Paranormal Explorer Magazine - November Issue

A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind

Written For The People By The People • November 2011 • £3.00 UK/$4.95 US

PE

The Paranormal Explorer Magazine

Journey of the Bones The mystery of a cat named Bones

Handfasting and The Witch Experience the witch’s wedding ritual

The Magic of UFO’s

A journey of the most magical UFO Sightings The Paranormal Explorer Magazine 1


Editor’s Note Hi guys, Well another month has flown by hasn’t it; and we are approaching one of my favourite times of the year, HALLOWEEN or should I say Samhain, the time of year where spirits are allegedly roaming the gateways between this world and the next. Many kids will be out trick or treating and all dressed up having fun. Please send us your photos of Halloween for our Halloween photo contest so we can publish them into the next magazine. I have no doubt that the winning photo will receive a free 3 month subscription to the best paranormal magazine in this world or the next. We do want to see what our family of readers’ are doing over the holiday, so get them sent in, or ones of the pumpkin sculptured etc. The magazine this month has grown beyond recognition from our first June’s issue and we are very proud of its growth, however on a serious note, we are rather concerned that our brilliant writers do not spread the word around about the magazine; and the link we give them is also getting passed around. This does not help the circulation of the magazine and hinders the time we can get it into print. As such, we have had to bring in guidelines to approach this and hopefully benefit all of our writers and readers alike. I hope you all take these in the way they are meant and don’t take offense at them. From this issue on, we would like all of our writers to agree to advertise the magazine on their websites, Facebook pages, Twitter, and anywhere else they can think of that will get their articles and our magazine out in the public domain. We would like a link from each of the writers so we can hopefully keep track of where those who are purchasing the magazine have been referred. On no account must the link for the writer’s free issue be given out to anyone. We will be strict on this and if found then that writer will no longer be published in the magazine.

2 The Paranormal Explorer Magazine

We as a magazine will undertake to publish articles submitted by our writers to the highest standard and will actively endeavour to get the magazine into print, which has always been our aim. With regard to the paranormal investigation groups being featured in our magazine, we will require before they go to print that they agree to promote the magazine on all of their outlets, both before and after its publication on the web. We will not provide a free copy of our magazine just for being featured. Our goal in featuring paranormal groups is to spread the word about our magazine while assisting these teams in becoming known world-wide. I have been made aware that one of our writer’s was subject to disrespect while conducting an interview. Any group or individual from now on that insults or degrades any of our family of writers will be named and shamed in the next issue. We will protect and look after our family. On no account will we put up with this behaviour as was reported. I will not allow the magazine to be used for promotion of any group to further their own causes, and we certainly will not allow any member of our family to be degraded or abused. Right there is my rant over for this month. I would like to say a thank you for the hard work my co-editor, Belle keeps putting into the magazine and a big thanks to Tara who has worked tirelessly on this month’s issue. Saying this, I hope you all enjoy this month’s fantastic issue and I would love to have your responses sent in to us. Happy Samhain

John Forster

The Paranormal Explorer Magazine 3


Contents

30 PARANORMAL 12 THE EXPLORER’S SPOTLIGHT Meet SIGN, Southern Indiana Ghosthunters Network 18 THE PARANORMAL UNDERCOVER The Burning Man; a firefighter’s story

PARANORMAL EDUCATION 22 EXPERIMENTS WITH ORBS Follow Ken Orbdog in his passion to understand orbs 26 PARANORMAL OBSESSION Does excessive behavior with the paranormal exist?

© Tim Bowers


OCCULT 30 THE JOURNEY OF THE BONES The mystery of a cat named Bones 36 HANDFASTING AND THE WITCH Experience a witch’s wedding ritual 40 A VAMPIRE IN THE HOUSE OF VOODOO Understanding the Voodoo path

UFOLOGY

ON THE COVER Journey of the Bones 30 Handfasting and The Witch 36

44 THE MAGIC OF UFO’S A journey to the most magical UFO sightings, and the most bizarre

The Magic of UFO’s 44

MYTHS AND LEGENDS 48 THE MYSTERIOUS LIZZY BORDEN Did she, or didn’t she? The mystery has continued for over 100 years



Contents

78 AGONY AUNT Help and guidance from Elaine Fessey 80 THE HERBAL CORNER The amazine Huckleberries

HOROSCOPE 82 NOVEMBER HOROSCOPE What lies in store for you this month?

52 SPIRITUALITY

GUIDANCE

52 2012 PART II What can we expect as 2012 approaches?

66 THERAPY THOUGHTS A look at the difference between the lower self and the higher self

58 HEALING AROUND THE WORLD The keeper of the crystal.

68 PHOTOGRAPH READINGS Amazine insight from gazing at photographs

60 REINCARNATION; THE SECRET OF PAST LIVES The veils are lifting

72 THE LAW OF ATTRACTION Breaking free of our addictions and entering into a collective consciousness

64 ANGELIC EXPERIENCES A reader’s Angelic encounter


www.theparanormalexplorer.co.uk






Dear Editor... Do you have a question for one of our column writers, or a comment to share about our magazine? You can submit your questions or comments on our Fan Page on Facebook, or email your questions or comments to us at [email protected].. We want to hear from you!

I saw on the facebook fan page that you are thinking of taking the magazine to print. I think that would be a wonderful idea and look forward to future editions arriving in my mailbox. Jacob Storey I would like to submit articles to your magazine about some of my paranormal experiences. How do I go about doing that and are their any guidelines? Crystal Andrews Hello Crystal, We welcome all contributions from our readers. As our logo says, ‘Written by the people, for the people’ we encourage everyone to share their experiences with us. Our guidelines are simple; any article must be your work, written by you, we ask that all articles be submitted to us no later than the 18th of each month accompanied by any photographs that go with your article. Send your articles to us at theparanormalexplorer@ gmail.com. We certainly look forward to your submissions and welcome you to our team of contributors.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF John Forster CO-EDITOR Belle Salisbury WEBSITE www.theparanormalexplorer.co.uk SUBSCRIPTIONS www.theparanormalexplorer.co.uk/ subscriptions EMAIL [email protected] FACEBOOK www.facebook.com/paranormalexplorer CONTRIBUTING WRITERS PARANORMAL Gina Wedlake Tara Perfetti PARANORMAL EDUCATION Ken Orbdog Scott Haire

Dear Readers, I wanted to write and express my gratitude for having had a part in such a wonderful magazine. Sadly, after our November issue, I will no longer be able to devote my time to the magazine. Unfortunately I allowed myself to neglect my own business and therefore need to reassess my priorities and focus more on my financial income. It has been an honor working with each of our columnist and am amazed at all that I have learned by working on their articles. I am sure the magazine will continue to grow under John’s guidance and I wish everyone who is a part of this magazine wonderful success. Blessings, Belle Salisbury Co-Editor

OCCULT SIN Jones Magister Belfazaar Ashantison UFOLOGY Martyn Hicks SPIRITUALITY Jessica Schab Mike Voyce Elaine Fessey GUIDANCE Kristen Leona Elaine Fessey Mandy Peterson Belle Salisbury Christa Bouchie HOROSCOPE Jeanne Marie Douglas



The


EXPLORER’S SPOTLIGHT By Gina Wedlake

Introducing SIGN; Southern Indiana Ghosthunters Network Featuring the best in the field of Paranormal Investigation.

Jack Oliver is the founder of Southern Indiana Ghosthunter’s Network, called SIGN for short. The Sherlock Holmes of the paranormal,” Jack has been investigating for upwards of 18 years and only uses the scientific approach to investigating. Because of his knowledge, experience, etiquette, and community service, Jack, along with his co-founder Beverly Leavell and his group are well rounded and respected in the paranormal community. Jack founded his first group back in 1994 before investigating was in the mainstream. Jack became interested in paranormal investigating


when he worked 3rd shift for an alarm company in Louisville, Kentucky. He said he would get alarms in the middle of the night, and he would dispatch the police. One night, he received a call from Liberty Hall in Frankfort. Jack said that every now and then the motion detector would go off in that building. He called to see if the owner wanted the police to be called. The owner said no, that it was just the resident female ghost. “WHAT?” exclaimed Jack, “a female ghost?” Jack then began to ask questions. The man told Jack that the home was occupied by a female ghost, and Jack became increasingly curious. The owner invited Jack to do an all night lock-


PARANORMAL down, so that he could see for himself that there was indeed a ghost inhabiting the premises. Curious, skeptical, and alone, Jack took him up on the offer. He arrived at the home just at sundown armed with a large pack of Coca-Cola, a bulky Sony camera that used 3.5 floppy drives, and a flashlight. Jack didn’t see the gray lady that night, but he did hear loud footsteps that further sparked his curiosity, and from that night forward, 18 years ago, his journey began. “Before the paranormal became a household term due to a flood of television programs, ghost hunting was a taboo topic.” States Jack, “It was considered the occult, and was a hush-hush topic in mainstream society.” Paranormal investigating was not advertised at is it is today. Jack would go to the library and look on bulletin boards where others would be looking to join certain groups, like chess clubs, or bird watching. Jack decided to put up an ad looking for others interested in investigating ghosts. Soon he received a call from a real country boy name Jamie Levine, who shared his passion. The two began investigating together, and Jamie had a cemetery in his backyard out in the middle of nowhere. ‘We didn’t have any equipment back then, says Jack “just a camera, mag light, flood light, and flashlights.” Jack and his new friend investigated Jamie’s property at every chance they had. They were looking to have experiences in the beginning, and hope to get a picture or two. As time went on, Jack and Jamie had acquired more members in their group. They began to add new tricks of the trade, like compasses and, baby powder! Cheap and reliable, baby powder would be sprinkled where footsteps had been heard. The team, careful not to backtrack their steps, would leave the area locked where nobody could access the powdered area. Jack tells about the time they got foot tracks on an investigation. “We used baby powder to capture footsteps heard by the home owners. The old deceased owner used to go fishing by the pond there on the property. We got back and saw bare feet tracks in the powder!” He later saw photos of the man fishing while barefoot. When asked about the compass, Jack explained that when one encounters paranormal activity, the compass would spin. As time went on the guys became more sophisticated in their quest of the paranormal. The group had been hearing about various instruments being used


A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind by other groups and soon heard about the Polaroid One Step Camera, Geiger counters, gauss meters, and infra- red security cameras. The down side was that these instruments were very heavy, bulky and were not easy to transport. Still, the guys pushed on using the equipment in hopes of catching evidence of activity. Soon Jack and his team added the analog “shoe box recorder,” which had taken the paranormal community by storm. Jack states, “I watched a show one afternoon and there was this lady name Sarah Estep who had captured a disembodied voice on a recording device. Today that lady is referred to as the pioneer of Electronic Voice Phenomena. “ The voice recorder is used by every group today and is considered to be one of the most reliable. He was learning and teaching himself about the question and answer method of EVP. He would ask a question and would give a long pause in hopes of capturing a voice on the recorder. Jack and other pioneers have set the strict guidelines for which new investigators today use when recording EVP sessions. In the mid 90’s, Jack started, SIGA, Southern Indiana Ghosthunters Association. “There was about 35 of us -Jamie had gotten married and moved , others dropped off, and I started my first paranormal group, well, it wasn’t a real paranormal group but we called it that!” All of a sudden Jack lets out a boyish chuckle. “Well we all got together and decided to call ourselves SIGA”. I asked him why he was laughing and he says, “It was kinda funny at the time, nobody here thought of us of having a name-well this was before groups really had official names, and people just called us the Ghost Busters! Hey look, they have the equipment like the ghost busters have, referring to the Geiger counters! So that was the reason we named ourselves.” Jack says that it still happens, and people refer to him as a ghost buster by strangers walking by. As time went on, in the mid to late 90’s, Jack’s paranormal arsenal began to grow; the digital recorders, EMF Gauss Masters, MEL meters, and air ion counters. “There were other equipment available then, but we couldn’t afford it, like the VHS Camcorders,” states Jack. In the late90’s, the show, Ghost Hunters came out, and the paranormal field became a popular fad, and the topic was a regular household term. Jacks say the cemeteries were flooded at night with wannabe’s. They had watched a couple of episodes

of the show, and were them calling themselves experts!” says Jack. He goes on, “at night, the cemeteries were over run by people; we were stepping on top of each other, literally!” Many times people ask if I am a member of the TAPS team from TV! Let me make this really clear, I am NOT with them!” says Jack. Today, Jack volunteers his time as an EVP instructor, and gives lectures to college students in his spare time, when he is not investigating, that is. He teaches new investigators Paranormal 101, and Paranormal 102. Both classes teach the proper way to conduct and EVP session, and utilize computer software to analyze their findings. His equipment arsenal ranges from digital recorders to mini DVD recorders, and the MEL meter, to name just a few. He uses the scientific approach to investigating, and does not use the newer radio wave scanning equipment used by newer groups today. He prefers to keep his methods strict and scientific. His methods are more reliable when it comes to being accurate, especially when he presents his findings to clients. Jack’s excitement shows through when he talks about the paranormal. The excitement in his voice when he talks about investigating makes him one of a kind. Investigating is his life, and it has become a life long journey. Because of his extensive background, he is often asked to analyze evidence from other groups that he doesn’t even know. “It’s all about team work, we investigators help each other out, and that is what I love about the paranormal community.” Because Jack and SIGN enthusiastically spend much of their free time investigating along with educating the community, SIGN has been chosen as November’s Spotlighted Group. To say that SIGN is indeed one of the Crème Del La Crème of investigation groups would indeed be an understatement to the highest degree! I feel honored to have spent time getting to know Jack Oliver. If you live in or visit Indiana and would like to meet Jack, he invites you with open arms. You can contact Jack on his website. Please visit http://www.indianaspooks.blogspot.com/


PARANORMAL


During an investigation at the Robinson Bowling Alley in Robinson, Illnois Jack and his team were standing on one of the bowling lanes when they captured this EVP stating, “Get the hell off the floor!”



PARANORMAL


The Paranormal Undercover By Tara Perfetti

You know there are truly all kinds of people from all walks of life in this Paranormal World of ours. Some of these people are executives at huge companies raking in hundreds of thousands every year, some unemployed and all those in between. Have you ever thought about those that are in a workforce that sees death daily? What they might experience in a paranormal aspect? Doctors, morticians, and what I bring to you in this month’s article, first responders.

think many of our first responders experience but never talk about; the days where they come home looking worn down, tired, or sad. I think outside of the death they are forced to deal with, they are also dealing with these experiences that are very hard for them to handle. Not only do they have to deal with the loss of life in front of them, but the realization that there is a life after death and this is where we are all headed. I also think they see it a lot more than they may even talk about. As we know, there are not many that are so open with things like this for fear of being called crazy. You can’t be labeled crazy and continue your path as a first responder.

