Need some advice . . .

[Cliona]

I know that spirits and ghosts exist due to my own personal experiences with them. I've had these experiences since I was a kid. I used to see things (shadow ppl) when I was a child and scared the daylights out of me, so I think somehow I started blocking out being able to visually see these things. However, I have always been able to hear things (i.e. footsteps, sometimes even voices). Now it seems that when I get wrapped up in other things going on in my life and I'm really busy, I tend to not be able to pick up these things (I don't hear the weird noises and have odd occurances around the house like I normally would). But as soon as my life slows down and I have time to think about ghosts and spirits and things like that, the weird stuff starts happening again. It's like I have an "on" and "off" switch but I just don't know how to use it. I've recently taken an interest in finding my own spiritual path (I had been pretty close to being an atheist for the last couple years). And as soon as I started doing my research on paganism and trying to find my path, the weird noises and odd things happening started up again. I don't want to abandon my spiritual research, however, I hate it when the ghosts or spirits start hanging around because they just scare the crap out of me. I tend to lose sleep when this stuff goes on cuz just as I'm about to fall asleep, I'll hear a noise or a voice or something. I'm a control freak and don't like things I can't control and I can't control spirits. So, can anyone give me any advice on how to find the proverbial "on" and "off" switch or how to control my being able to tune into?

[Derestanne]

Your questions raise questions about self mastery and our role in the whole of Creation.

So you consider yourself to be a control freak? Consider - control of what by what, and of who by whom?

If you had better self control, as in self mastery, would you have half as much discomfort with ghosts? I can imagine you also do not care for spirits-in-incarnation playing unanticipated games with you either.

Unfortunately, in my experience, Control comes at an expensive price; we sacrifice the freedom to explore and be astounded, captivated and delighted. Life can then become regimented, boring and all-too-predictable.

Dr. Fred Allen Wolf said, "the secret of life is not to be in the know, but to be in the moment". Knowledge may be Power, but it is not the Ecstasy of Being Alive!

People sometimes approach me wanting to learn meditation and spiritual studies because they believe they personally lack discipline. I tell them I don't teach ritual or discipline as meaningful goals and I don't view spiritual practice as a means of taking away anything human. Any genuine spiritual development must have expanded awareness as it's primary goal.

I suspect the ghosts taunt you because there is something within yourself - a belief or a learned, conditioned attitude that lies at the root of what taunts you, from inside yourself. If you found out what that is - and changed it - the ghosts would loose interest in taunting you. This would then open the doorway to a different Group of spirits in your life who would be more enlightened and less irritating.

Wars are won by embracing peace and refusing to fuel conflict. By creating peace within yourself, all that surrounds you will be a reflection of what is within you. Remember that the Universe is a gigantic hologram that responds to our attitudes, beliefs and fears.

My last thought, if you see ghosts as if they were your family, your children, pieces of your own heart, there will be greater respect, trust and harmony between you and them. "Me" and "Them" will be replaced with "All that is" and "I Am".

[bbnflpn]

im in somewhat of a similar situation, i also turned off my spirit seeing ablity. they scared the crap out of me.

recently i have come to the realization that it is not them that has the problem but me. i even was scared of my grandma when she came to me. i was freaked out and i told her so. (of course grandma being the way she is probably thought that i didnt want her around so she never came back) i didnt see her, i heard her. and i said grandma that is kind of freaked me out.

now my approch to spirits is alittle differnt, i tell them sure im scared its just cause, its starteling to see or hear, but after a while you get use to it, and i tried to tell grandma that as well. but she never came back :-( (she does occasionaly come to me in my dreams and i talk to her there) i have moved since then so i dont think i will see or hear her manifest again, since she died in the house.

mostly i see animal spirits or feel them walking around or on me while im sleeping. i have never been afraid of them for some reason. i am starting to see them more often though.

and i did see a headless man walking along the freeway the other night. i wasnt truly freaked out like normal, since it took me a bit to realize what i had seen, and by then i had passed him so it was an after thought. i found it odd cause i normaly see them as gold shimmers of light, but this was a solid manifestation.

i do plan on takeing the spirit communications class that is held at a local store, i went to a graduation of theirs and started to realize that what i was seeing was actually spirits and not just an abnormality of my eyes.

maybe you should see if there is a class like it in your area. check out local spiritual stores and see if they have classes or have listings for classes that you can take.

[MankyCat]

I've known a number of people with similar gifts. Some were scared, some not so much (more unnerved).

Personally, I've had some experiences. I seemed to have mostly turned my setting off and it's a hard switch to flip back on. (I can still draw them for some reason, but that was always my skill with them.) I used to hear them, mostly music as well. And then I started seeing them. I was fine, until I saw one in particular. Now the on switch only works in certain places. Ah well.

