collapse

* Recent Posts

"Christ Is King" by Altair
[Today at 01:09:34 am]


Re: Cill Shift Schedule by SunflowerP
[Yesterday at 11:04:57 pm]


Re: Stellar Bling: The Good, the Bad, the OMG! by SunflowerP
[March 21, 2024, 11:21:37 pm]


Re: Spring Has Sprung! 2024 Edition by SunflowerP
[March 21, 2024, 10:24:10 pm]


Stellar Bling: The Good, the Bad, the OMG! by Altair
[March 21, 2024, 02:52:34 pm]

Author Topic: Seeking for answers  (Read 1293 times)

Takararyuu

  • Jr. Newbie
  • *
  • Join Date: Aug 2014
  • Posts: 1
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
Seeking for answers
« on: August 18, 2014, 06:55:43 pm »
Hello there forum!

I am new to this forum, and would introduce myself with this story and question. In advance sorry for the long post!

During my life, i've been mainly an atheist. Nothing special. However, on occasion i've seen and heard some things i cannot explain. And believe me, i have tried making sense of it all. I gladly tell all my stories under normal circumstances, but now is different. Mostly because humanity is brought to believe that magic and such is all a hoax, and now i am going to spill my guts here on the web.

Our house
First there is the house. Like any house it has it's own creaks and cracks, but some things just were... Different. For example; in our family we joke around with the story of a ghost/spirit that plays tricks on the inhabitants. What appearantly everyone else has forgotten (aside from me): this did not start as a joke. I called him 'Henk', which is in our language equal to it's English counterpart: 'Hank'.

Henk likes to pull pranks, opening doors and such. And yes i know how that sounds; *door cracking by passing wind*; "IT'S A GHOST!!", i assure you, is not how it goes. One night i was going to bed. I slept on the first floor (NOT the ground floor), wich is only accessable by stairs. While i was just wandering off in my mind i heard someone walk up the stairs, strangely enough the person coming up skipped the first half of the stairs. I wait a minute for knocking. Nothing. I call out to the darkness in the room if there was someone there (assuming it was a sibling or something). No reaction. I stayed in bed, assuming i was imagining it. Not a minute later i hear someone go down the stairs, stop half way, and come back up. Now clearly awake i get up and open the door. #$@%ing no-one there! Eventually i decided to just say it was the wind (manner of speaking). And went back to bed. Just when i was comfy, the handle of the door goes down. And the door just goes open a little, slowly letting in the light from the passage. It stayed open a while, and slowly closed again with a slight *click*. The rest of the night was creepy silenced.

That is one of the stories i have in my repertoire. Just to clarify what happened on occasion before. Oh yes, the stories i could tell about the haunted house of a friend of mine. If i would write that down you should get a cup of coffee, so i'll skip it. Then the part that has me confused, unlike anything that could confuse me before.

Death
To make a incredibly hard, long and irritating story short: my father died of cancer, four years ago. Before that happened the previous story and stories alike happened to me from now and then. My father underwent euthanasia (is that how you say that in English?) in a room in our house, performed by a local doctor. While our entire family (who all came to our house from the entire country) was in the living room, i went to the hall to meditate, as my father has tought us since we were small kids. (Me + siblings) While meditating suddenly everything went white, and in the horizon in front of me a black dot appeared. As the dot became bigger, as it was going towards me, a figure appeared left of me, just staring at what was happening. The dot on the horizon has become more than a dot, more of a figure. While the figure was getting closer, more dots appeared to both sides of the figure. It took a couple of seconds before i started recognising what i was seeing, death with it's army. They kept getting closer, and for some reason i could not look or walk away, or rather i did not even want to try, i was just gasping at what i was seeing. When death reached out his arm and came close enough to grab my head, all went black. I opened my eyes, stood up, and walked to the living room on autopilot. When i arrived there i opened my mouth, and wanted to say 'it was over', but the words could not get out. Right at that moment the doctor came out of the other room and stated that 'it was over'. Since this day i've had no more of these 'encounters'.

