Spookannie

2012-01-18T13:39:00.001+01:00

Faking a Ghost Photo EZ as an iphone app

2010-07-21T11:41:00.000+02:00

Adding a ghost to a photo used to mean learning how to use a program like Photoshop on your PC, but now all you need is a smart phone like the iphone and a smart app.

The photo on the right was supposedly taken by a builder and passed off as the ghost of a schoolboy watching his old school be demolished . . . yeah, yeah, soppy story, truthful witness . . . all fabricated, but it was published in a couple of newspapers, who admittedly, are very lax these days about checking sources or verifying, well, anything, before publishing.

One example, of a little girl in a plaid dress in the stairwell of a railway station, was submitted to Aussie Ghosts in April 2010, and the poster honestly believed that it couldn't have been edited because his friend took it with his iphone. It turns out that in January 2010, just a few months earlier, an iphone app called Ghost Capture was introduced, leading to a rash of little girl in a plaid dress sightings. The app currently has 20 images that can be inserted, moved around, faded in, etc. to create a convincing effect with which to scare your mom or amaze your more gullible friends.

The photo on the left of a little girl on a ship was submitted to the Aussie Ghosts forum to show that the one on the right of a little girl in a train station was a fake created with the iphone app called Ghost Capture. SOURCE

To download the Ghost Capture app, go to this link or download it directly from itunes. There are other similar apps and I'm sure there will be more as fast as enterprising entrepreneurs can create them.

You can view the top 10 submissions of "ghost photos" created with this app at Top 10 photos http://ghostsdontexist.blogspot.com/2010/03/scariest-photo-contest-finalists-vote.html

Have fun, but don't be fooled.

Thanks for Reading

2010-06-28T13:51:00.001+02:00

Just a quick thank you to everyone who has stopped by my blog and read my posts. It's been a rough and stressful year for me with my energies being focussed on other demanding enterprises, and I haven't had much time for blogging, but summer is here, which means a much needed break for teacher me. I have also taken action to simplify some aspects of my life, so I hope to be able to bring my blogs up to date in the next few weeks and have more time to spend on them in the next months. Thanks for stopping by.

Vampires Walk Among Us

2010-04-04T10:34:00.004+02:00

This Easter there are those who will rise early to greet the sun or celebrate Christ's resurrection in church wearing new clothes, perhaps even a traditional Easter bonnet. People, whether Christian or not, will have hidden eggs for their children to find, and saved a chocolate bunny for themselves. This year there have been and will be a trickle of zombie Jesus jokes on Twitter. I write about vampires.

I was tempted by the zombie comparison (the dead rise and walk among us), but as usual, it is the fascination that some people have for vampires that fascinates me.

I recently got an e-mail from Amazon, quickly deleted, letting me know the fourth installment of the Twilight series is out or about to be out, whatever. I didn't read that far. I've done my annual pondering of the idiocy of those who watch the TV shows and spend good money on the books and movies, demonstrating fervent devotion to the concept that vampires are sexy, and to be desired, even though the whole concept is about Bloody Marys, literally.

This year I have compiled a list of the non-fiction vampires among us we really need to worry about.

The Westboro Baptist Church. Those blood-suckers protest at the funerals of our fallen soldiers. They give Christians and Baptists, with whom they are NOT associated, a bad name.

The ministers of the Christian Right. They are loud, they are on TV, they have mega-churches and rock bands, and lots of pretty families following them, but thankfully, they are still in the minority, at least outside of the South. Why do I think they are vampires? Because they are self-righteous, patriarchal, sexist, narrow-minded, Old-Testament despisers of the rest of us Christians who would suck the freedom to think, reason, and choose right out of our life and our country if we let them. It is their way of life, their interpretation of the Bible, their version of marriage, or you go to Hell. Homosexuals are evil. Science is bad. Evolution is a fairy tale. They're going to fly up into the clouds like pure white doves, and Jesus is going to come down with a bloody sword and show us the rest of us what's what. They are Puritans in living color who flock to the XXX porn shops along the Interstate, and get their jollies watching sexy vampire movies.

The Tea Party movement, or Teabaggers. They get their unfair and unbalanced news from Fox, and are typically white and xenophobic. I used a big word, xenophobic, because most of them, if they read this, will have to look it up to find out what it means. They remember something, something about the Boston Tea Party and the Declaration of Independence, and the rest of their opinions are spoon-fed to them by real vampires like Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Brunette Barbie Sarah Palin, and the vampire rulers who hide in the dark pulling their strings. Teabaggers don't handle paragraphs or logical sequential reasoning well, so if you just pepper your discourse with words like FREEDOM, SOCIALISM, SOCCER MOM, TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY, and RELOAD, they will rise up, poorly-spelled signs in hand, and follow you anywhere. So, not zombies, not quite vampires, but starring in a supporting role.

The previous two Easters, I wrote about the vampires in your personal life you need to avoid, the passive-aggressives in the home and the workplace, but this year, I'm feeling political. I take it personally when idiots try to suck the freedom out of our country in the name of freedom. The distinction between real news and propaganda have become blurred in the media. Smart people need to learn the difference. I don't know that there's much we can do about the dumb people. Like the poor Jesus told us about, they will always be with us.

So, this Easter be a smart people.

The Dork Anthem

2010-02-24T16:55:00.001+01:00

The joker with the guitar used to be a student in my Spanish class back in the day, and it's nice to see him having so much fun and providing so much delightful wackiness for everyone else. Enjoy the video and if you like it, please share the YouTube link with your friends. Spread the word. It's okay to be a dork in high school. Later on, the jocks will work for you!

You can see more videos of Dave and Brian HERE or visit their website HERE.

Night Noises

2010-01-27T21:56:00.000+01:00

We all know that houses can produce unexplained noises in the night, and we've learned to dismiss most of them and go back to sleep. I remember a year ago when I was sure there was someone in the house with us, because I thought I heard a door close upstairs, but later I was able to rationalize that our windows were open and I probably just heard the next-door neighbors opening their front door.

There have been a couple of incidents I am hard put to explain. The first happened several years ago and involved a pile of ashes on our dining room table. We were preparing for a Christmas Eve dinner with guests, and I had put a new white tablecloth on the table. We left the house and went to the commissary (grocery store for you who are not military-connected) to pick up a few last minute things, and when we returned an hour later, found a pile of ashes, about a tablespoon's worth, on the table, on top of that pristine tablecloth, an incongruously neat little pile of ashes where ashes could not possibly be. We were never able to solve the mystery of how they got there. No fireplace, no light fixture above the table, no signs of forced entry, no reason for the ashes to be there. The former resident of the house, who had died in the middle bedroom of cancer, had been a smoker. Had he dropped in for a visit, or for a smoke? We'll never know.

A few months ago we moved to another house. Last night I was sound asleep when I woke a few minutes after 3 a.m. to a loud crash in the kitchen, just down the hall from our bedroom. I stumbled out of bed, and accompanied by my two dogs who mistakenly thought it was morning and they were going to get something to eat, felt my way to the kitchen.

I was groggy and did not even think to feel for the light switch in the hall. Since the light switch in the kitchen was on the far side of the room, I stood peering into the darkness until I spotted something round and dark lying in the middle of the floor. When I picked it up, I found that it was a small frying pan. But how had it ended up more than 3 feet from the drying spot on top of the dishwasher where I had set it after washing it the night before?

My husband's reasoning: it must have fallen off the counter and rolled there. Possible? Certainly, but it doesn't fit my memory of where I set the pan, which was not near the edge, the lack of earthquakes in our vicinity, and my memory of the sound I heard, which sounded like something had fallen flat on the floor, not rolled or scooted or bounced. So, natural event or ghost cat or ghost chicken (poultry-geist)? No way to know for sure.

Well, the pan was unharmed, so no point worrying about it. . . unless it happens again! Cue spooky music.

Increased Traffic

2010-01-24T20:53:00.002+01:00

Cartoons by Andertoons

With understated wit, cartoonist Mark Anderson has taken a humorous look at one possible consequence of the public's increased interest in the paranormal.

The desire to contact spirits and a new sport called ghost hunting, which used to be of interest to only small segments of society, have attained popularity and become mainstream. Could this possibly lead to decreased bandwidth in the spirit world? Probably not, but it's a very funny cartoon.

Do you ever wonder what the ghosts who haunt sites visited regularly by ghost tours think about the increased traffic? Do the spirits there gossip and joke about the wide-eyed tourists who parade through their homes with flashing cameras after the crowds have gone home? I hope so. Somehow, I feel it's only fair to complete the circle. What goes around comes around, you know.

Debunking the Poltergeist Fakers

2010-01-02T23:52:00.002+01:00

Here's another great debunking video from Patrick Doyle. I love the way he studies the fakes and then reproduces them. It's hard to argue with the results. Most intelligent people can figure out by the way people "sell" their videos, often with their outrageous claims of proof or elaborate set-ups with spooky music in which they tell us things like "this is the most haunted house in the most haunted city of [fill_in_the_blank], but most of us don't have the time or know-how to actually figure out how they did it and call them out.

Most of what is on YouTube or other sites, whether video or photographic evidence, either has a perfectly natural explanation or is being manufactured as a practical joke on you. Seriously, don't be gullible. Question everything. I especially like one quote Patrick used in this video: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Don't just take someone's word for it.

Watch more Haunted Hoax episodes HERE.

Hopeful Christmas Greetings

2009-12-24T07:26:00.001+01:00

Warm wishes for a safe, healthy and happy
Christmas and New Year.

I realize that there is no guarantee that any or all of these things are part of your life right now. We all know that sometimes bad things happen to good people, and that is out of our control. But, we can all look for opportunities to support those in need, whether family, friends or strangers.

It is the goodness of most people that I find to be the most reliable constant in the universe. Trust in that. Look for it. Be a part of it, and we will all get through the hard times together.

In Transition

2009-11-30T17:11:00.006+01:00

I have missed this blog, missed writing, missed looking to see who has been visiting, and what topics they have been reading about.

My life has been consumed the past couple of months with uprooting myself from our house in the German village where we lived the past 22 years into a rental house in another village, one I already regret moving into, but that's a side issue to be posted under Crazy German Landlords on another blog.

We did a lot of the moving ourselves, and trying to do that and work full-time has been grueling, so there has been no time to wax philosophical on this blog, but hopefully, that day will be coming soon.

The boxes have been emptied, which is not the same as saying everything is in place, but we are close. It took two weeks to find my husband's toothbrush. Now, the hunt is on for the battery charger for my camera and my box of checks.

10 Signs You've Overdosed on Church

2009-10-06T19:25:00.018+02:00

For those of you who still have a sense of humor about church (a good sign), a friendly list of warning signs to watch out for to keep you walking in the light, rather than being blinded by it.

I realize some of you may now feel obligated to pray for me or hate me, depending on how deep in the water you were dunked, but if those who still believe in science and reason get a chuckle out of this, I'm okay with that.

Your Facebook status constantly brags
about how "blessed" your day was.

You smile all the time,
whether you feel like it or not.

You spend less time with your family than you used to,
because you are so very busy doing the Lord's work.

You can quote from all your favorite scenes
in the Left Behind novels.

You home school your kids,
so they won't be exposed to sex or science or thinking.

The last romance novel you read ended with a baptism,

instead of an orgasm.

You hold hands and pray before eating lunch at Applebee's.

You covet your neighbor's Bible cover.

You take your kids to see the dinosaurs
at the Creation museum.

The sheep in your church are all the same color.

Places where I snagged the images (the sheep are mine)

Have a Blessed Day
smiling teens
Church lady
Dear to Me
Gay lesson interruption
1994 Rapture sign
Bible cover
Charles Darwin's Night at the Creation Museum (Mad Magazine cover)

Mystery from the Attic

2009-07-25T16:49:00.006+02:00

This summer we have been not only painting and doing other house improvements, but also trying to go through our possessions in preparation to moving. Yesterday my husband started going through the stuff in the attic.

At the top of the stairs there is a small door that leads to storage space under the roof eaves. In that space, over the years, we have stored old suitcases, computer boxes and pet carriers. To my hubby's surprise, when he opened the door yesterday, he saw straight ahead of him sitting on top of one of the pet kennels a cardboard tray containing what appeared to be a child's project, now fallen apart.

He brought it to me and we marveled, not just at the project, but at how it came to be sitting on top of a pet carrier in our attic. That space in the attic is not one we access frequently, but we have been in and out of it many times over the years to put things in and get things out and neither of us had ever seen this object, let alone place it on top of the pet carrier. He also found 3 pairs of German socks rolled up on the floor next to the kennel. We are both sure these objects were not there previously. They just appeared.

That evening, I sat down to watch television and take a look closer at our mysterious object. I was amazed at the number of small items I saw and how much work someone had at one time put into the creation of what I now saw was a model of a church, what church where, I still don't know. Perhaps a reader will know.

I sorted through the pieces and tried to make sense of them, taking pictures as I went. I was particularly taken with the church steeple with its clock and the angel perched on top of the little oriel window (a small bay window that projects from a wall). Regluing the oriel to the steeple was the first act of restoration I did.

At first I thought the little round pieces might represent people, but as I looked at the roofs of the building, I saw little white squares where it looked like the bases had once been glued, and I decided out that they belonged on the roof like those onion shapes on the top of Russian churches.

I found stairs going nowhere, although on one side, there was a platform and around it what I decided were columns that might hold up a roof, and I also found a four-sided pyramid roof to fit on top. One metal rail was in place and I was able to replace its twin. But, the stairs on the other side, still lead nowhere. Whatever object was there, is lost.

I worked my way through the mess, replacing what I could, discarding small pieces whose purpose I could not determine and finding that the little trees and bushes crumbled into dust if I tried to pick them up and put them back in place. To my delight, I found small images of people, perhaps drawn, perhaps cut out and mounted. I love the group of men standing there looking at the church. Aren't they delightful?

I also found along one wall an image, that when I turned it over, turned out to be a couple of lovers, sneaking a snuggle outside the walls.

There is also a woman on a bench that I had trouble getting to sit up, but I also found amusing. She's also holding her arms out wide. What's that about?

When I declared a finish, I was left with a smattering of extra pieces that I tossed and a lot of dust which I gently blew away, and I'm sure not all is as it was, but I hope that the spirit of the person who created this or placed this in our way (because how else do you explain it's mysterious appearance?) is happy to see it somewhat restored and not lost altogether.

I've put it together, now what? I can't say I really want to move it and take it with me, or leave it permanently on my sofa table, so I'm open to suggestion. It's not a museum piece, just a child's project once saved, then lost, now found again by a stranger. Placing it here on the Internet may be as close as it will come to immortality.

Miss Me - But Let Me Go

2009-06-22T08:22:00.005+02:00

This wonderful poem, Miss Me - But Let Me Go, was found in the pocket of a dead British WW1 soldier. The author is unknown.

I place it here in honor of my good friends, David and Frank.

When I come to the end of the road
And the sun has set for me,
I want no tears in a gloom-filled room,
Why cry for a soul set free?

Miss me a little – But not for long
And not with your head bowed low,
Remember the love that we once shared,
Miss me – But let me go.

For this is a journey we all must take,
And each must go alone,
It’s all a part of the Master’s plan
A step on the road to home.

When you are lonely and sick of heart
Go to your friends that we know,
And bury your sorrows in doing good works,
Miss me – But let me go.

Mr. Clark has animated many more poems and short literary treasures and you can view them HERE.

Don't Count on Tomorrow

2009-06-20T08:21:00.005+02:00

Friday morning, I got up with the only plan for the day to drive to Zwingenberg an der Neckar for Frank's funeral. You can read about Frank's memorial service here.

One death of a friend was quite enough, but when I checked into Aussie Ghosts, I discovered a message posted by the son of one of our treasured members, Ghostlaird, that his father had passed away. What a shock I had. We had just exchanged messages the night before. He wanted some help interpreting a tarot card reading he had done online, and I told him I was tired and sore from painting my kitchen and I would get back to him tomorrow.

But tomorrow didn't come. It's not a big deal that I didn't do this. It would not have changed a thing, and certainly would not have forecast his imminent passing. In fact, any guesses I made about the cards would have been way off, since I expected them to be about a future in this reality. It's only now that I know the outcome, that I am able to see their meaning. It was an amazingly accurate reading.

But this post isn't about tarot cards, a subject I've had very little experience with and know only a little about. It's about remembering that we only have today. Ghostlaird, whose real name is Dave, had every expectation of being here today, as did my young friend Frank. But that isn't what happened. For whatever reasons, they both finished what they had to accomplish in this life and have moved on to another state of being, one out of our reach for now. I treasure both of their friendships, and miss their company.

As we were settling down in bed last night, my husband said to me, "Call your mom."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

But the answer was obvious. So, call your mom (or dad), tell your kids you love them, hug a friend, share that sentiment you've been holding onto, because you only have today.

You can't count on tomorrow.

So long, Frank, and thanks for all the fish

2009-06-11T18:41:00.026+02:00

I've had life and death on my mind a lot this past week.

A young man, a former student of mine, recently (May 29, 2009) wrote on his page on Facebook:

Now I lay me down to sleep, pray the lord my soul to take.
If I die before I wake, thanks a helluvalot for the friggin' warning!

G'night, ya'll.

