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:
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.
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
The Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the same rights as living human beings when it comes to free speech. Therefore corporations should have no restrictions on spending money to influence the political process. The Court ruled that a piece of paper and those who control that paper (which is essentially what a corporation is) can spend unlimited corporate dollars on political advertising. To avoid bad PR, this funding can be disguised through front groups.
In my opinion, this is a disaster for democracy. Big Business already has overwhelming power with its lobbying. Now it can spend to directly influence voters, promoting its narrow interests. When it comes to American voters, an interested party does not need to persuade 50% of the population, only about 5-10%, the usual margin of victory. Access to unlimited advertising resources can decide nearly any election at will.
This could be the end of a working democracy in America. It is not hard to manipulate and frighten Americans to act against their own self interest. When true democracy fails who will be in charge? We will have the new Illuminati…invisible individuals pulling the strings, answerable to no one.
Conspiracy theorists like to imagine the Illuminati is secretly in control of the world. Because of the Supreme Court ruling we will soon have a true, reborn Illuminati governing events. Corporations (domestic and foreign) will now freely, secretly collude, pool their resources and choose our leadership. The Supreme Court gave our new Illuminati the keys to near dictatorial power. And we won’t know who they are! Politicians will be subservient slaves to this international corporate Illuminati.
With global big business controlling elections and thereby government, we will enter a period of government by oligarchy, where CEOs, billionaires and foreigners (under front corporations) decide policy. Who will stop them? Politicians? The voters? They haven’t yet.
This happened recently. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian billionaires became oligarchs. Russian president Vladimir Putin finally put an end to the oligarchs with strong arm tactics, and put the Russian government firmly back in control. In the future America may need to do the same. America will need a political strong arm, our own Putin, to replace the neo-illuminati.
It appears the famous Poe Toaster has given up his yearly visit to the original grave marker of Edgar Allen Poe. Every January 19 for six decades the Poe Toaster visited the grave in the dark of night to leave three roses and half a bottle of cognac. Below is one of many new stories concerning this:
After the holidays of December I always looked forward to January 19, the birthday of Poe, and reports of the Toaster’s annual pilgrimage to Poe’s grave. It seemed like an unofficial holiday for fans of the macabre. It added a bit of mystery and intrigue to the cheerless month of January. Who was the Poe Toaster?
Nobody knows. We can only make a few guesses about the Toaster’s motivations. The Toaster visited the grave of Poe from at least 1949 if not earlier. That was a lifetime of paying respects to Poe, a steadfast accomplishment. This was not done to gain attention, but a unique way to honor an author who at did not get the recognition he deserved in his lifetime. Did the Toaster realize this simple act of appreciation would eventually remind the world to remember Poe every year on his birthday? It did exactly that.
It is suggested the three roses left at the grave are for Poe, his wife and mother-in-law who were also buried there. As for the half bottle of cognac, what does that mean? Poe died from drinking at 40. Cognac is an ironic but strangely meaningful gift for Poe.
I had a good friend pass away from cancer a decade ago. My friend had his own problems with drinking, which he usually (not always) had under control, thanks to his wife who would give him endless grief if he veered off the rails. Yet he and I shared good times over some Goldschlager.
When my friend died he was cremated and his ashes scattered. I don’t have a place to visit to offer my respects; I wish I did. If I did, I could see myself leaving a miniature bottle of Goldschlager at his grave along with flowers as a personal gesture. I know he would have appreciated it. Perhaps the Poe Toaster was thinking the same thing, that Poe’s downfall was also his passion.
Why has the Toaster stopped this tradition? Eventually the Poe Toaster’s act of respect gradually turned into a media circus. A note said that the original Poe Toaster had passed away in 1998 and handed the task to his son. In the era of reality TV and celebrity wannabes doing anything to get on television, I really respect that father and son wanted to maintain their privacy. It seems the 200th anniversary of Poe may be the last visit by the Toaster. I don’t blame the son for not wanting the hassle anymore.
The Poe Toaster is now part of the story of Edgar Allen Poe. Will we ever see the Toaster again? I think others will take his place who have no relationship to the original. Wannabe toasters, pretend toasters. Maybe next year we’ll see three of four new Poe toasters trying to leave flowers and cognac. Is that a bad thing? Others can be inspired by the Toaster’s example.
