Check Yourself Before you Wreck Yourself!

Push the glowing green Caution button to read the page I added to my website addressing the need to proceed with open-minded skepticism when working with spirits and and to never, ever, ever take at face value any entity claiming to be your "master" or your "lover." Unless the entity introduces itself as Master Bates, Sociopathic Supernatural Bisexual Gigolo from Fucktopia. Then by all means, damn the torpedoes, and full speed ahead!

Disagreeing With Respect

I will not be linking to the post that I made these comments on because I don't want anyone attacking the person who made them. However, she made some statements that I felt were very black and white about certain things that were good and evil and I didn't agree. She mentioned Ouija boards, Tarot cards and channeling as ways for the Devil to get in and steal your soul. So here is what I said:

I must respectfully disagree about certain of these things. I don't believe that the Universe is quite as black and white that there is only one positive deity and one force of evil. That there is a force of good and a force of evil is true, in my view, but there are gray areas. I did dabble in the dark arts in my youth and got the hell scared out of me, which is a good thing, because there are demonic forces that would have been more than glad to f**k me over even worse than I already was. However, I haven't experienced much of good from Christianity or at least the folks that practice it. I've been confronted with a lot of judgment and narrow viewpoints that I can do without. Which is to say nothing against Jesus Christ, who I have nothing but admiration for. I did not have very many positive experiences messing about with the Ouija board, so I stopped doing it. However, for me, reading Tarot cards has been pretty well nothing but positive. I just think it's a little too black and white to say "all this is good and all this is bad." There are some things that are gray areas and can be used either way.

I didn't say this in the comment, but I'll say it here. I don't channel for the same reason that I don't use the Ouija board. In my case, there is a weakness in my psyche that allows some nasties to invite themselves in through these passages, so I ain't gonna do it. This is not to say that either channeling or Ouija boards are in and of themselves evil, just that for someone whose defenses aren't extremely strong, they can open doors for some real asshole entities.

The spirits that I communicate with do NOT come into my body. They "talk" to me just as anyone in a body would, except that they communicate through thought and feeling rather than a voice. When allowing my co-author to "speak" through me, I will go into a conscious trance if he has a lot to say. But he does not control my thoughts or actions in any way. And he does not in fact wish to do so. He has never asked to do so. In fact when he initially met me, I was very prone to attempts from demonic entities to possess me. I would wake at times speaking in a guttural voice that I didn't understand and thrashing about, clawing at the air. I was not able to control this. This has only happened once since meeting him, and he returned quickly and chased the would-be possessor away.

There was only one occasion when I first met my co-author where I was very tired. I was resting in my parents' basement, and there was in the past a doorway that energies had been coming through into the house. In defending me from one of these entities, the "Dead" personality briefly ended up in my body, and he was more unsettled by the experience than I was. He hadn't intended for it to happen and was profusely apologetic. He leapt out as if he'd been a cat that had fallen into water and "looked" about as frazzled when I saw him in my mind. Except that he was so rattled, I would have found the whole thing rather funny.

Just in case anyone is interested, this particular personality does not especially care for being called Dead at this point. He says that "it's a little bit obvious, isn't it?" Furthermore, he considers it to have been an unfortunate choice of nicknames, all things considered. However, he's aware that this is how everyone knows him, so he isn't especially insistent on fighting the tide. He says that he may become more so as time goes on, and somewhat likes the name "Shadow." He half jokingly says that "I will most probably reincarnate as my own relative, and will revive the music that I in this life wrote. So again I shall be stuck with this idiot name that I gave to myself. Now, here is proof that the Universe or what have you has a very wicked sense of humor."

All this being said, I don't have any reason to slam the beliefs of others. However, I think a bit of education is necessary. The Universe is not black and white. There are shades of gray to be certain, and many, many other dynamic colors, energies and entities as well.

