OCCULT VIEW

100% Near-Death Experience
75% PSI Phenomena
50% Ghosts
25% UFOs/Aliens
2% Fairies
1% BigFoot
0% Santa Claus, Noah’s Ark, Flat Earth/Hollow Earth, Nazi UFOs, Planet Nibiru, Faked Moon Landings, Et Cetera

As a service to the esoteric community I offer the Occult View’s official and definitive Paranormal Reality Scale. It has a margin of error of +/-3%.

On a scale of 100% to 0%, how real is any particular paranormal phenomena? I offer this scale: The Near-Death-Experience is rated at 100%, Ghosts are at 50% and Bigfoot is 1%. We can fit everything else in-between.

At 100% we have the Near-Death Experience. These experiences are a fact. If the NDE is genuinely paranormal or just a trick of the mind remains undecided. Decades ago the NDE was not even recognized. Today it is the topic of serious scientific inquiry. The NDE is 100% real but its true nature remains a mystery.

At 25% we have UFOs, less then the flip of a coin. UFOs are iffy. There is compelling evidence of their existence, but nothing is conclusive. Today with digital manipulation, we can’t trust any image or video. Our only evidence are the accounts of people who have seen them, and those may be mistaken. Yet all it takes is for one incident to be true. Is everyone mistaken?

At 1% we have Bigfoot. We have the dubious Patterson Bigfoot film, some foot castings and not much else. What are the odds a hominid could survive in North America undetected? I say 1%.

Then we have the 0% category. This is a fun category. Anything is possible! But nothing is real. I include Santa Claus, Noah’s Ark, the flat earth and hollow earth theories, faked moon landings, Planet Nibiru, 2012 and so on.

In between I put Psi at 75%. I feel the research done by parapsychology has essentially proven Psi exists (telepathy, precognition). It is a subtle effect but quite real. However, it has yet to be recognized by mainstream science. I feel its day will come. It is on its way moving up to the 100% category.

At 50% I place ghosts. In my opinion ghost are as real as the NDE; they may be part of it. But any evidence for ghosts is weak. There are some pictures, some electronic voice phenomenon, but nothing close to being definitive. On the other hand, stories of ghosts are as old as humanity. There are countless anecdotal accounts, and these cannot be just dismissed. I feel ghosts are real, but try catching a ghost. Proof is elusive.

There was a story about magnetoreception I found intriguing.  Magnetoreception is the ability to detect magnetic fields.  Many animals are believed to have this sense and use it for navigating the earth’s magnetic field.  For humanity, it seems like a lost ability.

A recent study in Nature Communications discussed a protein in the human eye that seemed to have magnetic sensing properties.  When this human protein was inserted into fruit flies, they became sensitive to magnetic fields and were able to detect them.

Here is the story:  Human eye protein senses Earth’s magnetism

I’ll offer some speculation.  Could human magnetoreception help explain paranormal perception?  There are countless stories of human beings seeing normally invisible spirits, ghosts, angels, and faeries.  Sometimes, rarely, someone will have a vision of something anomalous that appears very real. These visions have been regarded the result of an overactive imagination.

What would happen if, on occasion, our retina briefly perceived the electromagnetic world?  We might see a blurry image of light and try to make sense of it.  We might even call it a ghost.

A theory about ghosts and spirits suggest they interact with the physical world by manipulating electromagnetism.  It has been suggested much of paranormal activity could be explained by magnetic fields.  Cold spots in hauntings are said to be spirits drawing energy from the surroundings to manifest them.

Can we train to see invisible or magnetic fields?  There is an exercise anyone can use to develop etheric (electromagnetic?) sight.  In a darkened room, hold your fingertips as close together as possible without actually touching them.  Focus your body’s energy towards the tips of your fingers.  Then look at the fingertips indirectly, out of the corner of your eye using your peripheral vision. Slowly draw your fingers apart.

You might see a faint astral light, almost like smoke, streaming and swirling between the fingertips.  I have seen this myself.  Someone who suggested they had psychic abilities once demonstrated this to me.  From the edge of my eye I saw something like a tiny, dimly lit vapor interacting between their fingertips.

Was I experiencing magnetoreception?

There was a story in the news about a cat living at a nursing home.  This cat could sense when one of the residents was about to die and would snuggle up to the individual before their death.  This cat’s predictions concerning who was going to pass away were so uncannily accurate the staff clearly understood its significance.  The story is below:

 Cat knows when it’s time to go

This really is an amazing story.  Does this cat have paranormal abilities?  There have been many stories of animals displaying premonitions or who can seemingly read thoughts.  Examples include pets that seem to know when their owner is about to return home, even at an irregular time.  Animals have heightened senses of hearing, sight and smell, which we humans don’t share.  Do our pets also have a heightened sixth sense as well?  Has animal life evolved a psychic sensory system which humanity has mostly lost?

Animals were a focus of prehistoric man’s caves paintings, which were believed to be for spiritual purposes.  Shamanism recognized power animals as spirit guides. Ancient Egyptian gods were animals or human/animal hybrids, like the cat god Bast or the raven-headed Ra or ibis-headed Thoth.  Medieval Christianity believed pets could be familiar spirits, the devil’s imps in disguise. 

