Ghosts are People Too Part 1 – A Timely FAQ
It’s Trick or Treat Time Again.
The leaves are falling and the pumpkins are being carved. My kids have already sorted out their costumes: Halloween is a big deal around in the Village so the girls are with the program. Kate is going for the unicorn look. Matilda has eschewed the ubiquitous fairy costume, and chosen her favorite avian, the penguin. In the midst of our Halloween planning my friend McFly has emailed me for some timely advice.
Mcfly and I go back 20 years, to our salad days in the Caribbean.
We’ve known each other long enough that we never use our real names – He’s McFly because he’s always disliked the stupidity of Biff the bully in “Back to the Future.” It was Biff’s goal to make Michael J. Fox’s character “McFly” look stupid and inferior at every turn with the now classic put down: “Helloo?? McFly??” In fact it was Biff who didn’t get it and had to learn that there are consequences to one’s selfishness, narrowness and lack of sensitivity. My friend McFly relishes the fairness in the world when the McFly’s triumph over the Biff’s.
McFly calls me “Tida” after our mutual friend’s so-named cockatiel since, left untamed, my hair has it’s own perverse tendency to stick up like the crest of the aforementioned bird.
We both worked at a dive resort. McFly was honing his craft as a horror fiction writer at the time, paying the bills as a Scuba instructor and boat captain. I worked in resort sales & marketing. McFly often dropped off his stories to the “gals” in the office for us to read between answering calls on the resort’s 800#. Well-written, McFly’s work was not easy-going fare. It really was horror.
Did I mention I am not a huge fan of horror?
I always try to avoid anything having to do with evil, violence, gore, chainsaws, wigged out mental patients, and demented beings along with witches, vampires and ghosts that are gonna get you… McFly and I are close friends so I would faithfully read his material, even though the bloodied-psychopath-to-page ratio was very high.
So this email from McFly is about ghost tours in New Orleans.
Now McFly is a professional photographer who’s made Nawlins his stomping grounds since Katrina. He manages to make a descent living and supplement it as an official New Orleans Tour Guide. With Halloween almost upon us, I read that McFly is going to be conducting ghost tours of the most haunted places in N.O.
My response: “Waycool! I want to go!” I’d been to New Orleans many times before Katrina – and pretty much the whole French Quarter felt haunted. Not a clear building in the place in my view. It would be interesting to see what it’s like now.
The email, however, is not an invite to visit haunted New Orleans.
It is a request for information to make McFly’s own upcoming ghost tours more juicy, more personalized, more informative, and add value. What better way then to ask his buddy ole ghost busting pal for advice? Having Certified Management Consultant AND Ghostbuster on my curriculum vitae may be a bit over the top to some, but to my buddy McFly, it’s coming in handy right about now.
Did I mention that in my earlier years, I was not a fan of ghosts?
Before I embraced my intuitive abilities, I was unsettled by the general concept of ghosts. And then there was my fear of actually seeing ghosts. And then I was afraid of telling people I saw ghosts. It wasn’t until I had some very up close and personal one-on-one experiences with ghosts that I realized that ghosts are people too. It was the ghosts that helped me to drop the fear. They are a gift.
I’m sure I’ve met more than my share of ghosts.
I’ve helped a few go to the light. I’ve done some “ghost busting” for clients – yet no vacuums are involved, nobody gets slimed and, contrary to popular belief, nobody gets busted. I promise. I have never heard a ghost say” BOO.” Not ever.
McFly had some very specific questions in his email that are probably of interest to you, dear AM Reader. So read on as I share with you my responses to McFly’s questions about the ghostly realms. I will be posting new ghost-related entries every day this week up until Halloween. Here is McFly’s first question:
#1. What are ‘Ghosts’?
Oh, the much maligned Ghost. Here’s my take. “Ghosts are people too”. But first, we are all Spirit and we are all vibrating energy. We who are here on this earthly plane happen to be in physical bodies. When we die, it’s our body that dies. Our Spirit goes to another plane of consciousness – a non-physical realm.
If we don’t “go to the light” as they say on the “Ghost Whisperer”, we actually go to the planes of consciousness closest to the physical plane (a.k.a. earth) called the astral planes. Those who reside in the astral planes are in a higher energy vibration than earth, but not as high in vibration as those true Spirits who reside in the higher realms.
What’s ego got to do with it?
