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Communicating with the Dead (Original)

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Sandra
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« Reply #330 on: January 20, 2008, 10:45:21 pm »

Sandra Taylor

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   posted 12-10-2005 08:46 PM                       
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Day 2: Getting to Know your Spirit Guide
Use only Yes or No questions. You may want to have a paper and pen close by to write down a name of message.

Practice with non-personal questions again. Ask...pause...listen with your mind. You connect telepathically - the movement of ideas through frequency in thoughform.

Hello

You should sense a greeting.

Think I would like to know your name.

If you have trouble understanding the name - listen hard - then come as close to what you 'hear' as you can. Spirit will accept whatever name you give. Some names are long and make have to be shortened - or a letter of the alphabet substituted.

May I call you _____? You will sense that the name is correct.

Once you get a name you sense is right for you and your spirit guide - proceed on to other telepathic questions.

Are you ready to answer questions?

Wait for an affirmative answer. It should be immediate.

You should ask questions about this spirit guide and their place in your life. What is their function? What is their connection to you? What can you do to find your mission? How many spirit guides do I have.

You can write down questions and answers.


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« Reply #331 on: January 20, 2008, 10:45:45 pm »

 
Sandra Taylor

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Day 3 - Past Lives with your Guide
Prepare questions. Get comfortable. Greet your spirit guide. More 'yes / no' questions.

Did we know each other in a past life? Were we family?

Ask the about the nature of the relationship? Wife- husband? Mother - child?

Have we been together more than once? More than 5 times? Etc.

Ask questions about the times spent together.

Have I we ever reversed rules wherein I was your spirit guide while you lived on the Earth plane? Have you always been in my life - in this incarnation?


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Day 4 - The Universe
Prepare a set of 'yes - no' questions pertaining to the Universe. Do not ask personal questions at this time.

Sample questions:

Did Earth ever exist in another dimension?

Is there life on other planets?

Do entities watch us from UFO's?

Were you ever an alien?

Are there angels?

Do they have a heirachy?

Do they help souls move to the next realms?


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« Reply #332 on: January 20, 2008, 10:46:07 pm »

Sandra Taylor

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Day 6 - Reality and Other Dimensions
Ask only Yes or No questions

Are there many dimensions?

Are there entities in those dimensions?

Can a soul exist in more than one dimension?

Does the future co-exist with the past and present?

Is this reality a holographic projection?

Do we have free will?


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Day 6 - Getting Personal
By now you should feel comfortable with your guide.

Today we will begin some personal spiritual questions. Do not ask about your romantic life or job! We will basically ask 'yes - no' questions. Some easy questions may be asked that require explanation.

Are you my only spirit guide?

How many do I have?

I would like to meet another guide today. Please have another guide come to talk with me.

What is your name?

Do you work with - - - (name the first guide)?

What is your function in my life? This can be asked of both guides.

Am I on the right spiritual path?

Will you guide me to the next part of my spirit journey?

Should I be working as a healer?

Do I meditate enough?

Do I need to take classes to guide me?

Will you lead me to a book or home page to further learn what I have to?

Is my current teacher - if you have one - OK? - Or is it time to move on?

Do I need to move to a new location to find my destiny? If yes - name places - still ask only 'yes - no' answers.

Continue questions. Take notes. DO NOT ask for long detailed explanations.

It might be fun to ask a question of each guide to see if you can tell the difference in their frequency thus getting more familiar with them. Address your guides by name. For those who have been listen to their guides for years - without realizing that they were connecting to spirit - this will be easy. They will say, "Ah! that is the one who has been telling me all of those jokes in my mind - all of those years. You will remember back to spirit - guiding you through various decisions, boring situations, saving your life, other times. Take your time with this. There is no hurry! Spirit has no 'time' table.


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« Reply #333 on: January 20, 2008, 10:46:28 pm »

Sandra Taylor

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   posted 12-10-2005 08:51 PM                       
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Day 7 - Biological or Adopted Family Relationships
Your greates karma is with your family - or those close to you who are like family to you. Sometimes these people remain in our lives forever and other times they they stay for a while and move on for reasons we may or may not understand.

Today we will focus on the subject of your biological or adopted family relationships. This is NOT to reference your love life, marriage, family you have created as an adult.

We will ask only Yes and No questions.

"Tune in' to your guide mentally - adjust your frequency to theirs.

You may greet your guide in any way you wish.

Sample questions:

Are members of my biological family from my past lives? Give names? If you are adopted - use this for biolgical and adopted family members.

Ask various questions about the members of your family in relationship to you and to each other.

It is fine to discuss members of the family who have passed over.

Ex. - Is the soul of - - - (Person is deceased) - the same soul as - - - (person is living)?

Do I have my strongest karma in this lifetime with - - - - -names given.

Did - - - (name) - - and I have a bad relationship in another lifetime? Do I own him / her something karmically? Is that karmic debt over? If yes - Can I release that family member from my life now?

Is my main karma in this lifetime to be the Caretaker of - - -(name person - usually the parent).

Does my soul have other biological families other than the one I know in 3D?

Is this another aspect of my soul experiencing on 3D now?

Is this in another realm?

If you believe you are a walk- in, ask about all family members - theirs and yours.

I have dreamed of parents on another planet - is this a reality? Past life? Parallel life?

- - - - -(name) - abused me as a child. Can I forgive (name) and balance the energies now?

Adoption questions:

Is my biological mother alive? Ask further about her - your father - siblings. Do I need to find them for karmic reasons? Will I find them? Does my biological mother want to know me?

You can include questions about foster parents if you feel connected.

Don't forget grandparents - and other relatives you knew while growing up.

Ask your guide if a deceased member of the family is available to speak with you. Ex. Can you bring my mother to speak with me?

You may have to pause to wait for another spirit to arrive.

You may smell flowers, or have other sensory experiences.

If you need to ask forgiveness about something - this is the time to do so.


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« Reply #334 on: January 20, 2008, 10:46:49 pm »

Sandra Taylor

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Day 8 - Your Career / Job
Today we will be continuing with 'yes-no' questions. I know that many readers want to address their love life - but after we worked with family issues yesterday I would prefer to move to a subject that is not as emotionally based today. Though the work place can have many emotional issues attached to it.

Begin with a greeting to your guide and perhaps prepare a list of questions for today.

I am psyching that some of your answers are not a clear cut 'yes or no'. In that case - the information has yet to be determined based on other factors. We will move past 'yes or no' questions next week. We still want to keep things easy and direct.

Begin with a greeting to your guide. You may chose the same guide each day or ask for another guide. This does not mean that you can ask them each the same question. There is generally one main guide who is a partner to you and would be the one who you would address.

You can tell your guide that you are here today to discuss your job / career - but in all probability - he / she already knows that.

Sample questions:

Is the career I have chosen a lifetime career?

Will I have various changes in careers in this lifetime?

Will I have jobs or should I go to school and train for a career?