He was just being funny, and I still enjoy remembering the irreverent cheek with which he addressed this old nursery rhyme and most everything else in life. However, a week after writing this (June 8, 2009) he died in his sleep. I'm not making this up. Yes, it is ironic, but when it is someone you care about, who cares about irony?

Frank was a young man I was very fond of, a clever, funny individual, barely out of his 20s, a joy to his friends and family, unexpectedly gone early.

This past week also saw a baby born to friends, a young couple about the same age as Frank. Both events occurred with days of each other, baby Charlie coming into this world on Friday, Frank leaving it three days later.

Here's something else odd that seems to tie in to these events. Unknown to me, Frank died sometime Monday night. In that last dreaming state before waking Wednesday morning, I had a vivid dream during which I flew. I've had flying dreams before, but only rarely. Years go by between flying dreams for me.

In the dream, I and another woman were teachers charged with assisting young people learning to fly. In my waking life, I am a teacher, and the symbolism here fits my beliefs. Isn't that the job of parents and teachers, to give our children wings and help them fly?

The other teacher and I each had a small group of young people, teenagers by the look of them, who were holding hands on top of a steep hillside. We sprang into the air with them and then let go, but after hanging in the air for a few seconds, they started to drift down again like balloons leaking air. This reminded me of astronauts on the moon, where the gravity is weak, who were able to take big leaps, but did not lose that gravitational bond with the moon's surface. I watched the young people kick off again as soon as they were close to the surface, float up, drift back down, kick off, and repeat the process, basically taking big hops down the side of the hill. But, none of them were able to actually fly.

Finally, we all reached a path that ran horizontally across the downward path. We had started walking along the path, basically through with the lesson, when I impulsively stopped, leaped straight up with my hands in the air, as one would when diving off a diving board, leveled off and flew over their heads. I was showing them that one could fly if one just believed one could. I flew down the path for a bit until I reached a bend in the path. The path took a sharp left, and straight ahead there was another drop off. As I flew out into the air past the turn, a young man joined me in flight and together we did a couple of loop the loops in the air. Then, that part of the dream ended. I thought nothing of it when I awoke, except how nice it had been to have a flying dream.

I took my shower, went downstairs, ate my breakfast, and then my husband told me that Frank was dead. I did not believe him. I thought he was fooling around or that Frank, who was very witty, had written some clever comment on his Facebook page, but he said, no, Frank had died in his sleep.

And then I looked at that dream with fresh eyes. I'm not terribly psychic. I don't think I've ever had a dream that could be called precognitive, but that this dream may have been about Frank or dreamed with Frank, I have to wonder. There is no way to know for sure, but I wish I'd gotten a look at the face of my fellow flier. For, it seems to me, that one who was once earthbound as we are, finally achieved flight.

Coincidentally, I am also reading Deepak Chopra's book Life After Death: the Burden of Proof. One of the stories that he tells from Indian tradition is of a wise man who asks a young woman, "Do you remember ever not being alive?" Of course, she doesn't. None of us remember not being alive. We only remember being alive, not the point at which our lives began. He goes on to tell her that our parents tell us the first great lie, that our life began when we were born. And if we believe THAT lie, that life has a beginning, then we will believe the other lie, that life has an ending.

I have long believed that we were alive in spiritual form before we entered our current physical bodies, and it is only that mortal shell we inhabit that dies, not the soul. Nothing can kill the soul. It is eternal.

It doesn't stop me from grieving the passing of my young friend, gone too soon from my life and the life of his parents, family and friends, for it is a separation we did not ask for. I miss Frank, but it is comforting to know that he has found his metaphorical wings.

The image at the top of the post was Frank's last profile image on Facebook.

Where Everybody Knows My Name

2009-05-23T08:35:00.007+02:00

Everyone should have a place to hang out, and in this digital age, people are spending more and more of their time hanging out online. What seemed inconceivable just a few years ago is now the norm. Many, if not most, people with computers and online access have a presence on not just one, but multiple social networking sites.

So, where do I hang out? For keeping up with friends, family and former students, I visit Facebook every day. I'm sensing some pressure to join Twitter, but so far, have resisted that one. I may get sucked in there one day just to keep up with my kids, but not yet. I haven't been able to figure out the attraction of tweeting. Maybe it has something to do with my not having a smart phone or being able to text at the speed of light.

It is on forums that I have met and made friendships with people all over the world who share a common interest. I hang out at the Aussie Ghosts forum, where we have been lucky enough to attract a really sweet group of people. Jemm, one of our moderators, recently put together this composite image of some of our active members that I think is really cool and I thought I would share it with you.

Great job, Jemm.

S.M.A.P.I.S. Finds the Funny

2009-05-18T20:53:00.013+02:00

There's a new ghost hunting team in town. S.M.A.P.I.S., The Southeastern Michigan Alliance of Paranormal Investigators Society, is in search of Grandma's urn. Ever since their leader, Rodger, heard his grandmother's ghost whisper Find us, in his ear, it has been their motto, and the source of the name of their show, Ghost Finders.

Rodger is a ghost hunter by night, plumber by day. . . . [he] prides himself on his almost completed book, The Search for Paranormal Phenomena: a Guide. He often quotes himself with relevant passages from it. He aspires to make SMAPIS a national venture, envisioning himself as the president of a huge, non-profit organization from which he makes a huge profit.

Hmm, sound familiar? A nice cross blend of Ryan and Jason/Grant.

Mary is an assistant fourth grade teacher by day. She works at a quaint public school in rural Romeo, Michigan. She is a true believer in all things paranormal.

Of course, she is. Cute as a button, witchy but with a clear complexion. I like her.

Simon is a Radio Shack manager by day. . . the resident skeptic of SMAPIS. He tries to keep Rodger and Mary on track as they tend to think everything they pick up must be a ghost.

Every group needs one to give the illusion that real science is happening.

Randy works at the corner gas station by day and/or night. He is the official SMAPIS gopher, and supervises the setup and breakdown of equipment on location.

He's the comic relief, apparently. I wonder if he has any tattoos?

Visit their website to learn more about the team: http://smapis.com/bios.html

I'm not sure who is responsible for this, but they are having a great time spoofing the popular ghost hunting shows. I like the way they mimic the camera angles of the shows, that wide-eyed look from the night vision camera, the guys sitting around a table going over the evidence and saying, What the hell?, one of them looking sincerely into the camera and telling the audience for the millionth time what an EVP is, etc. I realize there are some Republicans who still think that Stephen Colbert is one of them. But, those of us with finely-tuned funny bones get him, and we get this, too. Enjoy the show.

Ready or Not

2009-05-07T20:08:00.009+02:00

I was lying awake a few nights ago during that time between waking and sleeping when one's brain is on idle, but the engine is still running. I suddenly realized that the game of Hide and Seek is a metaphor for life. Not the game itself, just the part where the seeker says, "Ready or Not," just before coming after you to see if you are truly well hidden.

Life is like that. Babies probably aren't ready to be born and no parent feels truly ready for the birth of the baby, but it all happens anyway, Ready or Not.

Most of our life is like that. We rarely feel truly ready for anything, but somehow we manage to swallow our fears and take the next step, jump off the high dive, get behind the wheel for the first time, step out on stage and sing, all the while hoping for the best and praying we don't fall flat on our faces or make a terrible mess of things.

As is life, so is death. Ready or Not, it comes to us. Some people have the good luck to see death coming for them from afar with time to pack their spiritual bags for departure; others are caught mid step, disbelieving that they are not still there on the sidewalk on their way to work.

The best way to deal with death is to accept it as inevitable. Only then are you free to live.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. --Mark Twain

Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live. --Henry Van Dyke

To live in fear of death is to live in fear. Who wants to live in fear? Just accept that you will die some day. Stop fighting the idea. None of us knows when it is coming for us. The best we can hope is that when it comes, we will accept it with grace as a transition, and not be one of the foolish ones wandering the earth not knowing they are dead. Just like everyone else, one day we will all get evicted from this body, Ready or Not.

Porcelain Ghost

2009-04-19T20:28:00.006+02:00

This poem is the result of digging through the piles of words in a magnetic poetry set.

It's a poem, so I won't analyze it for you. It's like a joke; if you have to explain it, it's not any good. I leave it up to you to apply your own interpretation.

To learn about magnetic poetry, click HERE.

Vampires R Us

2009-04-09T10:56:00.025+02:00

For Sale on Etsy

Last year for Easter, I wrote about vampires. This year I find myself, oddly enough, thinking along the same lines. What is it about Easter and vampires?

Easter is about death. So are vampires.
Easter is about defeating death. So are vampires.
Easter is about life everlasting. So are vampires.

Easter is about love everlasting. So, according to the sign for sale on Etsy, are vampires.

Thinking about buying the cute little sign? Come a little closer and let me whisper into your ear:

Really? Only a vampire can love you forever? Does that mean your mommy and daddy don't? Not God, not Jesus, not Mohammed, nobody but a blood-sucking vampire? Did your boyfriend dump you and now ordinary isn't good enough? Feeling under-appreciated and hoping a vampire will see what nobody else sees, that you, like Bella, are really, really special? Are you hearing how pathetic this sounds? Wake up, get real, get over whatever it is you need to get over and return to the land of the living!

Moving on . . .
Easter is about the last supper. So are vampires.

Your last act is to be their supper. Yum.

Vampires are all the rage right now in books and movies. I get far more people coming to this blog because they google something about vampires than about ghosts or spirits.

Let's face it, the vampires are moving in. They're taking over. They're slowly insinuating themselves into every aspect of our lives. Is there some kind of conspiracy going on here? What is it going to take to get rid of these guys?

The myth of the vampire is about questions we want answers to: life, death, immortality. You can get some answers if you go to church, but hey, let's be honest, it's different information depending on which church you attend, or synagogue, or mosque, or temple. The basic story is we get life after death. What it's like and how you guarantee yourself a good picnic spot in a peaceful meadow as opposed to an uncomfortable one next to the river of fire and brimstone varies depending on the source. No wonder people are confused. Too many messages and too many messengers.

Besides, getting preached at on this topic in church isn't nearly as much fun as watching a vampire movie or reading a novel. With vampires, you get some of the same information with titillating sexual innuendoes thrown in for free. So what if it's bogus information. It's catching on.

Vampires haven't made much of a move on Easter yet, but I sense it is just a matter of time. Check out the following merchandise being marketed at Etsy where this little critter formerly known as "vampire bat" is trying to appeal to Easter shoppers merely by adding some cute bunny ears:

Easter Bat

Will it work? That's up to you. He's adorable, isn't he?

Medium Well

2009-03-14T18:20:00.005+01:00

A medium is a person who stands between the dead and the living, serving as a conduit between them. I'm not sure how they do it, but it has something to do with vibrations or frequencies. Mediums are apparently born with the gift, a talent, an ability to raise their vibration level and tune into wherever it is that the dead are able to meet them and communicate to or through them.

There are three kinds of talents mediums may have:

CLAIRVOYANCE, the ability to see spirits
CLAIRAUDIENCE, the ability to hear spirits
CLAIRSENTIENCE, the ability to sense the presence and thoughts of spirits

If you're like me, your only experience with psychics and mediums comes mainly from watching them on TV. There seem to be many different medium styles. Some use rituals, chanting and ritual objects, crystal and incense, or waving things around in the air, such as holy water or burning sage, while others seem content just to walk around a place and open themselves up to whoever or whatever is present. Some mediums set themselves up as teachers with followers and offer lessons and lists of how-tos, chants, rituals, specific stones and herbs to use for various purposes. It's hard for an outside observer to determine what is necessary and what is merely being done to impress the client. I find myself skeptical and untrusting of mediums who look like gypsy fortune-tellers or earth-mother types, with flashy rings, bangles, and voluminous skirts. It's hard to determine what is natural and what is hype.

Clients may consult a medium for various reasons, including a desire to communicate with a loved one, but many consult them for guidance about their own lives, and mediums may receive information from spirit guides from those who have passed on, and from deceased loved ones who may stop in to offer help to those left behind.

I had a gypsy offer to read my palm in London once; she was right out of a story book. I said no thanks, I'll let the future reveal itself in due course, and bought a small spray of lavender she was selling, just in case. I didn't want to chance a curse tossed my way if she really had mystical powers. I could have let her do it as a lark, but I'm not the kind to gamble or throw away money on questionable goods.

I became acquainted with a medium on a forum a little over a year ago that I eventually trusted to do some readings for me. She didn't make promises or ask for money or say a lot of mumbo jumbo meant impress. She wasn't trying to drum up business. She seemed to operate from a place of kindness and compassion for the world and talked freely about her experiences. She had an openness of spirit, and I believed then and now I was dealing with a genuine medium.

Keep in mind, the best person to consult about your future is probably you. If you consult a medium, you are just going to end up comparing their message, which is bound to be somewhat cryptic, to what you know in your heart to be true. And since you already know it, you can bypass the need for a medium altogether if you just stop kidding yourself and ask yourself what you really believe, what you really need to do, how you really feel. In the end it's all up to you. On the other hand, if you find a medium that you feel is genuine, go for it, but only once. If you find yourself going back for more advice, you're becoming dependent; or if the medium needs more money, or more sessions to get your information and puts on a dramatic show, you're probably being had.

Buyers be wary, and mediums, be well.

Cartoon by Gaspirtz .

Ghost Runners

2009-02-22T20:26:00.012+01:00

My husband took some interesting photos a couple of years ago at cross country meets. Almost every image was a blur of motion. Some are actually quite beautiful. We never figured out exactly what he was doing wrong, because eventually, he got the hang of the thing and the blurry images stopped, but we still have quite a collection in iphoto.

This one has a ghostly image of a face left behind after the face itself was carried out of the frame of the shot. This is not, of course, a ghost, but a runner, caught in the moment. But, it leaves you wondering what photos of moving images people are mistaking as ghosts. I've seen pictures posted of ghosts, usually behind someone, with the same kind of streakiness that makes me wonder if a person didn't jump into the shot, unseen by the photographer and photographee and jump out again, leaving behind the blurry streaked hint of a face or a body.

I took this photo at a basketball game recently. It demonstrates how all or part of the body can seem to disappear when a person moves during a camera shot. Here, a couple of legs and one of the players are nearly transparent. Sometimes people say that they have caught evidence of a ghost because the image is "see-through." So are these guys, and they are as real as you or I.

I took this shot when a player tripped over his own foot and took a tumble practically at my feet. What you notice, of course, are the white swirls . . . not of energy, but areas of white in the shoes, socks and uniform, whose trail of movement has been recorded by the camera. How many people see something like this in an image and think they have caught an unseen entity swirling around a person, bits of energy or protoplasm?

My images are highly blurry. I have other examples where the people are clearer, but I don't want to show anyone's face here. The same kinds of effects can be seen in photos where most of the people are in focus.

So, watch out for the people in the background that you didn't notice at the time, the floating hair that got caught in the flash, anything that might have been caused by some one or some thing moving. Don't let the ghost runners fool you.

Matrixing and Pareidolia

2009-02-04T20:17:00.021+01:00

Your brain is accustomed to trying to make sense of what you see, but with low resolution digital photographs, your brain will start to fill in the missing parts and you may see things that aren't really there. In computer displays and printing, resolution is related to the number of pixels (dot-matrix) per inch used to create the image. When looking at a low resolution image, you may experience matrixing. Your brain will start filling in the image in the photo (matrixing) in an effort to make sense of what you are seeing. If there are dark spots in the right place for eyes, the brain may see a face. This is called pareidolia.

The better the photo, the higher the resolution, the fewer mistakes the mind will make, and the more likely someone will be able to see details in a photograph accurately. The lower the resolution, the more likely fuzzy images will be interpreted as things they are not.

Here's an example from the Ordsall Hall ghostcam.

The area under the stairs and on the balcony are prime ghost-spotting areas, but I'm betting all of these images are just examples of matrixing and pareidolia, big ugly pixels with our minds interpreting the spots as faces. Here's an old favorite of mine I call "Old women," because it looks like there's old granny in the stairwell and another face looking down from the balcony.

So, don't jump to conclusions, especially when looking at low-resolution ghost cams. Is that really a face, or just your mind playing tricks on you?

Peter Doyle explains this very well in this video:

Setting the record straight

2009-02-01T21:38:00.009+01:00

There have been a lot of hits on this blog recently of people looking at comments I made about a year ago on The Paranormal Watchdogs. Someone made this comment on MySpace:

Let me just typ that comment all over again! lol! Spook Annie has separated herself from The Paranormal Watchdogs. That's all I can really say about that.

SOURCE

I appreciate that several people have come to the Spookannie blog as a result of some kind of brouhaha that has been brewing about those two. It's nice to have new readers! However, for the record, I have never had anything to do with The Paranormal Watchdogs, except to write a blog about their activities, and to be rated by them myself. I cannot separate myself from people I have never ever been close to. I knew who the chief watchdog was only because we were members of the same paranormal forum, but we were not chums.

So, no falling out, folks. No nothing. That pair have their friends, but I don't run in that crowd. Things turned out for them pretty much the way I expected. The Watchdogs somehow missed the fact that when you go around blithely handing out critiques to people who haven't asked for them, and rate them on mere superficialities, such as website design, that people are going to take offense.