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine, a co-worker from the day job. We were discussing what I do for the magazine and within the Paranormal World. As we were discussing things he says to me “I wish I could see a ghost again.” I was a little taken back as I didn’t know this was something he had experienced in his life before, though I knew he had been a firefighter and surely had dealt with death at some point. I asked him to explain. His story was one I

Here is his story: “Back around 2001 I was working for New Kent Fire and Rescue. We were called out to a fire; pretty routine. We geared up and headed out. Once we got there the family had come up and told us their Uncle was still in the house and we had to get him out. I went in to see if I could find him while the guys started to try and fight the fire. I remember being in there for a good half hour and I just couldn’t seem to find this

Burning Man


man. I realized I needed to change my oxygen tank and started to head back out. As I was walking out I saw something that caught my eye. I wasn’t really sure what it was, but I went to go find it thinking perhaps it was the man I was looking for. I walked into a room that I had already been in, I hadn’t seen anyone in there before but as I walked in I saw the older man lying on the bed. I also saw him standing next to me looking at himself lie there on the bed, and then at me. He didn’t say a word he just stood beside me. I didn’t know how to respond, what to think, or what to do. I hauled the guy out and he was deceased. DOA as we call them. To this day I am not really sure why I was able to see him, why he didn’t speak, or if he was just trying to show me where he was but it was something I will never forget. So, that is my ghost story.” I asked him if he had seen anything since then, and he said no that he hears things he can’t explain but that he hasn’t seen any others. This really seemed to be something that weighed on his mind, something that has been with him throughout all this time. It seemed to really just “take the weight of the world” off his shoulders being able to talk about it to someone he knew wouldn’t judge him for it. These men and women face loss of life frequently in their jobs. Some turn to paranormal investigation or education as a means to deal with what they see daily. Some hold it in for the fear of what the consequences would be if they spoke a word of it to anyone. Some don’t know what to think of it or how to feel. It seems

Image © jnewton www.deviantart.com/jnewton


PARANORMAL to me that we as a whole should allow them more of the opportunity to be able to discuss what they experience going into these places. Not just firefighters either, all first responders that have to see the ugly side of life. The death. The heartache. These are things that most of us don’t have to see in our lifetimes for the most part, unless we flip on the news and even then it is censored from us. Why judge what we don’t know? Isn’t that what happens to us in what we do? Don’t we hate that? Imagine for a moment if you had to see violently fatal car accidents, walk into burning buildings with loss of life, head to places or homes where a murder has occurred. Don’t you think that you might want an outlet to talk about what you are dealing with? I know I would and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be fearful that someone was going to label or judge me or possibly cost me my job! This made me very curious as to just how many of these men and women are guided by spirits at some point throughout their careers. I spoke with another firefighter and she too stated that she has seen things she cannot explain. She told me she has been in situations where it seems almost as if the spirit she was seeing was guiding her to something she needed to be aware of and see. Any of you know a first responder in your life? Are you brave enough to approach them with the questions of a paranormal mind? Ask them if they have seen spirits or ghosts. Ask them if they felt guided by these people. Ask them how they feel about it and what impact it had on them in this life.

A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind Most importantly, listen. You just might learn something you didn’t know before. I know I did. I took a lesson that even in death we are able to draw enough strength to guide the living to where they need to be and what they need to see. As sad as it is to think of death and heading there, or anyone I love heading there, it does bring me some comfort in my heart to know that my soul will go on and I will be able to do what seems impossible... guide people I love and care for. I guess I always knew that I would go on anyway, it’s why I do what I do, but to know that I would be able to guide somebody if the need was there, well that is a pretty awesome realization. This story fascinated me beyond belief. I have a hunger almost of hearing more, seeing more. I am reaching out to my readers and in my life to all first responders. Police, Fire, Rescue, Medical...If you have a story that you would like to be heard please email me at theparanormalexplorer@gmail. com and tell me about it. If I get anymore stories on my end I will certainly be sharing them with you all. I am going to try and find a homicide investigator and get his or her take on what they see and witness and experience in the means of spirits, so stay tuned, it will be coming. I am putting out a personal THANK YOU to all first responders for all they do for us in our lives every day! You are appreciated and respected more than words could possibly type up on a screen! To everyone, until next time I bid you much love and light in your life.


Image © FireStormPhotography www.deviantart.com/FireStormPhotography


PARANORMAL EDUCATION

Ken


Orbdog

presents

His Experiments with

Orbs One has to have a passion as to what orbs are. Essentially they are like most of us, whether human, animal, mammal or creatures and the insects. One doesn’t have to go very far, just look into the features of an orb. To me these features can represent a soul of anything that was living and the images are much like a photo album or memory that is close to that soul or spirit. These orbs are not here as in real time or everyone could see them. These are very much dimensional and they will bleed into our dimensions at their will or power. We have no control over them as how they do it... but one could control them to respond by interaction and provoking these energies. They can act as a guide and give warnings ahead of time. Many people are actively interacting with orbs and everyone has their own way to do so. I did mine as an experiment and continue to do so. One thing I did learn from this was you needed a passion and commitment to reach further and find the truth. I found not only the colored orbs, there were more in store. There were the black orbs and the large mass size orbs. The other interesting thing was the shadow people that seem to appear and the orbs were gone and nowhere to be seen. Why this happens, that part I’m still working on. I have currently been doing some experiments on provoking the energy with some good success and have some videos and EVP’s from those experiments. I have been doing many different experiments and at the same location for years where it is active. At the same time I have found many interesting things concerning orbs, for instance there is a cycle period


when activity happens and then there is the quiet period (for example a grinding wheel where nothing happens until one applies the metal to the rotating stone and sparks happen and when it is taken off then the sparks stop. This is so much like the dimensional wheel when it enters our domain. Pressure is added and the activity will be there until the dimension is released. If one was to go and do an investigation during an active cycle you would get results. If the cycle lasted 4 days, then the 3rd day into the cycle would be the most powerful day, but of course when you investigate you’ll need to do it for 4 days in a row during the cycle period. The quiet period after could be for 4 to 6 days and then it starts all over again. If you happen to be investigating during the quiet period your results could be very disappointing indeed. So it is important to know about these cycles and when it is active. I must say these cycles are unpredictable. As a seer I can see when the cycle arrives and when it is gone. This helps me plan my next steps on experiments and for the type of equipment I could use. This does give me a huge advantage in preparedness. I have found during the active cycles EVP’s that were crazy after a bit of provoking and things out of nowhere actually touched me. This may not be a good route for most as some results can be disturbing and I found the only way to get rid of these bad energies was to wait for the cycle to end. I have seen some amazing large mass and I am currently experimenting with them.

A sample of a recent energy snagged using full spectrum camera. This was an energy snagged while it was passing back and forth by a doorway.



A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind them moving and I can show you an orb or another entity that was there. If I was taking photos somewhere and did not see any objects and take a photo and look there is nothing. Why is that? And if I take photos of a dusty place and still see nothing with my eyes and get lots of orbs, what does that tell you? I can’t see the dust but the camera did (with flash).

Orb Communication Communication is what everyone living on the planet does with one another, but communicating to orbs? I may sound like I have lost my entire mind but that is for one to judge, but don’t take this lightly. Just because you couldn’t communicate to them doesn’t mean I can’t. So what is the easiest way to communicate to orbs? Tricky? Not really. All you have to do is be creative; like play hide and seek and watch behind your back because orbs can be playful. Why? Because they are your friends at best. How can one earn their friendship? It depends on the individual that wants to make contact with them. So let’s start off with something simple, like tell them you believe in them and say this a few times and while taking photos, then watch what happens. Ask them to show you their magic; maybe you will see the light of day in front of you. You need to be open with them and once they feel you are not one to reject them they will show you things you never ever thought possible. I tried this and got great responses. In fact I even decided to test them on lots of video and it is truly insane what you would find about them. I did for days in and days out for months asking them questions and established a 1 knock for yes and 2 knocks for no; crazy? Not at all as I heard the knocks and the videos heard my question and the knocks back. Ok then let’s move onto how smart they are. I tried to figure out and after doing several experiments I came up with a foolproof one where the orb would have to do a loop beside or around my finger.

If one can see these objects with their own eyes and do not appear to have any color to them but appear bubble like and transparent but still visible in the dark, then what makes people think a camera can see them without the flash? (I’m not saying it is impossible to capture orbs without flash as I can see some during the day) but with the flash there will be some object for the reflection so the camera can see it and this time it even picks up the color. If my eyes had a flash pack in them then I would most likely see the color of the object. So yes it is true, particles and other objects get reflected during flashes and the only problem is that the debunkers don’t realize that the same thing happens with orbs and other objects.

Do you think this is insane? I may surprise you. In fact on video I have them doing it on 3 different days. And on 3 other days they did it without me asking them to do it. You still think this is crazy or coincidence? I have many more experiment results that won’t even be mentioned as I try to make it as simple as possible for most to understand. In conversations with other people around the world I have been told that they can see them visually, different than what I can see them. I don’t dispute this as it is possible. I am not the only person on the planet that can see them but in all, we can and will see them in black and white or colors or otherwise. So if this is happening is this dust or other particles in the air that appear so big, or are our eyes seeing objects that are not really there? Ok let’s get the camera out and chase these objects as we see


Let’s look at this in a little different way. Grab an external flash pack and in one hand use the test pilot burst and with your camera in your other hand shut off the flash on the camera. You will be taking photos in the dark and the camera will see nothing. Now time the external flash burst with the camera shutter. You may have to do this several times to get the timing. You hold the external away from the camera one foot then farther to arm stretch away and the photo will be a different brightness as you move the flash farther away and even behind you. You can still get orbs, so are these particles right in front of the lens? And here’s another thing to think about, how far away did you see that tiny flash (spark) from the camera? That can vary as where the object was. In reality, if the orb is round like a bubble the only reflection would be the closest point (curvature) on the object to reflect back as the light would bend around the edges and in the photo the orb is there complete as the orb also absorbed the light. So we have some sticky points here for the dust theory. After reading what I have said, let’s take a step back. You must always be a skeptic, yet at the same time believe they exist because if you only see one side then you will not see the truth.

some didn’t know and one priest thinks they are spirits, another friend (a religious one) thinks they are souls. A native friend calls them little people, another religious friends says they are evil spirits that can bring harm and for me to be careful. Another friend thinks they are alien. So we really don’t know do we? After some interesting facts and experiment results only you can decide. If these orbs were present in all the photos as particles then why are the camera companies still selling these cameras? Most likely, because this isn’t a continuing problem as orbs don’t show up in the majority of worldwide photos and only under extreme conditions. They, too, can’t explain why, under normal conditions, orbs appear and yet, more appear at haunted areas or cemeteries or other known active locations. Next month I will continue the discussion of orbs and their creation of ectoplasm. Until then, get your camera out and start experimenting. You, too, may just well believe.

I asked some friends what they thought orbs were;




Paranormal Obsession

By Scott Haire

Does excessive behavior with the paranormal exist?

First off let me say that the contents of this article are my opinion on this subject. As far as I know, there has been no fact based correlation that what I am about to say is true in any way. This topic came about in a weird way actually. I was thinking of all the shows on TV and talking to a friend of mine when he said something that surprised me a little. They started talking about how the paranormal field became an obsession to the point that it started to affect their life adversely in ways I never would have thought of before that conversation; their relationships with friend’s, wives, husbands, kids, all being strained because of their ‘need’ to talk to the dead. I started to think about that and wonder how likely it is that a hobby like paranormal research could become an obsession to a individual, and then even get to a point where the individual would want to join them to see for themselves prematurely. A dark thought I know, but when you look at it a little deeper you can see that the chances of it happening to someone you know are not hard to fathom at all, rather it could be a likelihood that none of us would ever see until it was too late. We all know what it was like the first time we captured that first EVP or found that unexplainable anomaly in a video or photo. Whether it was explained later or not, it was a rush like we never had before in some cases. My first I remember like it was yesterday. Myself, and fellow co-founder of CCPS (Central Connecticut Paranormal Society) were sitting in a burial ground over 300 years old here in my home town. It was daylight and we were just checking out the terrain and looking for hazards for a possible night investigation later in the month. Being new at all this and having new digital recorders and cameras we decided to have a little practice run and conduct an EVP session, not really expecting to capture anything because it was daytime (what can I say we didn’t know much back then). When I came home of course excited to discover if I captured anything, I turned around and listened to the audio recording of the session right away. At one point you hear Dan ask, “Can you show us a sign of your presence?” Sitting there listening closely I hear something I did not fathom I would ever hear at that point; a voice not belonging to either of us stating “You should know of our presence!” Completely taken off guard, I uttered a few words I can’t repeat

here and then needed to change my shorts! I called Dan going “OH MY GOD YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS!” I’m sure you can all relate and have a similar story to mine and probably in some cases a better one, but what I remember in all the stories I have heard about having our proverbial paranormal virginity taken was that they all ended with the same words “…..at that point I was hooked.” Now I’m not saying that we are all obsessed with this field or we all will become that way, but I think about my time in this field and I can think of one time where I can say my paranormal hobby did become a small case of obsession for me. I started watching nothing but paranormal TV shows, reading books solely on the paranormal, and listening religiously to paranormal radio. It became an obsession to know and learn everything I possibly could about the subject and field. I realized I was living a lot with the dead and forgot that I was still a member of the living for now. So I make efforts now to always remember just what side of the void I am still on; remembering I’ll have plenty of time to ponder the other side at a much later date. When that span of time was over and I realized what I was doing to myself and others because of my actions, I wondered how bad a condition like this could get when it came to something like the paranormal. I know people can become obsessed with people (both famous and not), places, cars, sports etc., but could the extremes of obsession be seen in the investigator that falls too far to one side of the line? Thinking about it, all the possibilities do exist. People with obsession tend to push friends, family and loved ones away; their life professionally as well begins to fail as they may lose their job or start to fail in their studies. They may begin to turn inward and become very introverted as they slide deeper into the darkness, and even consideration of making attempts to join the departed may come if this slide goes to deeper I could be acting like I know what I’m talking about and give you step by step directions on what to do if you see similar behavior in one of your staff members or friends, but when I think about it, I am in no way near to having one of those fancy pieces of paper on my wall telling me I am qualified to do so. So instead I’m going to explain what I did when I realized my own problems and what I did to help resolve

Image ©Jezebel www.deviantart.com/jezebel





the issues. When I started to realize I was obsessing with this field I denied my own conclusions at first, but when I looked at myself and my actions over that period of time I realized that it was true. So I did the only thing I thought right to do at the time and got myself out of the game completely for a while. I had to do it this way and I knew that trying to figure out another way would be ludicrous. My prescription to myself was getting back to the living world, heavy doses of family, friends, working out, and getting back to my other hobbies like fishing and enjoying nature. When I did this I started to realize how much I was missing in the living world and how precious it was. I remembered that life is nothing to waste and to embrace every day I have and never waste the opportunities I have to live each day. It also transformed me from a simple ghost hunter (no offense) looking to get a scare to a full on researcher wanting to know why the activity was present in that location. I started to look more into the history of locations, the life of the people that lived and worked these locations, and the experiences and incidents that happened that would give the property the psychic energy for the haunting to emerge and persist. I started also finding myself more on a spiritual level. It is funny how people like to say that the paranormal pulls you away from your spiritual self when in my experience it is the exact opposite. So what is a fitting conclusion to this article? Do I have a great line like in some of my other articles to make it all come together in a few keystrokes of the keyboard? Not Really, I just know since I have experienced this I wonder if others have as well, I wonder if an unexplained suicide could be linked to this work and if they could have been helped if possible facts could have led them to this conclusion. I know these questions and conclusions may make some people leery or a little unnerved that I am talking about them, but if we don’t bring possible questions


to the light we will have to wait until a tragic event for them to be surfaced. So I hope you think about what I’ve said and if you know someone who may be showing behavior unlike them due to such an obsession, make the effort to assist them in finding the help they need so they can remember to live the life we have. We will all have those answers one day in the future, so why try to rush it.