Women: Would I truly be happier at home raising a family and changing diapers? Would I be happier working part time?

To find my career - do I need formal education? training?

Am I best suited to be a - create a list of desired job choices.

(I know that most people would like to own their business - but you have to be realistic when asking that question.)

Businesses: Would I do better alone? With one partner? Two partners? Can I trust - - - ??

Will my business merge? Evolve into something else? Fail?

Is my job a 'dead-end' job?

Does my boss appreciate my work? Do I have personal conflict in the office?

Will my race / ethnic background, etc. impede my chances for finding my suited career? - to move upward in my career?

Am I settling for less than I could be because I am lazy?

Am I smarter than I realize?

Could I return to school after years of absence?

Can I find a career that I am 'passionate' with?

I want to work in Metaphysics. Can I earn a living working in that field? Can I work part time in metaphysics?

Will I get a promotion in 1999? 2000? other?

Will I stay at this job until I retire?

Will there be a 'buy-out'?

Can I work from home? With my computer?

You will think of dozens of questions.


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« Reply #335 on: January 20, 2008, 10:47:19 pm »

Sandra Taylor

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Day 9 - My Love Life
You are finally ready to ask 'yes - no' questions about your love life. Now this is where things get tricky as the ego always 'kicks in' here.

Remember first answers count!

You are ready to begin.

Sample questions if you have a partner now . . .

Is - - - (name partner) my soul mate?

Are we together because we have karma to work out?

Do I owe - - - a karmic debt? Does - - - - owe me a debt? Do we both owe each other?

Is - - - my lifetime partner or will I have another?

Is my partner growing spiritual as I am? Is this important to keeping us together?

Have we grown apart?

Am I holding on to a relationship that is over?

Does - - - - really love me?

Can - - - - love in a spiritual way?

Does my low self esteem enter the picture?

Why do I stay with - - - ? Name choices - money - children - scared to live alone - other.

If you are gay you can ask . . .

Is there a reason I came in gay? Genetic? karmic?

Was I prejudiced in a past life?

Are there learning lesson here?

Does my soul prefer a male - (or female) role?

Is this the first time I came in gay?

Am I a gay male to hold female frequency, which I would not be able to do if I was straight?

Am I afraid to admit that I am gay?

If you are single you could ask . . .

Will I find a soul mate?

Does my soul mate exist on the Earth plane now - in a physical body?

Is my soul mate my spirit guide?

Will I marry? - live with someone - ?

Do I need therapy to maintain a relationship?

Do I sabotage relationships?

Will I ever have a child (if childless).

Is the life time commitment partner what I really want - or would I prefer to change partners as my needs and theirs change?

Would my soul's needs best be met - by living alone? with a mate?

I have searched for a partner all of my life. I am now 40 and have never met the perfect partner. Is this because - I am too picky? I really don't have a partner here? I will not marry?

Is my destiny on Earth other than marriage and children?

Is my karma - parental caretaker?


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« Reply #336 on: January 20, 2008, 10:47:44 pm »

Sandra Taylor

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Day 10 - Your Love Life
Today we will talk to spirit but seek detailed answers. Only the first answer is the correct answer.

I am sure that many readers have already moved into conversations with their guides - but for those who have no - let us begin today.

Decide on the guide you wish to work with. Prepare a few questions or subjects to discuss. Greet your guide. Take notes.

Sample questions if single . . .

Do I have a soul mate out there? Describe him / her to me . . . physical description - age - career - astrological sign - where the person lives.

How will we meet? internet? introduction? social occasion? chance meeting? other?

Will that person be ready for a full time commitment? If not - why?

Tell me about past lives with that person?

I have just met - - - - - ? Is this my true soul mate? Ask detailed questions.

If married . . . ask why you and - - - - are together - karma? love? soul mates? money? afraid to be alone? discuss with your guide.


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« Reply #337 on: January 20, 2008, 10:48:49 pm »

Sandra Taylor

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Day 11 - My Goals in Life
Time for 'yes-no' questions about your goals in life. Next week we go for questions other than 'yes-no'. Had to fix up my Spirt Guide file yesterday. Fixed up automatic writing as well.

By now you should sense that your guide is near you and ready to answer your questions. Greet him / her in whatever way you chose.

Sample questions.

Are my goals in life realistic?

Should I see the 'sky the limit' when creating my goals?

Do I need to change my goals pertaining to - love life? marriage? work? other?

Will I ever realize my goals?

Think of other questions.


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Day 12 - Job Questions and detailed answers . . .

Today we are going to ask job questions with more detailed answers. Let's begin . . .

Am I working in the right career? If not, what would you suggest?

Am I emotionally capable of going back to school to further my career? Ask for suggestions for courses?

If someone is bothering you at work - ask what you can do to balance the situation - other than quitting.

Is a co-worker 'back stabbing' me? Find out why.

Continue a line of questions about career - job - relocation - your emotional aspects connected to your job.


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« Reply #338 on: January 20, 2008, 10:49:13 pm »

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  posted 03-04-2006 04:51 PM                 
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Lights, Camera... Action!
By Brian Leffler

What is the most important part of a paranormal investigation? Actually, there are two parts to it that are equally important. One is the equipment itself and the other is the integrity of the evidence collected. I am going to explain both points and the methods used by the Northern Minnesota Paranormal Investigators (N.M.P.I.) to collect evidence. After all, the reason we all do paranormal investigations in the first place is to collect evidence of what happens when we die…if anything, of course.

Ok, you have a few friends together and you want to go out and track down a few ghosts. What are you looking for? Most likely some still photographs? Perhaps some Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP), or maybe you are interested in recording some videotape? Perhaps you would like to do it all in a full-scale investigation. This is the way that N.M.P.I. does it. Full scale. All the time.

What type of equipment do you want to take along with you? Well, for an N.M.P.I. member, it is anything analog. We use 35mm cameras with 400-speed film. We do not allow any digital cameras to come anywhere near our investigation. Digital cameras are not trustworthy for evidence collection. They have problems with their chips inside, they compensate on every shot you take to give you the best shots possible. Basically, from the second that you push the button to take the picture, your evidence is tainted and not worth a hill of beans. They also are great at creating orbs in your picture even if a location is not haunted. During the Christmas of 2005, I used my digital camera (yes I do own one) at two separate Christmas programs at the high school. This school has never had any kind of haunting reports to anyone’s knowledge. The other place I used this camera was in my home on Christmas. I took a total of 33 pictures. Out of the 33 pictures I took, 26 of them had at least one orb in the shot. Granted film isn’t perfect either but I have never come close to anything like that before with a film camera. Another reason to stay away from digital is the fact that it leaves you with no “tangible” evidence. With film, you have a negative that can be scrutinized by any professional. You can determine if the anomaly in your photo is something that the camera actually saw or if it was an error in processing. If you photograph an object toward one edge of your picture, you can take in the negative and have them move over and capture the entire anomaly that the camera saw. With digital, you have no options. You get a picture that only exists in the camera and on your computer with nothing at all that can be scrutinized. The team from N.M.P.I. has the negative to every paranormal photograph we have ever collected.

