Take a moment to watch this short video featuring Dr. Gabor Mate
The night that I walked into a house claiming demonic activity, I knew that I should not have. The result of ignoring a ‘gut feeling’ was over a week of spiritual, emotional, and physical illness. I remember sitting on the floor of the bedroom in that house, my teammates arrayed on the bed; I knew that the darkness that surrounded us was ripping holes in my heart and mind and was influencing my friends to behave oddly and out of character. I saw that my camera was malfunctioning in ways that it never had before; I could not take photographs. My recorder spit back loud interference and static; I could not record the activity in the room. I knew that this energy was what we call ‘evil’, in the sense that it sought to confuse, disconnect, distract, divide, and create despair. So why did I stay, when the second I stepped into the foyer my entire psychic alarm system warned me to turn back?
We become disconnected from ourselves in the way Dr. Maté describes when we decide that what we think the world wants or expects from us is more important than our internal alarm systems or our gut feelings or instincts. In my case, my kryptonite is a desire to please. I did not want to let down my team by backing out of a dangerous situation. Of course, they would have understood completely; but I did not give them the chance. I had decided that my own emotional, spiritual, and psychological well being was less important than possibly disappointing my team and the client. I am socially conditioned to seek out others’ approval; I have developed a skill for divining what somebody wants or needs and attempting to supply it for them. This poses a problem in research of any kind: if you seek to please those with whom you are collaborating to the detriment of your own inner compass, you may miss the truth about the case you are investigating and the motivations of those involved.
There are other ways that this disconnection from your core instincts can sink you in your pursuit of the truth. Excessive curiosity can lead one to a sort of arrogance, where you believe that you can figure out a great mystery if you read more, collect more data, conduct more investigations, or write about it from multiple angles. If you keep attacking a problem, it will eventually yield up all the answers. This is my greatest sin, but also my greatest passion; sometimes, it is difficult to disentangle dedication and devotion from arrogant assumptions about one’s ability to ‘solve’ the most intransigent conundrums of the universe. The evil in the house I ‘investigated’ (more like ‘succumbed to’) was not something that had an answer, because I was incapable of posing the right questions. Whatever was there would have laughed at my questions, anyway; one of the characteristics of demonic phenomena is its resistance to logic and reason. When one brings a desire to understand that which resists understanding, the result can be a frustration that leads to despair.
Other forms of disconnection look like a desire for fame, for attention, for money, or for status. The line between true investigation and research into the paranormal is so often blurred by the entertainment industry that I wonder if anyone can trust the ‘evidence’ that emerges from programs designed to sell themselves. I remember the moment I realized that looking cute for the cameras while ‘chasing ghosts’ had replaced any serious attempts at reaching honest answers. It was the beginning of my spiritual crisis.
What do I ask of paranormal investigators? Of parapsychologists? Of anyone studying the nonphysical phenomena that hovers between dimensions? I ask that, in addition to collecting data, to analysis, to publication of findings and reports, that you pay attention to your instincts. Allow your ‘gut feelings’ to guide your way through a difficult case, even if that seems unscientific. Following your deepest compass, your inner voice, will lead you to the truth eventually; and sometimes, it will lead you away from a situation that poses a spiritual danger to your soul.
—Kirsten A. Thorne, PhD; founder, International Society for Paranormal Research
“Surviving Death” on Netflix examines the Big Question: does human consciousness survive physical death? The various episodes cover near death experiences (NDE), ghosts and apparitions (including crisis apparitions and near-death visions), a two-part program on mediums and mediumship, signs from the dead, and reincarnation. The reincarnation episode follows up on some of the most famous American cases: James Leininger (see more about this compelling case here: https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/james-leininger) and Ryan Hammons (https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/boy-says-he-remembers-past-life-hollywood-agent-n327506).
My purpose here is not to review the individual cases or the series as a whole, but rather to discuss two scenes that exemplify the challenges of psychical research. Nicole de Haas appears in the “Medium” episodes, as one of the leaders and featured physical trance mediums at a mediumship development seminar in the Netherlands. When Ms. de Haas in a trance state, or when she’s behind the curtain in a darkened seance room where she produces ectoplasm off camera, she speaks in various voices that transmit messages to the audience/client. One voice is that of an elderly doctor, and the other is that of a nine-year-old boy. All of the various voices sound like de Haas herself, using vocal gymnastics to sound like her spirit guides. That does not mean that she isn’t channeling these characters; they have to use her physical voice to express themselves. And yet, there is the uncomfortable and inescapable realization that she is not providing anyone information that is not easily found on the Internet.
One of the main participants in the series is searching for evidence of his father’s continued existence after a sudden departure from this world that left him in a deep state of grief. He consults various mediums throughout these two episodes; de Haas initially impresses him and his family with details about the “green car” his brother in law owned and an oft-repeated phrase his father used in his family restaurant: “hook ’em up”. However, all of this information is easy to find on Facebook and on other sites. Does this mean she looked it all up beforehand and used the little boy voice to transmit this information to the family? Not necessarily; but the look of disappointment on her client’s face as he realizes that his father probably did not come through is heartbreaking.
