True Ghost Stories: Real Accounts of Death and Dying, Grief and Bereavement, Soulmates and Heaven, Near Death Experiences, and Other Paranormal Mysteries (The Supernatural Book Series: Volume 3)
Page 6
Playing with My Ponytail
I was a new mother, and on this occasion I was in the basement washing clothes in an old wringer washer. After washing a load of clothes I would hang them up to dry on a clothesline in the basement. I had my long hair in a ponytail that day and while I was hanging an article of clothing something pulled my ponytail very hard; it was hard enough to jerk my head back. I thought it was my husband, but when I turned around there was no one there, or should I say there was no one there who I could physically see.
Apparition First; Rumour Second
It was daytime, and my husband and I were getting ready to go somewhere. I was sitting in the living room, looking down the hall. I saw a man standing at the end of the hall, outside the bedroom where my husband was getting ready.
The man was dressed in a black coat and hat, like they wore in the 1950's and '60's.
His form was solid, and he was looking down the hall at me. Then he vanished.
I later learned that a man, named… who always dressed like this, had owned the house years ago and was rumoured to still haunt the house.
Since I heard that rumour after I saw the apparition, I believe it to be correct.
From My Childhood
When I was young I always got very strong impressions; I guess they were like spirits but I'm not entirely sure.
I HATED school, and it was starting to affect me physically. Then, I started sensing a woman, sometimes others were with her, who would tell me it was ok, and to not feel stressed and worried, etc.
She wore clothes like robes and cloaks that were beautiful; they were purple and white and gold mostly. I never actually SAW her, but I'm positive of what I sensed.
I finally told my mom, and she said she didn't know what it was, but to remember that bad spirits can appear as good spirits.
I started to wonder whether maybe this lady was a demon in disguise and the lady got really angry, and so I told my mom again because I was scared. She never did come back, and she was one of the only spirits I ever really knew and recognized. It wasn't long after that I started my teen years and I can't really sense as much anymore.
A Full House
We moved into a terraced house with six children and everything was fine until about six months into our stay.
My bed was up against an old blocked off fireplace. I woke one night to hear a toddler screaming "daddy, daddy". Our next-door neighbors were three young college students (this is where the crying was coming from). The next morning I went to ask if they had a little one in there; they looked at me as if I was crazy. To cut a long story short, I said I would come knocking if I heard it again and inform the authorities because they shouldn't have a little one in the premises. This experience happened twice.
Then, other things occurred like radios coming on by themselves at full volume; things would go missing only to turn up in the most unusual places weeks later. I also had the impression that I was being watched and that was scary for me because I was normally on my own.
All of my children had experiences that scared the heebie geebies out of them. My only daughter was the most affected by night-time visitors. We heard footsteps and saw dark shadows that came from the side of the wardrobe in my bedroom.
My two dogs would come upstairs with me if I wanted time out on my own to read a book. One night the dogs stood up on the bed growling and following something at ceiling height; the dogs weren't scared but I was. I ran down the stairs to tell my hubbie what I had seen but he would never go and investigate because he knew we had these visitors.
All this stuff went on for about eighteen months and yet I never had the feeling that I had to move. I learned not to be scared of what was going on, and the occurrences finally abated. Then, we moved house about a year later.
Having the Time of Their Lives
Okay, this also took place in Louisiana, but in a different town.
I had moved in with my dad and his girlfriend. We lived on a 3 or 4 mile, long dirt road and about halfway along there was a cemetery above ground, you know the type? My family and good friends of family were the only ones who lived on that road.
Anyway, I would always slip to buy cigarettes from a store and in order to get there I'd have to walk past the cemetery, into woods then follow a path about 2 miles. On this particular day, I did just that, only as I came to edge of wood to walk thru the cemetery (I didn't hear no inner voice or even a voice in my head) I just knew to duck behind the last few trees.
I didn't know why but I did it. Anyway, as I looked around the trees while I was hiding (I guess you'd call it that), I saw identical twin, African-American boys dressed in cut offs shirts and suspenders.
They seemed to be having the time of their lives, pardon the pun, but that's the aura they put out.
