I think it's safe to say that almost everyone on the planet has a "ghost story" to tell- or has believed in ghosts at one point in their lives…or still wants to. It's fairly easy to find a film from any culture about ghosts these days. There are reality shows where people "hunt" ghosts. There are haunted houses at Halloween time, tourist destinations alleging famous ghost sightings, photographs of orbs, and all sorts of personal documented stories of encounters with "supernatural" beings. Ghostly images are prevalent in current art and are always alive in fictional writing. Modern photographers still play with exposures to poetically present the idea of ghostly figures present in the same room as living people.
Some of us feel connected to our ancestors and can palpably feel the resonance of their respective cultures. We can almost hear them whispering their old ways in our ears. We believe in the poetry of the idea of their resonance hovering around us, alive in a way, but we tend to think of them more as a living memory: something left in the past. We are hesitant to think of them alive now, in the present moment, continuing to grow and learn in their own lives (in bodies of light, or energy, rather than in lives of flesh). It's easier to think of them in the past, even as ghostly memories, because we can attach that idea of their lives as having been formed in fleshy bodies. It's something we can relate to and understand.
When it comes to life after death, however, peoples' belief levels tend to run cool, and many cultures and religions have beliefs regarding the "good" or "bad" ability to see "ghosts." This judgment system tends to act as a deterrent for many people from exploring the world of Spirit. The idea of a loved one living on after death seems to meet with resistance in our minds, as if contemplating it "for real" will challenge our beliefs and shake us to the core, loosening old ideas that maybe aren't our own but which we cling to because we aren't sure what else to hold onto. The idea of a ghost story allows for more imagination, we tell ourselves: there’s more room for speculation and less rules to adhere to. It's easier for us to believe in the romanticism of a story than in the reality that life continues on, perhaps because that idea seems so ordinary and so unbelievable at the same time. It seems that since "ghosts" are invisible, they must be feared. I think this simply comes from the fact that we can feel Spirit and know that what we feel is exactly what a human being in the flesh feels like...and the scary part is that we cannot see what we are feeling.
Personally, I believe the idea of life after death is so controversial, not because it challenges our ideas about death, which we feel we have the right to speculate and change our minds about, but because it challenges our idea of what life is right now. We tend to think we have life "all figured out"(for the most part, anyway) or that life has to operate in certain ways according to the societies in which we live.
For most of us, the idea that someone we once knew continues to live on after the death of their physical bodies challenges our idea that life is about suffering. Why? Because if life continues on after earth life, then perhaps "death" isn't so bad after all…and then we have to change our ideas about death.
We fear that we will never see our loved ones again, and we hold ideas of hell, damnation and finalization. These ideas feed into guilt and the idea of an angry, moody God. Maybe we feel that there is nothing "out there," and that it's all here on earth. Some people take this idea to the other extreme, believing that since there is nothing after this life, they can do whatever they want because they don't have to worry about the consequences of their actions.
Spirit communication is so unique because the experience is undeniable for both the medium giving the message and the person receiving the message. While a message from a loved one who we thought no longer exists after their death doesn't answer all our questions, these experiences do resonate in our hearts, minds, and bodies as being true. After each message, we let go of the need to know everything, having just experienced some bit of evidence for ourselves.
As a medium, I find that giving messages to people from their Spirit Guides or loved ones who've passed on is so interesting because the process requires blind trust. I mostly give messages to people I don't know from Spirit people I don't know. So I must trust my ability to pass on the visual, verbal and emotional information I am receiving to the person awaiting answers. I can later receive confirmation of its accuracy. This is a learning process for me and for them. Often I am allowed to see the person receiving a reading through the eyes and perspective of their passed-on parent, which offers me the story of their life path and layers upon layers that are part of the person I'm giving a reading to.
Once, I received messages concerning a father's health and lifestyle from a young man in Spirit. Once I gave the information to the still living-on-earth father, I found out the son had died as a small child, yet he had appeared to me as a young man, indicating that he was continuing to grow and learn.
I commonly receive communication with Spirit people who are happy and confident and who offer information that they are no longer suffering from whatever disease they had in physical form. They explain that since the flesh is gone, so are the conditions and limitations of being in flesh.
Often a Spirit Guide has encouraging advice for someone who is working to make an aspiration a reality. Spirit Guides have information from a larger perspective than do we in our moment-to-moment lives.
Message after message there appears a constant: the continuity of intelligent life.
And we, in our daily lives, can also resurrect ourselves any day, at any time, by accepting responsibility for where we are now and for where we want to go. The hopefulness of understanding that we can change at any time comes often after the pain of acknowledging that we don't like where or who we are in a certain moment, and that despite seeming circumstances, we have a part to play in that. This can cause a "little death," as more of the illusion of limitation falls away and we begin to peek at our greater, eternal self…
But that's a blog for another day...
"As above,
so below."
-from The Hermetic Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus
ALL Content Copyright Karyn Crisis, 2013.
Edited by Sheri Lynn Toczko