The second uncomfortable moment comes when Ryan Hammons, now 15, is taken to California to meet the daughter of Marty Martyn, who was a Hollywood extra and a talent agent (he died in 1964). Ryan, as a child, recounted Marty’s past life memories with remarkable accuracy. However, by the time this documentary was filmed, he has very few actual memories. He is ceremoniously flown to Los Angeles for the big meeting with Marty’s daughter and niece, who was the only one who knew him as an adult. Ryan’s mother is very enthusiastic about this trip, but her son is clearly uncomfortable and self conscious. The meeting between families is excruciating to witness. Ryan cannot identify relatives and friends in family photos; he has no recollection of the incidents Marty’s niece recounts; and he can’t answer anyone’s questions in order to ascertain his identity as Marty reincarnated. There are long moments of strained silence. When the meeting is finally over, it’s clear that Ryan has not made a convincing case; in fact, he has made no case at all. However, prompted no doubt by the producers, Marty’s niece and daughter make encouraging statements about Ryan’s previous personality.
Ryan and his mother end up at the grave site of Marty Martyn; she has her arm around him, comforting him unnecessarily, because it is not at all clear that Ryan is upset, grieving, confused, or anything but embarrassed and overwhelmed with all the attention. What stands out in this story is a simple fact: you can’t force memory to return once it has fled. There is no holding onto the past; Marty Martyn is, quite simply, not a part of Ryan Hammond’s life anymore, and that is entirely appropriate. James Leininger is clearly still affected by the death of his previous personality; he still relives his death trapped in a burning plane that was crashing near Iwo Jima during WWII.
What do I make of these moments? Nicole de Haas seems to be creating voices and relaying information that she did not obtain in a paranormal fashion, judging by the documentary; no cameras are allowed in the seance room, so there is no way to know if she actually produces ectoplasm. Ryan is a normal teenager who had extraordinary memories that have now vanished. Nicole de Haas might produce amazing and life-changing readings for her clients that do not appear on television. Actually, I’m sure she does; but is what she does paranormal, or simply the confirmation of the obvious messages that she knows people need to hear when they are wading through the deep waters of grief? Did Ryan experience some kind of extrasensory perception, soul connection, or mild possession by Marty Martyn, or is he truly the reincarnation of the deceased actor? Is it possible that his statements were rather vague, but once an eager parent seized them, the narrative coalesced?
So much of what we study in the field of the paranormal relies on believing, on taking at face value, someone’s narrative, or several people’s narratives. I could be completely wrong about Nicole de Haas. She might be an authentic physical medium with extraordinary skills, and I could be the ignorant skeptic. I’m am prepared to accept that possibility. This points out the need for deep and ongoing research; one documentary is not going to provide enough proof for or against physical and/or trance mediumship, for or against the reality of reincarnation, or the truth of the near death experience.
I want to believe everybody. I do not want to think that someone would deliberately mislead anyone in the pursuit of fortune or fame. I know, however, that this happens; human beings fall into temptation on a regular basis. I also know that once something extraordinary and anomalous happens, there is an additional temptation: faking evidence or phenomena in order to keep the attention coming. This creates a mix of authentic and fraudulent paranormal phenomena that ends up tainting an entire case, resulting in investigators ignoring or discounting data that might otherwise have been deeply insightful.
This is the eternal frustration of the paranormal investigator. We have to live between truth and falsehoods, lies and revelations, stunning evidence and demoralizing disappointments. It is very easy to be the skeptic; far too easy. We can decide that a whiff of fraud destroys an entire case, no matter how carefully constructed and researched that case might be. We can leap on one piece of questionable data and decide to deride and ignore years of work. It’s satisfying to the ego to rip someone to shreds on Facebook, crying fake and foul. It is far more difficult to entertain the possibility that extraordinary claims could be true.
It requires far more from me to think that perhaps Nicole de Haas is truly channeling spirits and producing ectoplasm, or to accept that Ryan Hammonds is the reincarnation of Marty Martyn. It means that I have to keep working, investigating, thinking, writing, and searching for the truth. That’s work. Most people don’t have patience for this level of work, this depth of inquiry. I understand that; I am regularly tempted to play the skeptic and write something snarky about a medium or a case. Then I remember my own paranormal and anomalous experiences, and recall how it felt when my reputation was tarnished at work after revealing them. I remember the derision of people in my own family and the pain that lingered for years as a result. That keeps me honest. And compassionate.
Welcome, friends, to the International Society for Paranormal Research. If you are interested in becoming a member, please read below:
MEMBER GUIDELINES:
Criteria for membership in the ISPR:
A body of investigative work in the field of the paranormal or of anomalous experiences and/or phenomena;
A willingness to publicize your work for professional review and to contribute to the ongoing work of the ISPR;
Demonstrated integrity and adherence to the highest values of transparency, honesty, and open communication with those working in the field and the interested public.
As a Member:
You will be part of a ISPR’s growth as a society and will contribute to future endeavors such as investigations, conferences, and professional reviews of contributor’s work; you will have priority for publication of your work and findings in the field; you will be a part of Founder’s and Members’ meetings to discuss and determine policies for review of specific cases presented and/or under investigation; and you will have an open invitation to participate in investigations with other members of the Society.
In order to remain in good standing in the ISPR, you must adhere to the member qualifications at all times. As the Founder, I can call for removal of any member who violates the guidelines. Removal from the group may be initiated due to extended inactivity of a member, knowingly engaging in fraud, collusion, deception or falsification of results, or due to lack of communication and/or cooperation with the members of the ISPR.
I would personally like to extend an invitation to all interested readers to join us on this (ad)venture. If you have something to contribute, please consider contacting me with your bio and a sample of your work (this can be data from investigations or any summaries, analyses, or discussions of said data).