View N.M.P.I.'s photo gallery here: www.nmpi-scary.com/Photo_Gallery.html

Now that we are ready to take still photographs, let’s get ready to record some EVP. I think that EVP is about the most interesting form of evidence that there is. Ok, I love videotape too but hey, it is in the top two. We use your standard everyday cassette tape recorder with a remote microphone. Nothing fancy, it doesn’t have to be. We use each tape only one time and it must be brand new and right out of the wrapper when we start recording. We never flip over a tape and use the second side as that can lead to bleed-through which is just as bad as the archival noise that occurs on digital recorders. Archival noise is something previously recorded that didn’t erase completely and is now coming through on your recording. You think that you have an EVP but it was just your conversation with your sister that you recorded. The only way that a digital recorder would be sufficient for paranormal investigations is if you were to replace the memory stick each time you record and use it only one time like we do with our cassette tapes.

Listen to some of N.M.P.I.'s EVP here: www.nmpi-scary.com/EVP.html

Now, we are shooting film and recording the voices of ghosts…well…hopefully anyway. It’s time to set up a camera and perhaps (as N.M.P.I. did in 2003), capture us an apparition on videotape. We at N.M.P.I. use two different methods of achieving this goal. One is through the use of a Sony Handycam that is set on the "nightshots" setting. The other method is a security camera that shoots in infrared and is recorded directly to a standard VCR. This works very well and has captured some really great shots!

That is the basics. How about a few extras that are not absolutely necessary but everyone loves getting a new toy to play with? My first extra was an infrared thermometer. N.M.P.I. never leaves home without it. This thing is very accurate and can tell you just how much a temperature rises or lowers. We don’t consider anything out of the ordinary unless it is a 10 degree difference in either direction. Ok, you might ask “What about EMF meters? I see them on every television show.” Yes, you do see ghost hunters running around following this little box and yelling out the readings as they track something around. N.M.P.I. has one but seldom uses it. They are great if they are used in an area that is dead (no pun intended) -- meaning that there is not any electrical feed into the building, etc. Then when you get your base line reading, it is pretty much nothing on the meter. When you have live electricity in a house or building, it is too easy to be picking up that electrical source and doesn’t give you readings that are for sure accurate. That being said, you can use them as a guide. If you believe that you have a good reading on the meter, take a photograph, or point a video camera in that direction, but as a general rule I do not assume that the results are necessarily paranormal. A regular compass can give you the same results at a much cheaper price.

We are now armed to the teeth for capturing that elusive ghost. What do we do with the evidence that we have collected? We take our photos in to be developed and usually get started right away on the video and audio. For the audio, we go through it about two minutes at a time running it through Cool Edit Pro -- a software program that allows us to study each segment. We are able to listen carefully to it, filter out any static that needs filtering, and save the audio to the computer to share with the world. Keep in mind that we always have the original tape and can play that at any time or have it scrutinized. Videotape is watched by at least two N.M.P.I. investigators at the same time. This helps us to not miss anything at all since paranormal anomalies can happen very quickly. Once we have discovered anything that looks “out of the ordinary,” we download it into a video program (we use Windows Movie Maker) and then examine the footage frame-by-frame. We will always have the videotape. Once the pictures come back, look at them very closely for any anomaly. Scan them into the computer where you can lighten and zoom to see if you have something explainable or not. Always keep every negative! I cannot stress that enough. It is very important.

That is how the investigators at N.M.P.I. go about routine business and the equipment we use. I certainly hope that all of you get out there and collect some great evidence to advance the field of paranormal study but don’t forget to be safe and have some fun while you are at it.


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Brian Leffler is the founder of the Northern Minnesota Paranormal Investigators (N.M.P.I.), is a regular contributor to Ghostvillage.com, and a Town Council Moderator in our site's message board community. Visit the N.M.P.I. Web site at: www.nmpi-scary.com.

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« Reply #339 on: January 20, 2008, 10:50:05 pm »

Byron
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  posted 03-04-2006 05:02 PM                 
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My First Ghost Hunt
By Jeff Belanger

Still on my quest to come face-to-face with a spirit, I recently went on my first ghost hunt. I have been to my share of haunted places, but I have never gone on an actual investigation where the owners of a place were seeking help with their ghostly tenants. I contacted Andrew Laird, a ghost hunter for the past 28 years and the founder of The Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group (TRIPRG), and I went along with members of his organization to investigate the Captain Peter Greene house (circa 1720) in Warwick, Rhode Island.

I certainly had my reservations about going on a "ghost hunt," because the very idea can conjure up images of thrill-seeking teenagers running through graveyards with Ouija boards and trying to scare each other. My fears began to subside when Laird emailed me his group's "code of conduct" and handed me a confidentiality agreement upon arriving at the investigation site.

I arrived at the house just prior to 9:00 P.M. on a Saturday night. Inside, I met the owners, whom I will refer to only as Christine and Dennis (to protect their privacy). The house is incredibly charming -- the couple are currently restoring the house to look as close as possible to what it must have looked like in the mid-1700s. There are wooden plank floors, low doorways, steep staircases, and the individual rooms are bathed in low candlelight. The outside of the property features two unknown graves marked only by blank fieldstones in the backyard near a wooden fence.

To prepare for the ghost investigation, I spoke to Richard Southall, author of How to Be a Ghost Hunter (2003, Llewellyn). I asked Southall why one would want to be a ghost hunter and he said, "Sometimes people want to do scientific investigations of it -- they want to actually be able to capture the apparition on film and on audio. Then there is the psychic aspect of it -- trying to communicate with the spirit. Others may want to do it for the historical research -- they may want to try and identify the ghost."

Southall's advice for getting into this field was, "A membership to an organization is very important. To be affiliated with an organization adds to the professionalism and the credentials of the people doing the investigations."

The reasons for being a ghost hunter vary among each individual doing the research, but a common thread I have found is that most seem to have had a personal experience somewhere in their lives that got them interested in learning more. But what about the people who are suffering through a haunting and are seeking a ghost hunter? What should they be looking for? Southall said, "Level-headedness. I've seen a lot of ghost hunters in the past jump to conclusions and automatically make a worst-case scenario out of something. A haunting victim should get respect and be able to express their concerns, their fears, and their story."

Certainly some people want independent verification that they're not crazy. Christine told me about some of the experiences she has had since she and her husband bought the Captain Peter Greene house two years ago: "A lot of activity focuses around my baby daughter. Music will play in her bedroom, her mobile will spin -- and the batteries are completely dead. The house is uneven, so a lot of the doors automatically close [on a spring], but there's been times when the doors will open -- and you have to push it against the spring for it to open. You can hear voices and footsteps walking around the front hallway and the stairs."