Half a year later, i still had kept the story to myself. It was so, vivid? No. Beautiful, and scary. One night a friend of a friend was over, he is more active with this kind of stuff then i've ever been. And after a while he started talking about something he once saw, in 'an other place' (not our plane of existence i suppose?). And believe it or not; he was describing the story from viewpoint of that figure that was standing left of me all that time!! I could NOT believe my ears.

Thanks for reading all of that!
I must add to this post: i've also had more experiences with multiple persons seeing or hearing the same thing. If you need to hear more examples, please let me know. I've done some research to pagan and other religions, but i'm a bit weary about what to believe and what not. Please do note: this is not itented as a joke. It is that it happened to me, otherwise i would be a bit skeptic myself.

Now to end this post with my dilemma:
I have no clue what to believe or not. I want to invite anyone to tell me anything they can on this kinds of experiences, or what any of it could mean. Also, as i've said: i seem to have lost the ability to experience these kind of events, anyone any idea how to reconnect with it?

Thank you for your time,
Tarararyuu

Aett of Cups

  • Journeyman
  • *****
  • Join Date: Jun 2013
  • Posts: 104
  • Total likes: 0
    • View Profile
    • http://www.bookofspirals.com
Re: Seeking for answers
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2014, 10:23:47 pm »
Quote from: Takararyuu;156343
Hello there forum!

I am new to this forum, and would introduce myself with this story and question. In advance sorry for the long post!

During my life, i've been mainly an atheist. Nothing special. However, on occasion i've seen and heard some things i cannot explain. And believe me, i have tried making sense of it all. I gladly tell all my stories under normal circumstances, but now is different. Mostly because humanity is brought to believe that magic and such is all a hoax, and now i am going to spill my guts here on the web.

Our house
First there is the house. Like any house it has it's own creaks and cracks, but some things just were... Different. For example; in our family we joke around with the story of a ghost/spirit that plays tricks on the inhabitants. What appearantly everyone else has forgotten (aside from me): this did not start as a joke. I called him 'Henk', which is in our language equal to it's English counterpart: 'Hank'.

Henk likes to pull pranks, opening doors and such. And yes i know how that sounds; *door cracking by passing wind*; "IT'S A GHOST!!", i assure you, is not how it goes. One night i was going to bed. I slept on the first floor (NOT the ground floor), wich is only accessable by stairs. While i was just wandering off in my mind i heard someone walk up the stairs, strangely enough the person coming up skipped the first half of the stairs. I wait a minute for knocking. Nothing. I call out to the darkness in the room if there was someone there (assuming it was a sibling or something). No reaction. I stayed in bed, assuming i was imagining it. Not a minute later i hear someone go down the stairs, stop half way, and come back up. Now clearly awake i get up and open the door. #$@%ing no-one there! Eventually i decided to just say it was the wind (manner of speaking). And went back to bed. Just when i was comfy, the handle of the door goes down. And the door just goes open a little, slowly letting in the light from the passage. It stayed open a while, and slowly closed again with a slight *click*. The rest of the night was creepy silenced.

That is one of the stories i have in my repertoire. Just to clarify what happened on occasion before. Oh yes, the stories i could tell about the haunted house of a friend of mine. If i would write that down you should get a cup of coffee, so i'll skip it. Then the part that has me confused, unlike anything that could confuse me before.

Death
To make a incredibly hard, long and irritating story short: my father died of cancer, four years ago. Before that happened the previous story and stories alike happened to me from now and then. My father underwent euthanasia (is that how you say that in English?) in a room in our house, performed by a local doctor. While our entire family (who all came to our house from the entire country) was in the living room, i went to the hall to meditate, as my father has tought us since we were small kids. (Me + siblings) While meditating suddenly everything went white, and in the horizon in front of me a black dot appeared. As the dot became bigger, as it was going towards me, a figure appeared left of me, just staring at what was happening. The dot on the horizon has become more than a dot, more of a figure. While the figure was getting closer, more dots appeared to both sides of the figure. It took a couple of seconds before i started recognising what i was seeing, death with it's army. They kept getting closer, and for some reason i could not look or walk away, or rather i did not even want to try, i was just gasping at what i was seeing. When death reached out his arm and came close enough to grab my head, all went black. I opened my eyes, stood up, and walked to the living room on autopilot. When i arrived there i opened my mouth, and wanted to say 'it was over', but the words could not get out. Right at that moment the doctor came out of the other room and stated that 'it was over'. Since this day i've had no more of these 'encounters'.