Scott is the Director and Founder of the Central Connecticut Paranormal Society (CCPS). If you have any questions about former articles I have written or the present one you have just read or just want to say hi, you can e-mail me at [email protected].


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The Journey of the Bones By SIN JONES November marks a time of giving thanks, the hallmark holiday of Thanksgiving: Celebrating the final harvest of the season, and indulging in gluttony. The English gluttony is derived from the Latin gluttire; to swallow. The seasonal changes are marked with a bright-orange flag of capitalism. Depending on where you live, there may not be the apparent transitions from Summer to Autumn, so many, like myself, see the indicators when retail stores pack away all the Summer wares, to bring in the procession of ‘seasonal’ materialism. The rows of plastic pumpkins, silk flowers, wreaths that imitate the Autumn foliage, little wooden Pilgrims with their First American ‘friends’ in tow, paper turkeys used as dining table center-pieces, and all the dinner fixings are showcased with decorative framing. By the time you are able to acclimate to your new environment, here comes Christmas! At times, it’s difficult to swallow. Year after year, the pages of the calendar turn, and these holidays are a way to make the annual bump and grind bearable. Something fun and festive to break up the monotony; otherwise you’ll go mad. Ironic that the holidays turn holy-days into shopping frenzy and pea-cocking your finest dish, which will most likely be enjoyed with relatives you barely communicate with throughout the year. Oh these holidays, how they bring us all together! [Insert finger twirl here] November to me is a time to give thanks to your fallen ancestors. Why November? While I practice ancestor worship daily, it’s time to really give the dead their due. November 1st and 2nd kicks off the celebration of Dia Da Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Mexico’s continuing tradition of their Aztec ancestors who dominated Meso-America around the 15th century. According to the Aztec Solar Calendar it was celebrated all month long on the 9th month (August). It has become a National Holiday that’s dat-


ing is in conjunction with the Catholic Holy-days of All Saints Day on the 1st of November, and All Soul’s Day on the 2nd. This appeals to my overall aesthetic and the prolific symbolism of my choosing. Symbolism by which I provoke myself into taking actions on my own behalf. Dia Da Los Muertos is another opportunity to practice Memento Moritem.

October and All Hallow’s Eve (October 31st), is thought to be a continuing tradition of Samhain, a Celtic holiday to mark the end of summer. The term Samhain is first documented around the 19th century; the dates coincide with both All Saints Day, and All Soul’s Day which can be traced back to early Christianity and the start of 7th century. The symbolism however, is parallel with the traditions of the Aztecs from the 15th century as well as Catholicism post-Spanish conquests. So you begin to see a pattern of crossculturalism. Placing a candle inside Jack-o-Lanterns is much like the candles placed inside the skulls of the dead. The Aztecs wore wooden masks and elaborate ritual embellishments to dance for them. Much like the costumes we wear at Halloween. One of the practices in use by modern pagans is the preparation of the Dumb Supper. An altar is set up to honor your ancestors and a place set at the dinner table for them to dine with you. For those that believe the souls of the dead can wander in and out of this world, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is believed to be its thinnest on All Hallow’s Eve. The dead are free to roam and seek out their loved ones. The very idea that displaced spirits roam about gave rise to a sense of uneasiness. Who is watching me? Especially if you played any role in their death or crossed them in any way while they were living. Guilt and fear most certainly play a role in superstitious belief. What you believe to be true shapes your world view. It is thought to be the catalyst for using Jacko-Lanterns and costumes to scare off the dead; the opposite effect desired. It’s not so strange to observe

Photo credit: Archivo de Miguel Covarrubias, Universidad de las Americas, Puebla

how symbols and celebrations change with the beliefs of the people. While Dia Da Los Muertos is generally a 2 day celebration, the Aztecs celebrated it all month long. If you happen to be a specific denomination of Christian and honor the All Saints Day and All Soul’s Day observance it’s a great time to give both the Saints and Souls your thanks. Hey, they’ve been working hard all year intercessing on your behalf! Not a bad idea to thank them, or else come Samhain, they may pay you a visit. A closer examination of the belief systems of the Aztecs will demonstrate that the bones were a focus in daily life, but when someone died, bones were not used to mark their death. Instead, depictions of living activities were placed on grave markers because in Aztec cosmology the living were made from the bones of the dead. In past articles I’ve discussed the symbolism tied to Mictecacihuatl (Sante Muerte) who is the keeper of the bones. She is born in the Underworld and is considered to be the Living Death. Her job is to watch over the bones and travel with them; which is why you see her present among symbols displayed during any Dia Da Los Muertos celebration. For a more in-depth explanation of her symbols, I refer you to my article entitled Mictecacihuatl, Sante Muerte.


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A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind destiny of man (Wyrd) may be pre-determined by that catalyst at first glance, but you have the power to tempt the fates. Do you revel against it for the sake of that alone or do you allow yourself to bend?” - SIN JONES on Fate. I believe there are instances when fate has its finger on the pulse of man, a willful man, one that takes actions on his own behalf may allow himself to bend to get a glimpse of a future he may not have considered for himself. Tempting the fates is an exploration into possible outcomes.

Ancestor worship, in the context of occult practice - shapes your reality. Many find comfort in keeping the memory of their lost loved ones alive by honoring their memory in a ritual manner. I miss my father like crazy but my practice serves as a reminder that I could die as young as he did at age 48. He died of natural causes; he went to sleep one night and just never woke up. The Death Certificate reads: Natural death. It is natural to die, so you must work against nature - to LIVE. Nature is not your friend. At every turn it’s out to get you. Nature is Satan’s Church. When you live against it you are acting as the adversary to the adversary. Some of us out there in the world are actively seeking to exceed normal and natural parameters of reality. In past articles I have discussed my personal feelings on the terms paranormal and supernatural. The way these terms are used and what they imply, I find oxymoronic. The unexplainable isn’t really exceeding natural or normal parameters - it’s just unknown, or yet to be explained. Allow me, if I may, to take you on a journey; into my past. Perhaps then, you may begin to understand.


When I was 29 years old I began actively hunting for a house. The perfect little abode to call my very own. I looked at countless homes and it wasn’t until I arrived at my present residence did I find it. During the closing the previous owner commented that when she saw my name on the application she knew I would be the person to buy it. How did she know? We shared the same last name. Her maiden name was Jones. To her, this was a sign. I just nodded and smiled, for me this was purely coincidental. The reason I chose the house was it had all of the elements I wanted that were on my check list. I wanted a garage so I could turn it into an art studio, a back yard bigger than a postage stamp for trance work and digging in the dirt, a fireplace, and an eat-in kitchen. Discussing it with my real estate agent, she asked me if I believed in fate. I told her that our actions drive outcomes and I don’t think anything is pre-destined. “No matter how weird things are, they can always get weirder. The word weird is rooted in wer- to turn or bend. The weirdness then is the bending of yourself. The self, can appear constant, but like the 3 Fates, there are parts of you that are not known until someone or something touches the pulse of that portion. The

The yard was of satisfactory size and she was an avid gardener. The house had a fenced off vegetable garden. This was alluring to me as a city girl; I didn’t know a thing about raising vegetables, I figured water it and it will grow right? Wrong. The garden died before I was able to harvest it. I figured I would level it and start over in the Spring. There was an enormous catnip bush growing near the gate and I did not have any cats at the time, so I dug it up for more space. When I was pulling up the roots, I dug up what I thought were seashells. I had a big one in my hand and turned it over, ack! It was a cat skull. The catnip bush must have been a memorial to the previous owner’s pet. I collected all the bones and put them in a shoe box. I had planned on re-burying them in some area of the yard. I placed the shoe box on my picnic table but got so busy in the yard I figured I’d bury them the next day. The following day I went outside to retrieve the box and there it was on the table where I had left it. Problem was there were no bones inside. I looked on the ground to see if it had been knocked over but it was rather odd that the lid was firmly in place. I found not a single bone. The box was clean, not even any dirt granules. I asked my son about it, thought he may have done something with them after school before I got home. He didn’t know anything about it. I looked around the yard to see if there was any way to scale my 6’ privacy fence, and the gate was still locked. I was completely perplexed but figured the mystery would unravel at a later time. A few days later, I’m in the bathroom and I see something run down the hall. I thought for sure a stray had made its way into the house; I swore I saw a cat. I looked all over the house and found nothing. I chalked it up to that brain of mine producing psy-

chological projections - since the cat bones were still on my mind. A friend of mine comes over for coffee and we are gabbing away at the kitchen table when she stops mid-sentence and says “When did you get a cat?” My mouth drops, “Did you see a cat?! What did it look like, where?” She says it’s a black and white cat, pretty good sized too. We go hunting around the house looking under beds and any corner that could offer a stray solace from being found. Nothing. I tell her the story of the bones and she’s convinced that it’s the cat’s displaced spirit since I disturbed its grave. I’m laughing; I don’t believe it for a second. It sounds insane. Yet, I can offer no explanation for her having seen a black and white cat walking casually down the hall disappearing into a bedroom. All this talk of cats and my son asks if he can have a kitten. It was a promise I made to him when we bought our own home. He could have a pet. Working full time, I thought it would be difficult to keep an eye on a baby cat so I was able to convince my son that there were plenty of adult cats that needed homes and we could adopt one from a local shelter. In the interim, a bulletin was posted on a message board I belong to that a military couple were relocating and needed a home for their cat. Perfect! So I made arrangements with the couple to bring the cat by. They came over on the weekend. They were very anxious about finding a new home for their pet. They explained to me that the cat would be very timid, especially to my son Dillon. They didn’t want him to be too disappointed if the cat didn’t warm up to him right away. The carrier is opened and out comes an over-sized black and white cat. I nearly died. My friend is there and she shoots me a look as if personal affirmation has been provided. The bones have manifested in a way I’d never imagined. The cat struts around my living room as if it is home. The couple is astonished by its behavior and feels very pleased that the cat is in good hands. Oddly enough, the cat’s name was CAT. The name seemed so plain and impersonal. So Dillon and I decided on Bones, given the strange events which led us to this new furry friend. Weeks went by and I noticed that Bones acted quite peculiar. He seemed to be petrified of one particular room in my home; a room which has been dubbed The Room by associates. The Room is my ritual chamber. Something in there had Bones spooked,


OCCULT that much was clear. I even tried picking him up and carrying him in to show him all was well. Bones was not having it, he would screech and skidattle with the quickness. He did however enjoy lounging in the hallway between what I called The 4 Corners. The hallway split off into 4 different rooms; The Room, my son’s bedroom, my bedroom and the bathroom. He sat very majestically and my friend spoke of the dominion of cats, Egyptian mythology, and how this cat is somehow acting out of its divine nature. I’m skeptical about the correlations people make from past to present, and the drive behind belief. Don’t mistake my skepticism for cynicism. The only thing certain in this life is death. I acknowledge that there are plenty of things I’ll never have answers to. I’m perfectly happy with ‘I don’t know’. Maybe someday I will know, but if I remain in a state of wonderment about unexplained events, I am fine with this. Life is full of it. I wish the story ended pleasant, but the fact of the matter is it does not. Bones’ peculiar behavior escalated until he attacked my son in such a violent manner I had no choice but to find him a new home. Cats are fickle and have an erratic nature - I know this to be true. Bones and his actions were not typical. One day my son poked his head in my studio to tell me something and Bones came out of nowhere, scaled my son’s body and dug his claws deeply into his flesh. He proceeded to attack my son as if he were defending me against some predator. My son screamed out. I couldn’t get to him fast enough to stop the attack. By the time I got to Dillon, the damage was done and Bones took off into hiding. My son is crying hysterically, I calm him down and tend to his wounds. I’m in awe of what just happened. I told my son that I thought it was time for Bones to move on. He agreed. An associate of mine was great with feral cats so she offered to take Bones in for me. She informed me that Bones was adopted with full disclosure and he was doing well with his new family. When I think back on the events, I can’t help but chuckle to myself and imagine a displeased Sante Muerte taking the journey of the bones [sounds like a Scooby Doo episode doesn’t it?]. In my mind’s eye, I can see the pathology of belief; how belief drives perception and what it all means at


A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind the end of the day. It’s natural. There are some questions which may not have answers but can certainly be explained by whatever reasoning a person finds comfort. Perhaps the previous home owner found comfort in knowing someone of her kin would be taking possession of it. Or my friend found answers to the mystery of the disappearing bones as a sign of divine intervention. I’m setting up altars and pouring shots for dead relatives, and this can be justified by my driving passion to live against nature. The occult is a way to shape reality to compel true Will vs. automation and unwillful acts. Do I believe my father is in some between-the-worlds location patiently waiting for my annual visit? No. Do I believe that what I’m doing is manipulating my psyche to drive my true Will? I certainly do. Plus, it makes life much more colorful. So pull up a chair for your old dead Granny, she may be coming to dinner. Belief is Reality.

