Another holiday season has come and gone, and we now look forward to the year ahead. The changing of the year is a bittersweet time for many, as we both plan for the future and remember the past, including those who have crossed over to the spirit world. Thank you to everyone who entered the messages contest! At press time, I’m still receiving many beautiful and heartfelt entries of messages from the other side.
If you’ve ever received a message from a loved one, you’re not alone. According to many psychics, we are surrounded by helpful spirits all the time — we just need to pay attention. Alice Rose Morgan is an incredibly accurate and down-to-earth psychic who attributes her uncanny insight to her “Spooks.” If you are familiar with Sylvia Browne, you will love Alice! Her book, Calls to Mystic Alice, is one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in years. I can’t recommend it highly enough. So what are Spooks? “That is what I call my guides,” says Alice. “Others may call them souls, guides, entities, spirits, guardian angels or channels. I prefer just plain “Spooks,” and apparently they don’t mind.”
Moving On, But Keep Sharing Your Stories!
This will be my last paranormal column in New Worlds, as I am moving on to another position here at Llewellyn. If you enjoy this column, please sign up for my Paranormal Update, a bi-monthly e-newsletter featuring the latest paranormal news with special contests and giveaways! Go to http://www.llewellyn.com/email_lists.php?action=subscribe to sign up, and I look forward to continuing to read your stories.
I’d like to share a few of my favorites from the latest Paranormal Update contest, when readers were invited to share their ghost stories. Just as Alice suggests, the Spooks are always with us, and anyone can communicate with them — because every human being has an innate spark of psychic ability. Alice and her Spooks tell us that “a person is never dead as long as someone who is alive remembers them. Say ‘Hi, I love you,’ and continue to remember, because they haven’t forgotten you!”
It is my hope that by sharing these stories of ordinary people having extraordinary experiences, you will be comforted, inspired or even merely intrigued. If you like these true stories, check out Strange But True, a collection of the best true paranormal stories submitted by the readers of FATE Magazine, and True Tales of Ghostly Encounters, a collection of true ghost stories from FATE. I truly believe that there is much more to this world than meets the eye … and the mystery of what lies beyond this world is the greatest mystery of all.
One Last Visit
When I was a young child about three years old, my mother’s grandfather passed away. I did not understand what death was or what it meant. I was close to him at that young age, although now I do not have any memories except of that night.
It started the day of his funeral. I passed out tissues to all the guests who were crying and could not understand why they were sad. My mother tried to explain it to me in terms a child would understand, but I didn’t believe her. She told me that everyone was sad because we would no longer see or talk to him, and that he had gone to be with God.
That night, she heard me laughing in my bedroom after I was supposed to have gone to bed. She stood at my doorway watching me play peek-a-boo alone. She came into my room, sat down on my bed and asked me who I was playing with. I said, “Peepaw” — my childhood name for my great-grandfather. She suddenly turned pale, and I could tell by the look on her face that it had upset her. But she didn’t scold me; rather, she asked me to ask him if he was OK, and if he was in a good place.
I said, “You ask him, he’s right beside you!” She then explained to me that she could not see or hear him anymore. So I asked him her questions, and he told me he was happier than ever and in a wonderful place, but that he would not be able to talk to me again for a while — and even though I may not see him again, he would always be near.
I told my mother what he said, and with that, she told him she loved him and would miss him, and he said the same to me to relay to her. I remember that night vividly and have not seen or talked to him since then. It’s sad that my only memory of my great grandfather was the night of his funeral.
What saddens me the most is that children are most receptive of ghosts, but society tells us they don’t exist and conditions us to block that ability out and consider it make-believe. If we were more open minded to these occurrences, imagine the possibilities!
— K. W.
Signs From the Other Side
There’s more than one way to see a ghost! Besides visualizations, they can be felt, heard, sensed as a wafting fragrance, or even be a telecommunication! And that so-called ghost manifesting itself in one form or another may not be a lost and lonely earth-bound soul but a departed loved one trying to communicate.
My husband passed away four years ago. Losing him at young middle age from cancer was devastating, and although I was relieved his spirit was free from his physical body, I was inconsolable.