Their website is down and appears to be gone. One wonders why. Perhaps, as one person has proposed, they do this bit for a while, disappear when things get too hot, and then reappear under a different name and different pseudonyms. Who knows? They seem to have a short attention span, which often lead to hasty judgment of websites, and they clearly favored websites owned by their friends, so I hope they are gone for good, since they weren't very good at what they did.

Here's a link to that original post about the Watchdogs, Badd Apple Speaks.

The Camera of Truth

2009-02-01T12:42:00.011+01:00

In case you've missed it, Patrick Doyle, a paranormal researcher, artist and author, is posting fantastic videos exposing all kinds of paranormal trickery, fake EVPs, fake movement of objects, etc. (we've all seen them) and showing exactly how the faking is done. Studying the techniques used by hoaxers will make it easier for us to spot many of the simulations being put out there as genuine captures by creative video students and other tricksters at our expense. Patrick's videos are informative, entertaining and well done. He's my new paranormal hero. Kudos!

Visit Haunted Hoax to see more videos.

The talented Mr. Doyle is also the writer and illustrator of a delightful series of children's books:

Edgar Font's

Hunt for a

House to Haunt.

Oklahoma's ParaCon 2009

2009-01-29T20:17:00.006+01:00

This paranormal conference is set to take place March 21, 2009, in my old stomping grounds, Oklahoma. It's being hosted by Tammy and Tonya, the Ghost Divas. The theme is For the Love of Ghost Stories. Sounds like fun. Click on the Oklahoma ParaCon 2009 link to check it out.

The Christian Fringe

2009-01-22T16:24:00.018+01:00

Satellite view of the inauguration of U.S. President, Barack Obama

Washington, D.C., January 20, 2009

SOURCE

In case you missed it, God hates Obama, God hates America, and God hates you. That's the message this group brought to people on the Inauguration parade route on January 20, 2009.

These hate-filled bigots are so busy looking for the Antichrist that they have totally missed that everything they stand for is anti Christ, the opposite of his message of love. You couldn't get more venom out of a viper than one lady in this group spews every time she spits out her litany of ridicule and disgust at the crowd. America may have withered the Ku Klux Klan and progressed far enough down the road to Civil Rights to elect a president whose ethnic family runs around the world through Ireland, northern Africa, Indonesia, China, Hawaii and Canada, but tolerance is not in this group's repertoire. Unfortunately, there always seem to be loud-mouthed bigots on the religious fringe who confuse obedience with salvation and their whiteness as a sign of purity, but this group takes the cake.

Real Christians practice love and inclusion, not hate and exclusion. They also have a sense of humor, one of God's most under-appreciated gifts. Right-wing religious mad hatters like this group from the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) of Topeka, Kansas, are different only in degree from the right-wing Muslims they also despise. Different preachers/imams with similar requirements that everyone prove they love God/Allah by toeing the ideological line and OBEYing the bits and pieces of the Old Testament they have selected as being particularly important.

Around the world, people in large groups have been slaughtered because religious leaders inspire their followers to hate those who are from a different tribe or have a different spiritual view of the world. Intolerance has led to the deaths of millions of people where it has been allowed to be preached unchecked. Tuesday's crowd was a chance to see what a million people look like.

. . . the sea of joyous humanity on the Mall in Washington in celebratory triumph, gave us a snapshot of what a million people looked like. It gave us some inkling of the sheer and overwhelming size of what was perhaps humanity's greatest crime, the sadistic murder of six million European and North African Jewish men women and children by a hate crazed German nation. Six times the ocean of humanity we witnessed on Tuesday!

The Inauguration and the Historical Spectre of Genocide

The Nazis murdered 11 million people, if you include other groups, like homosexuals, gypsies and the physically handicapped, because they didn't follow the rules or fit Hitler's vision. I can't help wondering if the unhappy lady in the video is a reincarnated death camp matron from the days of der Führer. She has about her an air of brutality and bestiality that doesn't fit in an enlightened age. She and her cohort are the same people who also enjoy screaming and yelling outside the funerals of servicemen and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of the WBC's websites is: godhatesamerica.com. Another is godhatesfags.com. The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the church as a hate group and the organization is monitored by the Anti-Defamation League. While its members identify themselves as Baptists, WBC is an independent church and is not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations. Evangelical Christian groups consider them to be a cult.

Wikipedia entry

I'm filled with gratitude that the Westboro Baptist Church and those who share their views are restrained by the law and the U. S. Constitution from enforcing their vision on the rest of us. They are fortunate that the same Constitution permits them to air it, stinky as it and they are.

Photo of crowd on mall from USA Today.

San Antonio Ghost Children - still debunked

2009-01-18T16:09:00.006+01:00

I get more hits on my blog from people looking for information about the San Antonio ghost children, who supposedly died in a bus accident, and push cars over the railroad tracks than any other topic ("the truth about vampires" comes in a close second). Sorry, folks, but it is still fiction (as are vampires). This video gives the most complete information about the subject I have seen, a minute fifteen seconds into the video.

A Need for Bean Counters

2009-01-11T19:15:00.010+01:00

bean counter
n. Slang
A person, such as an accountant or financial officer, who is concerned with quantification, especially to the exclusion of other matters:

I'm going t0 go out on a limb and say behind every great scientific breakthrough is a bean counter.

I was in a discussion with a ghosthunter, the kind who actually go out on investigations, about the need to gather data. He was bothered by the fact that the ship, The Queen Mary, that he and his team love to investigate and at which he has had great success, is making it difficult for them to gain access, but very easy for ghost tours. In fact, they have to pay to join a ghost tour to get access at night to do their investigations, but this also means that they have a lot of other people tromping around in the dark mucking up their venue, making noises in the background and walking in right when things start to get interesting. For the property, ghost tours are profitable, paranormal research is not.

I don't have a solution for that problem, except to hope that down the road, current or new management will take a different position.

But, both situations have me thinking about data, record keeping and how different that is for the tourist and for the serious investigator.

For the ghost tourist, perhaps a booklet with charts listing the different types of manifestations that one might encounter, such as tapping, moaning, flickering lights, mist, ectoplasm, even full-bodied apparitions. Tourists could go on tours all over the nation and try to check off items and see if they can get an EVP in each of the 50 states.

Serious investigative teams are looking for evidence, but also gather data to go with the evidence: time, date, temperature, humidity, weather conditions, moon phase, location, people present, equipment used. It's a lengthy list that many groups have developed, but at least, there is an effort to gather data. But who's counting it? Where are the bean counters?

I noticed that even groups that claim to be research-based often list as their primary objective to "help" or "assist" property owners with hauntings on their property. No problem with that, but that is different than research. Research is collecting data (beans) and then counting them, categorizing them, looking for trends, etc.

So, we have groups out there gathering beans. Who is counting them?

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T20:04:00.002+01:00

The New Year is usually represented by a baby, because babies represent hope. Every parent hopes that their young one will enjoy a good life, perhaps even a better one than their own. Let us all be hopeful that 2009 will be better than 2008. Happy New Year, everyone!

All kidding aside

2008-12-27T20:29:00.010+01:00

Christmas shouldn't be creepy. Not the real Christmas. Not really.

Children and parents shouldn't need to be afraid of Santa.

Surely there will be a special level of Hell for this man, Bruce Pardo, who dressed up as Santa and then shot his ex-wife, members of her family and friends at a Christmas party, killing 9. The first person he shot was an 8 year old girl. What went through her mind as she ran to greet Santa at the door, just before and after he shot her, must be the stuff of nightmares.

The only good part of this story is that the jerk thought he was smart. He thought he could get away with it, get out of town with the money taped to his body and not get caught, But he was a stupid enough to burn himself badly, after which he decided to put himself out of our misery, but only when he realized he could not get away.

Don't get me started about Americans and their love affair with guns and violence. There are far too many people who feel entitled, resent being deprived, and feel justified in sharing their misery with others. "I'll show you," runs through far too many little minds.

Empathy has been described as "feeling through our skin" what other people are feeling. Not many adults learn empathy. They usually learn it, or not, as children. On the list of things that you MUST teach your children, please include empathy. Killers lack empathy for their victims.

Here is one site you can visit to learn more about teaching empathy to children. And if, as an adult, you have trouble connecting to others, the tips provided may help you, too.

Family Education.com

Santa killer planned to flee to Canada

Holiday Greetings 2008

2008-12-24T16:38:00.001+01:00

Creepy Christmas Fun

2008-12-21T14:59:00.011+01:00

If you like your holiday on the creepy side, or have a slightly twisted sense of humor (guilty as charged), visit www.creepychristmas.net. They are posting a different short film for each day of the month counting down to Christmas.

I like December 8, 10, 18 and 20 best. December 14 is exceptionally beautiful, but pretty creepy! If you click on More about this Film, it will take you to a screen with the whole list, and you can scroll through and watch them in order or rummage through the list and select those that look appealing, which is a funny thing to say about these films.

Sadly, his year, one man created a real creepy Christmas. These films were done in fun, a response to our need to scare ourselves occasionally, so we can laugh at ourselves. What this man did was not funny. It was truly horrifying.

The Sexy Vampire

2008-12-06T09:00:00.014+01:00

My friend asked me to go see the latest silly woman falls in love with sexy vampire movie last weekend. She has read all of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books and even started a book club . . . guess which book they read first? You are so clever. She insisted that these books were different than other vampire books, which left me wondering how many vampire books she's actually read, since the idea of the sexy vampire in love with a human woman has been around for a while, and while I'm not an expert, Buffy and Angel leap to mind. It's not a new concept.

My kids are big fans of Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire series. I only read the first one, Dead Until Dark, about a telepathic waitress named Sookie Stackhouse who works in a northern Louisiana bar. This book has a great opening line: I'd been waiting for the vampire for years when he walked into the bar. It was funny and clever, but I wasn't motivated to read any more. True Blood is the new TV series based on the books. It stars Anna Paquin, and is a bit too bloody and pornographic for my taste, but in it an attractive and trusting psychic girl falls in love with a dangerous, good-hearted vampire. As in Twilight, there's a lot of posturing and posing by the vampires. The hero spends a lot of his time looking pained.

This blog has received scores of hits on the search terms: our fascination with vampires, and the truth about vampires and a Google search finds much is being written on the topic of women's fascination with sexy vampire men. I think it's all about how hard it is for ordinary mortal women to be aroused by and have orgasms with ordinary mortal men. Real life, real men are so mundane and boring, so indecisive, so clumsy. Most women have to boss them around to get them to do anything. And most of the well-dressed ones appear to be unavailable (to the opposite sex, anyway). Vampires are handsome, fashionably elegant, rich (not sure how they accomplish that, but money never seems to be a problem), and apparently when they turn it on, they are irresistible. Most guys don't have that kind of mojo.

So, it's all about sex and power. I think we've figured that much out. Each author, TV or movie producer comes up with a different angle, but there are common denominators that we have come to expect. A tortured vampire who doesn't want to suck blood and kill people like the other vampires and a woman who loves him, usually unconditionally, and other "bad" vampires who want to kill her? Not new.

In the movie, Twilight, the gimmick is a group of nice teenage "vegetarian" vampires, who survive on animal blood, but still have to fight the urge to dine on their human neighbors. They are also unusually attractive, stylish and spend most of their time sitting or standing around artificially posing. The only time in the movie they showed any personality, other than pouty or brooding, was when they played baseball in the woods. They each have a different ability (hmm, anyone thinking Heroes?), such as fast speed, ability to tell the future, super strength, whatever, and they can go out in sunlight, but prefer not to, as it makes their skin glow like it is coated in diamond dust, and people would figure out they are "different," and then they would have to move again, and it would be all so inconvenient.

As the hero Edward tells Bella, the besotted, starry-eyed teenage girlfriend whose thoughts he cannot read (oh my!), sucking animal blood is like eating tofu, not nearly as satisfying as the real thing. He nobly explains to her that he is not a nice guy, that he has killed people (he is especially solemn with that line), and part of him would really like to taste her blood, but the teenage girl, whose brain cells have been fried by love (what teenage girl has not experienced this?), declares vacuously that she doesn't care (doesn't care that he's killed people? how amoral of her), she knows that he won't hurt HER (emphasis on HER). This is followed by several silly scenes of them in the forest, culminating with an overhead view of them lying chastely side-by-side in green grass dotted with charming, possibly artificial flowers.

I don't care what you've done.
I love you anyway.
I know you won't hurt me.

Is this the kind of stuff you want your daughter saying to her boyfriend? Is this what you are saying to your boyfriend? These are silly declarations by a silly girl who will grow up to be a silly woman, willing to sacrifice everything important for LOVE, like that lasts, or like the man who receives her gift will value it as much as she does. That is the lesson being taught here to our daughters. If you love him, give it all up. Hold nothing back. Lie to your parents. Run away from home. Have sex. Be willing to become a vampire. Screw women's lib. Live for him. You don't matter. The premise here is a bad one.

Are we supposed to believe this girl knows what true love is? She wasn't that good an actress, and no 16 year-old teenager, boy or girl, knows what true love is, although many think they do. They are not finished growing up. Their brains are not fully developed, especially that frontal lobe part that tells them when they should run away from danger.

The most appealing characters in this movie are the "bad" vampires, who lust after the blood of our silly heroine. They, at least, are true to their natures. In the final scene, the "bad" female vampire is seen spying on our young lovers, plotting, no doubt, to do them harm in the next movie. I wish her well in her quest. Someone needs to take this lot down. I don't doubt she will fail and probably die violently, but at least she knows what she wants and understands the cost. I doubt Bella does.

More on this subject: The Truth About Vampires

That's One, Spookannie!

2008-12-01T16:16:00.004+01:00

I recently celebrated my real birthday and completely forgot that I started this blog a few days earlier, so Happy Belated Birthday to my virtual alter ego, Spookannie, born November 23, 2007. She and I started this blog with no clear idea what direction it would take us, just a desire to expand our thinking horizons beyond the limits of the paranormal forum constraints and to write more expansively about whatever came to mind.

I often wonder after a post where I will find the next idea to write about, but one always seems to come along ... eventually. I wondered if I had what it took to be a blogger. I have since started two other blogs, so it's possible the answer is yes.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I plan to continue as long as I have ideas and an audience, whether large or small.

The Lingering Dead

2008-11-28T07:38:00.011+01:00

Is it possible that the spirits of the newly dead linger for a short period of time and spend this time looking in on their loved ones and saying good-bye to their old life? Would it be unreasonable to assume that there is a transitional time for them? It seems sensible to me, and I suspect that whether this happens or not may depend on the desires of the dead person and also on their state of mind, their awareness and their openness to the possibility.

There is evidence for this but it is all anecdotal. I submit the following true stories which were told to me as additional anecdotal evidence that this may be true.

A couple of days ago, a vocabulary discussion in my high school reading class took an unexpected turn. I told the class that after my father died, as I was walking in my mother's yard, I heard something that sounded like someone had breathed into my ear and made the sound, "shooo." This was very similar to a word, soof, that a character says in the novel, So B. It. I told them that I wondered if my father hadn't been trying to say my name (Judy) to try to get my attention. Immediately 4 hands went high into the air and I could tell that they had something they very much wanted to share.

A******** shared a story she has been told about herself. When she was three years old, her mother and grandmother heard her talking to someone in the living room, and when they came in, there was no one there. She told them that she was talking to her great-grandmother, who had recently died.

K*** shared that when he was six years old his natural father died. They were living with his grandparents at the time. His grandmother reported seeing the rocking chair where his dad liked to sit moving on its own, and K*** had an experience of his own in the chair. He felt as though someone put hands on his shoulders and pressed down, as though someone was standing behind him. He is now 14 years old and says that when he visits his grandparents, he feels he is also visiting his father, because he feels his presence there.

M***** shared that when he was a young boy, his grandmother died during the night while he was asleep. The sound of ambulance sirens woke him up. He claims that he saw his grandmother in the living room watching the paramedics wheel her own body out to the ambulance, and that this freaked him out.

T***, whose mother died in a car crash when she was a little girl, had two stories to share. First, she told us that her aunt claims that as she was sitting drinking at the kitchen table, her dead sister came and sat across from her and spoke to her. T*** also shared that she had gone to sleep in her parents' bed. She woke up thirsty and asked her father to get her a drink of water. After he left, her mother appeared next to the bed. She screamed, and her father dropped the glass and it broke.

These stories are anecdotal, of course, not proof of anything, but provide further evidence of the continuation of the life of the spirit after the death of the body. All of the current teenagers (between the ages of 14 and 16) were age 6 or younger when they had their experiences. All of their visions were of a recently passed loved one.

I said to the last two, "I don't understand. Why did you freak out when you saw the person who had died? It was someone you loved. Why weren't you happy to see them?"

They looked at me in a pitying way. In unison they exclaimed, "Because they weren't supposed to be there!"

The image of the rocking chair is from Quality House

Seeing Things

2008-11-03T18:26:00.012+01:00

I was getting to ready to cut up a potato on Sunday, when I noticed a letter formed by the dark areas of the potato skin that looked just like a capital letter E. Hmm, was it a sign, I wondered? And if so, of what or whom? Aha, Einstein, perhaps? Why not?

I was reminded of the devout or deluded souls out there who find evidence in nature or in common objects that they claim proves a certain belief, whether in ghosts, UFO's or Jesus, and I started wondering why. Why do they see Jesus on a slice of toast, the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich, faces on Mars, and angels in misty photographs? Why are there two YouTube videos of "Cheesus," little Jesus-shaped Cheetos that their owners are afraid to eat? Why do people flock to see Jesus in a rust stain, the Virgin on a garage door, or in a motorcyclist's road rash?