I want to thank the Poe Toaster for bringing some light into the world every January 19. I raise a class of cognac and toast the Toaster. If I knew where he was buried, I would visit to leave a rose and perhaps a bottle of cognac as well. Salute!
On January 12 we had one of the most horrendous earthquakes of our time, the earthquake in Haiti. Watching the new coverage, I felt helpless as the poor people of Haiti were struggling for survival.
Then on January 15 there was news about an annular eclipse that passed through Africa and Asia, appearing as a ring of fire in the sky.
Nostradamus often used celestial omens like comets as guideposts to identify his predictions. Since this widely visible eclipse immediately followed the Haiti earthquake disaster, I revisited Nostradamus’ quatrains. Did he have any predictions concerning an eclipse and an earthquake?
He did have a prediction concerning an eclipse below:
Century 3, Quatrain 34
When the eclipse of the Sun will then be,
The monster (omen) will be seen in full day:
Quite otherwise will one interpret it,
High price unguarded: none will have foreseen it.
Could this prediction have anything to do with foretelling the Haiti earthquake? The first line of Century 3, quatrain 34 mentions an eclipse.
The second line mentions a monster that will be seen in full day. The term “monster” was usually a term representing an omen of disaster. In Nostradamus’ day, if an animal was born with two heads, or a child was born with unusual abnormalities, these were considered bad omens, monsters. Yes, superstition, but that was what people back then thought. Comets were also considered to be fearful monsters, omens of fate. Perhaps the eclipse, which looked like a great fiery ring in the sky, was the monster/omen.
The third line, “Quite otherwise will one interpret it” is vague. Perhaps because the eclipse came after the earthquake and not right before it, nobody viewed the eclipse as an omen. Imagine what people would’ve said if the eclipse came first followed by the earthquake a few days later. Then people might widely view it as a bad omen.
Also, this eclipse was visible through the center of Africa. The eclipse began in Africa, passing through Chad, Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Somalia before crossing the Indian Ocean and reaching Asia. A curious coincidence was that the African region where the eclipse was visible was long ago also victimized by the colonial slave trade. Watching the eclipse in the sky January 15 were relatives of those taken into slavery to the New World, including Haiti, centuries ago.
2010 eclipse path and the slave trade paths
The last line “High price unguarded: none will have foreseen it” may refer to the earthquake. There is a terribly tragic, high price being paid by Haiti. Haiti was ill prepared (unguarded) for an earthquake. Their economic and political resources were ill equipped to handle this disaster. Because of Haiti’s poverty they did not have the building standards or emergency equipment to mitigate the effects of the earthquake.
I don’t know if this prediction of Nostradamus concerns the tragedy in Haiti. We can read too much into these, but it does make me wonder. I hope the world can help Haiti in this time of need.
Televangelist Pat Robertson suggested that the horrendous earthquake in Haiti is God’s punishment on Haiti due to a pact with the devil.
Here is what Robertson said:
“You know … something happened a long time ago in Haiti. They got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the Devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republican. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.”
Supposedly this has something do to with Voodoo in Haiti and legends about Voodoo’s involvement in their revolution against the French. Did thousands of children die in a God willed earthquake because of Voodoo??
Voodoo was introduced to the New World from African slaves. When Haiti was discovered, colonists built sugar and coffee plantations. To work these plantations the colonists used many slaves. Voodoo was a slave’s religion, brought from Africa and practiced in secret after they were forced to convert to Christianity. God-fearing, Bible-believing Christian slave owners were responsible for bringing Voodoo to Haiti with their slave trade, not the Haitians.
Is a Christian legacy of slavery not as serious in God’s eyes as a legacy of Voodoo? Who really deserved that earthquake?
If we look at the behavior of some televangelists, it sure looks like they are practicing the occult to me. Is there much difference between a Vodou hougan and a Holy Spirit preacher? They both have Words Of Knowledge predicting the future. They channel God directly, speaking with Him and revealing His word. They claim to heal the sick. Is that really far removed from Voodoo? Is there a difference between channeling Voodoo’s Loa or the Holy Spirit to perform “miracles”?
Predicting the future is a fool’s game. Who predicted the great events of the past decade? Nobody. But why should that stop me? Dusting off my crystal ball, I walk where fools fear to tread to make some daring predictions for 2010.