SIN JONES www.the-poison-apple.com


OCCULT


HANDFASTING AND

THE WITCH

Greetings to all, This month’s article was going to be all about Samhain, but as publication dates will be post event, pictures would be unavailable and relative for next year alone; so I wish one and all the blessing of the Ancestors and a good start to “Our” coming New Year of the Year Wheels turning. Let us go and visit an event that many have experienced, and some are curious about: the “Witches wedding,” or Handfasting. Becoming more popular as word spreads and new people follow the Pathways, it remains nonetheless, a solemn vow between a couple –in my mind equal to that of any Religions acceptance of Union of selves to become one – very much a similarity to that of the “Great Rite” in actuality, and where male and female become as the Gods, in Union, as One. I’m sure that many are aware that the vows are for “A year and a day,” “A Lifetime,” and “ For Eternity” together – and should be considered before taking the step to make that vow –for you will be held to it, by the Gods. Sometimes known as “Greenwood weddings,” held in the main around Bealteine, and descendants of many of these Ancient “Pagan” weddings can be seen in Surnames; Godson, Greenwood, Robinson, Mayall, and many others – see how many you can find. Usually, but not always, held at a Sacred space or Place, the Bride, representing Goddess, wears something Green (again, not always), and the Groom, something bearing the colour of Fire, which rep-


resents the God. The man’s “Witch jewelry “ should be of Gold; the Brides, of Silver, balancing Sun and Moon together at one place; Male and Female, light and dark. Preparations before entering Circle can be of the order of separation of “Stag“and “Doe.” The women of the Bride to be beautifying her in a separate place, bestowing gifts that can make up the “Basket of 13 Blessings,” or individual gifts that the bride will need in her new life; pampering her, making her up, and dressing her hair to be the beautiful personification of Goddess than her forthcoming husband has ever seen. Likewise, the Men of the Groom take him off to a place where great manly tales are told of heroes, their sexual prowess, strength, and devotion to the protection of Goddess and wife to be. Drinking, making of music, and drumming can take place in the “Stag’s domain,” until he in turn, as representative of the God, looks his best for his Bride to be. Before Noon, the two genders are called to Circle by the blowing of a Horn by the Priest/facilitator. When brought to Circle, the two separate parties follow a procession, men drumming the Stag along; women chanting and singing for the woman, until they in turn are unified in gathering around the Circle, male and female in that order, and the Bride and Groom, brought to the Altar by “Summoners, where they will face the High Priestess and Priest across the Altar. A Cord, that will signify the bonding together of the two parties, lies there, with a Chalice/Horn of Mead, and a halved Apple on the Patern. Rings will be Image © ReanDeanna www.deviantart.com/ReanDeanna The Paranormal Explorer Magazine 37

OCCULT placed on the Altar to be exchanged if this is wished by both parties –sometimes the Cord alone is the circle that binds them. After the necessary opening of circle proper, and the people therefore informed of the Intent of the day, the Bride and groom are asked to speak their vows to each other and declare the time period of the desired fasting of hands. They will at this point hold a Priapitic Wand. This is accompanied by the Priestess and Priest holding an Athame to their hearts as the vow is spoken, once completed, the passing of a filled Chalice of Mead is shared between them, then the passing of the halved Apple to be shared and consumed.

A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind at an Island off the Welsh coast at Summer Solstice this year.

Priest placing the Athame over the Brides heart during her oath to her Groom.

This is but a brief thumbnail sketch of the Handfasting Ceremony. I could expand and fill many more pages, but others have things to say in this magazine as well. The pictures can speak many more words. Blessings to all for Samhain, Magister.

Priestess placing the Athame over the Groom’s heart during his oath to his Betrothed.

Their hands are then tied together, and they are invited to share the kiss of union, while the gathered people dance around the Circle whilst the Priest ensures that the chalice is refilled so that all present may share the good fortune and happiness of the handfasted couple on this day. With this the couple is then pronounced Handfasted before the Gods. The Circle is then closed, and the couple are invited to “Jump the Besom,” placed beforehand at the entry point to the Circle, leaping into the new world from the old together to face the future.

The Bride and Groom share the sacred Apple at the altar.

The gathering then will share a feast day of drinking, music, and merrymaking –which often continues until dawn the next day, depending upon numbers involved at the proceedings and place. Your Handfasting can be as grand –or as simple as you desire, it is your dedication to each other, and the Gods, make of it what you wish. As always, I can only say that this is OUR way, and our pathway, it may not replicate others –nor is it intended to do so. It is merely what works for US. The pictures included in this article are those of the last Handfasting undertaken by the late great Iain Steele –a leader of an ancient Celtic Tradition a few years ago; a good friend and Mentor, and also those from our most recent Coven member’s Handfasting


Jumping the Besom to complete the ceremony.

Ian Steele with Priestess in Circle.


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The one thing many people fail to realize about Voodoo is that there are SEVERAL forms of it. Sisters, if you will, of the original Ifa and Vodun traditions which crossed the Atlantic with the Diasporic peoples of Africa. Traditions which can be traced back more than 7000 years throughout much of West Africa and even Egypt.

A Vampire in the House of Voodoo 40 The Paranormal Explorer Magazine Image ©roseandthorn-d37dbmz www.deviantart.com/roseandthorn-d37dbmz

One such form is the New Orleans style of Voodoo. This is what I practice, though HOW I came to it is a bit of a tale in, and of, itself. Yes, dear reader, I am what is more commonly referred to as Vodouisan (t), a Voodoo practitioner. The Paranormal Explorer Magazine 41

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A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind and “Messenger” of the Spirit Realms and St Peter be- * Oshun.: Oshun is the African Orisha of Love, Sensucause he is the Door Opener, opening and PROPERLY ality, Beauty, Romance and Prosperity. She flows like closing doors for us as needed throughout our lives. the river and sways with all the feminine power of the world. She is likened to “women’s mysteries” and * Obatala.: Obatala is said to “rule all heads” because seen as the consummate lover. Many a ritual is done he is the Father of Wisdom and Knowledge. He to her by the banks of the Mississippi, here in New represents balance in all things and is the consumOrleans. mate healer. Obatala is often called “Obatala of the White Robes” due to his purity of spirit and his love Each of these 7 Primary African Powers carries their of the healing arts. Imagery for Obatala is Our Lady own number, their own day of the week, their own of Mercy. ritual greetings and, even their own favorite foods and animals. And this is just the African half of New * Ogun/Papa Ogou: Ogun is the primal man of the Orleans style of Voodoo. deep woods who teaches us to build, farm, create and use tools and because of this, he is the Father of In the 1800s, during the Haitian Revolution, the Technology. Ogun is also the “General” of the Warrior population of New Orleans grew by some 10,000 Spirits (Chango, Ellegua and Ochosi are also Warrior Haitians who brought with them the secrets of HaiSpirits) and as such protects those who act as First tian Vodou. Though much of this was kept separate, Responders to any crisis; military personnel and law it, like many other things, found its way into the New enforcement officials. Imagery for Ogun is St Antho- Orleans Voodoo scene. I will save this for a later writny and especially St George. ing.

When I first moved to New Orleans, I began to have a recurring event in ALL of my dreams. It wouldn’t matter if that dream were a full blown nightmare, psychic endeavor, or my brain just blowing the fluff, the event would unfold as it had so many times before. The event? Clouds would roll across the sky, broiling, seething as if holding a life of their own. Fog would creep across the ground, rising to just below my knees. A man, dressed in a beat up suit complete with coat, tails and top hat, would come strolling through the dream. Sometimes he would stop long enough to look at me with a bemused look. Other times he would simply stroll through. Eventually, after about 4 solid years of this occurrence, he stopped, pointed at me and stated “You belong to me.” I remember feeling excited by this. Not afraid. Not questioning. Excited! As if, deep inside my soul, I already KNEW this but had just been waiting on this person to say it. It was very much like finding that one place you truly know is your home and moving in. It really was that easy for me to step into Voodoo from the previous path that I followed. One day after a series of the dream event took place I spent the usual 3am forage to Denny’s with a group of eclectic practitioners of various religious paths. As conversation between us grew, it turned to the subject of dreams and their meanings. Everyone began to tell of a strange dream that they had had recently but when it got to be my turn… I simply stated, “I haven’t had any truly strange dreams for me, however, I have had a strange occurrence in ALL of my dreams…” I proceeded to describe the above stated events and wound down with, “that’s pretty much it… Just some strange guy waltzing through my dreams…” One of the attending witches barked with laughter and said, “We told you when you first moved here that ‘the Baron walks in New Orleans like no other place’. Did you think we were joking?” This began my long and loving path to Voodoo. I had a name. I had a place to begin to search out the “why” of the visits.


In New Orleans style of Voodoo, the Ghede Spirits, whom Baron Samedi is the chief of, are where we get our primary healing and protection energies. As I was always a healer/protector by nature, this insured that I would be a “Child of the Ghede” or “Baron’s Child” in the Voodoo community. So much so, that even walking into Voodoo Ceremonies where I knew no one at all, if one of the Ghede Spirits began to ride someone as horse (what those outside of Voodoo call “possession”), that particular Ghede Spirit would call me “Ti Ghede” (Little Ghede, or as we’ve come to understand over the years, “Ghede Jr”). Here would be a good time to break down the 7 Primary African Powers according to the path of Voodoo which I personally follow: * Ellegua/Papa Legba: Ellegua is the Spirit of Communication and the “Opener of the Doors”. As such, Ellegua is ALWAYS entreated first in ceremony so that things will flow smoothly and move through its proper order. Imagery used to represent Papa Legba are St Michael because he IS a Warrior Spirit

* Yemaya: Yemaya is the Eternal Mother. She is nurturing, strong, loving, caring, wise, healing and discerning. Yemaya is often sought out to ease turmoil in the home, dissipate disputes between family members, see to the safety of the children, and insure the prosperity of the ENTIRE home. Imagery for Yemaya is Mary, Star of the Sea.

Suffice it to say that, like many of the offshoots of the original Ifa/Vodun traditions brought from Africa to the Western Hemisphere by the slave trade, New Orleans style of Voodoo is an amalgam. It recognizes that it does not have the whole truth of God, so every time it finds a piece of the truth it draws it in and incorporates it.

* Oya: Oya is the Queen of the Cemeteries, Winds and Hurricanes, and the Market Places. She is seen as the “Mother of Memory” and is an important Spirit to turn to during intellectual endeavors. As the Queen of the Winds and Hurricanes, she is often prayed to by those living in Coastal Areas to evade a hurricane heading their way. As Queen of the Market Places, Oya is a power house for women in business at ANY level. As the Queen of the Cemeteries, Oya is our ultimate contact with our Ancestor Spirits.

I hope dear reader that this helps you to understand a bit more about New Orleans style of Voodoo as it pertains to the ACTUAL practice and NOT what you see on TV and in the movies or read in someone’s fantastical tale.

* Chango.: Chango is the Lord of Fire, Thunder and Lightning. A Spirit of Justice, he is who we turn to in matters of court and legal affairs. Chango is also the representation of male fiery passion. So, when a man has lost his “fire,” Chango is called upon to help “heat him up again.” As a Warrior Spirit, Chango helps to fight quick, fierce battles with precision and finesse. Imagery for Chango is St Jerome and Santa Barbara.


UFOLOGY


The Magic of UFO’s

By Martyn Hicks

A few decades ago here in the UK, any UFOs that displayed truly magical qualities was referred to as having “The Oz Factor,” the word Oz obviously referring to that wonderful 1939 classic movie “The Wizard of Oz.” What exactly do we mean by a UFO having magical qualities? You can easily argue that EVERY UFO has magical qualities, but I would like to take this opportunity to enlighten you on the most truly magical UFO sightings and experiences, and with that, the most bizarre! Let’s remember that everyday objects that we use today, for example, TVs, computers, microwave ovens, would have been looked upon as being truly magical just 100 years ago. We use the advancement of science to develop such objects as computers or microwave ovens, and who knows where science will lead us in the next 100 years? However, whilst I accept science does have its place in this world (or any other), there comes a point that in order to advance the research into the paranormal, you have to leave your science books behind and instead use intuition, the human psyche, and the power of the mind in order to obtain answers into magical phenomena, and the magical world of UFOs is no different………. One case that still totally baffles us ufologists’ to this day regards the incident that happened in Pennsylvania in 1973. A UFO lands in a forest (after a wave of sightings in the area during 1973), and several witnesses run into the forest to discover what exactly did land. There they observe the landed UFO, supported on legs with several Bigfoot type creatures walking around it. And on another occasion, a Bigfoot was seen carrying an orb of light. Were these Bigfoot the occupants of the UFO, or were they pawns under some kind of mind-control? If ever any UFO event had the “Oz Factor,” then this is it! More and more UFO reports were coming into the Pennsylvania State Police Department during 1973 that they got completely swamped under the sheer number of witness accounts to these aerobatic wonders of the sky.

Image ©Narfmaster www.deviantart.com/narfmaster


Another bizarre UFO event, yet completely different in nature to the Pennsylvania event, occurs to a woman in North London in 1982. She was out walking in a suburb, when suddenly she felt a distinct

change of surroundings and realised that she was actually standing in a desert. She stated that this experience was very real, and she was fully conscious (as a sceptic would argue she went into a lucid-dreaming state). She observed a silver-metallic oblong craft flying through the air and noticed it had windows. She further noticed that she could see faces from within the craft looking out of the windows, and they appeared to be in a state of excitement. She is then suddenly back in London! The most bizarre/magical UFO incident that I have personally investigated comes from an incident which happened here in the UK in 1953. A colleague and I had just finished doing a UFO presentation at a paranormal conference in 1995 when a lady approached us who wanted to let us know about a remarkable incident that she and her mum witnessed back in 1953. We arranged to visit her at the farm where the incident took place, in a very rural area of North Devon, UK. The lady requested to not be named in our reports as she was a very popular local business woman in the area. She took us to the spot where they observed the incredible, when she was 9 years old at the time of the event. In her recounting of her experience to us, she could clearly remember every detail of the event, and she was visibly emotional at recalling this event back to us. She and her mum were walking during an afternoon along the farmyard, visiting friends who ran the farm. They noticed at the top of a steep field opposite them a very large, round metallic object. It was basically a massive silver-metallic sphere, about the size of a house. What struck them as being equally odd was just how smooth and shiny the surface of this massive metallic ball was. As they watched it, it began to move very slowly down the steep pasture field. This again struck them as being most odd, as the large object should have been rolling down that field at a much faster speed. There was no sound as it moved. As it approached the bottom of the field, what happens next can only be described as entering the world of the truly fantastical! A hole started to appear at the bottom of the grass field, getting gradually bigger, with the soil being exposed under the grass, and then blackness into the hole. The huge metallic ball simply rolled down into the hole. The diameter of the hole matched exactly that of the ball – a perfect fit as it were! Then, the grass and soil simply moved back, covering the hole so that there was no indica-


UFOLOGY tion whatsoever that there was any hole there in the first place. They told their friends of this remarkable incident, and thorough ground checks were carried out, but nothing unusual was detected. It is my view that further research was carried out in secret by the military, most probably at night so as not to bring any unwanted attention to themselves. I wonder what they discovered! We interviewed the current farmer who now resides on the farm, and he told us that he has not observed anything unusual since being there. We all went to stand on the spot in the field where the hole opened up, but it just appeared to be solid ground. I will not speculate here in this article what I believe is the meaning behind this extraordinary incident, as it is very important for all of you to reach your own conclusions as to exactly what is going on.