I don't have a firm answer to the question. I am often baffled by the illogical ramblings of the village idiots. Here are my best guesses. And let me say, that I think that, except for those who are out to fool the rest, many of these people appear to genuinely believe. There's no lacking for sincerity here.

1. Attention. Clearly the people who find these things and tell their neighbors and call FOX news want attention. And a divine apparition is going to get attention, so can't rule this one out. The current modern stream of apparitions in various food items started in 1977 with New Mexico's Maria Rubio, who found a small image of Jesus on a tortilla she was fixing for her husband. This lead to a small shrine in a shed, visited, one assumes, by thousands. There were other competing Holy Tortillas that came out in the next year or two. Sadly, in 2005 the original Jesus tortilla was broken when Mrs. Rubio's granddaughter took it to school for Show and Tell and someone dropped it. Tragedy or comedy? You decide.

2. Justification. Being able to produce something unexplained in a grainy photograph or video that justifies a belief, whether in E.T. or Bigfoot, may make the swampland of belief the believer is standing on seem a bit firmer. Visiting a shrine to one of these apparitions may be considered proof of devotion, pennies in the heaven bank.

3. Boredom. Let's face it, many people lead desperate lives of tedious boredom. Having something to show everyone else may make them feel interesting for a while, or at the very least, less boring.

4. Inferiority Complex. Let the Jones's try to keep up with them for a change. How do you top Jesus in your neighbor's potato chip?

5. Spiritual High. Religious believers want to experience closeness with the divine. However, some people misconstrue an excess of emotion as spiritual experience. They work themselves into an emotional tizzy, like whirling dervishes (no offense to the dervishes). No dizzying rush = no spirit = no testimony. Don't want to be without one of those. Some may use apparitional objects as the focus of meditation in an effort to invoke a spiritual experience. I wouldn't be able to do it. Meditate on a tortilla with a thumb-sized Jesus burn mark? Not going to do it for me.

6. Mammon. Let's not forget the profit motive. There have been numerous items, some obviously faked and others produced by nature, sold on ebay. It's hard to associate pure motives to those.

You can see many of them here in this video. The song is by
The Bucky Burro Band.

There are a lot of things in this world that deserve attention, but these examples of wishful thinking are just sad. Long story short, the gullible will frequently be fooled by pareidolia, the random shapes that appear naturally, and seem to our eyes to contain faces or look like what they are not. There's a wonderful collection of them at this website: Things that look like other things.

Tis the Season to be Spooky

2008-10-13T11:22:00.007+02:00

Ah, golden October with all its glory has come round once more. Once again, for a couple of weeks the hills blaze with color in a yearly reminder that time marches on in a circle. Round and round and round we go, round the sun, round the seasons in a never-ending spiral of life and death, of beauty and decay. And here in October, nature celebrates life with bursts of color and rich fruits ready to be harvested.

We celebrate the Homecoming Season, wear Polarfleece to football games and drive through the woods watching the leaves flutter down like red and yellow snowflakes. We used to get up with the sun; now we are lucky if the sun is peeping over the horizon as we drive off to work through the fog. The chill in the air is brisk and refreshing, and it is good to be out of doors.

Summer foods are going out of fashion. Pumpkin soup, pumpkin muffins and pumpkin pie are showing up on the menu. If you've never tried pumpkin soup, you are missing a delicious and healthy treat. I've posted a link to a site with recipes under the title of this blog. You can also click HERE.

Soon the goblins will come to call, so stock up on candy and find the perfect pumpkin to carve into a jack-o-lantern to keep away the evil spirits while inviting the good ones in.

There is Time

2008-09-14T13:05:00.016+02:00

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8
To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant,
and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to . . .
. . . well, that's the point, isn't it. The verse seems to be about doing things at the right time, but what it is equally about is time. Time comes and time goes, and when the time to do something is gone, it is gone. There will be new flowers next season, but they won't be the same ones. There will be new life, but it will be someone else's.

Time, it seems to this porch stoop philosopher, is the one constant that no one is able to escape. The wheels turn, the seasons come and go, the blooms drip, the boobs droop, the hair thins. The skin creams go on, but the wrinkles form anyway. We think when we are young we can avoid the ravages of time, but we learn better. *Ha, ah, ah (evil laugh)* The joke is on us.

We ignore the passing of time to our peril. Even though we are constantly admonished not to worry about the past or the future, but to live in the present, we can look at time passing, and he seems to be running away from us like a mischievous street thief who has just lifted our wallet. "Too late," he taunts as he turns the corner and disappears from sight, along with every opportunity we have let pass.

Time is not the only constant we need to reckon with. The other one that wrecks carefully laid plans and plays havoc with our deep seated need for security is Everything Changes. No matter how comfortable we get or how carefully we plan, sooner or later the transmission fails or someone gets sick or the job goes south, and we have to scramble to weather the storms created by the changes in our lives. Pandora opened the box and added the element of chaos to our lives, and we all must deal with it.

Enough about us. Here's the question I was puzzling on lately. What about ghosts? What about spirits? Are they affected by the laws of time and change? Are they unaffected by time? My guess, is they can't avoid the forces of the universe any better than we can. They may be in a different place, seemingly existing under a different set of rules, but even they can't change the laws of physics. They cannot stop the sun in the sky any more than we can. So, no matter how long a ghost has haunted a crumbling castle or treeless moor, their season of haunting may be longer than the average, but it will end, just like everything else, and something else will take their place.

Oh, did I mention? Another universal truth . . . we are all replaceable.

In the Way of Beauty

2008-07-17T17:32:00.016+02:00

"A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it."Andy Goldsworthy

Watch the video and click on the title of this post to see more of Andy's art.

I remember one year when it seemed that every time I went for a walk I found a bird's feather; not ratty, raggedy things, but perfect feathers from many birds. Each time I came across one, I picked it up and brought it home. After several months, I had a cup full of feathers. I still enjoy their variety, how they look next to each other: so similar, so different. I've often wondered why I found so many over such a short period of time, for while I occasionally still see a feather on my walks, I haven't been able to duplicate that year of many feathers.

I don't have the artistic talent in my whole body Andy Goldsworthy has in his little finger, but I enjoy seeing what he does partially because I also have an appreciation for the beauty of individual feathers, rocks and leaves, enough that I often pick one up and bring it home; not all of course; most are best left where they are, but some that will not be missed and will remind me of where I have been. I like the shapes, the colors, especially the rounded smoothness of river rocks, the speckled colors or ribbons of alternating layers.

The beauty of the earth and the temporary nature of much of that beauty is a spiritual thing. It reminds us all to appreciate each breath, each day, each opportunity, and to be present and mindful. When we make our world ugly, when we fail to create beautiful spaces to live in, something inside us weeps in frustration. The outer reflects the inner, and one way we bring peace to the inner is by putting ourselves in the way of beauty.

The photos of the feathers and the flowers are mine. Please give credit if you use them. I photographed the rhododendron blooms in Ireland, in the gardens of Muckross House in Muckross National Park near Killarney. They had fallen from their bush onto a mossy rock in a unplanned display of fleeting splendor.

Wandering

2008-07-12T18:48:00.005+02:00

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I'm doing my summer wander, traveling in the United States, seeing family, visiting friends, checking up on the kids and all that entails, generally an emptying of my checking account. I'm also scheduled for knee surgery next week, just arthroscopic, but all of this has been keeping me busy the past month and I haven't had time to write.

I offer you this photo which I took last week. I like it. It looks very mysterious and mystical, almost like an image of space, but it is no more than the reflection of the sun shining in a pool of creek water at Sabino Canyon, near Tucson, Arizona.

I remember reading a passage years ago in Mary Stewart's novel, The Crystal Cave, the story of Merlin and an exploration of the nature of magic and truth. Merlin looked at a similar reflection of the sun in a pool of water and noted that the reflection of the sun was still the sun. We all seek the truth, but sometimes our viewpoint may be like this image, mysterious and incomplete, but not untrue. After all, we can't look at the sun directly. The truth of it would blind us.

Why I'd Rather Be Left Behind

2008-06-11T23:03:00.014+02:00

The word "rapture" is not found in any English translation of the Bible, yet some creative entrepreneurs still manage to sell the concept to the credulous. I read one of the Rapture books once because someone left it in the teacher's lounge as a free giveaway. I read the book with something best described as extreme distaste, especially at the images of Jesus carrying a sword marching at the head of his army, his formerly white robe (symbol of purity), turned red with the blood of his enemies. Now that's a Jesus I can't get behind. Hmm, reminds me of the bloodthirsty priest Amrish Puri pulling the hearts out of the human sacrifices to Kali in the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom before sending them down to a fiery hell. After I finished reading, having searched in vain for anything even vaguely redemptive in the book, I quietly chucked it in the parking lot dumpster, then went and washed my hands, thoroughly.

When it comes to being left behind, I'd just as soon. Here are some reasons. I'm sure there are others I haven't thought of. Feel free to add yours in the comments.

•Because I don't want to miss the next episode of The Middleman
•Because there'll be shorter lines at the gas station, bank, the multiplex . . .
•Because some of the people driving gas guzzling behemoths will be gone . . . easing global warming!
•Because the people who insist on teaching abstinence instead of how to prevent unwanted pregnancies will be gone . . . easing overpopulation
•Because there'll be enough money in the Social Security fund for my retirement
•Because, unlike the potential heavenly floaties, my eyes still focus
•Because all the really interesting, creative people will still be here
•Because all the really annoying people will be gone . . . I think, . . . wait, will there still be Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on my door?
•Because I'll save $40 a year not leaving e-mails to my family and friends, thumbing my nose at them, and explaining what boobs they were for not believing

What I really hope happens? There's a major screw-up at You've Been Left Behind and the e-mail messages get sent out BEFORE the rapture. Oops.

A couple of hypothetical conversations overheard after post-rapture e-mails get sent out pre-rapture:

––You sent one to me? Why, didn't you think I was good enough? Do you think you're better than me?

––What bank account in the Grand Cayman Islands? Any other secrets you've been keeping?

The idea of the rapture is nothing more than the extremely old concept of the "deus ex machina." The phrase is Latin (meaning "god out of a machine") but comes from ancient Greek drama and refers to any hopeless or unresolvable situation in which an improbably contrived ending is engineered. For example, an angel or wizard or magic genie or Jesus appears and "poof" fixes things, or, remember when the whole Who Shot JR? thing on "Dallas" was solved by having the whole season turn out to be just a dream? It worked in the Wizard of Oz, as well. Superman usually flies backwards around the earth real fast and turns back time. Anyway, the idea has been around a long time. It's just being repackaged and sold under a new brand name with a purpose no nobler than to fleece the flock.

The concept of the Rapture is for those who have given up on fixing the earth. Those who see no hope for humanity and themselves and just hope a god/angel/Jesus/deus ex machina will swoop down like Peter Pan and rescue them (and fly them off to Never Never Land?). I suppose it's one way to keep despair away. But the part where they come back, hiding behind Jesus' skirt, er, robe, and kick ass on all their enemies (such as everyone who ever made fun of them in high school?) . . . that's just sick. While it would be nice, not to mention convenient, to be rescued from our financial and personal troubles, most adults understand that the only way out of this boggle is to keep working away to fix the problems we, humanity, have created. It's our mess. We made it. It wouldn't be nice to run off and leave someone else to pick up after us.

Pollution? War? Inequality? The rich too rich, the poor too many? These are fixable, if we only dig deep and find the will, the love, the strength of character and the resolve. Rapture wannafloats? Gutless quitters without the focus and determination needed to succeed in the real world. If their time comes, let them go. But, if you see anyone floating up in the air, perhaps on a beam of light, there might be aliens up there picking up a six-pack at 7Eleven Earth. I suggest hiding under a rock. It might, ironically, turn out to be a rock of salvation.

P.S. Can I have your iphone when you're gone?

The Power of Negative Thinking

2008-05-29T17:07:00.015+02:00

Self-help books tell us how important it is to think positive thoughts, but truth is, the negative ones come more easily to mind. Someone asked recently whether there is anything to voodoo, in particular, to the power of hexes. I don't know much about voodoo except that it came to America with African slaves. Like any other religion, I'm sure it has changed and evolved through the ages and has its positive aspects. However, like most non-practitioners, when I think voodoo, I think voodoo doll.

I've been tempted to poke a few holes in one in honor of a particularly irksome person or two. But, I know I could not do it, not because I believe in curses, but because I believe in the power of negative thoughts. It's not just that I don't want to be responsible for one of my bad thoughts hurting someone else, but that I believe that whatever I put out into the universe is what I will get back. I have enough problems. I don't need one of my random bad thoughts scooting around the world and coming up behind me and saying, "Gotcha!" when I'm not looking.

All kidding aside, can you be hurt by a hex or a curse? Not unless you believe in the power of the hex or the curse. That's my answer and I'm sticking to it. It's all about psyching out the other person. I suspect that letting the hexee know that he has been targeted may be advantageous. If one goes to go to the trouble of getting the voodoo doll together and poking those pins in just so, it must be frustrating to see the victim stroll around obliviously unaware of the ill feeling that is supposed to be hurting him. Surely leaving a noxious band of dead weeds in a strategic location would speed up the process. Add a deceased cockroach, something black and sticky, tie it up with a black ribbon, and voilà, psych!

I read a great article by someone who calls herself "Madame Splash" about the power of negative intuition which expresses quite well the essence of the effect that negative thinking has on our bodies. Please click HERE to read the whole article and check out her other articles. There's also a link in my LINKS box.

Close your eyes and think of two contrasting people, one somebody you adore and another that you intensely dislike.

Think about each person in turn, and pay attention to what occurs in your body, particularly observe your emotions, your feelings, and other areas of tension.

If you became aware of the changes within your body, you had what we call a metaphysical "intuitive" experience, simply by "observing" your primeval reaction.

Remember the last time you could have "cut the air with a knife" with a sulker, or felt "completely stupid" around a person who treated you as such. How about a person who didn't trust you, for no good reason at all? Can you recall how you "felt" on the end of this kind of transmission?

Every individual who has experienced rejection as a result of racial, societal or belief structures has experienced this form of silent rejection, and this begins to explain what we mean by "negative intuition".

All dominating and condemning thoughts are intuitively broadcast to a recipient, and you don't need wax dolls and pins to emit harm. Gather a group of people together with the same objective of slander, gossip or ridicule and the result is merely Voodoo*!

Well said, Madam Splash. I could not have said it better . . . hence the quote.

Well, this has not settled the curse issue, so much as pointed out that negative thinking does have an observable effect on the body. If you allow yourself to be psyched out by the idea of someone cursing you, then yes, you could be hurt, but it will be you hurting yourself.

My advice? Shut the psychic door! Close the intuitive window! Let all the bad vibes coming your way bounce or slide off. Water off a duck's back. Smooth. Visualize all those bad vibes flowing around you and zipping around the world and biting your nemesis in the butt. Now that's an image I can get behind! Anyone putting a hex on you is an idiot who deserves to be laughed at, and laughter is the very best medicine for what ails you.

Want to buy a voodoo doll? I suggest one of these from The Chocolate Store.com

O death, where is thy sting?

2008-05-14T19:21:00.010+02:00

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?" sing the tenor and alto in Handel's Messiah.

"Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live." -- Saul Alinsky

Christians seem to me to be a rather anxious lot. Although, as a group, they claim to have overcome death through Jesus Christ, I find most Christians to be preoccupied with death and apprehensive about it. I've never really understood this. They aren't just interested in keeping themselves from dying, either. The extreme ones spend a lot of time fretting over other people's unborn children.

Some of them see God as a Santa Claus who will give them what they ask for if they are just good enough, pure enough, faithful enough and pray hard enough. Some see God as an accountant, keeping track of every sin in preparation of making them pay. No surprise that group is anxious to avoid death. Some see God as a teacher and life as a never-ending final exam with lots of trick questions. Others see God as a spiritually perfect condition that each of us strive to reach so that we can be one with him and experience joy. I tend to the latter belief, but the problem is, I doubt I can reach that condition in one go.

But, what bothers me most is the assumption by the majority of Christians (but not all!) that we only get one shot at life incarnate on earth. This, I believe, is the source of the anxiety and fear that Christians try to hide behind beatific smiles and lofty songs praising Jesus for defeating death. The promise held out to true believers is EVENTUAL RESURRECTION at some undetermined time, perhaps nearby, more likely, very distant. The reward or consequences of a life lived well or poorly arrives instantly at the moment of death and remains in place more or less permanently. Two choices: Heaven or Hell. No one seems sure where the cut-off line is between the two. Hence, the need to proselytize and baptize as many souls as possible before they die unshriven and find themselves sinking down into the abyss.

Does this make sense to you? It has never made sense to me and I'm a Christian. It offers nothing for those who die young, or live encumbered by disability, disease or mental illness. It doesn't give a fair chance to those who die in war or in a school collapsed on top of them by an earthquake. Where is the justice for the innocents? Where is their chance? It just isn't fair. God, unfair? That can't be right.