Blessed be,

Lily and Friends

New Revelations

I wasn't sure where to reveal this recent occurrence, or even if I should. I decided to do so here, at least parts of it. This involves what happened when I accidentally came across the picture of my co-author's suicide, which was taken by the jealous little sociopathic bitch Arsewipe the Ghoul and somehow got into the hands of some loser in South America who used it as the cover of a CD. (The asshole who did this later blew his own brains out, and him I did not feel sorry for.)
Also, for those who are unawares, it became clear to me soon after meeting him that my co-author had dissociative identity disorder (or multiple personalities.) The main personalities that I deal with are the adult ones, Pelle the host personality and Dead the protector. I will also mention Yngve in this essay who is best described as the lead adolescent personality. He is about 16 years old.
I HATE when I accidentally come across "that" picture. I think a lot of these morons who think it's "cool" to post it can't get it into their heads that it's really real. They've played too many video games. To these nimrods, it's simply another gory image. Anyway, that's a theory of mine.
I was actually playing a bit with my co-author, creating a humorous scenario. We were looking for photographs, which is always risky. We came across "that" picture and I was hit by a wave of emotions, like I always am. I was inside a maelstrom of emotions including regret and a desperate need for acceptance and comfort. These are the emotions that I received when I first made contact with him. But there was something else this time. Dead rembered something beneath the emotions of self-hate that drove him to this act. He said "I'm going to be sick."
I said that he wasn't the only one. I was hit by a wave of nausea that nearly knocked me over. I reached for a plastic garbage bag because I thought that I was going to vomit. This lasted for several minutes. I was breathing deeply and slowly sipping on the water in the bottle that I keep by my bed (ok, the trashed-out collapsed couch that serves as my bed) and being glad that it was cool. He returned to me and although his touches are usually warm, this time he deliberately made his hands cool and touched my face.
"I'm really, really sorry," he said. "I didn't mean for that to happen to you. I don't know where that came from."
I told him that it wasn't his fault. As an empath, I'm going to feel strong emotions of that nature from others. After all, it was feeling the emotions from "that" picture which caused me to connect with him in the first place and I wouldn't change that. This recent incident was a break-through for him even if he can't remember the details, (or I can't yet perceive them) and I'm glad that he had it because it will eventually help him to heal.
I asked him if it hurt when he killed himself and he said that it may seem surprising, but from a physical perspective, there was too much shock for it to hurt very much.
"You know how if you fall and hit your head or if you get hit on the head by something very hard? It's like that," he said. "Momentary pain and then numbness."
Apparently the last desperate act of the body was to send a rush of endorphins to numb the physical pain. He has also described before a "blinding flash of light" and temporary deafness, even when he found himself sitting outside his body. He said that he was stunned and then when he realized what was happening, horrified, as there was "no end to my emotional pain. I am still there, and now I see the truth of what I have done, but there is no return." Of course, as described before, a horrified Pelle appeared at this point demanding "What the fuck did you do?" and the animosity between Pelle and Dead wouldn't be resolved for years.
At this point Pelle also appeared. He told Dead, "It's all right. I'm sorry I wasn't more supportive of you. Maybe if I had been, you wouldn't have done this."
I also realize at this point that their body did incur several head injuries. This comes together partly due to new real-world knowledge and partly due to thoughts and feelings imparted by them. Although intelligent, there has always been a tendency to "spaciness" on all of their parts, which Pelle says some people interpreted as their being stoned, although they didn't do drugs.
Pelle, Dead and Yngve all liked drinking beer to a degree. Regarding smoking, it was mostly Dead's habit. Yngve smoked occasionally, so he didn't mind coming into the body if Dead had recently smoked. Pelle, however, despised the taste of cigarettes. Dead says he still gets a bit of a laugh, thinking about the faces Pelle would make when he returned to control of the body after Dead had been in it and had been smoking.
"He would run to find some mouthwash and brush his teeth--it was fucking funny!" Dead says.
Dead doesn't currently remember the exact circumstances of the head injuries he suffered (or I am not yet able to perceive what he is imparting about them) although he says "the first ones happened very young."
The speculation that Dead had something called Cotard syndrome has merit, given his belief that 'the blood had frozen in his veins' and a sense that he was already dead although he was in a living body. The thing that I find fascinating is that the other personalities didn't suffer from this although they had the same body and the part of the brain that was damaged in such a way as to cause this problem was, of course, the same for all of them. It's also apparent to me that Dead had borderline personality disorder (his black and white thinking when it came to his friends and associates) while the other personalities did not appear to suffer from this. Dead presented as possibly schizophrenic (he wasn't) where Pelle presented as balanced and sane though given to episodes of severe depression. Dead was prone to self-injury. Most of the other personalities didn't do this.
That's the interesting thing about DID. The different personalities react differently, not only in behavior but in physical characteristics. For instance, it's difficult to provide medications for a person with DID because some of the personalities will have bad reactions to a medication whereas others are perfectly fine with it.
Dead also had/has very acute senses. Pelle finds Dead's fascination with smells "mildly disturbing." Dead says that the irony was that in life he sought the smells of death, but now he enjoys "breathing the smells of life." This includes me! I remember that when I first met him I had this funny dream that he was following me around and in some recess of my mind I was worried that he was a brain-eating zombie. At the last part of the dream I was in the grocery store getting something from the freezer case. He was behind me and, being about a foot taller than me, his head was above mine and I could feel him breathing on the top of my head. When I turned to accuse him of trying to eat my brain, he told me that my hair smelled nice, and I could tell by his demeanor that this is exactly what he meant. It's hard for a ghost to lie, especially to someone who perceives emotions, because they communicate in thoughts rather than words. Dead is also rather an innocent being in many ways, despite his dark and imposing persona. It doesn't really occur to him to lie.
Dead will also sometimes "send" me pleasant smells, like flowers or pine. He jokes that "In life, Pelle likes to use this after shave that makes us smell like a fucking pine tree."

