingly see in the dark, so perhaps it is viewing events with some “astral sight”. It does not need light striking the optic nerves.
How long did this OBE last? Dad said he did not know. He recalls awakening and was back in his body, but barely able to think straight. He drifted in and out of consciousness, but by the morning his fever broke. Later the child began to recall the experience, and wondered about it. As a child my dad liked to draw pictures. The child decided to draw a map of the town from what he remembered of his aerial view.
My young father never saw a map of this small village, and no maps seemed to have existed. These old villages did not have straight, logical streets but curving streets and confusing ways. Being curious about his experience, my young father decided to follow his hand drawn map and see if it was accurate or not. To his amazement, he discovered his map was! He found places on his map that he was did not know about but saw from ”above”. What he was able to recall from his overhead view of the village was real. He really wondered about this, but World War II was going on and soon they were on the move again.
A child had the curiosity to document what he saw during an out-of-body experience, and discovered it was accurate. This suggests that the out-of-body experience is literally true. Perhaps science will one day be able to recreate the actual event and study it for real. If one day we have evidence of the reality of the OBE, it will change what we understand about the universe and its laws of nature.
Halloween is a great holiday, and not just for children but for adults too. It is now considered one of the top party days of the year. Halloween has many traditions from trick-or-treat to carving pumpkins. These traditions have pagan origins, which became popularized…and watered down. My favorite tradition is dressing up in costume and heading out to a nightclub for a costume contest. Nightclubs with big cash prizes tend to attract some really outstanding costumes.
Nosferatu Halloween Costume
Above are some costumes I’ve worn in Halloween’s past…a Freddy, a Red Devil and a Monster Hunter. As the Red Devil I covered by face in red face paint, glued on some horns and pointy “Spock” ears and discovered it was a difficult and time consuming to clean off the face paint afterwards. That was no fun. I’ll stick with the simple facemasks, so I can quickly escape from the costume when the party is over.
To the left are some pictures I took over the years of others’ costumes that impressed me. Some are really amazing. People can put a lot of effort into their outfit.
What is the point of the Halloween costume? We could say it is just good fun, and so it is. But as with nearly all Halloween traditions, there is symbolic and even spiritual significance behind the practices. Is there a deeper occult meaning behind Halloween costumes and “dressing up”?
Having attended numerous costume parties, I’ve developed my own impression. Watching partiers dressed up feels like we’ve entered a different world, a world outside of normality, something festive but bizarre. Before us we have all manner of representations of the unknown. Have we entered into an unconscious, unintended replica of the invisible spirit world? Gathered together the costumed participants unknowingly mirror the spirit world, whose inhabitants (like faeries, demons and such) assume all manner of forms and shapes.
Thirteen Ghosts Jackal Costume
Wearing a costume has a psychological effect on the wearer and the observer. Like an actor in a play, we become the character in a way. And what characters are we becoming? Very often creatures of imagination and spirit. We use popular culture versions of these Beings of Spirit, but popular culture’s monsters have their origins in the folklore and the beliefs of the past. Dracula, Jason, Freddy and such modern ghouls are a reflection of old beliefs…in ghosts, entities, the afterlife, and religion.
Examples of the role of masks are those worn by shaman or medicine men, which were used for religious and ceremonial purposes. These often-grotesque masks literally symbolized the spirits of the spirit world. And the imagery often came from the shaman’s actual spiritual journey into this spirit world. The mask physically represented the spirits, real or imagined.
Freddy Krueger Halloween Costumes
When we dress up in our costumes on Halloween, imagine we attract invisible “visitors” to accompany us on our quest into the night. Trick-or-treat or costume party, the whole point seems to be replicating the spirit world visiting the physical world for one night. On Halloween legend suggests the barriers between the physical and the invisible world are thinnest. The role of the costume is either to scare away these spirits…or to have them join in with us. One night a year we pretend to be spirits ourselves. What fun!