We are told that we are made in God's image, that he is our father (I use the masculine gender as a familiar convenience) as we are parents to our own children, and loves us even more than we love our children. So, let me ask you, what do we tell our children when they fall off their skateboard-roller skates-bicycle-horse? Do we say, You fell off? Too bad, you only get one chance? No, we tell them, Dust yourself off, get back on, and try again.

But most Christians believe in a God who does just that. The pared down, simplified version is God loves you just the way you are, but you only get one shot at this. Don't mess it up, or you go to hell. The truth we all know in our heart of hearts, is that none of us is perfect. We are all sinners. We all have dark places in our souls, and we are not going to get it right the first time, any more than we are going to be able to ride a skateboard on our first attempt or shoot the hoop from the center line of the basketball court with only one shot. The pressure to succeed is enormous. The consequences of failure dire. The angst is buried deep under hymns and smiles and fellowship. But, it bubbles to the top as a fretful fear of facing death and finding out whether one's one life was good enough to face God's judgment.

But, is that the way of it? I don't think so. I'm not saying we aren't judged, but I'm betting that the judgment is loving and that we do most of it ourselves, that we will come face to face with our successes and shortcomings in a place where nothing is hidden and draw our own conclusions. Heaven and Hell and whatever lies between are most likely self-generated by our own conscience and self-awareness. There is ample evidence in history, experience and scripture that you and I have lived many lives and will live many more, that our spiritual journey involves many chances to get on the horse and ride it and not fall off. My God loves me as I am and wants me to succeed, or so I believe. I hope to make progress in this life toward spiritual perfection, but can see that it is still a long way off. Death, I believe is something we are all better off accepting, not fearing. Knowing that I have come this far and will be given the opportunity to pick myself up, dust myself off and try again is a comforting thing.

If you would like to learn more about the other alternative to the one-shot at life: reincarnation, try out some of these links.

Reincarnation and Religion

Children's Past Lives

Edgar Cayce and Reincarnation

Accepting Death

I also recommend that parents and parents-to-be read Carol Bowman's books

Children's Past Lives and Return from Heaven

Seeing is Remembering

2008-05-04T21:11:00.006+02:00

On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, to hasten the end of a long and difficult war. There can be no question but that the tactic was successful, in the sense that it achieved its goal. Japan offered to surrender on August 10 and the emperor broadcast that decision on August 15.

What is not so clear, nor is it ever in time of war, is whether such a tactic can ever be allowed as humane or justified. The world has gone to great lengths in the years since to avoid a repeat, but it is the Damocles sword that hangs over our heads and of which we do not speak much, except with much finger pointing at other nations.

I've seen photographs of Hiroshima and the mounds of rubble and skeletal trees, and wondered where were all the people. Were they all vaporized? I even remember seeing a photograph showing the outline of a woman against a wall, all that was left.

The reason for this post is the release of 10 never before released photographs of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing. The undeveloped film containing these photographs was discovered by a US serviceman in a cave outside of Hiroshima. The photographer is unknown. The soldier's family donated them to the Hoover Library and Archives (which has been collecting first hand accounts of historical events since 1919) with the stipulation that they not be released until 2008. These photographs are not for the squeamish, because they illustrate in a graphic way the human cost of the bombing. I think we have an obligation to remember the past, to remember the suffering, because as the philosophers say, those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

You may view the photographs by clicking on the title of this post.

Consume. Produce. Share

2008-04-30T20:14:00.004+02:00

The beauty of the Internet is the way you stumble serendipitously upon stuff that you didn't know was out there, but that speaks to who you are and where you are. This presentation by Clay Shirky at Web 2.0 had me nodding my head in agreement, because his explanation for the media and how it has changed and is changing and we are participating in that change explains why I blog, why many people blog and join forums, edit articles on Wikipedia, set up pages on Facebook or MySpace and build virtual homes in Second Life. The video is about 15 minutes long, but it's an enlightening and entertaining 15 minutes. It's not about the paranormal, but it is about why people like me create blogs like this one on a variety of topics. We are no longer content to WATCH; we want to participate, to move from consumption to producing and sharing.
Click on the title of this post to go to Clay Shirky's website.

Haunting Villisca

2008-04-27T09:38:00.009+02:00

For some reason, last night I was thinking about the Villisca Axe murders. It is an uncomfortable haunting to think about, because it raises so many questions about loss of innocence, parents helpless to protect the children in their care, and extraordinary evil. There must be a tremendous amount of residual sorrow and inconsolable pain in that house. I've listened to EVP's taped in the house in which you can clearly hear the murderers laughing about the crimes they have committed and are about to commit, and the children whispering as they hide from the murderers, whom they know will be coming up the stairs to kill them next. It's bone-chillingly horrifying.

This morning as I began my initial research, I discovered a full-length feature film on the topic of the Villisca murders has been produced and was being shown yesterday, the same day I felt compelled to think about it. Is there a connection? I've had many experiences that carried a sense of serendipity with them and believe that ideas, once tossed out into the universe, bounce around and are picked up by others, so that people seemingly completely unconnected may find themselves thinking on the same things.

Here's what I found. Please click on the link under the title of this post and you will be able to learn more about the film, the documentary of the making of the film and when it may become available for viewing. It has won the "Silver Eddy" award at the Cedar Rapids Indpendent Film Festival.

Inspired by the unsolved 1912 Villisca Axe Murders and the present day paranormal investigations of the J.B. Moore Home, Haunting Villisca was shot on location at the crime scene and at the historic Montgomery County Courthouse where the trials took place, as well as in several other Iowa locations.

Haunting Villisca features well-known Hollywood actor, GregAlan Williams (Remember the Titans, Be Cool, Old School, In the Line of Fire, The Sopranos, The West Wing) and actors Michael Cornelison (Lost in America, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, The Final Season ) and James Serpento (White Boyz, Iowa, The Final Season, Duck Farm Number 13) in addition to many other actors who now reside in the Midwest.

The award-winning behind-the-scenes documentary, A Ghost of Chance: The Making of Haunting Villisca, by Jill Jones, Elizabeth Hixenbaugh and Kaitlyn Busbee, three college film students known as JEK Films, will also screen on Sunday April 27 at noon in Reunion Hall.

A Ghost of a Chance follows the process of making Haunting Villisca and features interviews with cast, crew, filmmakers, and historian Roy Marshall, writer of the book, Villisca. The documentary also chronicles an overnight stay in the infamous Villisca Axe Murder House and evidence of paranormal activity in the Moore Home, including video footage and E.V.P.s ("ghost voice" recordings known as Electronic Voice Phenomenons) by the paranormal investigations group, P.R.I.S.M.

I share this information with you now, as I don't want to delay getting the word out about this movie. If anyone has seen it, please post a comment and let us know what you thought of it.

A Note to My Fans

2008-04-25T22:42:00.003+02:00

Many thanks to Mother Nature for finally shooing Spring in. Persephone was unnecessarily tardy in exiting from the Underworld and kept us all waiting rather overlong this year.

This is a busy time for me at school, so not sure when I'll get another post up. Still waiting for inspiration. My focus right now is on the real world, rather than the virtual one. But, I assure you the spiritual world still holds its fascination for me and will still be there when I have a moment to think about it.

My interest in ghosts has always been about spirit, about the cycle of the seasons, about growth and relationships and how we all fit together in the universe.

Happy Spring, everyone. I wish you all peace and love.

Breathe deep, spend some time outside where the fresh air can hit your skin and the sun can do its healing thing.

Badd Apple Meets Cyberbully

2008-04-13T13:49:00.029+02:00

I don't like bullies, never have, never will. And I believe in standing up to them. It's been my experience that the bully you ignore will continue to harass; the bully you face will look for an easier person to bully. You'd think that once we grow up, that the schoolyard bullies would, too, but they have a way of growing into adult bodies, but not losing their bullying ways. They are everywhere, including on the Internet.

From Wikipedia:
Characteristics of bullies
Research indicates that adults who bully have personalities that are authoritarian, combined with a strong need to control or dominate. It has also been suggested that a deficit in social skills and a prejudicial view of subordinates can be particular risk factors.

Further studies have shown that while envy and resentment may be motives for bullying, there is little evidence to suggest that bullies suffer from any deficit in self esteem (as this would make it difficult to bully). However, bullying can also be used as a tool to conceal and boost self esteem: by demeaning others, the abuser himself feels empowered.

Researchers have identified other risk factors such as quickness to anger and use of force, addiction to aggressive behaviors, mistaking others' actions as hostile, concern with preserving self image, and engaging in obsessive or rigid actions.

Like dragons, bullies are self-centered, solitary, greedy creatures, kings and queens of their own mounds, unwilling to share, demanding loyalty and deference from those they deem to be lower than themselves, and in return for all this, they may not eat you . . . if you are lucky.

From Wikipedia,
Cyberbullying
According to Canadian educator Bill Belsey, it involves the use of information and communication technologies such as e-mail, cell phone and pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory personal Web sites, blogs, online games and defamatory online personal polling Web sites, to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.
—Cyberbullying: An Emerging Threat to the Always On Generation

I've just been banned from a forum by the owner who yesterday posted a thread in which she claimed that two rival forums were sending out trojans (Trojan: A program that appears legitimate, but performs some illicit activity when run. ) and warning her members not to visit the two sites.

word has it that 2 paranormal sites on the internet are sending out trojans from their site, and indeed i clicked on one of these sites, and my antivirus immediately flagged and killed a trojan....the 2 sites in question are...*here she named two websites* ...so beware if you visit those sites regularly... great way to encourage people to visit your site....not... I am not even going to provide the links for you guys cuz it might encourage you guys to click on it and see...so if you really want a trojan to attack your computer...you will have to find these sites yourself...as i am not linked to them.....and for a good reason now...

Her unhappiness with me surely stems from my asking whether she had notified the owner of the site, my insistence that the owners of both named forums be notified and asking for more details of her experience. Well, apparently that just isn't the done thing. She was clearly only interested in trying to get a rumor mill going to discourage people from visiting those sites. I got in the way.

*NEWSFLASH* There are no trojans or viruses at the other sites. This was simply an effort to defame two sites with which she is in competition and her action fits the definition of cyber bullying listed above.

Another characteristic of bullies is that they blame their victims. After slandering these two sites, she took objection when the owner of one managed to get into her site long enough to lodge a protest. Here is the bully's response to the owner's complaint. This is just a snippet, by the way. She rambled on a bit. I swear, I haven't changed so much as a comma.

Here is the lowdown....NOT everyone likes you, NOT everyone will like you.....you CAN'T MAKE people like you......them is the facts....
so why dont you just take a valium, gather up the 16 different personalities in your head, and move on..... You put so much negative energy out there by attacking anyone and everyone who says something about you....its no wonder you are gettin it all back. in spades....
quit trying to police the internet, tracking down people who don't like you. Just avoid them
maybe if you put all that pent up frustration into your website, you would have more than just the ABC's of this, that and the other to offer people
Some information on the paranormal might not go amiss... But if you just carry on gossipping and slandering people....well....I said it before....you will only get that back.

Now, if that isn't crazy, I don't know what is. She used gossip to slander this woman's website and then turned around and accused her of "gossipping and slandering." And all that other stuff in the middle, absolutely out there. I hope she was standing in front of a mirror, because this is a talk she should be having with herself, not throwing at other people who would have been ignoring her if she hadn't targeted them. Wow. For what I really think, check out this list: HERE.

And then she closed and locked the thread with,

and now that all that is said...and it being MY forum....I shall have the last word....
this topic is locked....and you and police woman judy are banned.
Can't say its been nice knowing either of ya...

Queen of the mound, acid drooling, sounds like a dragon to me. I got to be the police woman! w00t! In other words, I drug her deed, done in secret, visible only to her minions, out of the dragon's lair and into the light of day where everyone can see it. Badd, badd apple. I'm not going to identify any of these forums or the author of the malicious posts. But, if you see that thread or similar unfounded accusations being made against a competitor's website, tread carefully. Dragons are dangerous creatures.

If you are a reasonable person who expects better behavior from adults, join the crowd. There are many forums on the Internet and room for them all. They are all different: different styles, different members, different topics, and different owners. Take your pick. Don't let the watchdogs, who gave this bully five bones, tell you what sites to like. Remember, you're good enough, you're smart enough, and Badd Apple likes you, but watch out for hot and heavy breathing on the back of your neck. You, too, could be come the target of a hungry dragon.

Ghost Hunting and Reality TV

2008-04-08T08:16:00.034+02:00

Reality TV costs much less to produce than scripted television, about 1/4 as much, but it is still costly, and so when a crew goes out to a site, they need to come back with footage that can be turned into an entertaining show. No company is going to just hope that happens. They are going to have a plan to be sure that it happens. The objective of the ghost hunters may be to find proof of a haunting, but the goal of the producers is entertainment. After all, without viewers, they are out of business.

The participants are cast members, just like cast members of any other show. They have rolls they play and their rolls are partially scripted, which is most obvious at the beginning and end of the shows, and some places in the middle, too. Make no mistake, there's a lot of direction going on. You can still enjoy the shows, but don't have to believe everything they say is true, like Donna has done all this great research . . . right, Donna went out and "found" this stuff all on her own, NOT! The research is done by the production staff before they ever decide to film the episode, and whoever is wearing the researcher hat that week gets to take credit for it on the show. (P.S. I really like Donna Lacroix. She's on Ghost Hunters International where the only problem is she's once again being bossed around by the men who always seem get to be the leaders . . . Hmm, I sense a blog on sexism in ghost hunting. MUAH, Donna!)

This shouldn't stop you from enjoying the actual ghost hunting segments, during which the cast sometimes have freaky experiences, collect video or EVP evidence, or not. It's still the next best thing to being there. My only complaint, you can't always tell what is actually going on with the spooky music and sound effects added to the footage later. Latest personal peeve? The fake heartbeat added by Ghost Hunters. Cut it out!

The first of these shows I was exposed to was Most Haunted, the British show, but I quickly found the star, Yvette Fielding, to be extremely irritating. That and the obvious fakeness of the medium, Derek Acorah, provided a quick turn-off for me. There have also been accusations of fakery, such as Yvette sighing and then saying, "Did you hear that?" DUH! Yvette and her husband are the producers of the show.

Ghost Hunters is a very popular show, starring the very likable Grant Wilson and Jason Hawes, who supposedly work as plumbers during the day and hunt ghosts at night. They are also the producers of the show, which is built around The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), which they founded, but is now a marketing bonanza with a spinoff series, Ghost Hunters International and other certified TAPS teams. They have built a huge following in large part due to the fact that they act from a skeptical position, trying to determine what is actually causing observed phenomenon and looking for natural causes that will rule out the paranormal. They only accept a paranormal explanation if they are able to gather physical evidence to support the observed phenomenon. They also come across as very sincere with their clients and as very comfortable in their relationship with each other. Trustworthy is the word for these guys.

That said, the show is still highly scripted and stiff during the segments that set up the beginning, the ride to the site, and the end. If they are sitting at a table or riding in a vehicle, you can almost see the cue cards. There's a lot of repetitiveness here, the same kind of information given over and over and over again ad nauseum show after show about what they do and what an EVP is. It eats up air time, but doesn't provide any new information for old viewers. My most unfavorite thing they do is compliment someone on how well they did during an EVP session, as though it is hard to learn to say, "Is there anyone here who would like to talk to us?" or "Could you please do something to prove to us you are here?" How hard is that? Can I have my diploma now? The tech stuff . . . that takes some knowhow, but still, we aren't talking rocket science here.

You also need to be aware that there is a great deal of editing being done and it isn't being done by the cast, but by the production staff, who decide what it is that you and I, the audience, will get to see. It includes highlighting personality quirks of the cast members or whose wife is having a baby, who is scared of spiders, etc. Connecting the viewers to the cast members is key to maintaining interest in the show, since you can't always count on the ghosts to manifest themselves. Sometimes these machinations are so obvious that I can't imagine the audience doesn't know what is going on, such as when Kris Williams, the pretty one who is often used as "bait," was supposedly trapped inside a room she'd had to use a chair to get into and couldn't get herself out of. She called on the walkie talkie for Jason and Grant to come help her . . . only she was being filmed by a cameraman who was clearly in the same room with her. He couldn't give her a leg up? Grant "had" to crawl in and lift her up and then was filmed by the same cameraman jumping up and squirming out. So, who helped the cameraman out? They are never truly alone. There is always a sound guy and a cameraman, who seem remarkably calm. I wonder where they find these guys?

The final show that I have watched is a new one, Paranormal State. At first, I wasn't sure I was going to like this show, because right off the bat they were talking about demons and exorcisms. They also threw around a lot of holy water. It's basically a one-man show, built around student, Ryan Buell, with a couple of doe-eyed coeds, one Wiccan, and a tech guy. But, the focus is on Ryan (who comes across as steady, mature and experienced) and whichever medium they decide to call in. But, it's almost laughable when Ryan says something like, "I decided to call in so-and-so" to come help us and POOF they appear. It's all been planned ahead of time. Nobody's too busy to come, and even if they live across the country, they are there johnny-on-the-spot shortly after he declares they are needed.

I'm not knocking this little series. Remember, they are all scripted to some extent and the story line has been determined by the producers ahead of time. But, what the producers cannot script on any of these shows, and what keeps the viewers coming back again and again is the actual experiences they have . . . the unscripted parts of the show. You cannot fake the emotions of a scared teenager who is seeing the ghost of a murdered girl in her room, or the reluctance of a dog to enter a room, or how one of the investigators squeals like a girl and runs when touched by something that isn't there. They also occasionally capture a video or EVP that is compelling and some sounds that are unexplained may be heard audibly by the audience, as well as the investigators.