Here is a description of Cotard syndrome for those that are interested.

The Cotard delusion or Cotard's syndrome, also known as nihilistic or negation delusion, is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that he or she is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or has lost his/her blood or internal organs. Rarely, it can include delusions of immortality.
It is named after Jules Cotard (1840–1889), a French neurologist who first described the condition, which he called le délire de négation ("negation delirium"), in a lecture in Paris in 1880. He described the syndrome as having various degrees of severity, ranging from mild to severe. In a mild state, feelings of despair and self-loathing occur, however it is in the severe state that a person with Cotards actually starts to deny the very existence of the self.[citation needed]
In this lecture, Cotard described a patient with the moniker of Mademoiselle X, who denied the existence of God, the Devil, several parts of her body and denied she needed to eat. Later she believed she was eternally damned and could no longer die a natural death.
Young and Leafhead (1996, p155) describe a modern-day case of Cotard delusion in a patient who suffered brain injury after a motorcycle accident:
[The patient's] symptoms occurred in the context of more general feelings of unreality and being dead. In January, 1990, after his discharge from hospital in Edinburgh, his mother took him to South Africa. He was convinced that he had been taken to hell (which was confirmed by the heat), and that he had died of septicaemia (which had been a risk early in his recovery), or perhaps from AIDS (he had read a story in The Scotsman about someone with AIDS who died from septicaemia), or from an overdose of a yellow fever injection. He thought he had "borrowed my mother's spirit to show me round hell", and that he was asleep in Scotland.
It can arise in the context of neurological illness or mental illness and is particularly associated with depression and derealization.
Neurologically, Cotard's is thought to be related to Capgras's Syndrome, and both are thought to result from a disconnect between the brain areas that recognize faces (fusiform face areas) and the areas that associate emotions with that recognition (the amygdala and other limbic structures). This disconnect creates a sense that the face that's seen is not the person's it purports to be because although it is identical with the face it purports to be, it lacks the familiarity it should have. If it is a relative's face, it is experienced as an imposter's (Capgras); if it is mine, I conclude that because I don't have the usual emotional context of self-familiarity associated with the face, I am dead (Cotard).
Treatment is difficult, and tricyclic and serotoninergic antidepressant drugs have shown little efficacy. Electroconvulsive therapy has shown greater promise, "curing" Cotard's sufferers in five studies of its efficacy with that treatment.

[edit] Cultural references
In the Scrubs episode "My Lucky Charm", a character suffering from Cotard syndrome complains of the hardships of being dead.
British electronic musician Matt Elliott named a song for the condition on his 2003 album The Mess We Made.
Chuck Klosterman makes reference to Jules Cotard and Cotard's syndrome in his book, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story. The protagonist, Klosterman, feels like he might be a victim of the syndrome, especially when he is in airports.
American serial killer Richard Chase may have had a mild case of Cotard delusion (blood turning to powder).
In the 2008 Charlie Kaufman film Synecdoche, New York, the main character's surname is Cotard, reflecting the trope of the film.
In the fictional book The Echo Maker, by Richard Powers, the main character's brother suffers from Capgras Syndrome, as well as a few other delusions, including Cotard.