He was a strong, dynamic personality in life and within days of his passing I realized his spirit — worried and watching over me — was just as strong. Little things happened, the sort of instances that many would be inclined to dismiss. Although I never “saw” him, he found his own unique ways to manifest.
We were big collectors of crystals, especially spheres. A good-sized crystal sphere — one of the earliest we had purchased — relocated itself one day from the bookcase shelf to the floor. The others were all in their places; this one could not have rolled or fallen off without disturbing the myriad assortment of spheres surrounding it.
A noted Bay Area psychic remarked to me about hearing tapping sounds — after it had happened. It was an autumn evening when I was quietly reading a book: a very distinct and rhythmic tapping on the left pane of my living room window began. Since I live on an upper floor of a high rise, with neither a balcony nor a tree directly outside my window, it’s impossible for a bird to perch there and peck away. After several minutes I spoke aloud and thanked him for communicating to me, and the tapping stopped.
Another psychic I had consulted told me my husband was communicating electrically, as well as through instruments. These occurrences, too, had been true. One night the phone rang quite late. I listened closely in the receiver after saying hello, and emerging from an eerie background — which I can only describe as “otherworldly” — I heard an oddly faint and wispy voice. I could not make out the words; this was the strangest phone connection I’d ever experienced. I surely recognized this, however, as his attempt to make contact.
And there were those couple of other occasions when a living room lamp turned itself on and off. When I voiced my acknowledgement, it ceased. As time passes, such events have diminished considerably. My ability to sense my husband close by continues to a degree, but he realizes it’s no longer necessary to make it so apparent.
So pay attention to that bump in the night and that flickering light! Don’t think of “ghosts” as frightening … they’re not frightening at all.
— S. B.
Grandmother’s Ghostly Company
When I was growing up I loved going to my grandparents’ house. My mother, who has since passed on, told my brother and I that even when she was little she’d hear things in the house. At times I believe that everything centered around my grandmother.
There were many strange incidents, but the first one that I clearly remember happened late one night after everyone had gone to bed. My brother, who always slept with the door open, heard a party going on downstairs! Everyone was in bed. Cupboards were opening and shutting and the front door was being opened.
At one point, my brother heard three distinct voices talking. “Are we going to take him yet?” said the first. “No, not his time,” said another voice, and a third asked, “When?” That’s all he heard before he covered his head with the pillow. He’s ten years older than I am, so here was this big 26-year-old cowering! He didn’t think anything of it when he told me the next morning. But three weeks later, our Uncle Bob died. Three voices, three questions and three weeks …
A few years later, I became more interested in my family history. I was at my grandparents’ house again, and it was a heavy, hot night. Everyone went to bed, but I was lying there thinking about the next day when the attic door opened. I heard footsteps coming down the hall.
Although it was dark, it suddenly seemed much darker. A deep voice asked, “Are you here Alice?” My eyes grew huge. I should have turned around, but I was scared. After a few minutes of no answer, the door shut and the footsteps went back to the attic.
The next morning I asked my mother who Alice was. She replied, “That was grandmother.” So Alice was my great grandmother! And I later discovered that she had died in that very room.
The house was sold, but I protested that I wanted to keep that in the family. If any ghost hunters want to investigate I would be happy to tag along and just visit my grandparents house one more time.
Looking back, I realized that most of these strange phenomena centered around my grandma — all the voices, noises and strange events happened while she was alive. After she died, almost all of it went away. There were still things, but I like to think that everyone was waiting for grandma to come home!
— J. F.
Psychic Tip: How to Hear Your Spooks
You can hear your Spooks speaking to you through your nighttime dreams, daydreams, unexpected thoughts that invade your conscious train of thoughts, or even a voice. It is not your imagination. If listening requires you to change your direction, do it.
Tip: Write down your dreams. Messages often come in them.
Tip: If a thought comes into your mind, out of the blue, try to figure out why. Look around you and pay attention! The Spooks say we ignore them too often. WE try to give credit to our imagination or just wishes. Did it ever occur to you that your imagination might be fed in part by your guides?
Excerpt is from Calls to Mystic Alice by Alice Rose Morgan |