The ISPR is an open organization dedicated to investigating and presenting evidence for all aspects of the “paranormal”, including, but not limited to: all manifestations of human consciousness in post-material form; alleged hauntings of homes and sites; poltergeist activity; the work of mediums, psychics, clairvoyants and empaths; anomalous experiences that include UFO activity or any other unusual or unprecedented event, sighting, or manifestation. We are:
Open to all amateur and professional investigators who wish to contribute their data and conclusions for review;
A forum for investigators and researchers to share their research and data, but also a site for meaningful conversations among investigators regarding methodology, personal experiences, concerns, and questions;
International in scope, since we are all interconnected more now than ever, and paranormal phenomena is not restricted to one, particular country;
Non profit, with no financial or professional interests that would interfere with our primary mission;
Not a ‘team’ of investigators, but may announce investigations and/or invite participants.
For my Soulbank readers, I am pleased to report the creation of my new research and investigation project, the “International Society for Paranormal Research”, or the ISPR. Soulbank will continue to be the official blog site for this society, and I will soon start up the social media machine.
The ISPR was born out of a deep, existential crisis. Allow me to elaborate. As many of you know, I was very active in the Southern California paranormal ‘scene’, for lack of a better word, that used to meet fairly regularly on the Queen Mary in Long Beach. There were a great number of “ghost hunting” groups at the time (2008 to 2013 or so), and the popularity of the paranormal shows on television was at an all-time high. It was during this time that I started the Paranormal Housewives (still ongoing–check out paranormalhousewives.com and our FB page), an all-female group of investigators with a very diverse background, brought together by a common interest in all things mysterious and unexplained. We helped families with hauntings, we investigated countless sites of historical and paranormal interest, and we landed on television more than once. We appeared on the Ricky Lake show (https://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/the-ricki-lake-show/episode-38-season-1/a-ricki-halloween/381207/), Ghost Adventures before we formed the group (https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/ghost-adventures/episodes/linda-vista-hospital), we recorded a sizzle reel for our own reality show and were “shopped” to multiple networks, we gave countless interviews, appeared on the local news, landed an article in the Los Angeles Times (https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-cpt-1028-paranormal-20111027-story.html) and other newspapers, and so on and so forth. In other words, we were almost famous.
It was the “almost” that was our near undoing. High hopes for a reality show were dashed. The requests for interviews and television appearances faded, along with the popularity of the entire genre of the paranormal. Teams dissolved all around the state. We stopped meeting at the Queen Mary. With the pandemic, it no longer made sense to get together in enclosed spaces and huddle together seeking spirits. There were other issues, as well: teams are hard to maintain. Establishing common goals and guidelines was difficult; expectations, hopes, and dreams were not always easy to reconcile. And then, of course, there was the thorny issue of the “evidence”. It wasn’t clear that we had convinced anyone about the existence of the afterlife, in spite of the hundreds, if not thousands, of hours we spent reviewing our audio for EVP. We sifted through video, audio, photographs, and documented our impressions and experiences as we all discovered newly acquired clairvoyant and psychic skills. I wrote hundreds of pages about our experiences, presented our data, and waited for the public to be as excited as we were. That rarely, if ever, happened. I used to post our best EVP begging for public commentary, and nobody listened or commented. That used to keep me up at night. My disappointment convinced me to give up. However . . .
Paranormal research is a passion. You don’t engage in it to convince skeptics, to be on television, to make a ton of money, to find fame online, or to rub elbows with the VIP of the paranormal community; but I am proud of what the Paranormal Housewives accomplished, and it was often thrilling and exciting, especially because it seemed that the general public was truly fascinated by what we did. It wasn’t the public that lost interest; the media did. I’m not sure we knew how to recover from that. The truth is, paranormal research of any kind–whether the classic “ghost hunting” version, the traditional seance and medium modality, or the intellectual investigations of the Society for Psychical Research, is often work done alone, without accolades, without fame, without media interest. What I finally understood is this: that is just fine. I don’t care if the general public doesn’t review my ‘data’, or whether or not anyone in the entertainment industry finds my work interesting enough to create a show around. I don’t mind that most of the time, an investigation might simply be three or four people with a shared need to explore the non-material worlds that surround us.
What do I care about? The community of people who find this work fascinating, compelling, and endlessly mysterious. I care about the investigative process, the sifting of data, the interpretation of audio, video, the information from our various devices, and our experiences. I care about our impressions, our feelings, our instincts, as much as I care about the hard evidence; it’s all part of creating a larger picture, a weaving together of different strands of information that leads to conclusions and to truths that are larger than anything the laboratory can prove. I care about research, about our forefathers and mothers who engaged in this work; I care about our history, our collective past, and how we wish to create the future as investigators. This is about the search; our common desire as paranormal researchers to go beyond the superficially obvious and to penetrate the veil. There are far more questions than we have answers for. This journey will take our entire lifetime, and perhaps far more than one.
Now I can introduce the International Society for Paranormal Research. Our mission statement:
The ISPR is an open organization dedicated to investigating and presenting evidence for all aspects of the “paranormal”, including, but not limited to: all manifestations of human consciousness in post-material form; alleged hauntings of homes and sites; poltergeist activity; the work of mediums, psychics, clairvoyants and empaths; anomalous experiences that include UFO activity or any other unusual or unprecedented event, sighting, or manifestation. We are:
Open to all amateur and professional investigators who wish to contribute their data and conclusions for review;
A forum for investigators and researchers to share their research and data, but also a site for meaningful conversations among investigators regarding methodology, personal experiences, concerns, and questions;
International in scope, since we are all interconnected more now than ever, and paranormal phenomena is not restricted to one, particular country;
Non profit, with no financial or professional interests that would interfere with our primary mission;
Not a ‘team’ of investigators, but may announce investigations and/or invite participants.
Are you interested in working with me on this project? I will announce here the social media sites and the eventual website for the ISPR. Let me know if you have evidence that you would like to share with us. I am excited to get back into the game and start the search again.