Pissing In The wind

Do I believe, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that what I seem to have experienced is in fact reality?

Fuck no.

I only say that it APPEARS to be reality, in my experience. I have probably more doubt than faith, in fact. Because when it comes down to brass tacks, as a living being on this planet, I try to be very practical in spite of my certifiable status.

I will again point out that hallucinations are NOT part of what I experience as a result of my bipolar disorder. The only times I have hallucinated are when I am:

a) tremendously sleep deprived

b) Taking a prescription medication that triggers a hallucination

c) Deliberatly taking a hallucinogen (The last time I did this was 25 years ago)

There are those who argue that people see ghosts when they are in an extreme state of grief over the person they are seeing. I counter that this is a bunch of happy horseshit, at least in my experience. The one ghost that I saw with my own two eyes was someone whom I liked, but I was not in a state of deep grief about his death. He was a neighbor whose son I babysat for. He died of leukemia. I thought that sucked and that the world was a shitty place when a 35 year old could die from leukemia and leave his family behind. Mostly I felt admiration for him for being so strong and not slipping into despair, which I'm sure I would have. "Kenny" was a great guy and I mourned his passing, but I wasn't close enough to him to be in a state of despondency over it. Also, I didn't see him until around 6 months after his departure from the world. I was used to the idea of him being no longer among the land of the living. When I saw him I was completely sober and wide awake. I wasn't taking anything stronger than Tylenol and Tylenol doesn't make me hallucinate. So, while I won't dispute that some spectral sightings may be the result of grief, mine was not. Nor was it the result of altered mental status due to drugs, lack of sleep, or mental illness. Cause as I said, I may be a loony, but my lunacy does not come equipped with special affects. It's just a standard, garden variety mood disorder.

I haven't personally known in life most of the other spirits with whom I've communicated. A few months after her death, sensing that I was still a wreck, my grandmother told me that I needed to stop worrying about her and that she was fine. I didn't see my grandmother, nor did I hear her audibly. I don't hear ghosts audibly. I sense what they feel and what they want to impart. Which does, believe me, make me question the reality of what I'm experiencing.

The majority of spirits that I communicate with are not people that I knew in life. They are earthbound spirits who have something they want to accomplish and/or a message they want to impart, or they're just lonely. They know they're ghosts. They're not confused and thinking they're still alive. One of these spectral chums, who was murdered, said that for perhaps an hour after his body died he was confused as to what was going on and kept trying to talk to his grieving loved ones, who couldn't see him or hear him. Returning to the emergency room and looking at his demised body on the table made him realize that he was, in fact, a ghost and there was no going back. He was sad and angry, because although being given to occasional bouts of melancholy, he was basically very happy and enjoyed life a lot. This particular spirit is mainly sticking around to watch over his loved ones and, in his words "because I wasn't ready to leave yet." Although angry at the person who killed him, he has no desire for vengeance because "the sucker was straight up fucked up." He says he prefers to avoid revisiting the experience, and that includes avoiding the person who caused his untimely death.

Another spirit that befriended me died from natural causes. He took a little longer to realize that he was no longer of the body but says it wasn't more than a couple of days, probably. Time is different when you don't have to worry about time. This particular fellow was something of an independent type and so it wasn't until he hadn't contacted anyone for about five days that people realized that something was wrong. He says he wandered around his apartment like he always did but things were "different" and he kept thinking that maybe he should go to the hospital and get checked out because he felt really odd. Every now and then he'd look at his body and not want to realize what had happened, because he wasn't ready to depart either. This fellow, although given to periods of "rather bleak emotional state" says that he for the most part enjoyed being alive and was "really fucking pissed" when he died prematurely.

I formed friendships with these fellows and several others including my co-author AFTER they were no longer corporeal. There are some of these friends where I can say that I grieved their passing, was shocked by it, in the cases where they were people that I knew about in life. But it wasn't the type of grief that would be felt over a loved one that you knew. I have never seen the spirits of these people, and I didn't encounter any of them immediately following their deaths.

One person that I did encounter fairly soon after his passing was Freddie Mercury, whose death I thought was a bummer because I always greatly admired his work with Queen and loved his flamboyant, outgoing personality. It was an astral encounter. I was standing by an old house and he came up to me. He kissed me on the cheek and said "thank you for thinking of me. And you shouldn't worry about things so much." Then he went his way to the higher realms. He isn't an Earthbound spirit although he sometimes drops in to check on people that he cares about. He was at a point of acceptance about the fact that he was going to die. Although he regrets not having been able to do more, he says that he lived a full life and has no regets about much of anything. A spirit such as this that is at peace with their passing is not one that becomes earthbound.