Gazing into my crystal ball…I foresee…
1. Iran I predict Iran will be the big story for 2010. The people of Iran are trying to win back their government from dictatorship. Will it work? Is the dictatorial regime at the end of its rope? Unlike what happened with the downfall of communism in Eastern Europe, I don’t foresee Iran reforming itself. I wish it would be different. Instead, I foresee Iran on the cusp of creating a nuclear weapon. And Israel will attack Iran to prevent it from acquiring that nuclear weapon. This will be the big event of 2010. I foresee war late in 2010, perhaps November. Hope I am wrong, and the people of Iran win self determination.
My Crystal Ball
2. America
Better days are ahead…in a small way. We will recover from our economic meltdown. However, America’s long-term decline will slowly continue, a trend that has been going on for over a decade. Asia will continue to prosper. America has reached the point of no return, having outsourced its manufacturing around the world. The world’s glory days (and jobs) have moved East. Even so, the Dow Jones Industrial Average will get close to 12,000 by 2010’s end, until prediction number 1 kicks in. Hold stocks until October, then sell and wait for a buying opportunity afterwards.
3. President Obama With President Obama we have an intelligent, moderate, levelheaded leader. What is not widely recognized is he is also bringing good karma back to America. This will result in many unrecognized benefits. Life is a state of mind and if we can change our national mindset, we can change our lives. The decade ahead will be better then the decade behind us. This shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish!
4. The reincarnation of Michael Jackson
Celebrity predictions are a must. Michael Jackson will be reincarnated in 2010. He will be reborn in Tennessee, a web-footed infant girl, to a young Hispanic woman. Michael Jackson had many unresolved issues in life and will feel the need to return for another lifetime to resolve these issues. Now as a woman, he will still retain his talent and grow up to become an opera singer. Yet as a young woman she will feel she is wearing a mask. One day while using past life regression therapy, she will discover she is the reincarnation of Michael Jackson and choose to leave the opera and become a famed pop singer instead.
The past decade of 2000 to 2009 was truly dreadful for America. We had the 911 attacks, a war in Iraq, hurricane Katrina, a stock market crash and a financial/economic collapse unlike anything since the Great Depression.
However, this perception of an awful decade is from an American perspective. In China the decade was different. China experienced unparalleled economic growth during the past decade. Hundreds of millions of Chinese saw their standard of living rise dramatically while at the same time the American standard of living declined.
This was not supposed to happen to America. During the past decade we had a conservative, evangelical Christian in President Bush and conservatives in firm control of Congress and the Supreme Court. Ideally, God should have blessed our nation because our leadership reflected God’s will. As the Bible says:
Psalm 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
It is believed by many Christians that God will judge a nation for its sins, and disasters are God’s retribution. An example evangelists often use is the view that AIDS is God’s punishment on homosexuality.
So what went wrong? Why all these terrible events during the decade of the Bush presidency, one of the most conservative and godly presidents we ever had? Why did a non-Christian nation like China prosper at the same time? Has God withdrawn His protection and abandoned America?
Here is a thought. Perhaps conservative values are not automatically God’s values. Yes, this is a startling concept. But how else to explain the worst of times coinciding with the most conservative of times?
Invading Iraq seemed mostly like a political stunt to increase politicians’ popularity after 911. The Bible talks about good stewards but nobody bothered to do much when Katrina hit New Orleans. Our economic collapse was founded on conservative laissez-faire principles. Conservatism seemed to relish venomous partisanship dividing Americans into “us” and “them”, happy to rule with 50.1% of the vote. Much of what has happened this past decade was the path we chose.
The law of attraction suggests what we think is what we’ll attract into our lives. Positive thoughts attract positive results and a negative attitude will attract negative consequences. And so it does.
I’d suggest it is possible to have the law of attraction work on a national scale too. When a society embraces negativity, rancor, acrimony and disharmony, what are we to expect of the results? The consequences won’t appear immediately, but in time all the collective bad karma will result in blowback. Like an economic collapse.
I saw Avatar in wonderful 3-D. To see the movie on the big screen is something that won’t be duplicated on a TV; it is quite an experience. Avatar was very entertaining and a real crowd pleaser. I also liked how it was thoughtful at the same time.
Afterwards I pondered how spirituality and the paranormal are portrayed in science fiction films. Avatar is a spiritual movie in its own way; even it explains away it’s spiritually in physical terms. Ideally, the spiritual or supernatural shouldn’t be included in science fiction. Yet, even hard-science fiction movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Contact are metaphysical.
