It’s been awhile, dear readers. So much has been happening in my life that it’s been difficult to organize and express my thoughts. I will do my best, however.
These are the thoughts swirling about my brain:
· Ghosts led me to God;
· God led me to the Catholic Church;
· The Catholic Church has reinforced the reality of spirit in general, and the Holy Spirit in particular;
· I am wondering about the purpose and point of paranormal investigations as a result of the above.
Where to start . . . I suppose that once one accepts the reality of spirit life, or survival of consciousness, one must confront the notion of God. It isn’t as simple as saying to oneself, “I guess God exists”. I had to further define what I understood as God, how s/he works in the world, how God could be human and divine, whether or not I believed that God has anything to do with this world anymore, and most of all, could I accept God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit as real and actual, or were they destined to remain metaphors and stories?
The questioning process continues, and likely will continue until I kick this body to the curb. In my particular journey of understanding and faith, I needed more than a nebulous notion of God. He had to either be something real and tangible, or nothing at all. Paranormal investigations had taken me to a certain point: EVP, weird photos, inexplicable personal experiences, accurate impressions from sensitives and psychics, all were valuable and interesting (and, in general, continue to be interesting but less and less valuable) for quite a few years. Then, however, I hit a wall. I have hundreds of EVP. I have a nice collection of weird photos. I have many, many fascinating stories; but they did not reveal anything after a certain point. Paranormal investigations taught me exactly three things about spirit:
· Spirits, human and otherwise, do exist;
· Limited communication is possible;
· Accuracy of communication depends on how fine-tuned is the instrument; you can ramp up your sensitivity through practice and dedication.
That pretty much sums it up. I have had some truly spectacular experiences as an investigator and have some great evidence of spirit communication. But that’s it–the spirits don’t say much that teaches me something about the nature of life after the body. The spirits didn’t answer any burning questions. It’s almost as if they didn’t know themselves, or “they” were simply fragments of an old consciousness hanging out in the ether. Their real selves, the authentic part of them–their soul, if you will–was somewhere else. Either they had already been born again (reincarnated, not in the Christian, evangelical sense) or they were waiting for something to happen in a place where time is irrelevant, or a space where time is irrelevant . . . but then, place and space don’t really exist without time, so perhaps I should say a “dimension” of reality. Waiting. Waiting for what? For a group of ghost hunters to call them into our world for a few moments, so that they can say something nonsensical or trivial?
No, that could not be the answer. Places are ‘haunted’ because of the emotion that they emanate, the energy they continue to emit. Where, however, was this energy, and was it human in any real sense? The spirits we’ve encountered are not fully human. Something fundamental is missing in them. Therefore, what we seek as paranormal investigators is something akin to energy or emotion hunting. The thrill, the adrenaline rush (when it happens, which is not all that often) comes from connecting to feelings that we recognize within ourselves. It’s a communion, of sorts, but not a communion of two, fully formed human beings. The soul is missing from one half of the communication. I had to find the soul. Where was the soul?
In desperation, I finally gave in to an institution that I have been fighting against for decades, a battle that my mother started when she left the Church at 18. When I dragged myself to Saint Bernadine’s, it was with the greatest of reluctance. I know–better than most people, as a Spanish teacher who has spent her entire life studying the crimes and some of the more insidious moral and social teachings of Catholicism–what I am getting myself into. There have been some nasty surprises, and more will surely come my way, but for the most part, my experience with the Church has been liberating, illuminating, deeply emotional and intensely satisfying. Nothing in recent memory has transformed me so deeply in such a short amount of time. In other words, for me, the soul was God, and God expresses herself most profoundly through the teachings of the Trinity and the lives of the saints. This is only a personal declaration. I respect how anyone from any faith or tradition finds God. The point is, find God.
If you know me at all, then you know that my house is filled and covered with images of the Virgin Mary, various saints, and crosses. Jesus shows up every now and again, but I didn’t really know Him very well, so Mary and the saints take center stage. The reasons for this go back to my year in Spain at age 15, where I had my first and most intense conversion to Catholicism. In the intervening 32 years, I simply denied, prevaricated and ignored what the Holy Spirit had communicated to me as a teen. As much as I can pour bile and bitterness on some aspects of the Church, there is simply no other path to God that makes more sense for me on a personal, emotional level. In fact, it has been through the Church that I know understand so much more about the spirit, and what, exactly, I have been doing as an investigator for the last several years.
First of all: There is evil in the world. It is not fictional, metaphorical, or symbolic. There is real, intense, evil in the spirit world. Stay the hell away from it.
Secondly: Without God–or at the very least, a sense of a higher power or transcendence of the body–, paranormal investigations descend into ritual or entertainment.
Thirdly: Paranormal investigations, at least as we currently conduct them with fancy gadgets and the same old questions, are a stage in a journey and not the destination itself.
And lastly: what you can learn from these investigations is fairly limited if you don’t break the mold on a regular bases.
I do struggle these days, but not with God or spirits. I struggle with boredom and distraction during investigations. Once you have ‘crossed over’ to the literal and physical reality of God in your life, once you have experienced the certainty of eternal life and not just expounded the theory, once you have shelved the academic interest and replaced it with spiritual transformation, then what is there left to prove to yourself or anyone else regarding the human transcendence of death? I used to ‘chase ghosts’ to convince others of life after death; then I did it to prove it to myself; now, I wonder what is left to do in this field.
I suppose, paradoxically, what is left to do is to work with the community of investigators on the quality of this life. After all, if ‘ghost hunting’ led me to the Catholic Church, could it do something similar for others? I have no intention of converting anyone to any particular religion; but if I can assist some in their spiritual journey in this manner, then it would be worth it, an honor and a privilege to continue to call myself an investigator.
For truly, I am an investigator. I am also a teacher. I learn as much as I can about the life of the spirit, and I share what I have learned with others who are willing to listen and walk the path with me. I hope that in some small way, the readers of soulbank will be my companions on the most amazing discovery of all time: we have always been, we are, and we always will be.
Amen.
The Soul Bank: Stories, Research, Essays, (B)Logs 