They were playing get this, and leapfrogging over the tombs and graves.
This went on about five minutes and they just leapfrogged till the graveyard met the wood at furthest end; then they were gone.
That was it! That was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me anyway, so I walked rest way home smiling.
Thesis Extract
Chapter 3 Literature Review
3.1 Introduction
In Chapter 2 the body of literature on using the WWW to collect data was reviewed. In this chapter the relevant literature pertaining to parapsychological experiences is examined under three broad headings:
‘nature’ which deals with the issues of definition and terminology, and research difficulties that arise as a result of the multidisciplinary nature of paranormal experiences;
‘incidence’ which examines the current evidence on spontaneous paranormal and spiritual experiences; and
‘impact and integration’ which reviews what is currently known about the effects of paranormal experiences on the experients.
In the final part of Chapter 3 the findings of past surveys on parapsychological experiences, including those that form the basis of the current study, are introduced.
The issue of whether the paranormal is proven or not is outside the scope of the current study but as Feldman and Goldsmith (1991) assert, “one should not necessarily dismiss a phenomenon as untrue simply because it cannot easily be explained” (p.191).
Indeed, three decades ago, the frequency with which these experiences were being reported provoked Greeley (1975) to suggest that “any phenomena with incidence as widespread as the paranormal deserves much more careful and intensive research than it has received up to now” (p.7). The current study and this researcher are inspired by the small number of specialists in the field of parapsychology, including Radin who asserts, “scientific evidence for some forms of psi is indeed persuasive. By the same standards used to establish proof in other areas of science, we can say with confidence that psi does exist” (Radin, 2007b, ¶4).
3.2 The Nature of Parapsychological Phenomena
The most extensively researched aspect of psi is paranormal beliefs and repeatedly, academic surveys conclude that people believe in parapsychological phenomena. The list of studies that explore the correlations between the paranormal and personal qualities is extensive and includes: personality traits, proneness to mental illness, political convictions, child abuse, religious beliefs, income level, education levels, and the demographics of age and gender. While no enduring link or causation between these correlates and parapsychological beliefs is known, given the volume of research involved it seems reasonable to conclude firstly, that people do believe in the paranormal and secondly, that researching paranormal beliefs is academically acceptable (Allen, 1994; Banzinger, 1983; Emmons, 1981; Grimmer 1990, 1992; Karr, 2001; Linderman, 2007; Lyons, 2005; Newport, 2001; Rice, 2003).
Central to the research on the nature of parapsychological phenomena is the issue of consciousness, and while this is not the main theme of the current study, the findings of this investigation will ideally make a contribution to this underdeveloped field of study.
As Radin (199
7) notes, “after a hundred years, psychology has not produced even the crudest model of how processes in the brain are transformed into conscious experience” (p.211). To advance the discussion on the relationship between psi and consciousness Radin (1997) hypothesises that consciousness is a manifestation of psi which extends beyond the physical body. Further, he contends that psi is capable of injecting order into physical systems and is created by persons acting alone or in groups. There is a small group of scientists which foresees a time when the scientific community will be forced to take paranormal phenomena seriously and then, “our ideas about minds and brains, about animal nature and human nature, and about space and time” will be revolutionised (Sheldrake, 2003, p.2).
In Greaves (2004), the author documents her own telepathic communications with a deceased friend and, according to Piechowski, such accounts are evidence that the boundaries of consciousness extend beyond the current lifetime, thereby suggesting that “extraordinary abilities and talents are developed, in part, between lives” (Piechowski, 2001a, p.10). On the reasons why not all individuals are conscious of the realms beyond the physical world, some researchers suggest that while the paranormal may be open to all, awareness of it may be triggered in only a few (Piechowski, 2001b; Radin, 1997).
Interest in the paranormal is extensive (Sheldrake, 2003) and while it is the parapsycholological studies which show the most sustained lines of enquiry, to encompass the rich diversity of insights that come from the many disparate paths of enquiry, the current study adopts a multidisciplinary approach to the literature. While this “cross-disciplinary complexity” (MacDonald, 2000) broadens the context of the
current research it also exposes the problem of definition in an area of discourse that is “difficult to specify” (Hay & Morisy, 1978).