What I like about Paranormal State, assuming that it is true, is that Ryan claims on several occasions that he and his team are there to help the family with whatever the problem is. That may include counseling and medical interventions. They stick around a site for a whole weekend, not just one night, and don't leave until they have determined whether it is safe for the family. Whether you or I believe that holy water, rosary beads or saint's medals will keep a bad spirit away is probably irrelevant. I think it is the energy generated by the people present and their belief that matters. The rituals probably help them focus that energy.

To sum up, each of these shows has a hook, a gimmick, which the viewers can expect.
Ghost Hunters is science-based. Their goal is to look for proof (period). Their gimmicks are to go "Lights Out" and spend exactly one night at the site, which more and more seem to be famous historical sites, and have "The Reveal" at the end (sitting around a table, of course). Whether they find anything or not, they leave. Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. We had a good time. Good luck with your situation. They say they can be called on again, but we have no idea if anyone actually goes to them for more help with their problems. There's no follow-up.

Paranormal State is medium-based. They set up some instruments to gather evidence, and use them to verify paranormal activity, but their focus is on communicating with whatever spirits linger and helping them either to pass on or live harmoniously with the current residents of the home. Their gimmicks are "Dead Time" and the "Director's Log" which narratively carries us from scene to scene. They seek to resolve the problem of the haunting at the end. They stay for at least a couple of days, a couple of nights, and include psychological assessment of the people involved, as well as research including interviewing former residents of property. The places they investigate are often the homes of regular people. And the help they provide seeks to heal the whole family and provide some resolution to the problems they are having. They provide some follow-up information at the end of the show.

As long as they can keep their sincerity intact and be honest with their audiences, both of these shows may continue to experience success. I know I'll be watching.

Ghost Hunters
Ghost Hunters International
Paranormal State
Ryan Buell's Blog
Most Haunted

San Antonio Ghost Children - DEBUNKED

2008-03-29T08:28:00.007+01:00

I really enjoyed this video about the ghost children of San Antonio who regularly move stalled cars across a railroad crossing.

I've been puzzling on this one and am wondering if the car really was rolling uphill or if this is one of those places where people have trouble telling. I know, that seems incredible, but apparently sometimes people think they are going uphill, when they are really going downhill. This seems even worse that not knowing your left hand from your right.

I would like to see a better test than the one in this video, which would be to go out to this road when it's raining, or fill a big cooler with water and go pour it on the road and see which way it flows. Water flows downhill, so if it flows toward the railroad tracks, the car was actually going downhill, and the locals are using the story of the children to get a bigger thrill out of their illusory experience.

If it flows away from the tracks, the car was being pushed by some unknown force, and that would be very interesting. If anyone from San Antonio has observed the direction of the water flow on this road or is willing to check out my theory, please let me know how it turns out!

San Antonio Ghost Children Debunked

Thanks to an alert Paranormal Surroundings forum member for finding and pointing out the facts on this one to yours truly. It turns out the bus accident cited in the video happened in UTAH, not TEXAS, and most of the road leading to this crossing is a downhill grade, with just the last bit going up. It is long enough that most cars build up enough oomph to get across the tracks. Click on the link to get the details from the North Texas Skeptics.

They used a lot of technical equipment to get the grade of the road figured out. I still think my plan would have worked, less technical, but water always runs downhill, so not high on numbers, but pretty reliable data, nevertheless.

So, whatever happened to responsible journalism? Are we reduced to "human interest" stories where journalists look for an "entertaining" story, rather than looking for the truth about one? Are more news channels going to suggest that they report and we decide, rather than they research and let us know what they uncover? I addressed this sad issue in my blog: The Truth, the Whole Truth, and the Relatively Real Truth.

I don't believe in multiple choice truth. Our news outlets shouldn't be excused for passing off fabrications as truths because the reporters and producers are too lazy to look below the surface for it.

Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam

2008-03-26T17:15:00.015+01:00

The best class I took in college was a junior level writing course in which our instructor insisted that we study how to develop logical arguments, including how to recognize fallacies, or all the ways in which people argue things without real evidence to back up their positions. This also includes all the ways in which we are apt to fall for an argument if we aren't thinking clearly. It was a tough course, because we couldn't write about anything without finding evidence to support our positions, but it was eye-opening and mind-stretching, and I'm still grateful to my teacher for being such a hard-nose about it.

I'm a mature woman now, but I work with teenagers, and often remind myself that I had just as hard a time as many of them with the whole logical reasoning thing. We are not born with this skill. It does not come naturally to most of us. We are emotional creatures. We have to learn how to set our own desires and prejudices aside when seeking the truth of things.

I had forgotten about the argument from ignorance fallacy until I ran across mention of it recently.

Argument from ignorance
From Wikipedia
The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam ("appeal to ignorance") or argument by lack of imagination, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false or is only false because it has not been proven true.

The argument from personal incredulity, also known as argument from personal belief or argument from personal conviction, refers to an assertion that because one personally finds a premise unlikely or unbelievable, the premise can be assumed not to be true, or alternately that another preferred but unproven premise is true instead.

Both arguments commonly share this structure: a person regards the lack of evidence for one view as constituting proof that another view is true.

You see this viewpoint held by some posters on forums and websites devoted to the paranormal, but not by everyone. I have to emphasize that. There are intelligent people out there who are interested in looking for evidence of the existence of ghosts, either due to personal experience or out of intellectual curiosity. They may be called skeptics, because they insist that there be reproducible impartial evidence that will stand up to independent scrutiny. It's a much tougher stance to take than that of some, who sadly believe that everything they see is evidence of ghosts.

Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk may have come to represent the opposites, emotion and reason, but to say they cannot exist in harmony would be . . . illogical. There is no rule that says turning on your heart means you have to turn off your brain, so it is likewise, not necessary to turn off the logic circuit in your mind to believe in the possibility that ghosts exist.

Here is a list of the fallacies . . . My, my it's quite a list. If you've never had the opportunity to become familiar with them, I suggest going to the website listed at the bottom of the list. On the website, you can click on each one and learn more. Just reading the titles, may elicit a nod of understanding. You don't have to be Mr. Spock to come to a logical conclusion, as Captain Kirk often "proved."

Ad Hominem
Ad Hominem Tu Quoque
Appeal to Authority
Appeal to Belief
Appeal to Common Practice
Appeal to Consequences of a Belief
Appeal to Emotion
Appeal to Fear
Appeal to Flattery
Appeal to Novelty
Appeal to Pity
Appeal to Popularity
Appeal to Ridicule
Appeal to Spite
Appeal to Tradition
Bandwagon
Begging the Question
Biased Sample
Burden of Proof
Circumstantial Ad Hominem
Composition
Confusing Cause and Effect
Division
False Dilemma
Gambler's Fallacy
Genetic Fallacy
Guilt By Association
Hasty Generalization
Ignoring A Common Cause
Middle Ground
Misleading Vividness
Personal Attack
Poisoning the Well
Post Hoc
Questionable Cause
Red Herring
Relativist Fallacy
Slippery Slope
Special Pleading
Spotlight
Straw Man
Two Wrongs Make A Right

The Nizkor Project

The Truth About Vampires

2008-03-23T08:32:00.035+01:00

•Do vampires really exist?
•Certainly! They are all around us. We're surrounded by vampires.
•Really?
•No kidding.
•Is that one over there?
•No, not the teenage girl in black with the multiple piercings and black lipstick hiding behind her bangs making pouty faces. She may be a vampire wannabe. But no matter how much she wishes otherwise, she's just another case of teenage angst.
•What about that young man in the long black coat?
•No, he's just watched the Matrix a few too many times, although I wouldn't go near him. No telling what he has under that coat!

The vampires with the long fangs who suck blood are nothing to be afraid of. Generally, they only come out at Halloween in search of candy. Statistically speaking, it is impossible for them even to exist. According to physicist, Costas Efthimiou of the University of Central Florida, based on the way movies and books portray vampires, if they ever existed, they would have replaced humans in short order. Since vampire victims become vampires themselves and launch their own blood-thirsty attacks on the helpless humans around them, their victims would have become vampires, and their victims' victims, and their victims' victims' victims, and the number of vampires would have grown quickly in a process known as geometric progression.

“If vampires truly feed with even a tiny fraction of the frequency that they are depicted to in the movies and folklore, then the human race would have been wiped out quite quickly after the first vampire appeared.”

Efthimiou supposed that the first vampire arose Jan. 1, 1600, around the beginning of a century during which some of the first important modern writings on vampires appeared. The researchers estimated the global population at that time, based on historical records, as 537 million.

Assuming that the vampire fed once a month and the victim turned into a vampire, there would be two vampires on Feb. 1, four the next month, and eight the month after that. All humans would be vampires with in 2½ years. “Humans can not survive under these conditions, even if our population were doubling each month,” which is well beyond human capacities, Efthimiou said.

Math vs. vampires: vampires lose

The vampires you really ought to be worrying about are the ones commonly disguised as family and friends.

That's right, they can suck the life right out of you and not leave a mark.

How do you spot them? The vampires among you expect you to do much for them, with them doing little in return. They are the friend who constantly needs you to do them a favor, but always manages to avoid being the helping hand you need in return. They are the teenagers who feel comfortable bringing home D's on their report cards and still expect you to do their laundry and clothe them head to toe in the latest baggy pants style with matching tennis shoes at a cost greater than anything you have in your closet. They are the mother, mother-in-law, husband, teenager, boss, co-worker or (fill in the blank) ____________ you will never be able to please.

These monsters only exist if we enable them. You are NOT, I say this emphatically, allowed to put a stake through their hearts, except metaphorically. Stop caving in to them. Recognize them for the energy sucking vampires they really are, and step back and find ways to cut them off from their energy source. They may curse you, but they will also stop treating you as a victim.

Why am I writing about vampires on Easter Sunday?

Bunnies. The Easter Bunny. Bunnicula. Vampire bunny gargoyles. And last, but not least: Cherub, the Vampire with Bunny Slippers.

(Oh dear, my link doesn't work any more. I think they've moved the show to itunes as a podcast, but when I went there, I got the message that it wasn't available in the U.S. (and I'm in Germany, so what do they know!). If anyone knows where to go to watch these episodes, do so, and let me know.)

It looks like you may be able to watch them here, and there's a good review, too, but I miss the old site. It was so nicely organized (sigh). I have only myself to blame for not keeping up with the show.

In the meantime, enjoy Episode 1 from Season Two.

Cherub - Ain't No Mildly Irritating Fu from Stephen McCandless on Vimeo.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Chocolate bunnies all around!

Off with their heads!
For more about women and their fascination with vampires, click The Sexy Vampire.
Read the 2009 Easter Vampire Blog Only a Vampire Can Love You Forever.

Don't call them Ghosts

2008-03-03T18:14:00.013+01:00

The Spirit Children of Fontaine Manse:
A True Story

I read this book about four years ago. I was attracted by the title and the cover image of the child looking out of the window along with its being a true story.

Kathleen McConnell falls in love with the Louisville, Kentucky house known as the Fontaine Manse as a 19 year old. She often sees it while riding by on the city bus and frequently sees a child looking out of the window. She dreams of living, not just in any house, but of living in that house.

Many times I saw a little girl standing at the upstairs window. She always waved as the bus went by and I'd put the palm of my hand flat against the window. I knew she couldn't see me that far away, but I'd made the gesture to return her wave.

Eight years later, in 1971, married with children and a baby on the way, she and her husband buy the old house, which has been languishing on the market for years, at a bargain price. Shortly after moving in, she realizes that they are not alone and that she must make peace with the spirits of the house if they are to live together safely. She wisely begins to communicate respectfully to the spirits and gradually learns more about them, starting with the fact that there are three and they are all children.

As they come to know and trust her, they help her out by hiding her husband's gun which he keeps under the mattress (and which she is afraid her children might find) and watching out for baby Duncan, playing with him to keep him entertained and once even saving his life. While she is never able to ascertain the exact identities of the spirits, she is able to draw some conclusions about how they died and why they are still in her home. After becoming very ill and having a Near Death Experience, she is even able to see them.

There she was–the same little girl I had seen years ago. She was standing at the front window of Duncan's nursery, holding the rag doll from the old toy box in the attic, silently saying, "It's me, it's me . . . "

Kathleen McConnell is not a professional writer, but she tells a clear, coherent tale, and it is the story itself that is compelling and heart wrenching. I have to admit I sometimes skimmed over the details of her daily household routine to get to the action sequences.

After five years, the family sold the house, but before moving, Kathleen was finally ready and able to help her young spirits find resolution and peace. It may seem to the reader that she takes a long time to get to this point, but she was living in a different time, and information about how to help wayward spirits was not as readily available then as now. She also did not feel comfortable talking about her experiences with her children and her husband, her children because she did not want to scare them, her husband because he seemed skeptical. It was only after she wrote the book that her children admitted that each had his or her own story to tell about the ghost children of Fontaine Manse.

To learn more about this book and read an interview by the author, click on the link under this title.

Unfinished Business

2008-03-01T19:26:00.007+01:00

I'm reading a very good book about reincarnation. I've been aware of reincarnation since I first read about Bridey Murphy in the 1980's. While the case of Bridey Murphy remains unproven, there have been many cases since her, and much research done in this area.

This research has found that most people do not remember lives as famous people, but as ordinary ones. The statistical percentage of people who have been regressed and taken through multiple lifetimes through out history match the statistical probabilities. Dr. Wambach (Living Past Lives) found that subjects reported lives split evenly between the two sexes (50.3% male and 49.7% female) across all time periods. Also, the spread of rich, poor, and middle class matched the percentages for the time periods described. You can read more about this book by clicking the title of this post.

There are interesting parallels between the reasons why some people spontaneously remember a past life or feel the need to visit a psychotherapist and experience hypnotic regression to help them deal with problems they have as a result of past lives and why some spirits linger on our plane as ghosts.

Researchers who have studied the narratives of people who have been regressed back to prior lives have found that the moment of death is critically important in whether they transition smoothly from one plane of existence to the next and whether they carry emotional baggage into their next life. The trauma of a painful death or one that caught the person by surprise may manifest in the next life as an irrational fear or avoidance of particular situation associated with the death. They may even experience physical ailments that disappear after they are regressed and allowed to remember their death. Some find comfort in completing unfinished business, such as saying goodbye to their loved ones or telling someone they are sorry for past wrongs. For these people, memory of the past brings healing.

But, these are the ones who, although surprised by death or suffering through a painful death, have moved on and are dealing with the issues of a new life, with its opportunities for growth and development. They, at least, are moving forward. Ghosts, on the other hand, are also frequently found to have been surprised by death, suffered a painful, perhaps brutal death, or have unfinished business that they will now never complete. But, they are not moving forward. They are stuck in place, out of phase with their lives then and life now. I find it sad that there are so many spirits who have lingered for many years unable or unwilling to move on.

There is, of course, no simple cure for this, but if you go on a ghost tour or investigation, keep in mind that the spirits you seek were once living, breathing personalities such as yourself and remember to keep the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And if you get the chance to help one of them pass over, I hope you will take it.

FYI: The photo is of my dad who died last April (07), and the flooding river is the mighty Missouri during the great flood of 1993.

Badd Apple Speaks

2008-02-19T18:21:00.022+01:00

It has come to Badd Apple's attention that a SMALL group of people are setting themselves up as a paranormal watchdog group. They have a new website, where they have already "rated" several sites. Personally, I have a problem with one thing about this website. I'm not opposed to what they are doing, because anyone has the right to set up a website and to state their preferences and give opinions. I do it all the time! But, what I'm concerned about is that people will think, because of the name they have selected for themselves, that this group is a true watchdog group and it is not. The very nature of a watchdog group is that it is separate from the system that that it is watchdogging over. The definition of a watchdog from www.answers.com

A dog trained to guard people or property.
One who serves as a guardian or protector against waste, loss, or illegal practices.

The people behind this effort are members of forums, have owned forums and websites, so they know their way around the paranormal world of the Internet. This does give them some insight, but it also makes them insiders, not outsiders, and as such do not, in my mind, fit the term watchdog. Some may find me a bit picky and maybe even pig-headed on this topic, but I can be a bit of a stickler about names. I think words matter, even if I don't always get them right the first time!

Anybody can set up a website with any available name.
What's in a name? In this case, the wrong message.

By that, I mean their name seems to say something different from what they are, which is a way to rate websites, as well as other things (movies, books, etc.). I agree with them that the current method for rating websites really doesn't work. The current system consists of sites where owners and members vote for their own sites in a ridiculous daily duel of endurance. The numbers are meaningless. I don't know all the good forums and paranormal websites out there. I certainly don't know enough to rate them. I don't know that this group is more qualified to judge than you or I. What I do believe is that your or my opinion may be different from the ones offered at this or any other watchdog/rating site, so keep that in mind. Don't take any ratings or rankings too much to heart. The other problem I have with this group is that others may feel they need to curry favor with this group in order to get a good rating. I'm not saying this is their intent, but nobody wants their site to get bad publicity.