Watching doors open, hearing voices, and seeing things out of the corner of your eye are things you can second-guess, but seeing an apparition in your home when you expect it to be empty can be alarming. Christine and Dennis have experienced such an apparition in their home in the past. She said, "We pulled in the driveway and happened to look upstairs toward the window, and I saw a man. I got scared because I thought someone broke into the house, so I sent my husband in to check it out."

When members of Laird's group had assembled at the house, he distributed several hand-held radios for individuals and teams who would be exploring different parts of the house. "Our signal for trouble is to hit the 'call' button on the radio three times and announce 'code red' -- that's everyone's cue to get out because something has gone wrong," Laird said. The "call" button makes the radio ring like a telephone for a brief period.

Laird went over some of the equipment he and his team would be using with me. The group had with them: tape recorders -- for recording electronic voice phenomenon (EVP); cameras -- for capturing ghosts and spirit energy on film (or digitally); and a laser-guided thermometer that can record temperatures at a specific point in the room from several feet away -- to look for cold spots and temperature spikes that may be influenced by ghosts or spirits. Laird also carried an ELF (Extra Low Frequency) meter and others had EMF (Electromagnetic Field) meters -- to detect a ghost's energy field. Laird did not bring his closed-circuit video and some other filming equipment on this particular investigation. All told, he believes he has spent around $5,000 on equipment.

Among the TRIPRG members present were two sensitives who were using ghost hunting equipment as well as their psychic abilities. On this particular night, we found ourselves moving quickly around different areas of the property as the members radioed in readings they were getting. Laird's ELF detector periodically rang its warning beep throughout our three hours at the Captain Greene house. Later in the evening, the radios began sounding the three-alarm warning, but no "code red" was announced. Repeatedly, Laird asked the group over the radio if they were hitting the call button, but each time, the group individually answered that they had not. "That's the emergency code. That bothers me. They're messing with our emergency code," Laird said. A moment later, he announced to the group that the new emergency code would be four rings. A few seconds later, the radios rang out four times.

"Frustrating -- they're playing chase," Laird said. "We know they're there, they know we're here. We're catching hits, but what we're looking for is something stationary -- where it stays long enough for us to say what's going on, what kind of emotion is behind the energy -- where we can get a fix."

On this particular ghost hunt, I noticed there wasn't a lot of fear in the owners of the house. They didn't mind if the ghost stayed, they just wanted a better understanding of the entities present. If ghost hunters can provide that understanding and ease some stress on a family, then they are truly providing a valuable service. Given that TRIPRG, and many other groups like them, don't even charge for their services, it's not a bad deal at all.


Richard Southall's How to Be a Ghost Hunter is on sale now. You can email him at Richard@majda.net or visit his ghost tours Web site at: www.hauntedparkersburg.com.

Andrew Laird and The Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group (TRIPRG) can be reached at their Web site: www.geocities.com/triprg/triprg.html.



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« Reply #340 on: January 20, 2008, 10:50:54 pm »

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   posted 04-21-2006 06:57 PM                       
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Death, Life and the Question of Identity

By: Dr. Sam Vaknin

http://samvak.tripod.com/death.html

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What exactly is death?

A classical point of departure in defining death, seems to be life itself. Death is perceived either as a cessation of life - or as a "transit area", on the way to a continuation of life by other means. While the former approach presents a disjunction, the latter is a continuum, death being nothing but a corridor into another plane of existence (the hereafter).

But who does the dying when death occurs?

In other words, capturing the identity of the dying entity (that which "commits" death) is essential in defining death. But how can we establish the dying entity's unambiguous and unequivocal identity? Can this identity be determined by using quantitative parameters? Is it dependent, for instance, upon the number of discrete units which comprise the functioning whole? If so, at which level are useful distinctions and observations replaced by useless scholastic mind-warps?

Example: can human identity be defined by the number and organization of one's limbs, cells, or atoms? Cells in the human body are replaced (with the exception of the nervous system) every 5 years. Would this phenomenon imply that we gain a new identity each time this cycle is completed and most our cells are replaced?

Adopting this course of thinking leads to absurd results:

When humans die, the replacement rate of their cells is null. Does this zero replacement rate mean that their identity is better and longer preserved once dead? No one would say this. Death is tantamount to a loss of identity - not to its preservation. So, it would seem that, to ascertain one's identity, we should prefer a qualitative yardstick to a quantitative one.

The brain is a natural point of departure.

We can start by asking if one's identity will change if we were to substitute one's brain with another person's brain? "He is not the same" - we say of someone with a brain injury. If partial damage to the brain causes such a sea change in the determinants of individuality - it seems safe to assume that replacing one's entire brain will result in a total change of one's identity, akin to the emergence of another, distinct, self.

If the brain is the locus of identity, we should be able to assert that when (the cells of) all the other organs of the body are replaced (with the exception of the brain) - one's identity is still preserved.

The human hardware (body) and software (the wiring of the brain) have often been compared to a computer (see: "Metaphors of Mind"). But this analogy is misleading.

If we were to change all the software running on a computer - it would still remain the same (though more or less capable) computer. This is the equivalent of growing up in humans. However, if we were to change the computer's processor - it would no longer be the same computer.

This, partly, is the result of the separation of hardware (the microprocessor) from software (the programmes that it processes). There is no such separation in the human brain. The 1300 grams of grey matter in our heads are both hardware and software.

Still, the computer analogy seems to indicate that our identity resides not in our learning, knowledge, or memories. It is an epiphenomenon. It emerges when a certain level of hardware complexity is attained.

Even so, things are not that simple. If we were to eliminate someone's entire store of learning and memories (without affecting his physical brain) - would he still be the same person, would he still retain the same identity? Probably not.

In reality, erasing one's learning and memories without affecting his brain - is impossible. In humans, learning and memories are the brain. They affect the hardware that processes them in an irreversible manner. Still, in certain abnormal conditions, such radical erasure does occur (see "Shattered Identity").

This, naturally, cannot be said of a computer. There, the distinction between hardware and software is clear. Change a computer's hardware and you change its identity. Computers are software - invariant.

We are, therefore, able to confidently conclude that the brain is the sole determinant of identity, its seat and signifier. This is because our brain is both our processing hardware and our processed software. It is also a repository of processed data. A human brain detached from a body is still assumed to possess identity. And a monkey implanted with a human brain will host the identity of the former owner of the brain.

Many of the debates in the first decade of the new discipline of Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolved around these thought experiments. The Turing Test pits invisible intelligences against one another. The answers which they provide (by teleprinter, hidden behind partitions) determine their presumed identity (human or not). Identity is determined merely on the basis of the outputs (the responses). No direct observation of the hardware is deemed necessary by the test.

The brain's status as the privileged identity system is such that even when it remain incommunicado, we assume that it harbors a person. If for some medical, logistical, or technological problem, one's brain is unable to provide output, answers, and interactions - we are still likely to assume that it has the potential to do so. Thus, in the case of an inactive brain, the presumed identity is a derivative of its potential to interact, rather than of any actual interaction.