I will leave you with one more magical UFO event from our archives at the Plymouth UFO Research Group which I investigated; this time, the event happening on the outskirts of the coastal resort of Paignton in East Devon, UK. I visited the witness shortly after his encounter in February 1998 who was a retired Rolls Royce engineer. He was naturally very scientific minded and did not have any paranormal


A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind experiences until this incident in 1998. He was out walking his dog on his usual route, along a steep field, when suddenly his greyhound dog bolted up onto its hind legs, standing upright, and just gazing at a particular spot in the field. The retired engineer could not believe how on earth his dog could remain upright like that without losing its balance. He went to yank it down by the collar but the dog remained rigid in its upright position. Then the engineer noticed that the spot where his dog was gazing at suddenly had 4 white bars of bright light appear, about a foot off the ground, with each bar of light being about 2 feet tall. The bars of light were in a uniform position, being at four corners of an empty rectangular space. He then noticed the bars of light getting wider and extending inwards so that they eventually all merged together forming a rectangular box of pure white light suspended in midair. This box then rotated slowly and began moving silently up the field and fitted perfectly through a gap at the very top of the field. As it went out of view his dog got back down onto all fours and was back to its normal self. The engineer described that during the whole event he felt that he and his dog were the intruder, as if the white light had much more of a right to be there than he did. Here was an event of a truly extraordinary nature being witnessed by a very methodical, matter-of-fact gentleman just going out to walk his dog and being confronted with something truly paranormal and truly magical.

future issue!

Again, I will leave it to you to decide exactly what is going on here, and of course, there are many more magical UFO events, such as those involving contact with the occupants of UFOs, but I feel that is a different article for a

I will finish this article by saying that surely, if we are to start getting any answers into the paranormal, then perhaps we should leave the dogma of established science behind us. Keep watching the skies!


MYTHS AND LEGENDS


The Mysterious Lizzie Borden

Did She, or Didn’t She?

By Belle Salisbury

“sickening.” He stated, “Over the left temple a wound six by four had been made as if it had been pounded with the dull edge of an axe. The left eye had been dug out and a cut extended the length of the nose. The face was hacked to pieces and the blood had covered the man’s shirt.” It was not until after the Fall River police had arrived and investigated the scene that the body of Mrs. Borden was discovered in the guest bedroom upstairs by a kind neighbor who had arrived to console the distraught Lizzie. Both Andrew and his wife had been killed by crushing blows to their head from what was believed to be a hatchet.

Let’s travel back in time to a sleepy town known as Fall River located in the grand state of Massachusetts; back to 92 Second Street to a time where history was borne of a murder that was so mysterious it has been reviewed and debated for over a hundred years.

the trial that ensued became a media frenzy; one that went down in history making her quite the notorious figure in America. Her story has been told and re-told with documentaries and programs relaying the facts which unfolded during the infamous trial of Lizzie Andrew Borden.

Lizzie Borden, daughter of Andrew Borden and stepdaughter to his second wife, Abby, stands accused in 1893 of murdering her parents in August of 1892. From this accusation came the infamous rhyme:

As the story goes, on August 4, 1892 Lizzie’s father, Andrew, had returned home mid-morning after running errands. Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan, the family maid, recalls the event of that fateful morning. She tells of being summoned by a hysterical Lizzie who claimed someone had entered their home and killed her father.

“Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks, When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one.” Although in truth the Borden’s were actually whacked a combined 29 times instead of the 81 times suggested in the macabre children’s rhyme,


Andrew Borden lay slumped on a sofa in the downstairs sitting room as if he had been asleep, his face butchered almost beyond recognition. According to the Fall River Herald, one reporter who had visited the grisly crime scene described Borden’s face as

Amid the vast rumors that flew from neighboring tongues, the Fall River police determined that the murders must have been committed by someone within or closely associated with the Borden homestead. After a police inquest, and the questioning of those within the home on that fateful day; Lizzie Borden, Bridget Sullivan, house guest John Morse and a few others, it was finally decided that Lizzie, based on some rather contradictory answers to their examination, was arrested and charged with the murder of her parents. Lizzie entered a plea of ‘Not Guilty’ to the ridiculous charges and awaited a Grand Jury trial. Her trial began on June 5, 1893, facing three judges and twelve men which made up the jury who would decide her fate. Witnesses were called from both the prosecution and the defense of which a presentation of conflicting accounts of the days before, during, and following the gruesome murders was discussed. Most of what was presented during her trial was merely speculation, rumors, and circumstantial.

In the trial’s conclusion her defense attorney, A. V. Jennings argued, “There is not one particle of direct evidence in this case from beginning to end against Lizzie A. Borden. There is not a spot of blood, there is not a weapon that they have connected with her in any way, shape or fashion.” And then to conclude the defense’s argument, Governor Robinson stated that the state had failed to meet its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt against his client, Miss Borden, citing their theory that Lizzie might have avoided getting blood on her clothing by killing her parents while “stark naked” was ridiculous. He insisted that it was literally physically impossible for his client to have committed such a crime within the timeline suggested by the prosecution. He suggested that it was more likely that intruders made entry into the Borden home, committed the double murders, and then left the house undetected. The jury was then left to their deliberations on the fate of Lizzie Borden. They returned after just a scant hour and a half with a verdict of “Not Guilty!” Lizzie was free to return to her home with her sister, Emma.


MYTHS AND LEGENDS


To this date no one has ever been further tried or convicted of the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden. Their deaths still remain a mystery. So, did Lizzie Borden commit these murders? Although the prosecution failed to meet their burden of proof, there is still so many questions regarding the activities of Lizzie on the days before and following the murders, such as the burning of a dress she reportedly had been seen wearing on the morning prior to the murders. Such speculations were not enough to gain a conviction beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is said that most people in 1893 found it difficult to believe that a woman of Lizzie’s social standing could have pulled off such a feat. After her trial, Lizzie and her sister Emma purchased a home together which they called “Maplecroft.” Lizzie lived there until her death in 1927 at the age of 67. She was buried alongside her parents in Fall River’s Oak Grove Cemetery. Today the old Borden homestead, once known as 92 Second Street, is now known as The Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast with a new address of 230 Second Street. The quaint bed and breakfast has been restored to its original Victorian grandeur with careful attention to making it as close to the Borden home of August 1892 as possible.

The acutal photograph taken of Andrew Borden depicting the blugeoning of his face.

The Borden home as it appears today now known as The Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast.

Here is her story:

Upon your overnight stay at the Borden home you can choose between two bedroom suites, Lizzie and Emma’s bedrooms, or perhaps you would like to take your chances in sleeping in Abby and Andrew’s bedroom. For those who like to challenge the skeptical side, you might choose to bed down in the John Morse guest room (where Abby Borden’s body was discovered). Those who are faint of heart might prefer Bridget’s attic room for your rest and comfort. The owners of The Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast invite all who visit to view their collection of memorabilia reminiscent of that fateful day in August 1892 and tour the rooms where the actual murders took place. Perhaps you will be able to contact the ‘ghosts’ of Abby and Andrew Borden who may possibly tell you “Who Done It!” One of our brave readers, Sherri White, actually did visit the old Borden home for a tour of the old homestead.


“While visiting Rhode Island in July 2001, some friends and I took a side trip to Fall River, Massachusetts. We wanted to visit Lizzie Borden’s house, the site of the infamous murders in 1892. The house, now a bed and breakfast and museum, is rumored to be haunted. The house is restored to how it looked at the time of the brutal axe murders of Lizzie’s father and stepmother. Walking through the house is interesting, but eerie. Crime scene photos are displayed in the parlor and master bedroom - where Andrew and Abby Borden, respectively, were murdered. You can even spend the night in the master bedroom, if you’re brave enough. Abby Borden as she was found in the John Morse Guest Room.

We were on the third floor when my friend Monica and I strayed from the rest of the tour group. We were alone in one of the attic bedrooms when suddenly we were overcome by a very strange feeling.

My scalp started prickling, and I felt scared. At that moment, the door started to swing shut on its own. The door was heavy, and there was no breeze at all. Monica and I practically ran out of the room and caught up with the tour group. I believe someone was in that room with us. But was it one of the victims or the murderer? Nobody was ever convicted of the crime, even though Lizzie Borden was accused and put on trial. She was acquitted. To this day, the identity of the murderer is a mystery. I plan on going back someday to spend the night, either in the attic room or the master bedroom. I’ve heard the ghost will sometimes pull the covers off of a sleeping guest in the middle of the night. How could I pass up an opportunity like that?” Sherri, we hope you do return one day to the Borden home and will write to us again of your experience there.


SPIRITUALITY


Without Further Adieu; I Give You 2012 Part II By Jessica Schab How is it possible that we will be able to teleport and defy gravity? Well, my dear friends, when matter speeds up, the physical body being something of frozen light matter (crystal), time slows down. This is the theory of relativity by Mr. Einstein. Time can beat at different rates throughout the universe, depending on how fast you move or vibrate. My guides tell me that the speed of light is not as fast as the speed of thought, and even faster than that is the speed of heart intent. OK, so let’s try an easier way to understand this. In order to grasp this, I will have to share with you about dimensions. How I learned about dimensions came to me one lazy day while I was staring at a fan. When the fan is turned off, you can clearly see the blades. This is like the 3rd dimension, what most of humanity and physical reality resides in. This also represents our chakras not in much activity. If you turn the fan on to the second level, you can still see the blades, but they seem rather transparent. That is like the 4th dimension, the realm of the astral and the aura and the dimension even reptilians work in.

Finally, if you turn the fan onto the highest level, you cannot see the blades, but that does not mean they are not there. That is similar to the 5th dimension, and that is where we are heading. In order to get there, though, we will be making a journey from the 3rd to 4th to 5th dimension. We will be able to see and experience things that have a much higher frequency, like we could before when were babies. This is kind of like the 4th state of matter. Beyond solids, liquids, and gases are plasmas. Plasma consists of freely moving, charged particles, i.e., electrons and ions. Formed at high temperatures when electrons are stripped from neutral atoms, plasmas are common in nature. (Electrons are negatively charged and the protons are positively charged.) For instance, stars are predominantly plasma. Plasma is considered to be a distinct state of matter because of its unique properties. Ionized refers to the presence of one or more free electrons, which are not bound to an atom or molecule. The free electric charge makes the plasma electrically conductive so that it responds strongly to the electromagnetic fields. This means


that plasma does not play by our rules or ideas of logic, the norm, and we will be like plasma. Some of us are already like this. I know I am (smiles). In order to understand better how this will work, we will need to see how light works. Have you ever paid attention to the word that refers to someone very intelligent— brilliant? It is inspired by the holy halo--the golden light--meaning that the person is in touch with their enlightened self. For example, if you look up the word brilliant in a thesaurus, you will see that most of the words have to do with light: brilliant, shining, sparkling, lively, vivid, intelligence, and radiance; also in reference to shining stones and diamonds, or to be merry. All of these are qualities of enlightenment. My point here is that all brilliant people and ideas come from divine inspiration, so if you open your mind to see the bigger picture, then you actually will be open to see more of the picture. You will be able to observe the world and ourselves from a “different point of view,” in a broader, unfettered context. Thus, it is apparent that only a small perImage © docophoto www.deviantart.com/docophoto-d3727iw The Paranormal Explorer Magazine 53

SPIRITUALITY


centage of our total visual field is clearly focused. Attending only to this region results in what is commonly called tunnel vision, figuratively and literally, as we have come to believe.

The more we master taking light in, the lighter our heart becomes. Perhaps this is why the Mayans and Egyptians would weigh the heart to see if it was lighter than a feather. Then you would be an angel, taking yourself lightly and thus having an ability to walk on air. Even when you are in love, it says you are walking in air. Gravity holds us and is as heavy as the collective weight of misplaced energy that stays on the Earth and in us until it is dealt with. This also slows down the chakra activity and keeps us rather dense in energy and mind. The ascension we hear so much about will be that of consciousness.

People who are thought to be brilliant have a light around them or exude radiance. Light definitely has to do with intelligence, free from a narrow view of the world. They are conscious of the light within. Light makes vision possible for our eyes, but also inspires inner vision. So what are we seeing? What is inside enlightened or brilliant people? They have an enormous amount of light coming out of their eyes and surrounding them with this impressive glow. They have come to this way by dealing with their “shadow self.”

I am not sure if you guys have seen my pre-Project Camelot videos on YouTube. They are extremely raw. They were the first videos I ever did, and I am sure I felt every emotion under the Sun, which is most evident in my face it seems. When I speak, every facial feature likes to participate. For me, this is most comical, and I can hardly handle watching them, although they seem to be very popular. Some friends say that they see me shapeshift a few times. Interesting!

Shadows or fog in our brain or in the sky makes it hard for us to see. That is how it is possible for us to see and yet not see. It also has to do with focus and an open mind. If we focus on one thing, then that is all we see, and we are blind or oblivious to everything else. A closed mind is someone who is “blind.” “It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision” to quote Helen Keller. Light carries information from the world to our eyes and brain. Or is it that the light carries information to our brain, which is reflected out through our eyes and makes how we see the world? Peripheral vision, or wide angle vision, not only improves our physical function, it also provides some compelling metaphors for successful living as highly visual creatures. The literal and the metaphorical are inextricably linked; when we talk about

Image © Tsukiten www.deviantart.com/Tsukiten one, we invariably talk about the tion of sorts carries information other. To a great extent, the way directly to the brain. This optic we see is the way we live. tract contains over a million nerve fibers, so millions of nerve fibers Of all the sensory receptors in the working together as one make the body, 70 percent are in the eyes. one vision. Even our body is run A quarter million photorecepby these universal rules. Even a tors line the neural retina and TV with a bunch of tiny little dots from there, a broadband connec- makes the big picture.