The following story is from my book, True and Imagined Stories of the Paranormal: Can You Tell the Difference? Every now and then, I plan to upload to this site a selection of true and imagined stories of the paranormal, and the readers will decide whether or not the events described happened in reality or only in my creative imagination. By “true,” I mean that I have as faithfully as possible recreated events that actually happened to me or come from a reliable and vetted source. Stories that I created may have true elements or make reference to some true events, but are mostly fictional in nature. The purpose of the book is to show the reader what characterizes real experiences, versus the stereotypes and assumptions about what the paranormal is: false stories will be entertaining, yet misleading.
Here is the first story. Did this really happen? You tell me!
“We had entered the old State Hospital countless times before; sometimes, we trespassed. Other times, as my lawyer husband admonished me, it was blatant breaking and entering, a far more serious infraction. On this particular evening, a side door to one of the enormous wings was open. There was no sign telling us not to enter; there was no picking of locks; there was nothing to do but push the door open and feel that cool air envelop us with the peculiar odor of the old hospital: slightly antiseptic with undertones of dust, mold and animal feces. It was the smell that defined the place; should I live a 150 years, I would never forget that odd combination of old hospital and decay.
Marcy, Kathy and I were seasoned investigators at this point in our lives. We had dedicated the last 12 years to the dogged pursuit of ghosts, demons, shadow people, spirits of unknown provenance, and anything else that tapped on walls, knocked things over, or whispered strange words into our recorders. These hallways, nurses stations, common areas, patient rooms and storage areas were so familiar as to be like a second home of sorts, and yet, there was never a moment where I wasn’t aware of the presence of something, watching us, following our movements, aware of our wanderings and whispered conversations.
We ended up in a very dark hallway in the middle of a large unit. I was never sure which unit served what purpose. Some of them had multiple uses over the decades, and others had never strayed from their original function as giant warehouses for the insane, the disabled, the outcasts, the drug addicts, or even the unfortunate immigrant or divorcee whose husband had declared her neurotic. The units that had been abandoned when the hospital closed in 1997 were the most ‘atmospheric’, retaining a heaviness and despair from hundreds, if not thousands, of confused, unhappy, frightened patients, many of whom are still wandering the streets of the local communities. There were many deaths in those buildings. There was state sanctioned torture in the name of psychiatry. And yes, there were people happy to be there that were protected and well treated. It was a complex mixture of emotions that left its mark in the very walls of the units, a permanent recording of human trauma and fear that replays itself endlessly. I don’t think peace or happiness are trapped in homes or buildings; those emotions go with you to the next life.
In the middle of this dismally dark hallway, Marcy stops and sets up various devices. The devices record anomalies, strange words, and changes in EMF and temperature. This is to be expected, of course, in a place like this. As a group, however, we have grown weary of our typical questions (‘can you hear me?’ ‘What year is it’?) and requests (‘tap three times if you can see me’, ‘knock on the walls,’ ‘make a noise so that we know where you are’), so we decide that we are going to take a different approach. Marcy asks it the thing in the hallway would like to play a game. This always makes me nervous, because I rarely sense the presence of children, and she frequently does. Not only does this mean we are attuned to different energies, it implies for me that she is opening up her tender heart to a child spirit that, for me, is a dirty, crazy old man who feels an attraction to her that is not at all innocent. I am scared, and Marcy is excited. I ‘see’ this energy in the hallway as someone who is toying with us. Yes, he taps on the walls, and yes, he has made some indistinct noise that raises my blood pressure; but, I don’t think that this is cooperation or sincere interest. This is his opportunity to lure us into an unhealthy interaction that will make me sick later. “Let’s play hide and seek!” Marcy cries out into the black hallway; “I’m going to hide and you’re going to find me!” Or, “you’re going to hide, and I’m going to find you!” I wasn’t paying much attention to the specifics of the rules, because the game unnerved me.
So Marcy hides behind a wall near a nurses’ station. She counts to ten. All I am aware of is my nausea and my fear, because it feels more and more obvious to me that this entity, this energy, or whatever it is, will not play any game without exacting a price. Shortly after Marcy says “ten,” there is an astonishingly clear noise: it’s a shower curtain being pulled aside on a metal bar. I know that sound, because we had been in one of the old, turquoise bathrooms before we started to investigate. The bathtub–suspiciously clean after all these decades–had a metal bar around the top where the shower curtain hung from shower curtain roller rings. They looked like this:
The curtain itself was open when we first entered the bathroom. After we heard the distinctive noise of the shower curtain opening–which is the noise that the roller rings make when moving across a metal shower rod–we ran back to that bathroom in a state of total shock, only to notice that the shower curtain was now drawn around the bathtub. Someone had moved it. Someone was hiding from Marcy, just as she had requested.
After the initial excitement wore off, we of course wanted to replay the recording of the voice. We heard it, clear as day. And then, something happened that I find mysterious, a quite frequent phenomenon: when we attempted to clip and send the file with the sound, we could no longer clearly hear it. We assume that it’s about compressing the file and sending it to an email address that degrades the quality of the audio. However, there is something more at work here. Countless EVP (electronic voice phenomena) degrades over time even when you listen to the same clip on the same computer using the same software. A voice that the entire team heard clearly the first few times it is played begins a slow and inexorable transformation over time until doubt creeps in about its veracity or intelligibility, and even the best EVP can end up as mere question marks.