To any rate, to say that I don't have doubts about the "realness" of these encounters would be pure bullshit. On the other hand, not acknowledging them makes me even crazier.

I hurt like a bastard right now so I'm going to take a Tylenol. My damn fibromyalgia is upon me with a vengeance.

Also, I'm not going to trust my eyes when it comes to any unusual things I may see at this point. Because I am pretty sleep deprived right now. Which is why the fibro is bothering me so.

Later daze...

and I'm in a daze!

Lily

The Universe's court jester

The Demiurge Rules This World

For an explanation of what is the Demiurge, please see the post below for information and then if you have further questions you may ask, but this is fine basic knowledge.
This is thoughts channeled from me, the fellow which writes the book with Lily.
I grow up surrounded with the Demiurge. We are to worship the Demiurge but it is not refered to thus in my home. It is refered to as God. I do not go much into the dynamics of my home, only that there is much to be unhappy about. My father is a priest of the Demiurge, but again, he believes that this is god and not only A god but GOD!!!! With capital letters and neon sign light and stars all around thank you very fucking much. And you must WORSHIP THIS FUCKER or get your ass kicked to the depths of hell!!!
Well...
I find I do not care for the Demiurge very much.
Understand that in life I do not know this name. I do know the names of many gods but not this name. I make the choice to worship Satan at a time, but it is not really much of worship that goes in so much as spouting words to try and make myself look "bad." (to my embarrassment I find out later that really I do not look that "bad," more like I have distemper or such.) But now it is understood thus. I did not so much "worship Satan" as I spit in the face of what is called god, for I think this god to be a FUCKING ARSEHOLE!!!! Turns out I am right.
There is another personality in my soul whom would talk to you much friendlier about all this. I see not reason to. My anger and misery can be much attributed to the fuckery of this church I am raised in, that still is a major entity in this world and leads many otherwise fine people to believe they are going to burn in some sort of hell, to be trapped into misery because they cannot swallow the poison of the false prophecy of the BLIND, INSANE GOD! Some choose to believe that this is a benevolent god, but while there is benevolent gods, this Demiurge is not one.
The church of christianity worships the Demiurge whether they believe this is whom they worship or no. The laws of this being blinds all and has not mercy. I do not encounter it following my death, I avoid it. It does not send me to hell. What hells there are does not make room for fools, as I make my own hell in my heart it is already took care of. We do incounter the creator energy, and this is what some thinks they worship when they step foot into the church of christianity. If you truly worship this, and if you truly think you shall live in the footsteps of the man Jesus, then you must abandon this church, for it shall lead you astray. The church which says it worships the ideals of this man Jesus does not, in fact, in any ways resemble. He was a teacher and a person of kind thought and not twisted with hate and judgment and a belief of being superior to others. These is the ways of the Demiurge but many will continue to be seduced into his church and fooled.
Why anybody would wish to feed the power lust of this creature any longer is not so mystifying. They are afraid and seduced. I have saw the eyes of such people. It leads someone with a mind sickened by things I do not care to discuss into the folly of calling demons upon themself. The demons of the hells feed the demons of my mind and I believe they had plenty of joy to feed off as I kill my body in a terribly violent fashion filled with hate of my self at the moment of death. But not only hate. Such terrible, terrible dispair. At such a time, believe me, the Demiurge turns his arse to you! Oh, it is all well and good to frighten the sunday church goers with a bit of a Satanic dance, but in the end the soul is also left empty if you worship a god of emptiness. It would have been more fulfilling if I had done so with a bit more mirth. But I was eaten up inside with sorrows and horrors of the mind. My sleep was twisted in nightmare and my heart broken and torn apart, something living dead, rotting yet still bleeding. Demons danced in my dreams and I knew not peace. This church which was forced upon me, it brought not peace but more of terror.
I do not recommend worshiping the anti-god or what have you simply so you are worshiping "not the demiurge." If you call to you negative energy then it will fall into the empty pockets of your soul and destroy you. Already I had enough evil in my life. But if you have wondered if the church you have been brain washed to attending is full of shit, then the answer is yes. Will the Demiurge make your life miserable if you depart? Perhaps. It all depends how strong your psyche is to resist. Mine was not very much so. My friend who channels this words of me from beyond the grave is also not very much so. Whom gods destroy they first make mad, it is said. She is unhappy and fears. I lived a life fully fear-filled, which ends only making a stupid tongue twister. Filled with demons and ugly images. In death I work to erase some of this. I do not wish to be born to a new life schizophrenic or such. First before being reborn I must understand and heal.
I am fine in my next life to worship the old gods. In the end both the demiurge and the anti-god will shit on you and eat your soul if you let them.
I remain...
Dead...
Yes, still Dead.
Fuck.
Suicide will not let you escape who and what you are.