One of my friends, the one with the highest level of this gift and the one most freaked out, couldn't shut the switch off. I told her the only real way to harness this gift is to face it, not run from it. She started doing so, and now has a better handle on turning this awareness down or off or turning it up or on. I'm very impressed with her ability to do this and her gift as well.

Because she started actually listening and dealing with these spirits, she's gained a lot of information and understanding about things.

[Cliona]

bbnflpn and Yuli - Thank you for the advice! And I think I will take a look and see if there are any classes nearby, good idea :)

[bbnflpn]

they are good classes (at least the ones here) or so i have heard. a good freind of mine took them and has really started to face those things right now.

the classes teach differnt things for communication from dark circles (turn out the lights and see what you see, and feel, get messages ect) tarot reading, of course grounding and sheilding.

i really want to take them but i dont have the money right now for it.

[BlueWaves]

um cliona...i hate to say it, but that original post of yours is me to a T :P

[ViolinGoddess]

Well, what I've done with the ghost in my house is that I've asked it to not show itself visibly to me as I statle easily. If asking nicely doesn't work you can also demand that they quite down because it is your house!

THe other idea I had was that you could do a meditation that you go into yur mind and find the "control panel" (everyone has one) t will look like a huge computer with lots of dials and knobs and buttons and a screen. Find whatever is labeled "psychic senses", and adjust it to the "off" position. Or you could choose a limited setting that allows you to sense some things but not others. Use your imagination. Set it to what you want.

Violin Goddess

[BlueWaves]

MEH!!! I dont hate to admit, just a figure of speech i suppose...

however, it's not for me, something i want to turn on/off, just keep on. whenever I try to commune I just get laughter at me, (not a scary laughter, just a belly-laugh {if you will}). I'm always asking, is there anything or anyone that would like to commune. Everything in the room goes either silent or I get in my 6th sense a sense of laughter...no other real communication though =\

it feals like "they" are toying with me...which is kinda funny lol... :)

[Fechín Taliba Rune]

I think if you want to gain any control, you've first got to let go of control. Accept that you have this ability, because trying to separate it from you obviously hasn't been helping. See it as a gift rather than a curse, and it will become one. Learn how far it goes, and the fear will begin to dissapate. So long as you try to fight it's existance, escpecially out of fear of it, you are granting it power over you. If you want to be in control, you have to recognize your own abilities instead of blocking them out. It gives you strength, not weakness.

Since I don't know the full extent of the situation, I can't give more specific advise, but I do hope this helps.

[covenofkeys]

embrace it and youll seek it out!
you cant turn it on or off as such...-its there all the time, or it isnt-you have to relax a little...then it'll come. if you want it to.

[Merilwen]

I don't mean to hijack the thread. I am very familiar with what you are going through. I have seen, and lately heard, things since I was a child (except in high school when I threw myself into my work) and it still freaks me out. It is not something I want to turn off (I cannot stand even the thought of doing so). I am a cynic by nature, so I don't tend to believe people who say that they are attacked and 'fight for their life', but it is harder to reason in the dark, so I just end up leaving the TV on all night to block it out.

I guess the question here is do the stories of these attacks have any validity? And if so, is it enough to just tell them to leave you alone?

[HedwigHarfang]

I know that spirits and ghosts exist due to my own personal experiences with them. I've had these experiences since I was a kid. I used to see things (shadow ppl) when I was a child and scared the daylights out of me, so I think somehow I started blocking out being able to visually see these things. However, I have always been able to hear things (i.e. footsteps, sometimes even voices).

Your subconscious acts as a filter to keep out unnecessary "noise" and if you are switching on it allows you to do so gradually to avoid the shock to the system of anything frightening you and putting you into either severe mental trauma/neurosis or shutting you down again.

Now it seems that when I get wrapped up in other things going on in my life and I'm really busy, I tend to not be able to pick up these things (I don't hear the weird noises and have odd occurances around the house like I normally would). But as soon as my life slows down and I have time to think about ghosts and spirits and things like that, the weird stuff starts happening again.

When your mind is occupied then it filters out all but what your five normal senses tell you. When you begin to relax and need stimulus, second sight often comes gradually and at the very least you begin to dream vividly again because your mind needs something to cling to (I remember during my exams I was focussed on work all day and so my mind was more open to dreaming; at stressful periods of my political career it tends to shut itself off so I am allowed a peaceful night's sleep without disturbance; when I was on the backbenches for two years in 1999-2001 I had all sorts of bizarre dreams because my mind was not focussed enough on the business of being an opposition frontbencher, so I needed to go and take a few courses and study to drain off the extra energy caused by my period of hibernation before the crucial business of the 2001 election. So it is a product of an overactive mind trying to cope with a more relaxed pace of life.