Paleo-anthropologists attempt to determine the identity of our forefathers by studying their skulls and, by inference, their brains and their mental potentials. True, they investigate other types of bones. Ultimately, they hope to be able to draw an accurate visual description of our ancestors. But perusing other bones leads merely to an image of their former owners - while the scrutiny of skulls presumably reveals our ancestors' very identities.

When we die, what dies, therefore, is the brain and only the brain.

Death is discernible as the cessation of the exercise of force over physical systems. It is the sudden absence of physical effects previously associated with the dead object, a singularity, a discontinuity. But it should not be confused with inertia.

Inertia is a balance of forces - while death is the absence of forces. Death is, therefore, also not an entropic climax. Entropy is an isotropic, homogeneous distribution of energy. Death is the absence of any and all energies. While, outwardly, the two might appear to be identical - they are actually the two poles of a dichotomy.

So, death, as opposed to inertia or entropy, is not something that modern physics is fully equipped to deal with. Physics, by definition, deals with forces and measurable effects. It has nothing to say about force-less, energy-devoid physical states (oxymora).

Still, if death is merely the terminal cessation of all impact on all physical systems (the absence of physical effects), how can we account for memories of the deceased?

Memory is a physical effect (electrochemical activity of the brain) upon a physical system (the Brain). It can be preserved and shipped across time and space in capsules called books or or artwork. These are containers of triggers of physical effects (in recipient brains). They seem to defy death. Though the physical system which produced the memory capsule surely ceases to exist - it continues to physically impact other physical systems long after its demise, long after it was supposed to stop doing so.

Memory makes death a transcendental affair. As long as we (or what we create) are remembered - we continue to have a physical effect on physical systems (i.e., on other people's brains). And as long as this is happening - we are not technically (or, at least, fully) dead. Our death, our destruction are fully accomplished only after our memory is wiped out completely, not even having the potential of being resurrected in future. Only then do we cease to exist (i.e., to have an effect on other physical systems).

Philosophically, there is no difference between being influenced by a real-life conversation with Kant - and being effected by his words preserved in a time-space capsule, such as a book. As far as the reader is concerned, Kant is very much alive, more so than contemporaneous people whom the reader never met.

It is conceivable that, in the future, we will be able to preserve a three-dimensional facsimile (a hologram) of a person, replete with his smells, temperature, and tactile effects. Why would the flesh and blood version be judged superior to such a likeness?

There is no self-evident hierarchy of representations based on their media. Organic 3-d representations ("bodies") are not inherently superior to inorganic 3-d representations. In other words, our futuristic hologram should not be deemed inferior to the classic, organic version as long as they both possess the same information content and are able to assimilate information, regenerate and create.

The only defensible hierarchy is of potentials and, thus, pertains to the future. Non-organic representations ("representations") of intelligent and conscious entities - of "organic originals" - are finite. The organic originals are infinite in their potential to create and to procreate, to change themselves and their environment, to act and be acted upon within ever more complex feedback loops.

The non-organic versions, the representations, are self contained and final. The organic originals and their representations may contain identical information. But the amount of information will increase in the organic version and decrease in the non-organic one (due to the second Law of Thermodynamics). This inevitable divergence is what renders the organic original privileged.

This property - of an increasing amount of information (=order) - characterizes not only organic originals but also anything that emanates from them. It characterizes works of art and science, or human off-spring, for instance. All these tend to increase information (indeed, they are, in themselves, information packets).

So, could we say that the propagation and the continuation of physical effects (through memory) is life after death? Life and memory share an important trait. They both have a negentropic (=order and information increasing) impact on their surroundings. Does that make them synonymous? Is death only a transitory phase from one form of Life (organic) to another (informational, spiritual)?

However tempting this equation is - in most likelihood, it is false.

The reason is that there are two sources of increase in information and what sets them apart is not trivial. As long as the organic original lives, all creation depends upon it. After it dies, the works that it has created and the memories that are associated with it, continue to affect physical systems.

However, their ability to foster new creative work, to generate new memories, in short: their capacity to increase order by spawning information is totally dependent upon other, living, organic originals. In the absence of other organic originals, they stagnate and go through an entropic decrease of information (i.e., increase of disorder).

This is the crux of the distinction between Life and Death:

LIFE is the potential, possessed by organic originals, to create (=to fight entropy by increasing information and order), using their own software. Such software can be coded in hardware - e.g., one's DNA - but then the creative act is limited to the replication of the organic original or parts thereof.

Upon the original's DEATH, the potential to create is passed through one's memory. Creative acts, works of art and science, or other forms of creativity are propagated only within the software (=the brains) of other, living, organic originals.

Both forms of creation (i.e., using one's software and using others' software) can co-exist during the original's life. Death, however, incapacitates the first type of creation (i.e., creation by an organic original, independent of others, and using its software). Upon death, the surrogate form of creation (i.e., creation, by other organic originals who use their software to process the works and memories of the dead) becomes the only one.

Memories created by one organic original resonate through the brains of others. This generates information and provokes the creative potential in recipient brains. Some of them do react by creating and, thus, play host to the parasitic, invading memory, infecting other members of the memory-space (=the meme space).

Death is, therefore, the assimilation of the products of an organic original in a Collective. It is, indeed, the continuation of Life but in a collective, rather than individually.

Alternatively, Death could be defined as a terminal change in the state of the hardware. Segments of the software colonize brains in the Collective. The software now acquires a different hardware - others' brains. This, of course, is reminiscent of certain viral mechanisms. The comparison may be superficial and misleading - or may lead to the imagery of the individual as a cell in the large organism of humanity. Memory has a role in this new form of social-political evolution which superseded Biological Evolution, as an instrument of adaptation.

Should we adopt this view, certain human reactions - e.g., opposition to change and religious and ideological wars - can perhaps be regarded as immunological reactions of the Collective to viral infection by the software (memories, works of art or science, ideas, in short: memes) of an individual.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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The author's name and a link to this Website must be incorporated in any reproduction of the material for any use and by any means.


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« Reply #341 on: January 20, 2008, 10:51:37 pm »

 
Raven:

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   posted 04-21-2006 06:57 PM                       
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Death, Life and the Question of Identity

By: Dr. Sam Vaknin

http://samvak.tripod.com/death.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What exactly is death?

A classical point of departure in defining death, seems to be life itself. Death is perceived either as a cessation of life - or as a "transit area", on the way to a continuation of life by other means. While the former approach presents a disjunction, the latter is a continuum, death being nothing but a corridor into another plane of existence (the hereafter).

But who does the dying when death occurs?

In other words, capturing the identity of the dying entity (that which "commits" death) is essential in defining death. But how can we establish the dying entity's unambiguous and unequivocal identity? Can this identity be determined by using quantitative parameters? Is it dependent, for instance, upon the number of discrete units which comprise the functioning whole? If so, at which level are useful distinctions and observations replaced by useless scholastic mind-warps?