In some ways Avatar reminded me of Star Wars in combining science fiction with the spiritual. With the Stars Wars movies, it was all hardware combined with an elusive paranormal energy called the Force…clairvoyance, telepathy and telekinesis. For the times Star Wars’mixture of technology and mysticism was appropriate, trying to insert some mystery into the absolute rule of hardcore materialism. It was as if Star Wars was trying to rediscover a popular Zen-like transcendence along with its science opera.
Avatar reminded me of Return of the Jedi, except instead of Ewoks, we have Pandora’s thundercats…the Na’vi who are bigger, bolder versions of Ewoks. However, the spirituality is different then Star Wars. With Avatar, it is about the interconnection of all life in balance with nature. The times have changed since the 1970s and 80s when cold war fears of an evil empire occupied our imagination. Now we have new fears.
The real-life consequences of technology’s triumph are environmental degradation, global warming and the near-future depletion of our natural resources. We are facing a dire future if profit is the only thing that matters. Is self-destruction worth the price of making money? Unlike the Star Wars or Star Trek worlds, in Avatar technology is literally the enemy.
The movie directly faces this question, along with domination of one culture over another. This is a movie for our times, a green movie. Unlike Star War’s Force, there is no dark side. Predator and prey are equal. This movie’s dark side is simply ignorance, profit seeking and carelessness.
A common complaint about Nostradamus and his predictions are they haven’t been used to predict an event before it actually happened. They are always interpreted after the fact. This is essentially true, but there are times when people get close to figuring out an event beforehand. Let us consider this quatrain below, Century 4, quatrain 67.
Century IV, Quatrain 67
The year that Saturn and Mars are equal fiery,
The air is very dry, a long meteor:
Through secret fires a great place blazing from heat,
Little rain, hot wind, wars, incursions.
Erika Cheetham, a noted Nostradamus author, had this to say about this quatrain in her book from the early 1970s, The Prophecies of Nostradamus:
“The configuration of Saturn and Mars is a common one, so further information is needed to understand this quatrain. The dating of the comet or meteor is probably the key.”
Erika Cheetham was very close with this; she had the dating right before her. Saturn and Mars were in conjunction on Feb. 18, 1986. Halley’s Comet was at its closest point to Earth on April 11 for the 1986 visit. Both of these dates were predictable, if only someone connected those dots beforehand. The quatrain said something dramatic with fire would happen in 1986. What happened?
On April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear accident happened. “From secret fires a great place blazing from heat” could easily represent the “secret fires” of the Chernobyl explosion. The line “little rain, hot wind, wars, incursions” could mean the Soviet’s desert war in Afghanistan that was going on at the time (the Soviet Union withdrew its troops in 1988). Russian and the Soviet Union seem be a prime topic for Nostradamus.
There are a number of significant predictions for the future where Nostradamus mentions comets. Whenever I hear about a new comet in the news, I pull out my old worn copy of the quatrains and revisit them. I would like to think for once someone could use these quatrains to actually predict something before it happens. Maybe one day.
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:
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.
Predicting the future is a fool’s game. Who predicted the great events of the past decade? Nobody. But why should that stop me? Dusting off my crystal ball, I walk where fools fear to tread to make some daring predictions for 2010.
I saw Avatar in wonderful 3-D. To see the movie on the big screen is something that won’t be duplicated on a TV; it is quite an experience. Avatar was very entertaining and a real crowd pleaser. I also liked how it was thoughtful at the same time.
In some ways Avatar reminded me of Star Wars in combining science fiction with the spiritual. With the Stars Wars movies, it was all hardware combined with an elusive paranormal energy called the Force…clairvoyance, telepathy and telekinesis. For the times Star Wars’ mixture of technology and mysticism was appropriate, trying to insert some mystery into the absolute rule of hardcore materialism. It was as if Star Wars was trying to rediscover a popular Zen-like transcendence along with its science opera.
The real-life consequences of technology’s triumph are environmental degradation, global warming and the near-future depletion of our natural resources. We are facing a dire future if profit is the only thing that matters. Is self-destruction worth the price of making money? Unlike the Star Wars or Star Trek worlds, in Avatar technology is literally the enemy.
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