It's like I have an "on" and "off" switch but I just don't know how to use it. I've recently taken an interest in finding my own spiritual path (I had been pretty close to being an atheist for the last couple years). And as soon as I started doing my research on paganism and trying to find my path, the weird noises and odd things happening started up again.

When you are researching the occult, the occult researches you. You are subconsciously allowing yourself to "believe" and thus open up your mind again to the possibilities of psi and spirit. My upbringing in Eastern European Judaism made me believe absolutely in both psi and spirit (we are great ones for prophecy and fortune-telling and all the old babushki in our community were always telling me I'd go far :):):D), so having been brought up in the belief that it was normal I experienced it far more than my contemporaries. Because for a few years you chose to be an atheist, your subconscious shut you off from the deep-seated belief in spirit and thus closed your "third eye" to any possibilities of absorbing knowledge from Beyond.

Because this is a subconscious and not a conscious issue, you cannot just will yourself to be "on" and not "off" every so often when you feel like it. As I said, in people like you whose subconscious is absorbing different ideas - atheism, spirituality, paganism, magick - it tends to flicker on and off depending on what you believe at the time. Finding one particular belief and sticking it would be a way first of all of switching completely on, and then being able to consciously control things in the way that I and many others in communities or groups that believe in psi and spirit (and - trust me on this one - I can safely say you will NEVER find a politician who doesn't believe in God; we all have access to psi at some level though some like me who have believed in it from birth are more highly skilled at using it).

I don't want to abandon my spiritual research, however, I hate it when the ghosts or spirits start hanging around because they just scare the crap out of me. I tend to lose sleep when this stuff goes on cuz just as I'm about to fall asleep, I'll hear a noise or a voice or something. I'm a control freak and don't like things I can't control and I can't control spirits. So, can anyone give me any advice on how to find the proverbial "on" and "off" switch or how to control my being able to tune into?

Ask your guides for help in filtering out the noise. If you go all the way on, braving the extra clutter along the way, you will find you can consciously control what you see, hear and think much better than you can now. Researching the occult is a dangerous business unless done from a rigid and narrow-minded sceptical point of view, because the more you believe in them, the more they believe in you. Louise came to spiritualism early in 2006 and unfortunately before she learned to control her natural filters she let in people who tried to psychically attack her, and felt dizzy and sick after arguments with her parents because mental abuse often affects the psychically "on" mind in a physical way. Go on retreat, switch on gently over a period of about a week, and then concentrate on focusing your mental energy into one particular path - clairvoyance, healing, divination using conscious oracles like tarot, or mediumship, for example - so that you learn to control and wield these immensely powerful talents but don't feel so overwhelmed by them.

Let me know how you get on.

[Amulet]

It's your choice how far you want it to go . Just as you would expect any other person to respect your boundaries , you also have that right with spirits . You can choose times when you wish to be open , and times when you wish to be private .

At first when you develop, some may come around to test you , see how far they can get with you , etc . Other just come because they need help to cross over , and they don't really care that you're trying sleep , etc .

You can ask your guides to help you and keep spirit intrusions off at certain times . Being firm about having your own space is not unreasonable .

[thought_on_a_wind]

The book Witch's Shield has a couple of good defensive visualizations in it regardless if you choose that path or not. Worked for me at least. Also, just as a rule of thumb, if a spirit seems to be malevolent (not just startling you, but a tangible air of contempt can be felt [gut isntinct can usually guide you to a correct assumption]) try to turn that fear into something else, as it seems (at least with my own experiences) that they suck down fear like an alchy knocks back a fifth of cheap vodka. There is a modicum of control to be had, provided it is genuine, and not the ego sneakily easing its way into control. Either way, usually when these things manifest in conjunction with thought of the realms of paganism, I'm of the belief that it's partially our minds getting attuned with the idea that there are many more forces out there than we understand. Flexing atrophied muscles if you will. Either way, envisioning fire shooting up all around has seems to work for me too... maybe you could give it a try after you nail down the visualization thing. Good luck any way you go.

[Lunacie]

Oh Noes! More thread necromancy!

Just so you know, I checked the OP's post history and she hasn't posted here at MW in almost a year.

:rubhead:

[thought_on_a_wind]

Oh Noes! More thread necromancy!

Just so you know, I checked the OP's post history and she hasn't posted here at MW in almost a year.

:rubhead:
ooops....