Example: can human identity be defined by the number and organization of one's limbs, cells, or atoms? Cells in the human body are replaced (with the exception of the nervous system) every 5 years. Would this phenomenon imply that we gain a new identity each time this cycle is completed and most our cells are replaced?

Adopting this course of thinking leads to absurd results:

When humans die, the replacement rate of their cells is null. Does this zero replacement rate mean that their identity is better and longer preserved once dead? No one would say this. Death is tantamount to a loss of identity - not to its preservation. So, it would seem that, to ascertain one's identity, we should prefer a qualitative yardstick to a quantitative one.

The brain is a natural point of departure.

We can start by asking if one's identity will change if we were to substitute one's brain with another person's brain? "He is not the same" - we say of someone with a brain injury. If partial damage to the brain causes such a sea change in the determinants of individuality - it seems safe to assume that replacing one's entire brain will result in a total change of one's identity, akin to the emergence of another, distinct, self.

If the brain is the locus of identity, we should be able to assert that when (the cells of) all the other organs of the body are replaced (with the exception of the brain) - one's identity is still preserved.

The human hardware (body) and software (the wiring of the brain) have often been compared to a computer (see: "Metaphors of Mind"). But this analogy is misleading.

If we were to change all the software running on a computer - it would still remain the same (though more or less capable) computer. This is the equivalent of growing up in humans. However, if we were to change the computer's processor - it would no longer be the same computer.

This, partly, is the result of the separation of hardware (the microprocessor) from software (the programmes that it processes). There is no such separation in the human brain. The 1300 grams of grey matter in our heads are both hardware and software.

Still, the computer analogy seems to indicate that our identity resides not in our learning, knowledge, or memories. It is an epiphenomenon. It emerges when a certain level of hardware complexity is attained.

Even so, things are not that simple. If we were to eliminate someone's entire store of learning and memories (without affecting his physical brain) - would he still be the same person, would he still retain the same identity? Probably not.

In reality, erasing one's learning and memories without affecting his brain - is impossible. In humans, learning and memories are the brain. They affect the hardware that processes them in an irreversible manner. Still, in certain abnormal conditions, such radical erasure does occur (see "Shattered Identity").

This, naturally, cannot be said of a computer. There, the distinction between hardware and software is clear. Change a computer's hardware and you change its identity. Computers are software - invariant.

We are, therefore, able to confidently conclude that the brain is the sole determinant of identity, its seat and signifier. This is because our brain is both our processing hardware and our processed software. It is also a repository of processed data. A human brain detached from a body is still assumed to possess identity. And a monkey implanted with a human brain will host the identity of the former owner of the brain.

Many of the debates in the first decade of the new discipline of Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolved around these thought experiments. The Turing Test pits invisible intelligences against one another. The answers which they provide (by teleprinter, hidden behind partitions) determine their presumed identity (human or not). Identity is determined merely on the basis of the outputs (the responses). No direct observation of the hardware is deemed necessary by the test.

The brain's status as the privileged identity system is such that even when it remain incommunicado, we assume that it harbors a person. If for some medical, logistical, or technological problem, one's brain is unable to provide output, answers, and interactions - we are still likely to assume that it has the potential to do so. Thus, in the case of an inactive brain, the presumed identity is a derivative of its potential to interact, rather than of any actual interaction.

Paleo-anthropologists attempt to determine the identity of our forefathers by studying their skulls and, by inference, their brains and their mental potentials. True, they investigate other types of bones. Ultimately, they hope to be able to draw an accurate visual description of our ancestors. But perusing other bones leads merely to an image of their former owners - while the scrutiny of skulls presumably reveals our ancestors' very identities.

When we die, what dies, therefore, is the brain and only the brain.

Death is discernible as the cessation of the exercise of force over physical systems. It is the sudden absence of physical effects previously associated with the dead object, a singularity, a discontinuity. But it should not be confused with inertia.

Inertia is a balance of forces - while death is the absence of forces. Death is, therefore, also not an entropic climax. Entropy is an isotropic, homogeneous distribution of energy. Death is the absence of any and all energies. While, outwardly, the two might appear to be identical - they are actually the two poles of a dichotomy.

So, death, as opposed to inertia or entropy, is not something that modern physics is fully equipped to deal with. Physics, by definition, deals with forces and measurable effects. It has nothing to say about force-less, energy-devoid physical states (oxymora).

Still, if death is merely the terminal cessation of all impact on all physical systems (the absence of physical effects), how can we account for memories of the deceased?

Memory is a physical effect (electrochemical activity of the brain) upon a physical system (the Brain). It can be preserved and shipped across time and space in capsules called books or or artwork. These are containers of triggers of physical effects (in recipient brains). They seem to defy death. Though the physical system which produced the memory capsule surely ceases to exist - it continues to physically impact other physical systems long after its demise, long after it was supposed to stop doing so.

Memory makes death a transcendental affair. As long as we (or what we create) are remembered - we continue to have a physical effect on physical systems (i.e., on other people's brains). And as long as this is happening - we are not technically (or, at least, fully) dead. Our death, our destruction are fully accomplished only after our memory is wiped out completely, not even having the potential of being resurrected in future. Only then do we cease to exist (i.e., to have an effect on other physical systems).

Philosophically, there is no difference between being influenced by a real-life conversation with Kant - and being effected by his words preserved in a time-space capsule, such as a book. As far as the reader is concerned, Kant is very much alive, more so than contemporaneous people whom the reader never met.

It is conceivable that, in the future, we will be able to preserve a three-dimensional facsimile (a hologram) of a person, replete with his smells, temperature, and tactile effects. Why would the flesh and blood version be judged superior to such a likeness?

There is no self-evident hierarchy of representations based on their media. Organic 3-d representations ("bodies") are not inherently superior to inorganic 3-d representations. In other words, our futuristic hologram should not be deemed inferior to the classic, organic version as long as they both possess the same information content and are able to assimilate information, regenerate and create.

The only defensible hierarchy is of potentials and, thus, pertains to the future. Non-organic representations ("representations") of intelligent and conscious entities - of "organic originals" - are finite. The organic originals are infinite in their potential to create and to procreate, to change themselves and their environment, to act and be acted upon within ever more complex feedback loops.

The non-organic versions, the representations, are self contained and final. The organic originals and their representations may contain identical information. But the amount of information will increase in the organic version and decrease in the non-organic one (due to the second Law of Thermodynamics). This inevitable divergence is what renders the organic original privileged.

This property - of an increasing amount of information (=order) - characterizes not only organic originals but also anything that emanates from them. It characterizes works of art and science, or human off-spring, for instance. All these tend to increase information (indeed, they are, in themselves, information packets).