Spellcaster with her cat

Today the concept of an animal familiar spirit is viewed differently.  Many including pagans and Wiccans believe animals like cats have psychic abilities and are sensitive to the Invisible World.  They can see what we cannot, including spirits.  By developing a bond with their “familiar” the practitioner of the mystic arts can make use of the animal’s innate abilities for their advantage.

Cats seem to possess an extra sensitivity in this regard, which might explain why cats figure so largely in the legends of witchcraft.  Can a cat see into the spirit world?  It is said cats have the ability to see the dead.  This cat which sensed when a nursing home resident was about to die shows this idea may not be just myth.  

This story of the “death cat” also reveals something equally remarkable, the connection of the animal world with humanity in terms of an emotional connection.  Why would a cat care if someone were about die?  But this cat seemed to.  The bond between human and their pets can be as deep as human relationships.  On a spiritual level this suggests that animals are not merely walking robots, but beings with their own merit, with emotional and spiritual lives; that animals have souls.

During out-of-body near-death experiences individuals reported approaching a ‘tunnel of light’.  At this gateway where they would leave behind physical existence, the near-dead often reported being greeted by their deceased loved ones waiting for them at this tunnel.  And some said they were not only greeted by their dead family and friends, but also by their dead pets.  This is a comforting thought for any of us who have lost a beloved pet.

Consider this passage from the Bible where Jesus said, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.” If God does not forget even a single sparrow, then all animals are as eternal as God’s memory.

The New England Journal of Medicine:
A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat: David M. Dosa, M.D., M.P.H.

I asked Arlene from the blog Winterspells.com if she would like to share any of her paranormal experiences with my blog.  She offered a story below about her experience as a psychic healer.  Her story is about psychic assault and is filled with interesting details.  I heard stories concerning hostile entities and how these negative entities don’t seem to give up easily.  Banishing astral nasties seems to require steadfastness over a period of time, and calling on a higher power, as defined by our belief system.  It seems nearly every spiritual tradition recognizes some sort of  “dark side” which can sometimes make unwelcome contact into our lives.

Here is her story:

In the mid 1990’s, I had a client Mr. D who bragged about coming from a famous, old Mafia family. But his braggadocio was only a front, for he was traumatized by a terrible childhood event. After years of constant nightmares, he finally had to deal with the deep seeded fears caused by his inability to move past the harrowing events of his childhood.

 When Mr. D was five years old, his “Mafia Uncle” had a girlfriend that he often brought with him to Mr. D’s house.  One day, Mr. D went downstairs to the recreation room and saw the girlfriend lying in a strange position on the pool table. Blood was dripping out of her mouth and pooling the floor beneath her. The Uncle saw Mr. D standing there, frozen in terror, and immediately threw him into a closet, locked the door, and threatened to kill him if he ever told anyone about what he had seen.

This story sounds dramatic and almost too clich?d to be true, but I work with what people give me. Even if this story sounds like the plot of a film noir, there is a reason the client created it, holds onto it, believes in it, and allows it to hamstring his life. Even as a metaphor, it has power over him, and it is my job, not to judge, but to break the power of the images, freeing the client’s energy, so he can move on with his life. And there is also the possibility that this incident actually did happen.

(For a clairvoyant, it is sometimes unclear whether an image is literally true or if it was created in the client’s mind. The power of obsessive thought forms can interfere with clairvoyant accuracy)

Mr. D and I had a particularly powerful energy healing session in which the (now deceased) Uncle’s spirit was jettisoned out of Mr. D’s energy fields. I thought he was sent to God’s light, but that night, I began to have violent and lurid nightmares. I never had dreams like that before.  After decades of meditation practice, I have a pretty thorough knowledge of my own mind and subconscious, so I knew my psychic space was being invaded by a stranger’s emotions, ideas, and images. These dreams were not my material!

In all my years of healing work, this had never happened before. In a half sleepy state, I called on my guides to reveal to me who the intruder was, and was shocked when a small, slightly distorted caricature of a wiry, balding, middle aged Italian man, wearing a three-piece suit, popped up before my mind’s eye and began threatening me, raising his tiny fists, and screaming. I shouted at him to go! And, thinking that was all it took, went back to sleep.

I had the same violent nightmare for three more nights. During the day, I suffered panic attacks. I kept dropping things and was feeling very out of sync. I finally confided my problems to a friend who was open to these things. She told me to make some Holy Water and flick it around the house, read some psalms, and order the spirit to depart. I also created a Magic Circle and did a protection ritual, more assertively commanding my allies to take this spirit out of my space and send him to his next highest level of evolution. After doing all of that for another three days, the attacks ended. He was gone!
In the end, this was a fairly easy situation to deal with. In the future, I would deal with psychic attacks that were far worse.

Arlene has a report on psychic self defense at her blog.  Check them out:
http://www.winterspells.com
Winterspells: A Magical Life in Faery Witchcraft

http://www.gothicfaerytales.com
The Darker Side of Faery Tales

Follow her on Twitter as: ArlenedeWinter.

Paranormal Activity Paramont Films

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.