We exited the building and wandered around the overgrown courtyards, following the trails of decay and entropy. I had that feeling again that we had been manipulated or simply drained by something that was intelligent enough to play a game. I felt that he was an older man who was stuck in Camarillo for crimes of a sexual, deviant nature. He was not someone who could be rehabilitated or released. He was thrilled that three women were paying attention to him and affording him the opportunity to interact with us, and yet his intention was dark. What would he have done in this afterlife state, this life of a fragmented consciousness, this self expression as instinct and pure id? All he could do, I think, was to trick us and invade our awareness, knowing as he did that we wanted contact, any contact. Once he was in our minds, in our consciousness, he could play there.
Ghosts require energy and an audience that is eager to connect. No matter who they are, they can suck the life force right out of you, as if you were a living battery. I’m not sure that Marcy agreed with me regarding the identity of this entity, and Kathy liked to keep a critical distance from such inquiries and identifications, because once you formulate an image of who is responsible for noises and feelings, you have strayed into the territory of mediums and channelers, and Kathy is comfortable with neither. It is probably folly to attempt to identify the spirit that has entered your space, unless you have a strong, instinctual response to their energy. I have certain physical responses to children, to teenagers, to men and women, and especially to creepy sociopaths. I can sense that presence from a mile away in either the living or the dead.
The next day, I had a headache, extreme fatigue, and slight vertigo. I was just sick enough to know that I had run into someone from whom I would have run like mad, had I met him in the flesh. This observation always begs the question: why do we want contact with someone in spirit who we would avoid at all costs in the flesh? Of course, one often doesn’t know who you have come into contact with until it’s too late, after you’ve engaged him. It’s a little like carrying on an intimate conversation with someone in a dark room who can disguise their voice and speaks in riddles. It’s a dangerous practice, one fueled by endless curiosity and the thrill of the hunt.
The problem with that is that we–the ones who seek out such contact–are the ones who are captured in the end. We end up in cages of confusion and partial answers, speculations and strange emotions, wondering if someone we couldn’t see might have taken up residence in an abandoned and dark corner of our souls.”
Was this a story based on true events? Or is this a cleverly crafted ghost story designed to sound true? You be the judge.
Every now and then, I like to dust off my critical mind and find an article that–yet again!–seeks to describe all paranormal phenomena as a by product of brain functions, ‘stress’, or some other physical or psychological glitch in the system. The latest assault on the paranormal comes from this source, which you are welcome to read in its entirety should you feel inspired: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-ooze/201507/why-some-people-see-ghosts-and-other-apparitions
Here is a quote that I find interesting yet dismaying: “A recent study by Kirsten Barnes and Nicholas Gibson (2013) explored the differences between individuals who have never had a paranormal experience and those who have. They confirmed that experiences of supernatural phenomena are most likely to occur in threatening or ambiguous environments, and they also found that those who had paranormal experiences scored higher on scales measuring empathy and a tendency to become deeply absorbed in one’s own subjective experience.”
One of the most common assumptions of scientists and psychologists when dealing with anomalous experiences is that the environment or the brain itself PRODUCES the paranormal experience. There are so many variations on this assumption: blind spots create the effect of seeing something out of the corner of your eye; variations in the electromagnetic field produce the feeling of a presence or being watched; variations in infrasound create feelings of doom or dread; sleep paralysis and the hypnagogic state bring our dreams into reality; or environmental contaminants make us hallucinate. The article under discussion here states that both stressful and boring environments create the necessary conditions for the brain to hallucinate ghosts. If you are a sensitive person, an empath, or simply prone to self analysis, your brain will supply you with visions. The problem with this hypothesis should be fairly clear, but allow me to break down my objections:
Instead of assuming that conditions and brain states CREATE the paranormal experience, it is more likely that the proper CONDITIONS lead to the ability to perceive non-ordinary realities and presences. You can study the brains of meditators and mystics and exclaim that the changes you see in their brains have created their visions, or you can conclude that the changes in their brains are the result of sustained and focused connection with “God” or the world of spirit. The brain changes are the result of their spiritual practices, not the cause.
The same can be said for people who enter trance states, ingest psychedelic substances, engage in intense religious rituals, or in any other way alter their consciousness with the express intent to contact the world of spirit. Yes, the brain changes in response to the substance, activity or intention of the participant in any kind of ritual, because the brain is accommodating and facilitating the connection, not creating it.
This does not mean that you can’t genuinely hallucinate while under the influence of drugs, carbon monoxide, or some other physical agent. What’s the difference? In genuine cases of spiritual contact, there is logic, emotional impact, a sense of the divine, a coherent story, or the fulfillment of one’s deepest intentions. There is, in other words, a sense of the holy or sacred that accompanies one’s vision, a transcendence that serves to elevate the experience to another level of reality and often ends up changing the life of the person who has witnessed or sensed the presence. I have, unfortunately, endured an episode of carbon monoxide poisoning when I was a teenager in Spain–I woke up disoriented, confused, and seeing strange things. I knew immediately that this was not ‘paranormal’, but something that was sickening me in body and mind. I have also had multiple surgeries where I struggled through the effects of anesthesia and other drugs, and it was always clear that those effects were not at all supernatural due to their chaotic and irrational nature. There is simply no way to compare the effects of drugs and poison to a true, spiritual experience that leaves you in awe.
And, finally, to reduce spiritual experiences to brain effects or environmental stresses completely ignores centuries of human experiences of the holy and the uncanny. If you reduce the power of religion to, for example, the stress Jesus felt while wandering through the desert, you have denied the most powerful aspect of humanity: our ability to connect to higher realities and transmit those messages to others.