My advice? If you visit this paranormal watchdog site or any others that might crop up, bear in mind that these people are "insiders" and not true "watchdogs." The only way you can get a truly impartial rating is to visit the sites for yourself. Yeah, I know, that can be time consuming, so you'll be tempted to let them do the work for you. It's your choice. It's one way to go about it.

YOU are the only one who can judge a website or forum discussion site and judge whether it fits your interest or style. This group may provide some useful information, but in the end you're on your own to make the final and most important rating, yours. And that's a good thing, because you are smart, you are worthy, and doggonit, Badd Apple likes you.

Click on the title of this post to visit the watchdogs!

Balloon Matters

2008-02-10T14:18:00.001+01:00

Here is a series of caps I took on Christmas Eve of 2006 at from the ghostcam at Ordsall Hall in Salford, England. The manager left some balloons and other objects out as trigger objects in an experiment. The idea behind a trigger object is to see if it moves. You can see other objects to the left, a teddy bear, which did not move, and a Christmas decoration which untied itself and fell from the balcony. Usually, there is no movement. On this occasion, a total of 3 different balloons not only moved around, but left the room altogether and ended up down the hall in the kitchen. Two of them have already made their exodus on the previous evening. Here is a series of movements that I captured and put into a movie. It was a nearly windless night. There were no people in the building over the holidays to open and close doors. This balloon, which originally began its journey up on the podium against the back wall, is one of the ones that the next day gradually moved to the center of the room and then out the door. Enjoy the show.

One Year Later:Children, More Balloons, and a Ghostly Figure

Followup: In a similar experiment conducted over the Easter weekend 2008, the balloons again put on a show. In checking with the staff and visitors, I'm told it is drafty, so there are air currents that might account for the balloons moving. But, once again, two balloons left the room entirely and went down a hallway into the kitchen, where I am told such currents do not exist. So, still odd behavior.

Last but not least, here is a cap I took in December. This one sat on my desktop and then in a file for weeks before I looked at it again. I originally capped it because of the children playing with the balloons. I thought it was charming and that I would post it some time when I wanted to illustrate the fun that children have visiting the hall.

When I went looking for it again in January, I noticed something mysterious that I had not seen originally, and that is the white object up on the balcony in the upper left, which I had originally assumed was sunlight. But, when I went back and looked at the cap again, I saw that dusk had fallen, so what was that up on the balcony?

Because the manager of the hall was on vacation, it was another two weeks before she returned and stated:

a. it was not one of the employees

b. no furniture (such as a bench) had been placed on the balcony

c. no other objects were placed there by the employees.

In short, she could not say what it was, only what it was not.The object has clearly defined edges that would not be present if this were light shining in from a window, so, I submit this here may be one of the ghosts of Ordsall, perhaps the same one who played with the balloons a year before looking longingly at the balloon being bounced aloft in a game by the children down below. We've all played that game. I've never been able to resist the game of keeping the balloon in the air and not letting it hit the ground, have you? Why not a ghost?

To watch the Ordsall Hall ghostcam, click on the title of this post.

Patiently Watching Ghostcams

2008-02-06T18:07:00.001+01:00

First, a little information for anyone not familiar ghostcams. A ghostcam is a webcam (short for website camera) which broadcasts from a location that is purportedly haunted. Hence people watch them primarily in an effort to spot ghostly activity.

Historical sites have discovered that one way to increase interest in their properties is to take a cam, which may have originally been put up for security purposes, which is hooked into a computer which is hooked into the Internet, and have it broadcast images at regular intervals at a website where people may come watch it around the clock. Additionally, some private individuals set up these webcams in their own homes. The historical sites need people to visit their properties and donate money for upkeep and renovation. These buildings are expensive to maintain. Private individuals may do it hoping that allowing strangers to view the activity in their home may help them uncover proof of paranormal activity. What other reasons there may be, I leave up to your imagination.

There are more ghostcams posted on the net every year. Some are at public sites where anyone may view them. Others belong to forums where you must register to be able to view their cams. Many people sit in front of their computer screens and look at ghostcams every day . . . and every night. How many people? No one knows. There is no way to keep track of their activity, but they look and they observe and sometimes they see things that shouldn't be there.

How long can you expect to watch a ghostcam before spotting any activity? Well, that depends on what kind of person you are and brings me to the following observation: People in the digital age of instant everything are IMPATIENT! They want what they want and they want it now. They want results, and they want them yesterday. Hence, some people quickly start to see ghosts everywhere they look, on the floor, on the walls, in the folds of curtains, in the waves of people's hair. Anywhere there are shadows cast, they see faces. There's a name for this phenomenon: pareidolia , but I like to call it apparitionus impacientum. They want to see, therefore they see. You can be like them or you can accept that the process might take a little longer since real ghosts don't appear on demand or onto fit anyone's schedule.

I confess that I succumed to apparitionus impacientum myself. I wanted to get in on the fun that everyone else seemed to be happening! After watching the Ordsall Hall cams for a few months, I started to see lines and shapes and spots that resembled a variety of characters. The first one I "saw" looked like a court jester. My favorite was an old king with a long beard, but I woke up from my delusion and admitted to myself, that as fun as the game of looking for people in the pixels had been, they were not real. They usually appeared in the stairway with the dirty stucco wall, and they never walked on out into the room. When I decided to turn on the logic circuit in my brain, I reasoned, ghosts can move. Ergo, if it doesn't move, it isn't a ghost.

Which brings us to an anomaly spotted recently on one of the Ordsall Hall ghostcams. A sharp-eyed watcher noticed that what appeared to be a candlestick on a sideboard along the back wall of the Star Chamber was in a different position when the cam refreshed, which for that cam, happens every 15 seconds. The viewer saved the images and posted them to the forum for viewing, and voilá, a comparison of positions shows that not only did the object move several inches to the right, but a cap from 6 minutes later showed it back in its original spot. This happened at a time late at night when no staff were present. If you would like to see the original caps and read the forum discussion, click on the title of this post.

*UPDATE* The object may be a cross or crucifix and not a candlestick as first thought. One of the members of the Ordsall forum stated that on one of the many investigations held at the site, a medium reported that there was a ghost of a monk that was associated with a cross who was upset when it was moved during renovations. Is this the same cross? Which makes us wonder who moved it? Did one of the other ghosts move it, so that the Monkish monk would move it back? Was this a spirited prank, one ghost to another?

I have seen some examples of paranormal activity caught on ghostcams, but only a few. Besides the candlesticks, there were the balloons that did a merry dance around the room, a ball of glowing light, a dark wispy shape, the face of a young girl among an adult crowd. If I were to do a percentage, it would be a tiny portion of those caps posted by viewers, but those few are thrilling. For those who are truly interested in looking for evidence of ghosts, check out some links and if you find one you like, you have something to do on those days or evenings when you have a little time on your hands. Conclusion? Yes, you may actually be able to spot paranormal activity on a ghost cam, assuming there are ghosts present (i.e. the place truly is haunted), but this is an endeavor for people who are both persistent and patient, because it takes both to catch a ghost!

Haunted Hotels

2008-01-31T17:35:00.000+01:00

What is it like to spend the night in a haunted hotel?
I can't say my experience was typical, but it might be.

It wasn't something I planned. It was an accident. We were tired. We had already had a full day sightseeing in Cornwall. It was dinner time. We only meant to stop long enough to visit the little museum honoring Daphne du Maurier and take a photo or two of Jamaica Inn as we drove through Bodmin Moor and then look for a hotel in the next major town.

I had read some of du Maurier's novels and seen the two movies inspired by the inn: Alfred Hitchcock's 1936 version of Jamaica Inn, starring Maureen O'Hara and the 1982 version starring Jane Seymour. The museum had already closed for the day, but to our great surprise, we discovered that Jamaica Inn is a working hotel. Rather than drive on, we inquired as to whether there were rooms available.

At the reception desk an earnest young man seemed apologetic that the cost was so high, perhaps sympathetic to the dollar's low value against the pound. He said the price was less if we didn't want the breakfast. Jamaica Inn is in the middle of a moor, a pretty isolated location. We assured him we would want the breakfast and the price was no more than we had paid at other hotels on our trip through Cornwall.

I was fatigued from all the walking we had done that day and had been hanging back letting my husband and our traveling companion, Mary, take the lead on the negotiations. I knew the hotel was quite old and I entered the conversation by asking, "What are the rooms like?"

"Oh, very nice," he assured me.

"Nice new? or Nice old?" I asked.

That's when he got this funny glint in his eyes. He turned to a coworker who had just come down the hall and said, "I'm going to put them in rooms 3 and 4." *cue spooky music*

After the paperwork was done, he lead us through the restaurant, behind the bar, through another door and up some stairs into the original part of the inn. As we walked down the hall, he asked me, "Are you in the single?

"No, I said," I'm in the double," and pointed back to my friend, "She's in the single." Did I sense disappointment on his part, a joke gone astray? Perhaps just my overactive imagination. We turned the corner and came to two doors facing each other across a short hall. He put a key in the lock of Room 4 on the right, knocked on the door, and then turned the key and opened it.

"Warning the ghosts," I asked? He smiled without answering and repeated the ritual for Room 3 across the hall. As he showed us around the rooms, he told us that the original parrot from the Jamaica Inn sign grew too old to stay in the hotel and now resides with him and his wife across the road in the village where apparently it adores his wife and despises him.

The bedrooms were small as one would expect in an ancient building, but adequate, with slanting floors, antique side tables or trunks, beautiful beds (ours was a 4-poster), and surprisingly large modern baths. At the time we stayed there (April 2006), they had recently completed major renovations which included modern, beautifully-tiled bathrooms, and a new wing, built to match, at least in look, the original inn. The reception area, copies an older structure which was torn down, even to copying the slant in the roof. You can see the dip in the roof in the photo above, as well as the new wing beyond.

We went downstairs and had a marvelous dinner in the Smugglers Bar restaurant, which was busy with customers, and must enjoy a good reputation in the area. It occupies the ground floor of the original inn with the bedrooms up above and has all the low beams, wooden benches, antiques and cozy fireplaces one would want.

After dinner, as we sat on the bed and read, my husband informed me that according to the brochures, Room 3, the one across the hall, the single where our friend Mary was to sleep was reportedly the most haunted room in the inn. This left us with a slight problem: tell her or not tell her? I finally reasoned that there was a good chance nothing at all might happen, and if she knew the room was haunted, she might find it difficult sleeping, so we decided to keep it to ourselves and assume that all would turn out for the best.

As we snuggled into the bed, the rain storm that had been approaching began in earnest, and there was much banging (from what I never figured out), and doors rattling from gusts of wind and changes in air pressure, but no ghost walked through our walls and we heard no ghostly horses or wagons from ancient smuggler ghosts in the inn's yard outside the window.

I woke several times that night, but was so tired from our day's labors that each time I fell quickly back to sleep; in fact I would have been hard pressed to stay awake, ghosts or no. I woke once and thought about getting up and going to the bathroom, which was just a few short steps away, but decided that I would rather wait until daylight than leave the perceived safety of the four-poster bed and my husband's side. The truth: I was much too chicken to put a foot out of the bed!

At breakfast, we were anxious to ask Mary about her night in Room 3, but all she would say was she heard some strange noises and pulled the covers up over her head. Whether or not the man in the tri-cornered hat that has been seen walking through the wall of Room 3 made an appearance, we shall never know. After breakfast, Mary and I wandered around the inn taking photos, enjoying the ambience of the place. We visited the smuggler's museum, which is quite interesting, with a section dedicated to Daphne du Maurier and to the novel Jamaica Inn. My husband thought we would never leave the gift shop, but we did. From there we drove out to Bodmin Moor and climbed Rough Tor, but that's another story.

So, my final assessment? What do I think of staying in a haunted hotels? My experience was invigorating. I would do it again in a heartbeat. We didn't capture any spirits on film. The most we can claim are some odd banging noises and the sensation for me that someone sat down next to me on the bed while I was filing my nails. What I am sure of is that at Jamaica Inn, the food is excellent, the beds are comfy, the bathrooms modern (always a plus), and the atmosphere compelling.

The Truth, the Whole Truth and the Relatively Real Truth

2008-01-23T16:55:00.001+01:00

Every time I look into one of these metaphysical topics, I run into Einstein and his views and I always find myself agreeing with him. I promise I'm trying to be objective and look at other people's ideas, too, but he believed that reality, the real world, exists outside of and apart from the independent observer, even as he stated that each of us observes and experiences reality differently depending on our motion, as in standing still vs. speeding train or speed of light. Others say that truth is a construct, a communal agreement agreed upon by all parties, up for interpretation or negotiation. Ooh, the truth is what we make it? That's a tough one for me to swallow. It goes against my grain.

So, what about that search for truth? Is it necessary? Are there many truths? Can you have yours and me have mine and both of us be equally right? Did the elk bump into my son as my son perceives, or did my son bump into the elk as the elk would have it? Well, that probably doesn't matter. As Sancho Panza says, "whether the rock hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the rock, it's going to be bad for the pitcher." *smile*

Frankly, I find people who have decided what the truth is and are looking merely to prove they are right tiresome, don't you? What if the truth is a complete surprise? Can you give up your preconceived point of view and embrace it? Change may be a constant, but it is also a constant irritant. We prefer the womb, the original nest, where everything was known and predictable and comfortable.

Whatever the truth is, I have this conviction that it is our obligation to seek it and find it and not accept any shiny fool's gold version of truth, however appealing. Painful truths, unexpected truths, delightful truths, our lives are full of each, and then there are the mysterious undetermined truths like what are ghosts and can we determine whether they are real or the imaginary constructs of troubled minds.

I'm a mystery fan; enjoy reading them and watching them, and we all know the great detective is the one who refuses to settle for the easy, convenient truth, who rules nothing out, who examines all possibilities with as much objectivity as he or she can, and in the end, we sigh with relief, because the truth is finally out. In the game of hide and seek with truth, we are the seekers; we must always be the seekers.

A Certain Slant of Light

2008-01-15T18:13:00.001+01:00

The novel by Laura Whitcomb,
not the poem by Emily Dickinson

This is the best ghost story I have ever read. I stumbled onto this book by first-time novelist, Laura Whitcomb, and couldn't put it down. I loaned it to a mature 8th grader, and she finished it and loaned it to her next door neighbor, all in the course of a weekend. From there it went to a fellow teacher. Within a week, four readers had devoured this story.

It's a ghost story, but it's also a love story: the story of two ghosts who meet and fall in love and how they free not only themselves, but two living teenagers from their own individual versions of hell.

Helen, who has been a ghost for 130 years has only been able to keep herself from being dragged into a watery hell by attaching herself to various living hosts through the years. She is lonely, but resigned to her circumstances, until she is startled by a teenage boy, a student in the English class of her current host, looking directly at her.

This is how she meets James, a spirit who has been wandering around near his former home since his death in World War I. He shows her how to take over the body of classmate, whose spirit has departed, leaving a living shell behind. They are able to be together for a while, but struggle to deal with the issues left behind and the demands of the very different families of the young people whose bodies they now inhabit. Ms. Whitcomb writes beautifully and compellingly of their love and attraction to each other and of the issues that must be settled for them to be together.

I rose and began to flow slowly away. I could feel the flutter as I passed through James––he had put out his arm, pretending to stretch, as I was leaving. We were as close to touching as one spirit and mortal could for a moment. I started to imagine putting my arms around him but was stopped suddenly by a wall of cold blocking me. Blinded, I reached up and felt wet mud, the slime of a leaking dirt cellar or the bottom of a grave. I had let Mr. Brown leave me behind. I pushed against the coldness, and it gave way in messy pieces, the chill now running down over me like rain on my face. I had no voice with which to call out. I dug through the mud, hearing students laugh, buses, trash can lids rattling. I felt cement under my feet and then the darkness was pierced with white. I was sitting in the back seat of Mr. Brown's car, the sun blinding me in the rearview window.

One reason I liked this story and why I'm writing about it here is how well and genuinely the author addressed the issue of why Helen and James had been trapped as ghosts. This remains a mystery until the last few pages of the novel, but in the end, you understand that any of us could have been similarly ensnared. This novel has a lot to say about the issues of free will, self-determination, the nature of hell and the possibility of redemption. I won't tell you how the story ends, but I can tell you that you'd better have a full box tissue handy!

Spirited Ghosts or Ghostly Spirits?

2008-01-05T13:52:00.000+01:00

What is the difference between a ghost and a spirit? You can click on the title above to go to the Wikipedia entry for a formal discussion of the terms and the languages and traditions, the etymology of the words, but what really matters is how people use them today.

For most people a ghost is something you see. According to Wikipedia, "the term ghost has been replaced by apparition in parapsychology, because the word ghost is deemed insufficiently precise." This makes sense to me as well. Apparition, from the same root as appear. A ghost, then is what someone might see, an apparition, an image.

So, what is a spirit? Are all ghosts spirits? I don't think so. As I have mentioned in the previous post (New Year, Time Slipping), some ghosts are apparitions seen as part of a residual haunting, but incapable of interaction. They are just images of what once was. They do not possess a spirit. The spirits of the persons involved have passed on.