Spiritual Conduits, Circuits and Doors: Contacting Negative Spirits

People who have the ability to do so have long been able to sense emotions from photographs, especially if the subject in the photograph was feeling a particularly strong emotion. I've always made up stories by using photographs. Most of my stories are inspired by pictures of real people, although it is often the attitude of the person rather than their physical appearance that inspires the creation of a character. Once I'm done enhancing the character the traits that originally inspired me are more subtle, now blending in with fictional characteristics. However I have discovered more than once that a fictional scenario I created for a given character reflects an important event in the life of the person whose photograph inspired the creation of the character. This is sometimes simply interesting but can be disturbing.
Television and movies can be important channels for receiving emotions and contacting the minds of people, both living and dead. The worst thing that ever happened to me along these lines was that I fell asleep shortly after hearing that John Wayne Gacy had been executed. My only thought was "good riddance to bad rubbish," although ethically speaking I'm opposed to the death penalty--not because I give a rip in hell about having mercy on those who have really committed heinous crimes, but because I believe there are cases where innocent people were executed. However, my purpose here is not to discuss my socio-political beliefs, but rather to share thoughts on esoteric and mystical phenomena.
As a medium, I tend to be an "open conduit" for spirits and Gacy, not very long dead, found me. I didn't "speak" to him, he entered my consciousness. And I had a deplorable dream where I, possessed by the spirit of Gacy, committed atrocious acts on a young boy. I do not believe that Gacy used my astral form to assault a young male spirit such as one of his victims. Rather, what happened is that Gacy's thoughts temporarily became my thoughts. Behaving in such a fashion is completely against my nature, and I woke physically shaken and nauseated, both from the awful visions filling my consciousness and the struggle of dislodging Gacy's consciousness from my mind. One good shove and he was gone and, fortunately, has never returned. Badly shaken, I sought words of comfort both from the Psalms, which I always did in my youth, and also from the Egyptian book of the Dead and asked the deities to please protect me from a repeat attack by Gacy. Although Gacy maintained his innocence, I have no doubt that he was guilty and that he was a sociopath who believed he had the right to do what he did. I sensed great pleasure from his memories (fortunately I did not "view" the murders, but viewing/feeling the assault on the boy was well and away bad enough) and that if he had been set free he would surely have done it again. There was also a great deal of arrogance. He thought me stupid and an easy target, which was pretty much his opinion of all other people. In contradiction, there was, at the core, a deep self-loathing which caused a great, cold rage. When he murdered the boys, at some level he was murdering a younger self that he saw as weak. He wasn't entirely aware of this.
I do not know John Wayne Gacy's childhood history, but I am quite sure he was abused and/or neglected to a degree. While I have sympathy for any child who was abused, the actions of Gacy and others like him are unconscionable.
Unlike Gacy and his ilk, my co-author and other benevolent Earthbound spirits do not care to enter the actual consciousness of the medium with whom they are communicating. They impart their thoughts but their consciousness does not invade upon mine. My co-author tends to guard me while I sleep because of my vulnerability to invading negative spirits and demons. Once when I was terribly sleep deprived I was taking a nap at my parents' house, which does have a "doorway" in the basement. A negative entity came in through the doorway and tried to enter my body. In order to protect me from its attack, my co-author briefly entered my consciousness to chase it out. This was a slightly startling experience for me--I liken it to the feeling when you miss a step coming down a flight of stairs but catch yourself. Surprisingly, it was greatly unsettling for him. He apologized and said that his doing this was actually inadvertent. He said that he has no desire to possess anybody and while my energy is actually pleasant (his words) being enveloped in another's energies is distressing. He had a thought that this may be because his energy is a male polarity and mine is a female polarity. What I'm getting around to is that no positive spirit or entity will ever enter your consciousness without your permission except in case of emergency in order to protect or help you, and they will vacate as soon as possible.
Higher spirits and angelic energies do not experience disruption when entering the consciousness of a living medium and the medium will generally experience peace during such contacts.