Interestingly, some researchers question whether definitions and labels are required. They can be limiting, as the following example illustrates. Originally, the author Tart attempted to title his anthology of paranormal works Spiritual Psychologies. However, his publishers informed him that the title was regarded as too controversial for one of the highly influential American psychology book clubs, which refused to promote the publication under that moniker. Market forces prevailed and the work was published under the title Transpersonal Psychologies.
As Tart (2002) muses “the word transpersonal was so new then that most psychologists had no idea what it meant, but it sounded positive and academic. I stopped waving the red flag of the word spiritual, in front of the bull of established prejudices” (p.37). In the current context, this anecdote is enlightening and pertinent, and supports the tenet that the lines of division between religious, spiritual, anthropological, philosophical, and parapsychological definitions and research are blurred, even arbitrary.
A multidisciplinary review of the literature on the paranormal and psi phenomena produces a plethora of synonyms including spirituality, self-actualization, mysticism, peak experiences, psychic phenomenon, Christianity, relational consciousness, revelations, transpersonal experiences, moral development, existentialism, religious experiences, grace, ecstatic states, spiritual consciousness, mystical experiences, spiritual concerns, overexcitabilities, religious trances, parapsychological experiences, enlightenment, transcendental experiences, cosmic consciousness, spiritual sensitivity, miracles, spiritual self-awareness, metaphysical, and faith. Thus, there are as many words for the paranormal as there are aspects to it and, according to Lovecky (1998):
the sparseness of literature on spiritual development may be due, in part, to difficulties of definition. For one thing, the same examples that exemplify the highest states of moral development are also used to define the highest stages of spiritual development. Discussions of spirituality also may range from discussions about religion to discussions about self-actualization (p.4).
To resolve this dilemma, the current study embraces the multidisciplinary nature of the paranormal and includes experiences that either violate scientific laws or are scientifically inexplicable (Karolyi, 2003) and are the result of “interactions between consciousness and the physical world” (Radin, 1007). Specifically, these phenomena…
Continued here:
http://psychicrevolution.com/thesis-paranormal-research/paranormal-literature/
Click on the above link and enter the password – parapsychology – to read the remainder of this part of my dissertation.
About the Author
Rosemary Breen is an author, appreneur, Internet marketer, and founder of two websites.
The first website is Psychic Revolution: http://PsychicRevolution.com
This site is a natural extension of Rosemary's academic research into paranormal phenomena.
The second website is Compatibility and Love: http://CompatibilityAndLove.com
In this website, Rosemary explores love, life and relationships from most angles, including zodiac compatibility.
Rosemary lives in Australia with her husband, two children, and their Border Collie.
Books by the Author
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TRUE GHOST STORIES Vol. 3 (The Supernatural Book Series)
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Thank You
Thank you for reading this book and allowing me to share with you some of the experiences and insights that people, perhaps just like yourself, have encountered as they go about their everyday life. Proceeds from the sale of this series of books are used to maintain the online paranormal survey.
As you can see from the accounts you have just read, the paranormal doesn’t just exist in old cemeteries, abandoned apartments and medieval churches (though, these do make excellent backdrops for scary tales). For many people, the paranormal has become a way of life for them. Some have lives that are enriched by ghosts, poltergeist activity and other types of paranormal phenomena and they genuinely embrace their experiences. Others are literally haunted by experiences that they alone encounter and, for them life seems to be much harder.
Thus, good or bad, real or imagined the paranormal is a way of life for many. And, what about you?
If you would like to be part of my anonymous paranormal survey then click the following link Spontaneous Paranormal Experiences.
&nbs
p; If you are interested in human nature and relationships then I suggest you subscribe to my website, Compatibility and Love. If you are more into the paranormal and the meaning of life then my Psychic Revolution is probably the blog that will interest you most.
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Of course, I’d also love you to buy another one of my books and share it with your friends. Even if you don’t I still hope you’ll check out my blogs.
Who knows, we may even meet one day - in this life or the next!
Cheers
Rosemary
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