Fairy tales often have serious, even grim messages beneath their stories. Little Red Riding Hood is a warning to beware of strangers. Tales of lake or river faeries are cautionary stories to warn the young to be wary of the calm surface of the water, for underneath may occur a drowning accident. Trolls could be metaphors for the capriciousness of the natural world, giving a bountiful harvest or famine and starvation.
ZOMBIES ATTACK
Movies often resonate like a fairy tale. Romantic comedies/fantasies speak of the hope to escape the burdens of life. Horror movies can be about getting trapped by life’s chaos. Do movie monsters serve the same purpose as fairy tale monsters, as metaphors for real life dangers?
Movie monsters are not very frightening. What monster can compare to how scary real life can be? Godzilla? Dracula? Dracula is fantasy, and the vampire is a creature of “Twlight” fantasy. The same with the werewolf or similar fantasy creatures.
However, I think the zombie movie genre works as a metaphor for something horrible about reality. Unlike the vampire genre, there is nothing romantic about zombies. What can the soulless dead say about reality?
To my way of thinking, zombie movies like ‘Night of the Living Dead’, ‘Dawn of the Dead’, ‘28 Days Later’ and so forth examine the collapse of civilization and the threat of the mindless mob. The zombie attacks without rational cause. They cannot be negotiated with, only avoided or battled. Run run! How would we react if we were surrounding by a mob of soulless beings that only wanted to kill us? This is not only fantasy.
In the news was a story about a mob that beat to death an honors high school student near Fenger High School in Chicago. It was brutal and shocking; the video was caught on a cell phone. This awful video seemed like a gruesome scene from a zombie movie…below is a video about the news story.
The zombie “fairy tale” could be a metaphor for irrational violence and even genocide. The zombie concept is not that far a stretch from the mob violence that plagues the world. Who are these people who can beat someone to death or stand by and just watch? They are real-life zombies. They are the Soulless…the true Living Dead.
How is it possible to not have a soul? I could blame bad parenting. When a child is born, their parents will shape this new life. There is no greater responsibility then giving a child the tools necessary to survive and prosper. If a young mind is not developed, the empty soul will be filled by other influences. Perhaps the passions of the mob will fill the empty vessel, and in the process strip away the soul. The zombie metaphor is maybe too close to reality.
Since my mother passed away, I’ve been wondering how much I should write about her death. It is appropriate for someone to discuss such a personal event in a blog? This question especially comes up when I have some pictures. Yet, I think exploring the possibility of existence after death is something important for everyone.
My mom had her favorite place to sit at home. It was a comfortable couch in my parent’s living room. She would sit in the same spot listening to the radio or watching television. When I stopped by to visit, I often saw mom sitting on her couch. When she got ill, she spent most of her time on the couch, even napping on it. Finally, my mom could not get up off the couch without help. When my dad could not help her anymore he had her taken to the hospital. After a short time in the hospital, she died of her cancer.
Sitting Orb
As the days went by I tried to spend as much time as I could with my dad to comfort him. One such time I brought my camera with me. I thought to myself…could mom still be around watching over us? Both mom and dad knew about my blog devoted to alternative spirituality and the paranormal. Mom would ask about my blog. She did not know much about computers and the idea of a blog didn’t make much sense to her, but she was interested. I thought maybe mom wouldn’t mind if I tried to get a picture of her, if she chose to visit home after her death.
I took some pictures around the house, mostly at the places she spent most of her time. To my amazement, I caught images of orbs around her favorite couch (picture above). Now, in themselves orbs don’t prove anything as there are many natural explanations for them. But sometimes it seems as if orbs can be a manifestation of an invisible energy. The merit of such photography depends on the context. Capturing these orbs where my mother used to sit sent a chill up my spine.
Orb by brother
My brother entered the room, and I took his picture. Then I asked mom, if she were around, to give my brother a hug. I took another picture and now it had an orb right beside him. I immediately showed the image to my brother, who normally scoffed at such nonsense, and even he was taken aback by that. Here is that picture.