So, could we say that the propagation and the continuation of physical effects (through memory) is life after death? Life and memory share an important trait. They both have a negentropic (=order and information increasing) impact on their surroundings. Does that make them synonymous? Is death only a transitory phase from one form of Life (organic) to another (informational, spiritual)?

However tempting this equation is - in most likelihood, it is false.

The reason is that there are two sources of increase in information and what sets them apart is not trivial. As long as the organic original lives, all creation depends upon it. After it dies, the works that it has created and the memories that are associated with it, continue to affect physical systems.

However, their ability to foster new creative work, to generate new memories, in short: their capacity to increase order by spawning information is totally dependent upon other, living, organic originals. In the absence of other organic originals, they stagnate and go through an entropic decrease of information (i.e., increase of disorder).

This is the crux of the distinction between Life and Death:

LIFE is the potential, possessed by organic originals, to create (=to fight entropy by increasing information and order), using their own software. Such software can be coded in hardware - e.g., one's DNA - but then the creative act is limited to the replication of the organic original or parts thereof.

Upon the original's DEATH, the potential to create is passed through one's memory. Creative acts, works of art and science, or other forms of creativity are propagated only within the software (=the brains) of other, living, organic originals.

Both forms of creation (i.e., using one's software and using others' software) can co-exist during the original's life. Death, however, incapacitates the first type of creation (i.e., creation by an organic original, independent of others, and using its software). Upon death, the surrogate form of creation (i.e., creation, by other organic originals who use their software to process the works and memories of the dead) becomes the only one.

Memories created by one organic original resonate through the brains of others. This generates information and provokes the creative potential in recipient brains. Some of them do react by creating and, thus, play host to the parasitic, invading memory, infecting other members of the memory-space (=the meme space).

Death is, therefore, the assimilation of the products of an organic original in a Collective. It is, indeed, the continuation of Life but in a collective, rather than individually.

Alternatively, Death could be defined as a terminal change in the state of the hardware. Segments of the software colonize brains in the Collective. The software now acquires a different hardware - others' brains. This, of course, is reminiscent of certain viral mechanisms. The comparison may be superficial and misleading - or may lead to the imagery of the individual as a cell in the large organism of humanity. Memory has a role in this new form of social-political evolution which superseded Biological Evolution, as an instrument of adaptation.

Should we adopt this view, certain human reactions - e.g., opposition to change and religious and ideological wars - can perhaps be regarded as immunological reactions of the Collective to viral infection by the software (memories, works of art or science, ideas, in short: memes) of an individual.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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This material is copyrighted. Free, unrestricted use is allowed on a non commercial basis.
The author's name and a link to this Website must be incorporated in any reproduction of the material for any use and by any means.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Go to Home Page!

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A Macedonian Encounter

Internet: A Medium or a Message?

Write to me: palma@unet.com.mk or narcissisticabuse-owner@yahoogroups.com
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« Reply #342 on: January 20, 2008, 10:52:14 pm »

Jennifer O'Dell

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   posted 04-22-2006 03:08 PM                       
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Science tackles the afterlife

by Henry Kisor

There are three kinds of people in the world: Those who believe in an afterlife, those who don't, and those who whistle past the graveyard.

Mary Roach sides with the nervous undecideds. She is the author of Stiff, a 2003 best seller that explored in exquisitely grisly (and hilarious) detail what happens to our bodies when we die. Her new book, Spook, chronicles her equally rollicking attempt to find out what transpires when we shuffle off our mortal coil -- what happens to our spirits when they leave their temporal homes. Or, rather, if we really have spirits, or souls, or ghosts, or whatever you want to call them.

Never mind Heaven, Paradise, or the nonsectarian Great Beyond. Roach is not out to debunk religion, for she has the good sense to separate faith from science. Those are two distinct and parallel realities that don't mix well (a fact that seems to escape rural school boards with unintelligent designs for their science curricula). What she wants to know is if there's actually something quantifiable within us -- call it a floating consciousness -- that leaves our bodies when we die and goes somewhere to say hello to all those consciousnesses that have gone before.

What is this consciousness? What is its shape? What color is it? How much does it weigh? How does it get in there? And afterwards, where does it go?


Or are these silly questions? Maybe the late Francis Crick, the discoverer of DNA, had the right idea: "You, your joys, your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."

"But can you prove that, Dr. Crick?" Roach asks. It is apparent from the beginning that she wants to believe that humans have a soul, but she is also a skeptic. She wants proof, one way or the other.

First she travels to India to find out if the disembodied human spirit can set up housekeeping in someone else down the pike -- in other words, if it can be reincarnated. The reincarnation researchers she observes may be serious scientists, but their eagerness to believe seriously affects their techniques. There's lots to debunk, and debunk she does.

She enrolls in a school for mediums and learns their parlor tricks as well as weird practices (you'll never be able to watch James Van Praagh again without bursting into laughter). But she is willing to give some of them the benefit of the doubt: "I believe that they believe, honestly and with conviction, that they are getting information from paranormal sources. It's just a different interpretation of a set of facts." Most mediums prosper, she argues, because their clients are so uncritical, so credulous, so eager to believe that they will grasp at any straw of possibility and ignore a mountain of contrary evidence. Who cares if Uncle Joe never owned the Mercedes the medium said he drove if he actually wore the blue tie she says he mentioned? (Bet you've got one in your closet, too. Who doesn't?)

Roach visits weird historical researchers, such as the doughty Duncan Macdougall, a Victorian doctor who put moribund TB patients on a scale at the moment of their deaths to see if he could weigh their escaping souls.

Most fascinating of all was Harry Price, a famous magician and spirit researcher in the 1920s, who proved that the filmy "ectoplasm" a celebrated medium regurgitated was actually cheesecloth smuggled into the room in her ****.

She takes us to a University of Virginia operating room where doctors have installed a laptop near the ceiling, out of reach, to study out-of-body experiences during surgery. If someone's spirit takes a brief stroll, perhaps it will report what it saw on the laptop screen. So far, no dice.

In the end Roach answers her questions with a resounding "Who knows?" The existence of the human soul is not proven, she avers -- nor is it disproven.

That would have been a disappointing anticlimax if this book had been written by a sober and single-minded debunker of the paranormal, one whose mission is to annihilate hokum wherever it might be. But Mary Roach is warm, deliciously witty and has the happy knack of unearthing humor under the oddest tombstones. This makes her the ideal guide for a field trip into the otherworld.

When she joined spirit researchers in the high Sierras where members of the snowbound Donner Party turned to cannibalism to survive the awful winter of 1847-48, she took great delight that the International Ghost Hunters Society set up shop at the Donner Camp Picnic Ground.

All sorts of weird facts cause Roach to bubble over in glee. Many of those alleged voices from the beyond claim that in the afterlife, fat people are thin. One dear departed is even supposed to have confided to a medium that "I can wear pleated pants now."

But discarnate beings never seem to say anything truly interesting. They never discuss what we're curious about, Roach complains, such as "Hey, where are you now? What do you do all day? What's it feel like being dead? Can you see me? Even when I'm on the toilet? Would you cut that out?"