Our brains serve as a sort of ‘reducing valve’ for an overwhelming amount of information that we cannot possibly process in its entirety. This quote from Aldous Huxley is quite famous in certain spiritual circles:
“Each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. […]
But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet.” https://www.ianmack.com/aldous-huxley-dont-mistake-the-trickle-for-ultimate-reality/
And yes, Huxley wrote this after his experiments with mescaline; and yet, think about it: there is infinitely more information ‘out there’ than we are able to process. If some event, circumstance, drug, or stressor hampers the brain’s ability to filter out the greater reality, extra information can sneak past the gates and flood us with ‘paranormal’ experiences: messages from the gods or from God, spirit contact, or the ability to perceive what is normally blocked from view. How do we know what is ‘real’ and what is the result of a brain on overload? “By their fruits you shall know them”: this refers to false prophets, but it could easily refer to false messages or hallucinations. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit; likewise, true spiritual contact, ‘real’ paranormal experiences, are life changing and profound.
I have not mentioned the fact that documented and verifiable paranormal experiences are abundant and well researched. The Society for Psychical Research, for example, has published volumes of excellent evidence for the existence of ‘ghosts’, telepathy, near death experiences, mediumship, out of body experiences, and so much more. The SPR has been around since 1882 and included some of the most prominent and respected scientists of their time. Their work continues today. Gary Schwartz in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona has carried out fascinating experiments in afterlife communication. I could go on and on, but the point is: before one decides what is ‘science’ and what is not, you must do your research. There are centuries of evidence that spiritual energy is real and communicates with us on a regular basis. You don’t need to be an empath to receive these communications, but you do need to allow that such experiences are possible; if you block the full range of human consciousness with your materialism in the name of science, you lose the most profound aspect of our humanity: our connection to spirit.
The end of the article offers advice for the psychologist faced with the patient reporting paranormal contact:
“There are really only three possibilities:
The event really happened, just as the person has reported.
The person believes that the event has really happened, but it has not.
The person is fabricating a story for some reason.”
I am not entirely sure how the psychologist would know that the event has not really happened, in the case of the second scenario. I would recommend option number 1, assuming that there is no serious mental illness present (although, some argue that schizophrenia, for example, is simply a case of a reducing valve that does not work well and allows too much information in without context or intention).
In the end, we simply cannot assume that we have access to the full display of reality that the Universe contains. Some of our brains are more plastic, more open, than others, for a multitude of reasons. Why not treat those people for whom the larger realities intrude as wise instead of crazy? Why not see what doors open for psychology and science when this extra information flows through freely, without judgment or skepticism? And, of course, why not educate yourselves in the rich history of the ‘paranormal’ and realize that the science is, actually, already settled?
Welcome to my first, bilingual post for those who read Spanish. In this post, I will endeavor to explain why the statement “I don’t believe in ghosts” doesn’t mean what people think it does.
Bienvenidos a mi primer ‘post’ en español. Hoy pienso explicar por qué la afirmación “no creo en los fantasmas” no significa lo que muchos piensan.
Language is the first barrier to mutual comprehension. The word ‘ghost’ is a loaded term; it conjures images from movies, faked photos, and horror novels. The word carries so much cultural baggage that it’s time to let it go, and talk about what I really mean when I use the term ‘ghost’. A ‘ghost’ refers to a remaining or persisting aspect of a once material being; some energetic or perceptual imprint that implies a consciousness has continued to function without a material form.
El lenguaje es la primera barrera a la comprensión mutua. La palabra ‘fantasma’ es un término cargado; conjura imágenes de las películas, fotos falseadas, y novelas de terror. La palabra conlleva tantas asunciones y estereotipos culturales que ya es hora de abandonarla o reconstruirla. Pero, no se puede evitar su uso en la comunicación diaria, así que vamos a entenderla de esta forma: Un ‘fantasma’ se refiere a un aspecto persistente de un ser otrora material, algún patrón energético o perceptual que implica que una consciencia ha continuado funcionando sin forma física.
Now, let’s talk about what we mean by ‘belief’: The word ‘belief’ has strong religious overtones; it requires ‘faith’ as a correlate. When people say they do not ‘believe’ in ‘ghosts’, what they are saying is that they do not have faith in the existence of wispy, ghostly forms of once living people. I would agree with that statement. No investigator of the paranormal who takes herself seriously would ask that someone have faith or ‘believe’ in something without evidence for it. So, I never ask for faith or belief, but for a sincere desire to investigate the evidence that human consciousness survives bodily death. There is abundant evidence in favor of that hypothesis, and that is what this web site is about: presenting all the evidence that most people are unaware exists.
Ahora, hablemos de lo que queremos decir por ‘creencia’: la palabra ‘creencia’ tiene fuertes tintes religiosos; requiere e implica la fe. Cuando la gente afirma que no ‘cree’ en fantasmas, lo que está diciendo de verdad es que no tiene fe en la existencia de formas cuasi transparentes de personas antes vivas y ahora suspendidas entre el ser y el no ser. Estoy de acuerdo con que no creo en fantasmas, si así los definimos. Ningún investigador de lo paranormal pediría que alguien tuviera fe o creencia en algo sin que haya evidencia a su favor. Así que nunca pido que alguien tenga tal fe o creencia, sino que expresen un sincero interés de investigar la evidencia de que la consciencia humana sobreviva la muerte del cuerpo. Hay evidencia abundante y rigorosa que apoya tal hipótesis, y de eso se trata este blog: presentar la evidencia que tanta gente ni sabe que existe.