OK, back to the point. Ah yes, My Message to Humanity YouTube videos. I have a demo in there from a friend I knew in person, Ian Lumgold, may he rest in peace. I helped inspire that part where he shows consciousness as a small circle frozen inside an ice cube, and the fire underneath being the Illuminati or anything that causes discord in our life. This discord turns the solid into a liquid, which allows consciousness to be more fluid and explore the other realms

of say, the subconscious or unconscious parts of us that were not so easy to access before. Just when we are starting to get familiar with these hidden aspects of the self, flames continue to do their thing. And from liquid we find our consciousness in a gas state and rising up to the higher realms. Now does that not sound and look like ascension to you? My guides always got concerned about many New Agers talking about ascension, that how we live in our physical form is like a ball and chain that shackles our spirit, as if being in flesh is hell. A part of our spirit believes this, and hence there is the war on flesh and the constant disembowelling of our poor body. I have spoken to people who have ascended before their time and were sent back and now are trying to get to a state of descension. What am I getting at here? One is not better than the other. The physical and spirit are a team! Spirit is also in love with the body and is working on a way to bring the body with it when it travels to other worlds and dimensions. Come 2012, we will have to be in balance with the body and the spirit. Both parts will understand each other as the spirit is here trying to learn about the physical and how to maintain it in a harmonious way. It will no longer be just the spiritual or astral bodies witnessing these other worlds. With body being brought along, that would mean that teleportation will be perfectly normal and natural. Another thing that will be perfectly normal will be other para-

normal abilities. I came across this really cool book from a guy of the National Geographic team. The book is called Supernature: The Unseen Powers of Animals by John Downer, and it talks about how all animals have paranormal abilities, but in the animal world these are perfectly normal. The cover of the book has a Jesus lizard walking or running across water. As I was going through this book, my guides chimed in and said that animals mirror what we can do, that they have not forgotten about their connection to the other realms of consciousness and who they are.

It is not just the animals that are mirroring our abilities but also technology. To me, technology is something like training wheels so that we can do all of it on our own. Everything that technology does; so can we. We use cell phones now even though we are telepathic, but we do not believe nor trust in ourselves to do this. Now cell phones are becoming harmful as there is only so much time you will need training wheels for. I myself do not have a cell phone. I


SPIRITUALITY might be the only chick who does not have one. These cell phones are becoming so multi-purpose that I am waiting for them to be able to cut or grate cheese before I will even consider getting one. There is the Internet, which is a very primitive version of the Akashic record, internet or neuron netting, the linking up of the many minds. More people I am speaking to all seem to be getting the same thing. So this makes me wonder, do I really need to write a book? Soon everyone in the world will be speaking about these things, not to mention babies born with the insight of the collective intact, free from the amnesia veil. Then there is the C.T. scan machine that all hospitals use. Now there are lots of mystics and shamans, star children, etc., who can see inside the body and know what is going on and what needs to be done. So if this is the case, what about the H.A.A.R.P. Project? It was this machine that was able to create the earthquake that hit China not too long ago because they would not comply with the Illuminati’s agenda. If this machine can do that, what does that tell you? (I am not saying that it was the Americans that did that to China, but select global elite.) We are very much under the flames to step into our power. If we are the ones creating these natural disasters, then we can also prevent them. My guides say the shift does not have to be as extreme as we think. We do have the ability to take an 8.7 quake to a 2.2. Can you imagine us doing that? In fact, when I was 19, my psychic friends and I were so in tune with the Earth that we

A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind picked up that Mt. Shasta was going to erupt. We pinpointed the exact time and date, and we all meditated on it as well as the time and date it was to happen. And when it came, there was this mass electrical storm, and we felt the eruption was averted. Over the last 30 years, nuclear missile sites have been the location for many continual historic UFO sightings, such as at the Malmstrom AFB in the USA and at Rendlesham Forest base in the UK. On each occasion, the nuclear missiles had been shut down by strong magnetic pulses when UFOs were observed above the missile silos. I think David Wilcock has talked about this.

Cedars series. To me, it feels like a crime not to read and share these books with your kids, which talk about prophesy and how dangerous it is, and how it keeps us imprisoned in a circle reality that we cannot get out of. What we visualize as our reality makes it so. Remember that humans are their own self-fulfilling prophesy.

I am rather confident we will have similar powers with the coming events. You’re all the star children. You’re here to do just that--to make the shift a smooth one and avert and jump the dark timelines. You all have the power. You are the boss of this, and you decide how this story will go. My guides told me that they were influencing natural disasters so that we could forget about our petty dramas, our everyday life, and our material things at a time when we are afraid of our neighbours. Suddenly, we are helping each other. It is a sad and incredible thing that it takes some disaster to bring about our superhero abilities and selflessness, where a man will run into a fire to save a complete stranger or a granny is able to pick up a car to save her grandson. But is it necessary to have these bad scenarios to bring these abilities about? Ask yourself, who are you, and what are you capable of? My favourite books of all time are the Anastasia Ringing


My, how we have been conned to believe in the end of the world and Revelations! A revelation is the act of revealing or disclosing, a bringing to light of what is not yet known. We have been conned to believe in the destruction and suffering of so many, or conned to believe in a concept of the devil, Wormwood, and evil because we do not have the balls to take responsibility for our own mess. It makes me think of Homer Simpson when he caused a major mishap and said, “This is everyone’s fault but mine.” I have found that when one lies to themselves for such a long time, one even starts to believe

one’s own lies and forget what one really knows. We are indeed in Judgment Day where we judge everybody and everything, even ourselves, as we are the creators after all. We are acting rather immature because we are so fragmented. What is interesting to me, though, is when these prophecies come to be, we say, “See, they are right. We’d better listen and find safe places.” Yeah, they happen because we make it so. This is how a doctor can misdiagnose someone and say they have cancer when they don’t and cause the person to believe that the doctors know more about their own body than they do. They believe it and then the body develops cancer. This is also exactly how and why a psychic is always right. It is because we believe they have some power over us, and what they say makes it so. If the person does not believe but the psychics’ beliefs are stronger, then it still follows through to “I told you. I am right. Trust me.”

while they were out in nature. This is how animals connect, so how about us? How about if we establish a relationship with the plants we grow and see around us? What about the animals? How was it possible that so few animals died during the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami? My friends listen carefully to all that is around you when you are walking through this beautiful garden of a planet. If we connect back with nature and learn to listen to the folds of silence and humble our inner voices, if we listen to and speak with a ladybug, we would learn that they know when a natural disaster is to hit weeks before it does. Can you imagine that? We would have plenty of time to move all the people out of the city. Can you visualize this happening? Have you already seen it? I have. This is

the reality I am steering towards, but first I need to help everyone remember what all of you are here to do. We are lightworkers and starseeds who know how to do this, and we will. When we get together, we will trigger one another into deeper levels of self. To be continued….Tune in next time, same bat time; same bat channel. In 2012 part 3, I will speak about the hollow Earth and my dance with the dark. I will discuss how I came to understand them so well and the roles we play as well as the cosmic signs and connections. Sending a cloak of comfort and unconditional love from my world to your world, Jessica We are the answer to our prayers.

To avert these prophesies and visions, we have to create new and lovely ones of happy, healthy people, and a healthy, plush, lush and pristine garden all over Earth. But visualizing is only the first step. What this will do, though, is filter and broadcast out to others throughout the world who will then start to see the same thing and think it is some synchronicity. The next step is to become the change, become the peace, the love, the inner garden and work on your own garden and your own family, who will be your fruit. The power and insight of certain famous religious figures who became enlightened occurred


SPIRITUALITY

Healing Around the World With Elaine Fessey

A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind THE KEEPER OF THE CRYSTAL Make sure all distractions are switched off and you are warm and comfortable. Light a candle and dedicate the light to a person or situation. Sit with your feet on the ground and rest your hands in your lap, palms open and facing upwards. Take several deep breathes and relax. Begin to visualise yourself walking through a meadow. The sun is shining and birds are singing. In the distance you see a bridge. As you get closer you see a gate keeper waiting for you. You ask the gate keeper for protection and make your way across the bridge.

A very warm welcome to everyone. I hope your meditations are going well and you are all enjoying the relaxation and the healing benefits of a regular meditation practise. This month I am sharing a meditation that has always been one of my favourites. It demonstrates the importance of using a gate keeper for protection and also enables you to receive a message. Don’t worry if you don’t get a message at once. It takes time and practise to raise your vibrations to the level necessary for you to reach out to spirit and to make it possible for them to reach out to you but with effort this can happen. Don’t give up!!

The energy begins to increase as you continue your walk. In the distance is a glow of light. As you get closer you see that the glow of light is actually a large crystal. At the side of the crystal is a door. You enter through the door and close it firmly behind you. Inside of the crystal the energy is warm and uplifting. At the end of a passageway is a chair. Seated on the chair is a spiritual being, the keeper of the crystal. You ask the keeper of the crystal one question and wait patiently for their answer. You leave the crystal the same way you entered, remembering to close the door firmly behind you. Back at the bridge you thank your gate keeper for their protection. Wait for an answer. Walk back through the warm meadow until you reach home. Wriggle your fingers and toes and open your eyes. Eat and drink something light. Remember to blow out the candle!



SPIRITUALITY

A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind THE VEILS ARE LIFTING

Reincarnation, The Secrets of Past Lives

By Mike Voyce

Let me start by telling you about a follow-up to the practical experiment reported to you last month. You may remember how surprised I was that, out of a group of a dozen or so people, all but one could find from a short meditation memories of a past life in which they had known someone else in the meditation room. This time I took the group back to Victorian times, in a somewhat longer meditation giving them a list of questions to answer; they had to find their complete names, the place where they lived, how they were dressed, who they were with, and what they were doing. A very demanding list, as any spirit medium will tell you, it is remarkably difficult to bring forward names and other factual details; you see, what matters to the deeper mind, our souls and spirit is emotion, not names, dates and all the other data we find so important in ordinary life. Still, the questions had to be answered; my point was to find information which could be checked. I even got each person to write down the information they found in meditation so it could be checked.

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I thought it was a fair bet that, since Queen Victoria was on the throne so long, most people would have experienced a Victorian life. What I wasn’t confident about was that they would be able to answer my questions with the precise detail I asked for. Again, all but one reported success; most people were able to report their full names and addresses! What this meant is I was able to say, “Check it in the census

records” (which you can now do on-line). There were two people who wouldn’t be able to do that, one had been a gypsy, with no fixed address, and the other couldn’t bring a place to mind at all. This second person had been so intent on supervising the preparations for launch of a major steam ship he hadn’t bothered with an address. Even so, both the gypsy and the ship builder were confident they had enough information to check the truth of the meditation. You see what this means. This group of people can put themselves to the severest test; can they confirm the accuracy of their mediations by evidence of data in the real World? If they can, this will convince them, people who had no particular previous faith in reincarnation, that they have, indeed, lived previous lives. If you compare this relatively casual work, of less than an hour, with the painstaking, careful work over many years, by people like Arnall Bloxham, Michael Newton, Arthur Guirdham and Ian Stevenson you immediately see how much more easily and rapidly we can access past lives than was previously thought possible. Not having revisited that group I cannot yet tell you whether their answers are confirmed or denied by the records. There may yet be serious work to do, along the lines of anyone tracing their ancestry; did the person live at the given address, but not at the time of a census? That and many other questions make research a serious challenge – but a challenge which can now be met, especially with

the help of the Internet. This is not the only reason I say the Veils are lifting. Recently I have been reading a truly remarkable book by Nicholas P. Ginex, which traces all the major concepts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to their common source in ancient Egypt, not only that, it gives details of the history of those ideas and the surrounding politics. For the first time people in the West can gain a true panoramic view of all our religions in one simple book. After all the centuries of angry argument, this, too, is a remarkable access of clarity. Amongst other clarifications we may distil from The Future of God AMEN, is what exactly it is the Western religions believe in; do they believe, as they did up to the time of the emperor Justinian, in Reincarnation? There is much confusion about religious notions of Cosmology, the nature of Time, Reality and Spirit. In the last few days I posted a comment on a blog thread entitled, “Do Angels Reincarnate?” The comment is as follows: “Death (hopeful but not completely) puts an end to errors committed in life, death and rebirth therefore provide humans with a relatively safe way of working out their mistakes. Time is the measure, within the envelope of a reality, of the working of cause to effect. It is depressing that the measure of time in our reality is the decay of physical matter (all clocks are based on this) and it shows how low we have placed our attention when our measure is matter not spirit - it was not always so.