Was my mom still at home, watching over us, before her decision to depart the world forever? Her family and home were her life, and if she did linger, home would have been the place. Not long afterwards, my father had a personal experience. While he was in the basement working on his PC (and wide awake), he saw a moving column of bright light accompanied by a powerful scent of lavender and flowers. The scent reminded him of the perfume my mom wore as a young lady. He was a skeptic before, but not so much now. I don’t know if these pictures really mean anything, but I like the idea they might.
As I post this today, it has been one month since my mom died. Below is a picture of mom on her couch during happier times. I miss her.
I sure hope it is not religious intolerance at work.When I read the story, my first thought was this was vandalism.Who would toss a statue in a river?But I don’t know much about the Hinduism.Does anybody know anything about such a tradition where an icon would be discarded in such a way? What would be the meaning involved with practice?
After my mother died recently, my father had an extraordinary experience.
My mother had a strong attachment to family and home. She was a stay-at-home mom for most of her life. Family and home were the center of her life. A few weeks ago she passed away. After feeling a pain in her abdomen, she went for a scan. They found a tumor on her pancreas, the worst type of cancer. With a speed I thought not possible, she became ill and within weeks died in a terrible way, entering into a place of pain and suffering. I can only be thankful she did not suffer for long, which is very little to be thankful for.
This was very hard on my father, who cared for my mom the best he could, but was helpless as he watched the symptoms of the cancer rapidly progress. After over 50 years of marriage, my father was suddenly alone. My father is a no-nonsense guy, and not a religious man. He said he did not know if there is life after death, but he doubted it. However, he said he knew mom was not suffering anymore, even if she was only in oblivion.
Then a few days ago my dad told me his story. It was early evening, eleven days after my mom died. He was sitting in a basement room that was made into a little office. He was on his computer doing some stuff, when he noticed a bright light in the corner of his right eye, where the open doorway was. He turned a bit to look, when the light slowly moved behind him and to his left. He looked to his left and saw a bright pillar of light. The light was not on the wall, but in midair, and as tall as a person. As the light had passed behind him, a fragrance filled the room, of flowers and lavender, as if someone were wearing a strong perfume.
My dad said the scent reminded him of perfume my mom liked to wear as a young lady. The light was bright, lasted for a number of seconds, then faded away. But the fragrance lingered longer. Dad said he was overcome with a feeling of true peace. And he felt…not words, but some knowledge, as if mom impressed on him that she was ok now, and for him to “Go do your thing.” Go on with life.
When dad told me his story, I was amazed. He said he thinks mom visited him one last time before going on to wherever she is going. And that he’ll not see her again, until his turn comes.
I believe Mom had visited him one last time. Perhaps dad needed to know mom still exists, and there is hope for life after death. Dad seemed to have a change of heart about some things now. He seems more open to possibilities, and at peace after mom’s passing.
Another paranormal film is The Men Who Stare at Goats. This film is loosely based on actual government programs to develop psychic abilities like remote viewing as tools for spying or as weapons. The film views such activities as a farce. The movie also brings up a question.
Orbs can be the result of many things; a camera’s flash reflecting off dust, raindrops or some shiny surface. Yet from my experience, on rare occasions an orb could be something more, perhaps the reflection of an invisible energy, or even paranormal. Is it possible to tell if an orb is natural or that rare instance of the paranormal?
Here are examples of orbs that seem interesting even if they are only tricks of the camera, taken at a Halloween party at a nightclub. There are so many possible sources of reflection that nothing can be trusted. Yet examples with interesting patterns emerge. 
However, there are people who frown on Halloween. Some Christians understand the pagan background of Halloween and resist its allure. Others don’t like the scary side of the holiday. An example below is an article from a Chicago Tribune writer who does not like the fact that Halloween celebrates ghoulishness.
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