So no, I do not ask nor wish for you to ‘believe’ in anything that does not make sense to you after a careful weighing of the evidence in favor of a hypothesis. Instead of saying, “I do not believe in ghosts”, my hope is that you will say, “after carefully considering the evidence for and against the survival of human consciousness, I think X is true”. Notice that the conclusions you might come to are less important that the willingness to consider what you might think now is impossible. For many things were considered to be impossible until the day when the weight of the evidence changed the point of view of the collective cultural beliefs. When we make statements about what we do not believe in, that too, is a statement of faith without evidence.
No, no deseo que creas en nada que no tenga sentido para ti después de una cuidadosa examinación de la evidencia a favor de una hipótesis. En vez de decir, “no creo en los fantasmas”, mi esperanza es que digas “después de estudiar cuidadosamente la evidencia a favor y en contra para la continuación de la consciencia humana después de la muerte física, he llegado a la conclusión que X representa la verdad”. Nota que las conclusiones a las que finalmente llegas (si es que llegas a tal punto final de tus consideraciones), es menos importante que la buena voluntad de ponderar lo que ahora te pueda parecer imposible. Muchas cosas se consideraban imposibles hasta el día cuando el peso de la evidencia cambió para siempre el punto de vista de las creencias culturales populares de una época. Cuando hacemos declaraciones acerca de lo que no creemos, eso también es una aserción que depende de la fe sin evidencia.
Spirit is everywhere. You don’t need to seek it; you need to discover it. What most investigators forget is that they are spirit themselves; we are looking for our own essence ‘out there’ when, in reality, to connect to spirit we must first connect to our authentic selves.
This requires silence, meditation, ‘tuning in’, contemplation, and for some, an alteration of normal consciousness (trance states). The ‘ghosts’ out there can be perceived not through gadgets and devices (if it were possible to prove anything that way, it would have happened already), but through adjusting our brain waves to match the frequencies of expanded consciousness. What do I mean by that? Simply that you must be in the right state of mind to make contact with a non-material human consciousness. If you maintain your ‘normal’, waking state of business and distraction, you don’t–you can’t–contact subtle energies.
This time of year–December into January–is the best for contact with spirit. The separation between our waking consciousness and the worlds where spirits roam is very thin. Anyone who wishes to make contact with spirit will find it far easier now than any other time of year. Of course, that’s not a rule–our best investigation happened in July of 2013–but the long, dark hours and the contemplative feeling of the season allow for a deeper communion between our deep, spiritual selves and the dimensions where all kinds of beings find their expression: both human and other.
The trick this season is to find your deepest self and allow its expression and communion with the souls that wander in the soft darkness of December. Once you’ve allowed for that to happen, you won’t need to search for anyone; the ghosts will find you.
Anyone who meditates on a regular basis knows that some strange material can float to the surface of our minds. I used to dismiss such information as a product of random, subconscious associations, but now I pay attention. I realized that what I used to ignore was teaching that I didn’t want and lessons that contradicted what I desired to believe. It seems, sadly enough, that I don’t grow as a human being unless I suffer the pain of reality contradicting my illusions.
I was far away in space during a meditation where I quickly vanished as a ‘person’. I found myself in an odd, geometric void where there were several points displayed in front of ‘me’, or the observer. A master teacher was explaining that the points represented versions of the self. During our lifetimes, we create multiple copies of the true Self, typically by assigning them roles to play. There is the self as mother, teacher, wife, daughter, and so forth. We come to identify with those roles, and therein lies the pain and suffering that so many of us experience when we realize that the roles we play are primarily determined by our culture, family, country of origin, media, and other forces that act upon us in hidden ways. The ‘false selves’ are only painful when they separate from the true Self and take on a life of their own, divorced from a higher, ultimate reality (some call this God, the Divine, the Field, or the Theory of Everything). When the role-identified ego fragments view themselves as independent, the emotional pain grows and intensifies every time we fail to meet the ego’s standards, which are tied to our culture’s definition of success. We become bad mothers, poor teachers, disappointing wives, or bankrupted entrepreneurs. There are an infinite variety of ways we ‘fail’ in our culture: we are old, fat, unattractive, and unsuccessful. Every negative judgment we struggle with is a result of identifying with a false construct of the self that has broken off from the True Self and become autonomous.
Our very culture, the medium in which we live and act, promotes the fragmentation of the self. If we are ‘unsuccessful’ at any of the roles assigned to us, then we will spend money to ‘fix’ the problem that our society created for us. We chase solutions to invented problems, and the people responsible for selling us said ‘solutions’ become rich and powerful at our expense. To some extent, we are all responsible for selling ourselves and others the lies of our culture: how many times have we promoted a damaging, false view of who we are ‘supposed’ to be that is in service to a diseased, dominant culture? If we think that we are substandard employees, daughters, sons, parents, citizens, and so on, we exist in a perpetual state of self loathing and criticism, making us far less likely to pursue avenues of change in our environment, politics, educational system, or social networks. How do you keep the population from rebelling or protesting? Make them believe that they are not good enough to try. I have classrooms filled with students who believe that there is no point in attempting change of any kind. They passively accept the version of themselves that their communities and cultures promote, consciously or otherwise.
While I floated in this space of false selves, I decided that I must be ‘the Observer’ who understood the lessons; the student, if you will. But the Voice, very gently, asked me: “Who observes the observer?” This sounded to me like one of those impossible Zen scenarios where there is, for all intents and purposes, no answer. I was then led to, and ‘infused’ with, the Observer of the observer, and discovered that it was God; but God was me. I was God. Of course, this upset the little ‘me’, who considered this blasphemy. The little observer started protesting that she was a miserable sinner, far from God, and that this truth that I was experiencing could not be true (a tautology if there ever was one). This was now the second time that I have been shown that the true self is God. After all, God experiences herself/themselves (no pronoun works here) in an infinite variety of forms and beings, and I am one of those beings whose true identity is with God.