SPIRITUALITY It is a philosophical imperative that there are many (maybe countless) forms of life higher than the human, and it is again depressing we have so little awareness of them. By an act of will a purely spiritual being may lower its vibration enough to manifest at our level, though the efforts in physical mediumship undertaken by spiritualists attest as fact that this is no small achievement. Communication between different levels of being is possible, at the very least through our souls (which are much less obsessed by the material than our incarnate selves). Now, an angel (one of a small number of types within a wider range of higher being) might incarnate as human, but the question would be, to what purpose? Spirit always acts in the easiest and most effective way. Higher spirits (angelic or otherwise) do not die and reincarnate (at least in the way we do) and are not prone to the error which would necessitate it. At the higher end (say, Planetary Powers) spirits live in Eternity where change is not as we would understand it. It is my belief that angels help humans firstly because we are in need, and secondly because we are part of an experiment in Free-Will (which allows the staggering amount of error in which we indulge) and which is deemed to be important. I also believe much, but far from all, so called angelic help actually comes from our own souls.” Now, I don’t know what you think

A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind of my so brief summary of the issues in that ill-conceived question. It is ill-conceived because while we live in a physical body we experience physical time (between death and re-birth we don’t); although we carry the karmic lessons of our lifetimes of mistakes to our spiritual souls, most of the consequences die with our physical bodies. On the other hand, angels do not experience physical time and do not make mistakes. It is to be hoped such confusions will start to be clarified as the religions stop bickering about details and return their attention and teaching to important spiritual questions. Whether the writings of people like Mr. Ginex will help, I can only hope they will.

almost instantly, right across the World. As more and more people explore ideas like Reincarnation, talk about them and write about them, they, too, become part of that universal field of awareness. We should not be surprised that new understanding emerges at an unprecedented rate, or that which seemed difficult can now be done with ease. I cannot promise the World will end, or even suddenly change in December next year, but I can affirm we live in Interesting Times. For more on Reincarnation, Spirit and Reality visit http://www.MikeVoyce.com

In any case, there is cause for optimism. One of the causes of optimism is the members of that meditation group can prove or disprove what they learned of their Victorian lives, each of us can explore the records and theories of Reincarnation and cross-examine religions; you and I can read Paranormal Explorer, without even moving away from our computer screens. This is itself a remarkable lifting of the Veils. Whenever I think of the Internet I think of what Teilhardde Chardin, the great Jesuit anthropologist, who wrote, in the 1950, in Man’s Place in Nature; first Planet Earth becomes enveloped in a biosphere, of which we are part, then we envelope it further, in a ‘Noosphere,’ which is the universal field of our awareness. Now we can communicate any idea or image,



SPIRITUALITY


Angelic Experiences

Share Your Stories of Angel Encounters

When I started my tarot readings at a local metaphysical shop I had run out to go get my son from a school program. On my return, I got told by the shop owner that a man had come in looking for a reading and that he would be back because I had run out. I said, “That’s fine.” She said, “Do you notice anything different in the store?” I looked around and I didn’t notice anything unusual at first. Then all of a sudden I noticed. There had been a huge sign above the doorway on the way out that read “Be the change you want to see in the world” and now it was gone. I said “What happened to the sign?” She stated, “When the man left that wanted a reading he opened the door and then closed it normally right behind him and the whole sign came tumbling down.” She started laughing and said, “He wasn’t mad or anything, he just closed it. He must have some real energy around him. “ After a few minutes of me being back in the store, this man comes in, middle 30’s, nice looking, dark wavy short hair, dark eyes. I couldn’t figure out how a nice looking guy like this would want a reading but just shrugged it off. He followed me into the room where I read. I have him shuffle up the cards and put them down in three piles and pick the one he wants me to start from. This whole time he was staring at me and I couldn’t figure out why. Anyway, I start the reading and he says to me “You don’t do a normal spread I see. Good for you. Make it your own and it will prosper for you.” I smile and thanked him. I do the reading and he is agreeing with everything I am saying. All of a sudden I hit the “Emperor” card and tell him that an older man will be coming into his life to help him with his struggles as this man has had lessons learned and will be of great help to him. The man looks at me and says “My father is a very special


man; he reads the Bible all the time.” I look up at the man and think okay what’s going on here. I am sure he saw the confusion in my eyes because he repeated this three times to me. Once the reading was done he thanked me and we both walked to the front of the store together. He asked me where he could find me if he ever wanted a reading again. So I handed him my business card which was a dainty pink card with my name across it and wings along the top. He turns around and pulls a business card out of his wallet and hands it to me. I stood in total shock because this man’s card was the exact same as mine only having an online poker logo on it. I looked at him and stated that when not working that was my enjoyment too, playing poker online. He smirked at me and said to join the site that was on the card. So I came home and joined the site. This man’s name was nowhere on there at all but it was just a play chip poker site and how to learn to play poker. For a couple of days I kept checking the site to no avail. This man never befriended me, and I never saw him again. The next day walking into the shop I was still in amazement of all that had transpired the day before because of the business card and the things he said. The shop next to her shop was her boyfriend’s photo studio. There was a back door that connected the stores together. I had gone in there to get something and he had a backdrop of muslin print with dark brown in the background and white splotches all over it. I was stunned and called the owner over to see what was sitting on the backdrop that very next morning. There in front of our eyes were images of Jesus on the backdrop, angels, Mother Mary, animals, children and fairies. This lasted on the backdrop for about a good week and the studio owner

took pictures because it was clear to everyone’s eyes not just mine. To this day, I feel blessed to be touched by these angels in my life and I am grateful they came to me to show me I am doing the right thing in helping others. The Beach Angel was right. I now don’t use any cards at all to do readings. As for Jesus showing up to me on that day, I am grateful to know they are by my side helping me to help others realize they are loved and they can follow their dreams if they have faith in God above. Michele Hudson

Do you have an Angelic experience you would like to share with our readers? We would like to hear from you. Submit your story to us at: [email protected]


GUIDANCE


Therapy Thoughts

image ©Kai0t www.deviantart.com/kai0t

A LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE LOWER SELF AND THE HIGHER SELF It’s a wonderful evening, your date is going well and the wine and conversation are flowing. Candle light flickers in the center of the table adding sparkle to your already shining eyes. You are in a bubble of warm pleasure as the evening draws to a close. Returning from the cloakroom you search the restaurant for your partner. He’s talking intimately to an attractive woman; their heads are close together as they share a private joke. He smiles as he introduces his ex partner. You remember her name. She’s the one who broke his heart and who he still speaks of in wistful tones. In an instant your bubble has burst, suspicion and anger force you to walk out of the restaurant glaring at everyone who crosses your path. You can barely bring yourself to smile as you coldly say goodnight. Your partner is confused and hurt. Your lower self has come out to play....


By Elaine Fessey

Emotions like anger, jealousy, and hatred are all lower self energies. This part of you has no belief in God or anything positive. In order to avoid the pain of life lessons you are defensive and judgmental. Anything to avoid the emotional pain attached to important life lessons.

you have actually progressed. Do you deal with the test in the same old ways or will you allow the higher self to understand it?

The energy released by the lower self is pleasurable and can hook you into a pattern of negative thinking. The lower self will selfishly deny any pain and happily blame others for the situation created. This makes you feel powerful and nothing in the world will cause you to willingly change that. Unfortunately there will always be a scapegoat, a victim who suffers through your actions.

My advice is to let yourself play with the test for a short while. Let your lower self out to play before accepting the test for what it really is. Then you are ready for a spiritual promotion!

There is an alternative to all of this lower self misery. The higher self is directly connected to the spark of the divine that is in every cell of our body. The higher self expresses love, fairness and contentedness. Being self aware means you are connected to your higher self. Being aware of your lower self means you are connected to emotional blocks stored deep inside and react to them without attempting to understand why. The higher self enables progression through challenges.

Tests presented by the lower self are usually entertaining and deliciously irresistible.

The greatest ultimate pleasure is to serve others by connecting with your higher self. You can achieve this through a regular meditation practise and by having the right intention. What has intention got to with anything? Read December’s edition of Therapy Thoughts to find out. Until then remember to be kind to yourself and others. Elaine

The lower self is restrictive. It’s stuck in a rut. The lower self will often present a test to the higher self once a challenging lesson has been learned. You have worked hard with issues and feel proud of your conduct. This is the point where the lower self will present you with a test. This will prove to you how far


GUIDANCE


P hotog raph Re a dings

The subject for the photo reading this month is Hugh. Four photos were used and the questions that were asked will be addressed at the end of the notes.

By K risten L eona

From this photo I can tell that he is very caring and the word “earthy” comes to mind. He loves animals and the outdoors. He likes his steady employment but is not fulfilled with his job. Hugh reaches out to many and gives of himself. He can be mischievous. He has helped many people. He enjoys teaching and sharing his knowledge with others. He is a very loyal friend.

This is a beautiful and peaceful place where he enjoys spending time. He feels he can in a sense recharge by being out in nature. He would prefer to be able to spend more time outdoors. He feels like he’s waiting to “break through” with possibly a goal or a dream. Hugh is a free spirit and is very giving. He often thinks, “There’s more to life than money.” He is a very grounded individual.

He feels somewhat frustrated that his life has not gone in the direction that he has wanted it to - yet. There is such wonderful potential within him waiting to be given the chance.

My name is Kristen Leona and I am a psychic medium. One of my specialties is reading photographs. What that means is that I can receive psychic information from and can connect with someone who has passed on through their photographs. The photos that I use for readings can be either actual photographs or digital ones on my laptop. Before I begin a reading, I light white candles and ask for protection, to do well, and to be helpful with the reading. While I study the photos, I see things, hear things, smell things, feel things, etc. During this process, I write down everything that comes to me and also answer any questions that the client has asked pertaining to the reading. When the reading has been completed - I type up all the notes that I took during the reading and the answers to the questions and email them to the client.


He tends to be light hearted and enjoys making people laugh. He’s thoughtful. He misses his mum. And, although he had a somewhat rough childhood - he is thankful for it because it made him the person he is today. Such good energy radiates from him. I’m getting the word, “teacher”.


GUIDANCE


He feels young at heart and can be somewhat of a jokester. He is a very wise soul and such a warmth comes from this man.

The questions that were given to me by Hugh were 1) Will I relocate? -- I believe so, after you retire. 2) Will I be famous? -- Within your field and in your area - your name will be well known.

If you would like to have a free photo reading published in this magazine, please send your photos and any questions to theparanormalexplorer@gmail. com with “Photo Reading” in the subject line. Connect with me at: http://facebook.com/kristen. leona and visit my website: www.kristenleona.com.

3) Will I be successful in my aims to achieve my dream (A Healing Sanctuary)? -- With enough support and backing, I believe this can be possible. 4) Will the people I help acknowledge the benefits that have been bestowed upon them from a higher level through my works? -- Yes and they will be very grateful. Some will become your students as well.



GUIDANCE


The Law Of Attraction: Breaking Free of Our Addictions & Entering Into A Collective Consciousness By Mandy Peterson

One Step Further On Your Journey Toward Evolution The first time I heard about the law of attraction was in 1996. It wasn’t called the law of attraction yet, but the main precept was largely the same: as within, so without. Our outer world was a mirroring process that reflected our inner thoughts. It was becoming more widely accepted that there existed a bodymind-spirit connection beneath every illness and situation we might face in life. I’m not here writing to refute this; I just feel something is yet incomplete in what seems to have become a primary focus. I have not addressed this until now because I’m afraid to be a hypocrite. Who am I to say anything, when I’m as trapped in the whole system as anyone else? And how do I know what I say is going to be of any real or practical truth when this world, in the end, is just an illusion? Even so, I feel compelled to put some of this information forward, to go beyond my fear with the knowledge that none of us are perfect. Some of this information is already out there and attached to giving our power away to “Illuminati” or banking conspiracies. However, if you see the truth beneath those conspiracies, then we can have the awareness to make new choices from a place of knowing not only what we want, but also what we do not want and how to play a part in not creating it... if one chooses to take this route. As I already stated earlier, our Earthbound experience may be considered to be illusion anyway, so you can always start from this point, too. The “Me First” Movement Has A Purpose How the law of attraction is being used now is still a crucial step towards moving to the next level. How can we really understand how the law works on a collective level if we have never experienced it on a personal one?

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However, the planet is evolving in ways where we will always have choice. And possibly, just possibly, a small doorway can open toward new possibilities if we don’t run away in fear and close it shut. We have been falling into the illusion that we are powerful because we are manifesting “things” and “creations” within a “box.” What does this “box” serve and mani-

fest? Only when you attempt to break free of that “box” will you realize exactly what you are manifesting yourself into. This is not negative or positive, it just is, and it has been a choice we have been making for a very long time. And ask yourself, would you be trying so hard to manifest within the structure of chasing after money and “things” if society wasn’t set up to trap you those ways? And, how do you even know what thoughts and wants and needs are even really your own when you have been exposed to constant advertising on a continual basis? The truth is that “The Secret” did bring forth a lot of new information on our power to manifest. However, we are getting stuck on the personal level. Why? Because we still believe that collectively we have little power to change. This is an untruth of course, but our inability to see this as our prime motivator in everything we want to create, keeps us creating within the “box” rather than outside of it. We can’t create anything outside of us if we are not yet taking responsibility that it was first created from within. Responsibility is the key. Because, if we can look beyond ourselves into how we are manifesting collectively, then we can come to understand that we have more collective power than we acknowledge. And with power comes responsibility to use it wisely. By using our power on an individual level, and by manifesting in our own little worlds, we are affecting the collective – sometimes even negatively. I am emphasizing our desperation to use the Law of Attraction to give our power away to things, like more money, fame, fortune etc. We have power within our manifestations to affect both the material world and a collective stream of consciousness. We use this power every day, but do we really understand what we are manifesting collectively with it, or even why? Moving Out Of A “Me First” Mentality and Into The Idea Of A Collective “To understand ourselves is to understand our environment and our neighbor because we are truly one” ~ Ryan Gear We have been locked within an age of “me first” for some time now. This has not necessarily been a “bad” thing. Many of us needed to know we had value and that we could be creators in our own right. As a


GUIDANCE society we became more individualistic, had more dreams, aspirations, roles and destinies. We realized that we didn’t always have to be slaves to other people and their ideas. We could have and find our own. Moving out of this “me first” mentality, we still can and will have dreams, aspirations, roles and destinies, but we may now wish to move towards making our dreams and aspirations more holistic -- to come together in new ways to get ourselves out of the box we have collectively created. As individuals, we can choose to not think collectively, but the end result will not be our freedom. We cannot logically keep going how we are going and keep everything on earth in balance and treated with the respect that it/we truly do deserve. However, it is not productive to go into thinking about all of this too deeply. However, there are some things you can do. 1. Give yourself permission to think as a collective rather than just an individual Most of us haven’t been raised to care about the collective as a whole. We care for parts of the whole and ourselves, but we have a hard time seeing beyond into the bigger picture of things. There is a way we can move towards thinking more expansively. We can expand your perception towards beginning to think as a “collective” and how we affect that collective in everything we buy, create, think or do. 2. Give yourself permission to stop waiting for something outside of yourself to bring the collective back into balance. Sometimes we act out of a sense of powerlessness on this planet. We wait around for the government or even Mother Nature to correct things. I have heard some spiritual people tell me not to worry about the planet because Mother Nature knows how to correct things and bring things into balance. Others seem to think the opposite -- that some mysterious ascension shift is going to come along and make it easy for us. But why do we need to wait for this? Why wait to create our circumstance and then dump it onto Mother Nature, the government, or