In the afterlife there seems to be no sex, if we are to believe those dispatches. If that's so, what's the purpose of all those voluptuous houris in the radical Muslim Paradise? Window dressing? All those suicide bombers who were promised an eternity of whoopee for their martyrdom must have been sold a bill of goods.

If you read this book, you'll laugh past the cemetery every Halloween for the rest of your life.


Henry Kisor is the Chicago Sun-Times' book editor.

http://www.ufodigest.com/spook.html
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« Reply #343 on: January 20, 2008, 10:52:51 pm »

Jennifer O'Dell

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   posted 04-22-2006 03:10 PM                       
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Allison Dubois: I can see dead people

The notion of people with psychic powers has always been of interest to many of us, so when we learned that an author, a woman who has had a US television series based on her life, was visiting Australia, the ABC jumped at the opportunity to speak with her.

Allison Dubois is a native of Phoenix, Arizona, where she was born in 1972.

Her early life was in many respects unspectacular. Her parents divorced when she was a baby, but Allison grew up ‘knowing both of them loved her’.

After what she describes as a pretty difficult and lonely adolescence, her mother divorced her stepfather when she was twelve, Allison was living out of the family home before she was sixteen.

Despite some early setbacks, Allison’s determination to succeed saw her graduate from Arizona State University with BA in Political Science and Minors in History.

What sets Allison Dubois apart from countless other individuals is that she discovered when she was very young that she had psychic abilities, which eventually led her to become a professional medium, and a ‘profiler’, helping police and law authorities solve baffling cases.

Her ‘gift’ includes the ability to predict future events, to see into people’s minds, to detect health problems in the living and to communicate with the dead.

In her own words “Yes, I do see dead people everywhere...”

Allison was asked about making those distinctions in people with psychic ability – clairvoyance and clairaudience, or psychokinesis, asking what the sensations she received were like, and how her abilities manifested themselves.

She replied saying that sometimes she sees people ‘as if they were right there beside her’, while at other times she heard voices, and on occasions smelt a perfume, or recognized a characteristic scent that came from ‘the other side’.

Order 'Don't Kiss Them Good-bye' through Amazon.com

Allison was asked how she knew there was life after death and how she could be so positive about ‘the other side’, and her frank reply was clear and to the point.

She has been ‘dealing with disembodied souls and human energies’ from beyond the grave since she could remember, and simply knows her experiences to be true.

Allison has also been extensively tested by a number of different investigation teams in scientific conditions and in controlled laboratory examinations, all of which proved her psychic abilities with standout results.

She claims to have had her first strange experience, which was meeting her grandfather after he had died, at only six years of age.

An event when she was eleven would shape her future path and the work that she did.

One day when she was out riding her bike in her home neighbourhood in Pheonix, two young men attempted to entice her into the car they were driving.

Allison was alone on the street, realised she didn’t know the men, and was terrified and frozen with shock.

She says a voice suddenly startled her out of her immobile state by ordering her to get away as fast as possible, telling her to ride her bike home as quickly as she could.

Soon after, a number of attacks against children and unsolved child abductions in her home state made her realize that she had been saved by one of her ‘guardians’ or ‘guides’, and that she had had a lucky escape from a situation that could have seen her hurt, molested, or perhaps ever murdered.

Allison says this realization changed the course of her life, although she didn’t fully understand it at the time, but the seed had been sown to allow her to channel her abilities to help prevent crime, or to solve crimes ‘in which children had been made targets by depraved and evil people’.

In her book, which is a personal perspective of many aspects of her life, Allison reveals her views on specific cases that brought her a level of credibility within policing and crime detection agencies, when she was invited to work with Texas Rangers in solving disappearances and cases of abductions.

She found, when looking at photographic evidence, that she could glean information from the perpetrator’s viewpoint, picturing places they had been and locating specific sites where crimes had been committed.

Allison points out in her book that she has never accepted any payment for her services in any of the cases she has helped solve, and always works with the prosecution to ensure that violent and sociopathic individuals are put away.

While most police departments will not engage with a psychic for assistance, Allison says many agencies do use people like her with similar gifts, but are careful not to reveal this, as the defence attorneys would willingly exploit public skepticism to discredit ‘witnesses’ like her who ‘see things’ but cannot substantiate their visions with hard evidence that holds up in court.

She merely attempts to reveal things unknown to police, in the form of names, locations, licence plate numbers, or smells or other sensory stimuli that are associated with crimes and criminal behaviour.

Allison says that being a medium and a crime profiler is not a specific science, it is more a matter of receiving pictures, sounds, images and often disjointed information that comes from other minds, whether dead or alive.

She also insists on only taking on a limited number of such cases per year, as the effort required takes its toll, physically and emotionally, from her.

Another interesting facet of Allison’s book “Don’t Kiss Them Goodbye” is the theme of reassurance that we are never alone, and we are under the watchful eyes of past relatives who are deceased and who have been significant in our lives, and a number of others who are often referred to as ‘angels’ or, more simply, our ‘guides’.

http://www.ufodigest.com/allisondubois.html
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« Reply #344 on: January 20, 2008, 10:53:27 pm »

Jennifer O'Dell

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   posted 04-22-2006 03:11 PM                       
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Ghosts cast darker shade on store

by Jayne Elliott

Staff and customers at a lighting shop in North East Lincolnshire have been turning a whiter shade of pale after a spate of ghostly goings-on.

Lights drop from the ceiling, shades are thrown, doors open and slam, and footsteps echo throughout Beagles Lighting on Cleethorpe Road, Grimsby.

Paranormal investigators, who were called in by shop owner Fiona Glover, have declared the shop haunted.

Investigators from TV's "Most Haunted" will now visit the site on Saturday.

Ms Glover first noticed something was different about the shop when she moved in seven months ago.

Bulbs were repeatedly unscrewed from lamps, the front door would open to trigger off an alarm, and boxes in the store room were thrown about at night.

She finally decided to get help after a customer watched a collection of candle shades be thrown across the shop floor by some invisible force.

Investigators from the Lincolnshire and East Riding Paranormal Investigation Team have carried out extensive research into the activities.

Mediums and a shamanic pathwalker have also visited the shop to help determine who and what is haunting the shop.

Ms Glover said: "We have been told there are two men and an elderly woman who need help to go to the light.

"One of the men is aggressive and comes into the shop after visiting The Albion pub across the road. He then goes upstairs. It's thought he killed his wife."

Mediums believe one of the men could be called John and the other Tom. They also believe the surname Harrison is linked to the restless spirits.

Ms Glover and employee Sandra Keogh have been carrying out their own research into the shop.

In 1870 it was Gooseman the winemakers and a horse corn dealer. In 1910 it was the Labour exchange and in 1935 a radio factory.

http://www.ufodigest.com/darkerside.html
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