If we were all to believe this, instead of the lies and distortions that we DO believe, how would the world change? Indeed, the world as we know it would look utterly different (to be clear, I am not talking about the ego delusion that one is God; that’s entirely another problem. I am talking about the actual, true, real Self through which God experiences creation). How beautiful our experience on Earth would be if everyone followed the path of the true Self. It’s too painful to see how far we are from that vision. Perhaps the whole point of life on Earth is to overcome the vast distance between our repressive cultures/constructed selves and our true nature. We come back here again and again, learning and remembering these lessons in various ways, in differing circumstances. Pain and suffering are the most effective teachers when we are ready to accept the falling away of the myriad, scattered, ego selves.
This is why we pray, why we meditate, why we alter our consciousness: to get closer to our true identity and to realize that fundamental change is possible. To make that change requires those little selves floating out there in space to self destruct under the weight of their false values and internal contradictions. Losing those fragments hurts. Those painful identities don’t seem to actually ‘die’: they become ghosts and haunt our collective consciousness forever and ever. But they don’t have to define me anymore, or crush me under the weight of their unprocessed emotion. I choose to send them to the far corners of the Earth, where they can rattle their chains, moan and lament, and scare the paranormal investigators and urban explorers. For that is where they belong, after all: in the agonized and remote regions of our worst fears.
I will keep moving towards the Light, which we all need to do long before we die.
I received a couple of comments from someone who is scared. She is an investigator who feels that she has lost something in the process of contacting the spirit world: she worries that it might be part of her soul. This is a valid concern, and I will try to address it.
There are times when we wonder if we are ‘oppressed’ by a spirit who seeks to harm us. I have wondered that in the past; in fact, there are a couple of entries here on soulbank where I worked through my terror at feeling that someone unholy and powerful was attempting to take over my mind and emotions. Do I think this is possible? Yes, I do. However, I don’t think that any spirit can accomplish this completely without our conscious consent. If we have not specifically invited evil in, then we will not become possessed.
I am thinking here of the rite of exorcism and the priests that work to rid people of demonic entities. There are a couple of points that exorcists make on a regular basis: very few people are truly possessed, and those that are have almost always given their consent to the evil spirit in one way or another. This is why I caution against using any instrument that turns you into a channel or conduit for the spirit world. It is difficult to control who will ‘use’ you to spread their message. I was watching a documentary on Malachi Martin the other night, exorcist and author of the very famous HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL, and I learned through multiple interviews with him and other exorcists that there are signs of possession that we can ‘read’ in ourselves or others, and almost no one needs to worry about this. The most important sign is someone ‘turning on a dime,’ changing from a normal, decent human being to something suddenly sinister and completely out of character. It’s as if the veil of normalcy and kindness dropped for a moment, and the evil displays itself through their eyes in a flash. I’m not talking about having a temper or suffering from a mood disorder; I’m talking about that person who seems completely normal one moment and quickly morphs into something cruel, inhuman, vile and terrifying. The moment doesn’t last long, but it can be perceived by others. This does not happen to 99% of the people who are concerned for their soul.
If you are worried about attachments, spirit influence, or demonic interference in your life, here is a list of what needs to happen:
1) STOP INVESTIGATING the paranormal until you are 100% certain that you are fully yourself. If you’re not sure, don’t do it.
2) Realize that spirits can influence us, but that we are more powerful. A spirit with ill intent can be rebuffed and removed from our lives, but we need help. Talk to your church, synagogue or mosque leader and tell that person everything. Find spiritual support from those who do that for a living. If you don’t have anyone, go find someone at your local church. DON’T DELAY. Make the appointment, and tell them exactly what you fear has happened without reservation.
3) Continue to pray and know that God is always there and always listening. We can’t always feel inspired and filled with divine love. That doesn’t mean that we are not loved and protected. We are. It is fear and depression that drive away divine love, not God.
4) Fear and depression are more responsible for feeling ‘oppressed’ and not ourselves than anything to do with demons or bad spirits. What I read in you is depression. That is often the root cause of the feelings you describe. Regular, old dead people who weren’t all that nice in life and are still nasty in death will jump on that low aura and take advantage of it to express themselves. For some souls, depression is a beacon, something they like to attach to. YOU ARE STILL MORE POWERFUL than they are, because you still have God. You can pray for them as you pray for yourself.
5) Seek therapy. Find a good support system with your friends. Make sure that you do NOT investigate until this works itself out. Go bowling. Sit in cafes and libraries. Join a Meetup group. Get out of the house. Sit in the sun. Take long walks. Pet your animals. If you have no animals, go adopt one. Remember that this life is for the living. You are the living. Leave the dead alone.
6) If you are worried about the state of your soul, if you are concerned that you are not feeling the presence of God as you would like to or need to, YOU ARE NOT POSSESSED OR OPPRESSED. You are a normal human being who is seeking greater connection to the Divine. You can and will find that connection again. You need to speak to a spiritual counselor and get involved in your local religious community. Take care of those who are in need. Find a way to improve the life of someone who needs you.
You are loved and you are never, ever alone. God does not abandon those who love, those who seek, those who never give up. Your feelings of ‘spiritual dryness’ are normal and will go away when you take the steps I have recommended. Be patient and don’t worry.
Give the spirit world a rest and work on enjoying the beautiful life that we have been given to enjoy, right here, right now.
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The Soul Bank: Stories, Research, Essays, (B)Logs 