A Magazine For The Paranormal Mind some other outside force to fix it for us? 3. Give yourself permission to take responsibility for your role in manifesting a collective state The Law of Attraction puts forward that we must be responsible for what we manifest in our personal lives. However, this equally holds true for the state of the whole world as well. If we, in a collective sense, want to complain about the government and hold them responsible for why things are not changing, that is our choice. But, as without is also within. We are the ones creating it. We mindlessly buy from companies that completely control our governments and realities. Such companies may pollute, harm or abuse other creatures or work within ethics we do not always support. No one is forcing us to become part of the problem rather than the solution here. We choose support these companies to all by ourselves. Why? 4. Give yourself permission to distinguish what is True Light from what is False Visualize two cups, one filled with coins and the other water. Now, drop coins from the first cup into the cup with water. What happens? The water gets pushed out. Becoming close to God isn’t about taking a vow of poverty. That’s making it about suffering. Then the cup becomes empty of both water and coins. It’s about becoming more whole, more full, more clear... ‘til you are less needing to fill coins in your cup. Distinguishing true light from false light isn’t about duality and either type of light being good or bad. Right now it is about building bridges. If you look out into the vastness of space you will see darkness intermingling with bright stars, but you wouldn’t be able to see the stars unless there was the dark space around them. If you go deep enough into anything outside of yourself, you will realize that underneath anything you try to attain or create there will be one message -- a call for love. Even in our successes and glory, what are we looking for? And in our depths of despair, what are we hoping to receive? So how should one distinguish True Light from False Light? I personally simply see it in terms that one light you will find within you (true light), the other

light you will find outside of you, in your outer world (false light). So, when thinking about True or False Light, you may just want to think about whether the ideas and philosophies you are buying into move you closer to finding your light within. Or, are you buying into something that keeps you lost and looking outside of yourself? 5. Give yourself permission to go beyond applying affirmations There is passivity in how Law of Attraction can be used. Though I do believe it all comes down to thought, you don’t want to make the Law of Attraction only about employing affirmations. Much of what we manifest largely comes from unconscious habits and behaviors. When kept hidden and unidentified, these unconscious habits and behaviors can never be turned into lessons in unconditional love. The truth is you do not have to “do” anything to force change. You can use your consciousness to connect with your being, and to what you want and feel, and why. Then, give yourself permission to be accepting and loving to all your parts and from that place everything else will come together. You may find you stop needing what never served you, or that you start moving away from negative habits and behaviors... You may stop needing “coins” and other “things” of the world to fill or “pollute” your cup.

before. Look in a detached way at the new and flashy gadget you’ve always wanted to by. Without judgment, just step outside of yourself. Why do you want that new electronic gadget? Who or what told you to get it? A commercial? Do you really need it? Will it make you free? How can it impact the collective if everyone is buying one? What is the energy of the company you will be manifesting into if you buy one? The list goes on. Now bring yourself back to your heart in an expansive sense again by imagining your heart is not just in your body but expands out into the totality of everything. What is your heart saying? If you can feel these with your heart and again expand yourself rather than contract yourself, you can gain a lot of peace and awareness.

We can advance to the next level. We can think individually, but in a more collective way, without waiting on anything or anyone else to support us in this. Meditation:

Visualize something higher than yourself and your own world for a moment. Take your vision through the light of your entire energy field and use it to feel the whole planet and all its people, plants and animals as if it was ONE living being. Feel the energy and go into it. What is that energy saying? What is it asking for? What is it feeling? As you sense the collective Earth energy and allow yourself to truly “feel” these energies, your heart may wish to overflow with love, compassion, or even other I love Eckhart Tolle because he talks about the “now,” emotions you might deem as negative. Allow it. You and entering the “portal called Allow.” You can be in do not have to judge any of this as good or bad. This the “now” and watch everything without judgment. will be open to your interpretation and coming from a When you start doing this you start seeing things dif- place of mirroring something within yourself, because ferently and can detach, seeing things you never saw you are a part of that collective and how you perceive


GUIDANCE


it reflects how you perceive your own personal world. If you go even deeper you can feel into the Oneness and Expansiveness of the all “that is” in its perfection, free from the illusionary dream. It’s about moving your consciousness the step beyond where you have it right now and becoming more aware of a collective energy and experience. Now move your awareness back towards just your own energy field. How does that feel? What is the difference between the two feelings? Doing this exercise, it is important to attempt to pull your focus from the heart rather than using the mind. We want to feel the collective and the planet rather than “think” about it. The mind loves duality and will make all sorts of judgments, but if it does, just allow it to, it is okay. However, the aim is to go into your heart. If you can’t do this exercise perfectly, of course don’t be hard on yourself or try too hard. Use whatever works for you that moves you toward getting out of the mind and into the heart as an individual and a collective. Learning how to do this may also help us to be able to feel ourselves, and feel why we want what we want as well as gain insight into the bigger picture of the world, the collective.

Mandy is an Empathic Intuitive, Energy Worker, and EFT Practitioner who has developed her own style of EFT which incorporates energy work, involves no physical tapping, and can be used on the energy field or on individual issues. Mandy’s goal is to provide both sessions and selfhelp tools for those who wish to learn to heal themselves.

Visit Mandy Peterson’s web site at: www.mysticmandy.com



GUIDANCE


Agony Aunt With Elaine Fessey In this month’s issue of The Paranormal Explorer I have been entrusted with two problems. My guide and I have been working hard to find the best guidance possible. If you have a problem that has been bothering you or a spiritual dilemma that would benefit from some guidance please do not hesitate to write into me here at the agony aunt page. I promise to treat your problem with the upmost care and concern from your very own agony aunt. [email protected] 1. Question: Dear Agony Aunt, When I relax and close my eyes I sometimes see visions. I once saw a kaleidoscope image whirling around. Suddenly three foxes began chasing each other round and around. I watched until they ran completely out of sight. The following day I was working at my job as a milkman. Three youths chased up to me and demanded money from my takings. I got out of my vehicle and they ran away. On another occasion I saw an old fashioned gun lying broken on the floor. The following week as I worked delivering the milk a man pointed a gun in my face and demanded money. I grabbed him and pushed him to the floor with superhuman strength and shouted “your gun is broken.” He got up and fled the scene. What do these visions mean? John, Cornwall UK. Hello John,

Image © ICEQUEEN www.deviantart.com/icequeen777


and teacher and your guides will not allow any harm to come to you. The people who attacked you are on a particular path to learn lessons. You have enabled them to learn a lesson with no harm to yourself whatsoever. Continue to pay attention to your visions and enjoy your healing work. Elaine 2. QUESTION: Dear Agony Aunt, My friend was contacted by a psychic acquaintance who warned her that she had been given a message in a dream. My friend was told to leave her home at once, before it was too late! What can I tell my friend to help her? My friend lives in NYC. Pete USA. Hello Pete, Please tell your friend not to worry. In dreams we re-live our fears and worries in order to understand them. The psychic was not being warned of anything terrible to come. Actually the psychic has been tested recently after a spell of self development and is feeling fear as their blocked emotions are clearing. Many sensitives are aware of the changes all around us now. The message was not that she should run from home but never to run from the emotional blocks clearing now. She and her friend will then be prepared for the changes coming. Best wishes, Elaine.

Thank you for contacting me. You have the ability to see the future through clairvoyant vision. Your guides are taking great care of you by warning you of future dangers. You have a job as a spiritual healer


GUIDANCE


The Herbal Corner

With Christa Bouchie

Huckleberries Thinking about this time of year brings the eyes out to the yard, surrounding bushes and even the garden that should be ready to be put to bed for the winter. Out here in the Pacific Northwest the harvesting is not just winding down for many but beginning for all those that LOVE huckleberries. Known as belonging to the Vaccinium species, this doesn’t just include huckleberries but blueberries as well. Though it is said botanists don’t acknowledge a difference between the two, there is a difference to those of us up here. The huckleberry is known as the American Corruption from the British Whortleberry that came from the Anglo Saxon word wrytil meaning little shrub and beri meaning berry. Out here on the West Coast there are different types of huckleberries and blueberries. One known as the California Huckleberry, the Evergreen huckleberry or V. Ovatum has shiny toothed leaves with shiny black berries that have no bloom. The green leaves are leathery and elliptic with a center vein that has a deep grove. During the months of March into May bell shaped white or pink flowers grow that later mature into dark purple tasty berries that many love to make jams, fruit leathers, sauces and syrups from.


The Mountain Huckleberry or V. Membranaceum grows upwards of 6 feet tall and has leaves of bright green and urn shaped pale yellow and pink flowers. The berries that are produced from this particular bush are reddish purple to black and usually appear without a bloom. The leaves are long, elliptical, sharp pointed and saw-toothed that turn reddish orange in the fall. These berries can be very tart but among all the huckleberries are some of the most delicious. These are just two of the wonderful berries that are growing aplenty up here where I am located and are looked forward to every year. Some other berries that fall within the same species are the Western Huckleberry (V.occidentale), Grouse Whortleberry (V. Scoparium), and Oval leafed blueberry (V. Ovalifolium, Cascade Huckleberry (V. Deliciosum, the Red huckleberry (V. Parvifolium) and the Alaskan Blueberry otherwise known as (V. Alaskaense). Northwest Native American Tribes actually used the bark from trees and bones from salmons to make combs that would assist in the harvesting of the berries. They dried the berries in the sun, smoked them and or squashed them into cakes and wrapped

them in leaves for storage. One tribe actually kept their berry cakes rolled onto sticks. It was the women and their families that were known to own the berry grounds and the fields all had names with well walked trails connecting each one of them together. September was the berry month for the Nez Perce and the Chinook, with one of the four seasonal first fruit celebrations occurring. After the ceremonies, the Native Americans would leave for the berry picking grounds staying through til Mid-October. The Native tribes also used the huckleberries for medicinal purposes as well. Blueberry tea was given to women in labor as well as the juice of the red huckleberry given to women for other female issues that arose. The Makah gave infusions of evergreen huckleberries to women after childbirth to assist in the regaining of their strength. Many other native groups made infusions from the leaves, roots, stems, and barks using the liquid as an all purpose medicine that stimulated appetites and treat such ailments as arthritis, heart trouble, colds, nausea and diabetes.


HOROSCOPE


Horoscope November 2011

Horoscope Columnist Jeanne Marie Douglas

SCORPIO October 23 - November 21

Aries

Gemini

(20 March – 19 April):

(21 May – 20 June):

Your need to catch up with soulmates leads to a busy social time, with the chance to meet a brand new face – and one that is full of promise. Not only do you get onto the same wavelength but romantic overtones are a distinct possibility. The overall direction does seem to point to a whole new mental outlook, as well as purpose and this is most refreshing. You somehow have a hunch that never again will you have to push hard for financial rewards as just recently – and you’re absolutely right!

You’ll be deep into discipline this month and won’t let yourself rest, if even for a moment! For you feel, deep down, that this is the right time to push hard for what you want, sensing success is just around the corner. Of course, you are completely right for this is an important time to put on your best front and shine in the workplace. This may even involve a ‘new look’ such as a different hair style or a new suit. For appearances do ‘matter’, especially when starting a new work project – as you will.

Taurus

Cancer

(20 April – 20 May):

Your willingness to attend to matters at home and with family makes you popular ‘all round’ and you start to get ahead of the game of life. Your energy also overflows when it comes to that very special ‘someone’ in your life and you can be sure of love and affection. By putting your heads together, you can solve some tricky problems. If single, be on the lookout for romance and with someone on the same wavelength. Life is really moving on and you won’t want to look back – or even need to!

(21 June – 21 July):

You feel a strong need to focus on financial issues and making money comes especially easy and your popularity also improves as a direct result! This brings social invites to your doorstep, even though you may feel a little too pushed to accept. However, you are destined to meet a new friend, with whom you ‘hit it off’ instantly and start making exciting plans together. Romance too is high on your agenda, when an admirer draws you by cleverly asking you lots of questions and empathising.


Leo

(22 July – 22 August):

Having ‘gotten over recent’ emotional headaches, you now feel confident enough to make a few long-term plans. Life has simplified over the last month and your overall direction is much clearer. You continue to work hard, almost pushing yourself into the ground in fact! This makes home comforts and family so much more appreciated and time spent with loved ones is most beneficial. In fact, look out for new domestic beginnings such as a redecoration, refurbishment or even a new addition to the family.

Virgo

(23 August – 22 September):

You manage to put exciting plans into action this month when an extra bit of luck ‘comes your way’ and others too seem happy to fall in with your ideas. Your finances continue to hold together quite well though you’ve certainly been working hard on these – much harder than anyone could ever know. And now, you’re entitled to enjoy the fruits of your labour as the daily grind eases up a little and brings fun, games and laughter your way. And talks with loved ones reveal your next steps in life.

Libra

(23 September – 22 October):

Sagittarius (22 November – 20 December):

Aquarius

Just lately, it seems so much easier to plan and dream ahead, having sorted out certain basic problems and attended to urgent matters. This leaves you lots of time to catch up with friends – and party until dawn if you really want to! However, you’re much more inclined to focus on your finances, especially when a stroke of luck has an almost magical effect and this has the power to transform your whole life. Expect things’ to now go your way and you can pretty much enjoy life as you please.

You are determined to sort yourself out ‘once and for all’! In fact, you could spend lots of time carefully analysing your situation and coming up with a new slant. A loved one may help you and you certainly won’t be feeling lonely. Being so deep in thought takes time and commitment and you may find – generally – that you’re not as sociable as you usually are. Moreover, others do seem to be particularly hard work and difficult at times as they present you with one problem after another. Phew!

Scorpio

Romance is sizzling this month and may leave you exhausted, gasping for breath and looking forward to the next instalment. Maybe it’s a little too hot to handle and going much too fast for you, so you much prefer to catch up with work issues, giving you the chance to focus on something tangible and proving much easier to cope with! As always, your sensible approach sees progress even though, at times, you wish that you could throw caution to the wind and be a little more whimsical - one day you will.

Capricorn

(23 October – 21 November):

Be on the look out for new practical ideas which have the power to totally transform your life into something rather wonderful! There is an element of ‘destiny at work’ which makes you feel rather special and unique. This seems fair payment for all your wonderful good deeds in the past, now returning. However, quite sensibly, you won’t ‘rest on your laurels’ and be too complacent for you continue to work hard and apply yourself, forging still further ahead. There will always be time for rest later on.

(20 January – 17 February):

Pisces

(21 December – 19 January):

Life can’t help but bring in changes and these should be heartily welcomed, especially as this involves a new romance or – at least – close friendship. With it comes lots of fun and adventure leading to a complete overhaul of how you see life and what you expect from it. Stand back and let life take over for a while and just enjoy the ride, going with the flow. By the end of the month, you’ll feel rejuvenated and, rising like a ‘phoenix from the ashes’ will go after new goals and desires. Life will move on.

(18 February – 19 March):

You work hard even though life is demanding that you loosen up and relax a little. For it does seem as if it’s time to slow down and analyse your situation thoroughly before taking the next step. A more upbeat mental attitude does seem rather fortunate being as you’re able to steer round possible problems, thus avoiding issues and finding calmer waters. You act wisely and also listen to the kind advice of others who feel true affection for you and have your real interests at heart. Luck smiles at you!


SHOW DIRECTORY





Paranormal Explorer Magazine - November Issue

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