Before initiating such a contact, it is best to do a clearing of the area where you will be working. This should drive away any lower astral entities. My personal favorite rituals are basic Pagan ones using water, salt, and a scented candle. I also like to set up my Tara statue, but that's just me. You doowhatchalike, and the Universe will take care of the rest!

Blessed be,
Lily

Gnosis and the Creator Energy

My hodgepodge belief system has a name. That name is "gnosis." A Gnostic takes wisdom from various sources. Although most of my sources of inspiration come from folklore, mythology and religion, some of the sources where I gain esoteric knowledge are not in themselves esoteric.
For me one of the of the greatest sources of inspiration is the "star nursery," which is part of our physical Universe. To me this is evidence of a powerful creator force. This force is not something which needs a name, nor does it require that we worship it. It is benevolent, yet it does not involve itself in the affairs of incarnate creatures. It loves everything it creates, yet this love is not the emotional attachment that most of us think of.
My co-author (or, more specifically, his host or core personality) believes that he encountered this force not long after the death of his body. He believed that he was bound for hell for committing suicide. The core personality distanced himself from the protector personality, who, ironically, was the one who killed their body. He says that he drifted in space for quite some time, not wanting to go to hell. He wondered if he could drift there forever and simply not be noticed. He says that the creator force itself spoke to him, not in words but directly into his mind and told him that his belief that he was bad and would go to hell was erroneous. He told me that being "embraced" by this benevolent force changed his perspective about things and that he felt a powerful desire to somehow return to the world and do something that would help or heal others who suffered, even though it would be a great challenge to do so given the fact that he was now without a body.
This force is not a deity--it created the god/goddess and angelic or demi-god energies which we gave human names and faces to. It is not male or female but both of these energies sprang from it. It did not create the dualisms of good and evil, it is outside of such concepts. Evil was created from fear and anger.
One can revere the creator force and send it benevolent thought energy. But although it is the ultimate form of pure energy, it does not require this, for it is self-sustaining. Working with the various deities can help a person connect with it. Negative energy distances us from it and makes us more alone.
One does not need to follow a given path to benefit from the creator energy. One does not even need to acknowledge it. One simply needs to create positive energy through thought and action. And they will receive more of the same in kind.

*Before commenting, please remember that these are my beliefs and opinions. I am not trying to force you to share them. These discoveries are precious to me and for a long time I kept them to myself for fear of ridicule, which diminishes the beauty and power of anything magical. It is with no little trepidation that I have chosen to share these thoughts in case that someone else may attain "gnosis" from them. If you disagree with what I have shared you are welcome to do so, but please be respectful and do not belittle me for having opinions that are not identical to your own.*

The Cards Don't Lie

But sometimes they can be difficult to interpret--especially for yourself. Which is why I avoid doing readings for myself.

My current method of worship and reflection takes into account my polytheistic belief system. I set up the Buddha and Tara statuettes. I want to add a Ganesha statuette in the future. I draw cards from the Mandala deck, which features Hindu deities, one from the Goddess deck and the archangel deck, both created by Doreen Virtue, one from the animal guides deck and one from the non-denominational prayers deck. Each of these items tells me something I need to be aware of, a devotion I need to focus on at the given time.

Something disquieting happened during the two sessions previous to my Yule devotion, which I did last night. Yeah I know, running late as usual. I'll probably be late for my own funeral. On a not so amusing note, Lord Yama, a Hindu deity of death, appeared as the focus card from the Hindu deities deck. This did not set well with me. Try though I might to believe that he meant I should be focusing on transitions in the living world, he seemed to be telling me that his appearance pertained to a physical death. I didn't want to. The first person I thought of was my father. He has been in poor health since his stroke three and a half years ago. He has terrible sores on his legs that won't heal due to the edema. He has atrial fibrillation but dares not take the drugs that are generally prescribed for this because they thin the blood and he had a hemorrhagic stroke, not a clot. When I went over to my parents' house on Sunday, my father didn't answer when my mother called down the stairs. I said I'd go down and see what he was up to. She said "one of these days..." She didn't have to finish. I knew what she meant. I said "yeah, I know. But not today." And he was fine. He was shredding old documents. I think he really enjoys that paper shredder. I had to unjam it one day when I was over because he'd fed too much into it at a go.