But sometimes the spirit is present and capable of appearing or speaking or even manipulating objects and energies. This is also referred to as an intelligent haunting. Some people may experience a visit from a loved one who has passed, but others may wander into the territory of a hostile spirit, and this can be unsettling and even harmful. The spirit may or may not be visible (a ghost), but these spirits are just as real as that which animates each of us. As you think and therefore you are, so it goes for the disembodied spirit. It is from these spirits that investigators are occasionally able to get answers to questions in the form of EVP's (Electronic Voice Phenonmenon). (*Note: it's also possible that an EVP may be part of a residual haunting.) Some spirits may also interact with investigators by lowering or raising room temperature or causing a higher energy reading on an EMF (ElectroMagnetic Field) meter.

So, we call upon the friendly spirits to be with us, hope that the spirit of a loved one may join us from time to time, but after seeing an apparition on the stairs, we will likely turn pale and declare, "I think I saw a ghost!"

New Year, Time Slipping

2007-12-31T13:29:00.000+01:00

One of the mysteries related to ghosts is how it is that people occasionally appear to see events that happened many years ago, such as in a residual haunting. You see an event played out, but the players are unaware of your presence, and the event, which may be witnessed by many individuals at different times, seems like a taped event replaying over and over in a loop.

I once experienced hearing an explosion as I was touring a World War I French fort, Fort Douamont, near Verdun. The explosion sounded distant, yet it was very clear and I have no doubt about what I heard. About 30 feet down the hallway I was walking, I entered a room that had been partially sealed off. A wall had been built across it to entomb the men who had died there as result of an artillery explosion. Did I hear that same explosion approximately 100 years later? How is that possible? Does this have something to do with the nature of time?

Einstein said that time passes more slowly as you approach the speed of light, and that time for a person traveling on a train passes more slowly than for the person standing watching the train from the train station. Einstein also said that time travel was possible, but according to his theory of relativity, travel could only be in one direction: the future. Hence, people on a long space journey might return to find that 200 years had passed on Earth while they had only experienced the passage of two.

This doesn't seem to apply to what people witness in hauntings. Along with residual hauntings, which are not uncommon, there have been scattered accounts of time slips: people moving into the past and interacting with its occupants and then returning to the present. This is much more rare. In one well-known case, two British women, Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, visited the Palace of Versailles in 1901. They walked across the grounds to the Trianon, where they encountered and spoke to people dressed in clothes of the era of Marie Antoinette and may have seen her painting. It is also possible that they encountered people dressed up doing some kind of reenactment. However, in 1979, two British couples, the Simpsons and the Gisbys, driving in France on their way to Spain, spent the night in an old French inn with few amenities, oddly dressed people, bad coffee and cheap prices only to find, when they returned to the spot on their way home, that no such inn was currently in existence. The whole building was missing. However, since the photos they took there mysteriously disappeared from the roll of film, this one is also dependent on the word of the witnesses. Several people have reported slipping back to an earlier time in Bold Street in Liverpool, UK. In each case, the people eventually return to their current time. Click on the title of this post to read the article on time slips at Wikipedia.

None of these events can be explained by Einstein's theory of relativity in which time travel seems to apply only to the time distortion caused by space travel. There must be a solution to this puzzle of time. Perhaps string theory, which conceives time and events existing on strands of time that loop around and occasionally overlap. The philosophers may be right when they tell us that all time exists at the same time, past, present and future. In that case, the string of time we are standing on may occasionally intersect that of another and allow us to catch a glimpse or a snippet of sound from long ago or even to step briefly into the past.

However one part of Einstein's theory seems to be true. No one has ever heard of a ghost haunting before its own death. If time flowed backward, a ghost could go back in time and warn its human host to avoid the event that lead to its death. No, all of the hauntings seem to take place in the future, at least as far as the ghost is concerned. Perhaps what seems like a hundred years to us, is only moments to him. There may be something to Einstein's theory after all.

Empty Seats at the Table

2007-12-26T18:32:00.000+01:00

This Christmas season my mind is on empty seats at the table. Since last Christmas both my husband and I have had our fathers pass on to the next world. My father-in-law spent the last three years of his life in a nursing home, and his wife passed long before him, so the table at which he might have sat for Christmas dinner is long gone, but my mother recently commented that this would be her first Christmas without my father. I can't help but wonder if he made a quiet, unnoticed appearance there at her table. The good news is that there were other family members there, so the chairs around the table were full. If he did come back, Perhaps he sat at the organ, where he used to sit and practice hymns, and watched his family around the table from across the room.

This all leads to what is really on my mind and that is ghosts that come back, not because they are attached to people and want to check in on the family left behind, but those that are attached to places and the things that they have left behind. A friend of mine owns a house that contains three apartments, and it seems that the ghost of a man is occasionally seen. His description matches that of the man who built the house. He appeared in one instance to an elderly woman who was living there with her granddaughter. He seemed surprised to see the old woman and asked her what she was doing there. This ghost appears to be lost, living in the house he built, mostly unaware that others are the real occupants. This story is not unique, of course. Many people report having to talk to their resident ghosts and win their agreement to allow them to cohabitate the premises.

I have to quote a Bible scripture, which is also a truism: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." In the case of ghosts, it appears that those who have treasured their earthly possessions too strongly, may find it hard to leave them behind. Talk about the old ball and chain. There's a lesson here for all of us.

The Badd Apple Club

2007-12-22T16:45:00.001+01:00

I was called a "bad apple" recently by a crazy mermaid who likes to lop off people's heads This is not the sweet little mermaid of song and Disney cartoon. Think the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, the one who was always yelling, "Off with their heads!"

The definition of a bad apple is a person of low morals who corrupts the good apples all around. But, we all know from experience that the bad apple is often just an independent-thinking person who stands up for what he or she believes in the face of an entrenched majority or someone in a position of authority. The bad apple may be the one who blows the whistle on corruption or turns in the brother-in-law who is selling drugs. Bad? It's all in your point of view. Should we all toe someone else's line just so they can stay in their comfort zone and feel like they are in charge? Wouldn't the world be more peaceful if we would all just behave?

Nah, I can't do it. I gotta be me.

So, I'm starting the Badd Apple Club. It already has four members, the crazy mermaid's "bad apples." The misspelling is deliberate. After all we know we aren't really bad. And the lesson is this, when someone tries to hurt you by calling you names, take the name and wear it with pride. It will piss off your enemies. Maybe you'd like to join the club. Are you a Badd Apple?

Let Nothing Disturb You

2007-12-15T08:59:00.002+01:00

Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things pass.
God does not change.
Patience achieves everything.
Whoever has God lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.
St. Teresa of Avila

I share this now because there is a lot of evil in the world, and I assume that what exists in our world, exists also in the spiritual world. Whoever and whatever we become during this life, whether we become loving and caring individuals or become spiteful, petty and selfish, we will carry with us when we pass. So, assuming that there is life after death, and that is my assumption, there may be spirits out there that would like nothing better than to mess with people's minds.

Hopefully, you will never find yourself in a situation where you are confronted with an evil presence, but if you do, start by believing in the power of God. I strongly believe that nothing can harm me as long as I believe that I am his (Or hers, if you prefer, but I think that the loving power that unites the universe is way past having sex organs. I shall use the male gender to refer to this great intelligence, because his or her just sounds silly and I'm not about to refer to God as it.). I always go back to that scene in the first Star Wars movie, when Darth Vader is flying down the trench behind the three Rebel pilots. In each case, he is only able to shoot them when they start to panic and let their mental guard down. They start feeling vulnerable. Luke, our hero, of course is strong in the force (and saved by Han Solo, but that's another story . . . ).

The point is not to let your guard down. Do not go messing about with spirits unless you have a strong sense of self and a strong central personal core. Ghost hunting is not for the emotionally unstable. Here's another movie metaphor: remember that scene in Independence Day when the big space ship is hovering over Los Angeles and the nutters go up to the top of a big building right under the ship to WELCOME THE ALIENS? I hope you remember what happened to them. They were the first ones turned into toast when the ship opened fire. Do not open yourself up to the spirits and invite them to come in. There are some people who are born mediums that learn how to do this without losing themselves in the process, but you might not be so gifted.

Ghost hunting may be de rigeur today and popular on TV, but Buffy the vampire slayer won't around to kick the butt of whatever evil spirit you might awaken, so don't step into the unknown on a lark. If you are serious about ghost hunting, do research. Try to find a serious group in your area. (BTW, if their website has a bunch of photos of "orbs" and smoky-looking mist, look for a different group.) Do not go ghost hunting on your own, or with anyone who's been drinking. Heck, use some common sense!

Be sure that you surround yourself with the white light of love that is the universe's gift to you and believe in its power to protect you. You should do that every day, anyway.

Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas

2007-12-08T08:32:00.001+01:00

Notice how Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier each year? Now, it looks like Halloween may become a year-round business. I mentioned in my first post on this blog that ghosts and ghost hunting have become big business. If you click on the link under the title of this post, you will be able to read about a haunted house in Texas that used to run from October-November, but is extending its run into December with a Christmas version headed by a grinch named Creep Cringle and a rogue elf. I heard on the radio yesterday that the USA has fewer manufacturing jobs than in 1950. We are building less and less in America. That's bad on many levels, but people need jobs and I suppose even haunted house theme parks provide jobs, and since divorced dads and tourists seem to need a fun place to take the kids on the weekends, more power to these folks.

To Forum or Not To Forum

2007-12-03T18:21:00.004+01:00

Whether 'tis wiser to share with strangers on the web or stick to telling your ghost stories to friends and family at home.

While studies show that at least half of us believe in ghosts, there are not many people in my experience who want to talk about them, and most people are hesitant to open up about their experiences in front of co-workers, for example, because they don't want to be ridiculed behind their backs or not taken seriously in other areas of their lives. There are probably many people out there who were like me for years, privately interested in the subject, but with no one to talk to about it.

If you go into a forum with clear vision and reasonable expectations, it can be fun and informative, but don't expect too much. Forums are made up of people and we all know what people are like!

When I first joined a ghost topic forum, it was fun, but frustrating, because most members were unquestioning believers, downright starry-eyed, and I was a questioning believer looking for proof. It occasionally became a collision of contrasting views, between faith and science, as though the two views were irreconcilable. I finally found another group that leaned more toward analysis, but even there tempers sometimes flared between strong personalities and there was pressure to constantly vote for the site so that it could get noticed and get awards (which are totally made up, meaningless, and given out en masse by other groups also wanting to get their names noticed and move up in the lists).

Forums allow you to express yourself as anonymously as you wish. You make up a username. You can even put out a sexy photo of an elf or fairy princess or a crazy kitty that looks nothing like you, so it's a little like playing dress up and make believe. This is also a drawback, because you have no idea what anyone is really like, and it takes a while to get to know people through their posts, and even then you can't tell if they are being sincere or not. Most forums allow for PMing (Private Messaging) so the same person who is being sweet to you in the public thread may be saying nasty stuff behind your back. Remind you of high school?

Forums are quick to welcome new faces, so you are assured a friendly, even effusive welcome, and it can be nice to experience the friendliness of near strangers after a rough day at work or when you are feeling under-appreciated by your family. It's amazing how much you can have in common with people halfway around the world from you. I've seen genuine friendships form, but I've also experienced cattiness and that whole clique thing that was so annoying in high school.

Forums, especially about paranormal topics, such as ghosts, attract all kinds, from the skeptical to the gullible, from the sane to the emotionally unstable, from those who take it much too seriously to those who join to heckle. Forums are about expressing opinions, and you know how people are about their opinions. If you are the kind of person who has to be agreed with, don't join a forum. Be a bore around the water fountain at work or the dinner table at home. Don't take it online. If you are open-minded and can accept that others are not going to agree with you without getting upset or doing a Ruby, then you may do okay, unless of course, you run into a Ruby.

My advice? Choose your forum carefully and keep some emotional distance. Observe for a while; read what others post; see if the kinds of topics covered fit your areas of interest and if the opinions posted reflect intelligence, respect and common sense on the part of the community members. Don't wear your heart on your sleeve or believe that people on the web are any different that the people in your real world. Practice the Golden Rule and hope that others will do so, and remember to be kind even to those who are not kind to you. (Easier to advise than to practice, I know!) And you aren't joining a cult or a religion, so if the forum proves not to be a good fit, it's easy to move out and move on to something else. You could even try blogging!

Final word: Beware of sharing personal information. The Internet is a public place. Nothing is private once it has been put online.

Spooky action at a distance

2007-11-29T17:31:00.000+01:00

All things by immortal power,
Near or far,
Hiddenly
To each other linked are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star.
Francis Thompson

I ran across this poem three times on the Internet today, first at the bottom of the preface to Dean Radin's book Entangled Minds, then in reference to the recent popular movie, Stardust, and in a novel by Madeline L'Engle. I can see how it has captured the imagination, but what does it mean?

In a nutsell, the universe is all connected at the microscopic level of elementary particles. And for more information about that, click on the link under the title of this post. I'm reminded of a book I read many years ago about the healing power of light being based on the fact that when you get down to the subatomic level we are all light. The whole universe is light. When God said, let their be light, he was saying let there be everything!

What does this all have to do with ghosts? It's all about being connected, about, as the poem says, being linked together and being beings of energy. Perhaps for this reason our loved ones who have passed on are sometimes able to make themselves known to us, poltergeists are able to rattle the pans, and events from long ago are able to reenact themselves with us as their new audience.

The title of this post comes from Albert Einstein, who once referred to quantum physics as "spooky action at a distance."

Happy Birthday to Spookannie

2007-11-25T21:03:00.000+01:00

This year on my birthday I am grateful
a. to be alive for another year; hooray for the beating heart and the healthy lungs; you go guys!
b. friends; it only takes a few.
c. my house is not haunted; I think. There was that funny pile of ashes we found on the dining room table last December (and we don't have a fireplace, and I still haven't found an explanation for that door I heard open a few months ago, but hey, if that's all that happens, I can live with it!)
d. my dogs; they love me for the price of a dog biscuit now and then.
e. my husband; he loves me and I don't even give him dog biscuits.
f. my kids; there is room for improvement;
they cost a lot more than dog biscuits.
g. my life; it is good; I am grateful.
If today were your birthday,
what would you be giving thanks for?

T.A.P.S. on the air

2007-11-24T10:48:00.000+01:00

I was just getting ready to write a post lamenting the wooden, stilted, filtered and sanitized dialogue on Ghost Hunters, when I discovered that Jason and Grant are going on the radio in an uncensored format. I hope they are allowed to show more personality than they are permitted on the show. They seem like very nice guys, but those fake plumbing scenes and the conversations around the table are so canned, it's annoying. It's like watching the Stepford Wives do ghosthunting. Again, don't get me wrong. I like them. I like the show, but why oh why, do they have all those artificual conversations, like the ones on walkie-talkies just before they arrive at the investigation site about what they expect, as though this hasn't been discussed prior to their setting out (sometimes across the whole country)?

So, what was I saying? They are going on the radio. It will be interesting to hear what they have to say in a less structured environment. They have done a lot for bringing a level of professionality and objectivity to the field. I bet they know more than they are saying (on the TV show).

Click on the title of this post to take you to the T.A.P.S. website and information about the new radio show.

Our Fascination with Ghosts

2007-11-23T16:44:00.000+01:00

Whether an episode of TAPS, a haunted tour of a city in a trolley bus with a tour guide, or an overnight investigation in a haunted location, ghost hunting is big business. Suddenly businesses and historic buildings, instead of hiding their ghosts in the closet, are bringing them out of hiding and broadcasting their existence on network television in an effort to bring in more customers, bring in the tourists. You don't have to wait till Halloween to enjoy the "fun" of being scared under controlled conditions.

Everyone wants to catch a ghost on film (speaking metaphorically) and provide the ultimate proof to convince the skeptics. Fuzzy photos, blown up so much the individual pixels can be seen are all over the net, usually with the ghostly figure circled and with an arrow pointing to it. This is necessary, since the images are not really visible and once pointed out, generate wildly different opinions as to what is being seen. Orbs were popular for a while, but people are finally catching on to the fact that they are just dust and moisture caught in the camera flash while flying too close to the lens. Similarly, camera straps and long hair create brightly lit examples of alleged ectoplasm. Does this mean there aren't any real captures of real ghosts on the net?. No, I believe there are some good examples out there, but one has to filter through a lot of dubious claims to find them.

The good thing is that more people are talking about their experiences and sharing them with a wider audience. When you consider that many of their experiences involve a loved one who has passed on and is attempting to communicate, this is a positive development. Some ghosts stick around a place they loved and end up being the unexpected co-resident who thinks of everyone else as house guests. Some stories bring a tear to the eye and a warm feeling to the heart. Others are incredibly sad, when you realize their ghosts are wayward spirits who have been unable to escape reliving terrifying events. Others are harrowing, since there are unhappy spirits who may wish to harm those still living. The house ghost, the visit from grandpa or your favorite aunt, or a child who died before his time - these are usually nothing to be afraid of, and if approached calmly can be good for everyone involved. The malignant or nuisance spirits, these need to be dealt with or avoided.

Halloween is about wearing costumes. Ghost hunting is about interacting with real persons whose bodies are gone, but whose spirits and personalities linger. If you are interested, there is plenty of information on the net on the different kinds of hauntings, how to go about trying to spot a ghost or contact a spirit and how to get rid of one; how to protect yourself; what kind of equipment is helpful. Watch for posts on these various topics . . . as I grow this blog, I will be adding helpful information on every topic I can think of related to ghosts, ghost hunting and all things ghost-related.