While residing in the astral planes we are, for lack of a better term, a “Ghost”. Our ego is still pretty much intact. We retain much of the predominant personality traits and foibles we had on earth. If we die and “go to the light” we go to higher realms of consciousness (and there are many higher realms) where our egos start to dissipate and eventually fall away. We become our true “Spirit”.
Which realm we go to when we die depends on how far we are on our path – how enlightened we are so to speak. Our personal energy vibration determines where we go. Jesus is in a very high realm. He’s got a high vibration. He’s no ghost. When we go to the higher realms we are still us, along with any outstanding lessons to be learned but we are not weighed down by the baggage created by our earth-bound ego. Note that our ego doesn’t come back into being until after we incarnate back on earth. Childhood educators estimate our ego begins forming around ages two to three and is fully formed by about age seven – ready to be shaped and twisted more by life’s experiences.
Of course, in reality , we never die. We are very much alive whether we are here in the physical, a ghost in the astral plane or have gone to the light in true spirit form. We are just energy vibrating at different speeds.
Not all ghosts are ghosts.
Here’s the thing – Spirits who have gone to the light, crossed over, past on, whatever you want to call it, can come back and visit us. They are not ghosts. They are true Spirits. It takes a tremendous amount of energy for a Spirit to come down to our earthly, low vibrating plane of consciousness. My Dad likens coming into our physical plane like swimming through mud. It’s not such a big dive to come in from the astral planes to here if you are in ghost form. There is less of a difference in energetic frequencies between our physical plane and the astral planes where ghosts hang out. But the veil between realms is getting very thin these days so there are more direct encounters with Spirits, not just ghosts.
Soul tripping on the astral planes.
When alive we regularly visit the astral planes. It’s called astral projection. We go to this same lower plane (or planes) of consciousness to hang out with loved ones, and those from past lives, and learn more about ourselves. We usually are not aware of such trips. But sometimes we are: When you wake up with a dream in your head that is so vivid you remember every detail, you’ve probably been traveling the astral planes. BTW During sleep, we all astrally-project – but probably not every night. Our soul leaves our body during these trips, but we are still tied to our bodies by a chord so we can’t get lost and miss finding our body lying back in bed. It’s a good thing.
#2. Why do some people not leave after the body dies?
Many people who die don’t go straight to the light. They hang around to make sure everything is okay with their loved ones. They may hang out a few hours, a day, a week, a month or a couple of months. They are essentially ghosts but they will go to the light. It is pulling them. When they get the big pull towards bliss, or another loved one encouraging them to go, they go to the light. When a person who dies hangs around with no intention of going to the light, or not knowing what the light is, they stay in the lower energetic “ghostly” form.
The “Unfinished Business” factor.
Ghosts don’t leave for a number of reasons, but usually it’s “Unfinished Business”.
- It could be guilt, or shame about something or concern about someone living that keeps them close to the physical plane.
- Sometimes people have died in a traumatic way, and don’t know they have died so they don’t know to go to the light. (But other times a traumatic death, a surprise death, an accident as it were, can actually take them away to the higher realms instantly).
- People who are high on drugs or alcohol have a greater tendency to stay in the ghostly (astral) realms because they are totally confused.
- Some people stay because they aren’t ready to go – they have a message for a loved one and need to see it through.
- Others stay because they were just plain nasty in life – the lower astral planes are full of low lifes – and they are comfortable in that vibration. They want to keep wreaking a bit of emotional havoc on this side.
A bit more about ghost busting.
As I mentioned, some ghosts don’t leave because they have unfinished business while others are merely lost and confused. But the astral planes can be an unhappy place for people who are stuck. Our higher self – our Spirit – is meant for the higher realms. “Life” looks very different at higher vibrations where we can finally experience our true pure nature. So those who “ghost bust” are really just encouraging ghosts to move on to these higher planes of consciousness.
There are ways to show wayward ghosts that they can come back and visit after they cross over, and that seems to clinch the deal for some. If a ghost is still unwilling to go to the light, ghost busters can do things to calm the environment, and if they are Mediums they can act as message bearers to the living and this often will calm the ghost, and possibly encourage them to move on. And if that doesn’t work, and the ghost is still causing a ruckus in the physical environment, we can often make the environment incompatible with the ghost’s energy and they will often leave. Not all ghosts will leave. And not all are ghosts. More on that later… (Part 2 – Manifestations 101).
Tida (aka The Accidental Medium)
— With thanks to Spirit for infinite return.
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