Much though I wanted to deny what Lord Yama was obviously telling me, the truth will not be denied. However, it wasn't my father this time. It was a friend's husband who discovered just a couple months ago that he had esophageal cancer. I hope everyone will send healing energy to her and her family. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can also leave a message of sympathy for her on her blog.

I was surprised at how fast he went, although when they found the cancer he was already in the end stage. He had just started getting chemo. I felt that he would be in spirit come next winter but I didn't think it would happen this soon. I had sent them a gift card for video rentals from Blockbuster and dinner from Chili's. I hoped perhaps it would give them a good memory to have come next Yule when they would be separated by the veil between this world and the spirit realm. Now it will arrive to find my friend alone and I feel like a real asshole, like I'm pouring salt in the wounds by having sent it. Of course I didn't do it this way intentionally. I am not super-accurate with exact dates and times of events. I get a "big picture" sense of things. I sense atmospheres surrounding people and I talk to people that are already dead, if they want to talk to me. But I still feel as if I was unintentionally cruel and that really bothers me.

Even though I know that it isn't "evil"and I've been doing it for a lot of years and I know that there is an afterlife and powers greater than we who live in the material realm, sometimes the whole diviniation/precognition thing gives me the heebie jeebies. When I start getting messages like this, I don't want them. It makes me think about subjects that were presented as frightening and taboo. In the culture of the Australian Aboriginals, they believe that a person comes from the All That Is, incarnates in the world for a time, and returns to the All That Is. If someone "dreams" of a dead relative or friend, everyone accepts that the dreamer and the spirit person were truly spending time together. In the Western culture, such an event is dismissed as the dreamer's subconscious mind playing tricks on them. With all I've experienced, I think the Western belief is bullshit. There have been many times when I wished the cards were lying. But they don't. And the dead aren't gone, they're just different. They have energy bodies instead of physical ones. But they still have thoughts, needs and wishes. And they do still love the ones they leave behind.

My deepest sympathies to Raine on your loss. I am so very sorry.

A Question of Belief

Sometimes when I am receiving input from my co-author or another spirit, I fear I may just be a lonely lunatic imagining the whole thing. But then later I'll find out that things I had no way of knowing are absolutely true.
My psychic abilities are very raw. I have never honed them. I have good abilities in divination skills such as reading tarot cards. I do not normally pick up on things like names or initials. I likely can't tell a person what their dearly beloved Nana's pet name for them was in childhood. I do not see spirits, I feel them. I feel their emotions and, from my co-author, sensations of warmth, for instance when he puts his hand on my back. He/they (the soul in question suffered from dissociative personality disorder, which is not common knowledge) discovered that they possess an innate healing ability. It is also obvious to me that they possessed empathic abilities and a rather powerful ability to contact the spirit realm.
It confuses me at times why the deities and angels don't intervene more strongly to save an individual such as this. Sadly in this case, the negative energies surrounding him were too strong, I think. But he reminds me that while his life may have been lost, his soul was not.
There is still much for me to learn and when I begin to question the reality of it, I am reminded of this fact. Since being befriended by this invisible but very real spirit, I have never again been plagued by demons attempting to possess me, which is something that used to happen quite frequently when I slept. It is nice to have a "guard spook." We are learning a lot together and truly do enjoy one another's company.
People also often have the mistaken impression that ghosts are omniscient. They are the same people they were in life. They do have access to more channels of information but are not omniscient just because they shed their bodies. So it's no good being angry with Uncle Grant because he can't tell you the winning lottery numbers or Aunt Sally because she doesn't know who you should marry. But it might be well to listen if you sense Uncle Grant tapping you on the shoulder when you're reading the classifieds looking for a better job or Aunt Sally warning you that the new guy you have such strong feelings for is a bad deal. Spirits are energy and they sense energies. Not being bound by the solid confines of a body, they can do so more freely than we can.
Expert psychics are adept at sensing these same energies. We can all develop them. It takes time and patience like anything else. And it is real.

Here are some psychic exercises to try.