Half a year later, i still had kept the story to myself. It was so, vivid? No. Beautiful, and scary. One night a friend of a friend was over, he is more active with this kind of stuff then i've ever been. And after a while he started talking about something he once saw, in 'an other place' (not our plane of existence i suppose?). And believe it or not; he was describing the story from viewpoint of that figure that was standing left of me all that time!! I could NOT believe my ears.

Thanks for reading all of that!
I must add to this post: i've also had more experiences with multiple persons seeing or hearing the same thing. If you need to hear more examples, please let me know. I've done some research to pagan and other religions, but i'm a bit weary about what to believe and what not. Please do note: this is not itented as a joke. It is that it happened to me, otherwise i would be a bit skeptic myself.

Now to end this post with my dilemma:
I have no clue what to believe or not. I want to invite anyone to tell me anything they can on this kinds of experiences, or what any of it could mean. Also, as i've said: i seem to have lost the ability to experience these kind of events, anyone any idea how to reconnect with it?

Thank you for your time,
Tarararyuu

 
I would like to start by saying that I appreciate your willingness to share your experiences, which I fully intend to treat with the respect they deserve.  My experience with this website suggests that this is a place where your point of view will be met with tolerance and intelligence.

Your English is quite good.  No worries there.  I would have easily believed you were a native speaker.

In terms of Henk and other ghostly phenomena you’ve experienced, I do tend to start with Occam’s Razor.  Most of the time a door slams because of the wind, an object seems to have been moved because we weren’t focused on it when we moved it, our discovering our front door is unlocked is because we simply forgot to lock it.  What people forget is that there are a further host of causes out there which aren’t the most probable or the most (seemingly) rational.  So while I still believe in the wind and my inability to remember things and houses settling and all those physical-world explanations, I also believe in explanations that are based in the spirit world.

Sometimes I encounter atheists who are upset by my talking about my spiritual experiences because I cannot prove what I’ve experienced in terms of the physical world.  They want objective or empirical proof.  I generally tell them that I feel my beliefs about spiritual phenomena are valid because a) I don’t try to make anyone else believe in the veracity of what I’m experiencing for anyone but myself and b) spiritual phenomena are, by their very nature, not of the physical world and are, therefore, faith-based claims which are neither provable nor disprovable because they are unmanifest.  And, from my point of view as an experiential relativist, even allegedly manifest experience is faith-based, anyway.  Several people say they’ve seen a chair.  One of them describes “a late Victorian monstrosity with a blue cushion”.  Another volunteers that the object is “a really comfy late Victorian knock-off that’s really from the 1940s”.  A blind person insists, “This thing is too knobby, and the wood might give me splinters.”  A physicist explains, “This matter is mostly empty space.”  There are hundreds, thousands of valid descriptions for just one object that most people would agree exists in the physical (i.e., “real” or manifest) world - and that’s assuming that we believe we can trust our senses in the first place.  Outside of any given individual (and individuality, in and of itself, is indeterminate, but I’ll put those concerns aside for another conversation), we only have faith; we agree with people we think are there about objects that might or might not exist in a universe whose only proof is that we think we’re in it at the moment.  So, no, you can’t offer irrefutable, empirical proof of what you’re experiencing (in my opinion) - not to others or to yourself.  But, especially in matters of the spirit, I don’t think it’s necessary.  Whether or not my son is real, I love him.  Whether or not my spirit guides are actual, I honor them as they honor me.  Whether or not you can prove that meditation does me any good, it makes me feel good and (or so I perceive) act toward others in a more thoughtful and intelligent way than otherwise.  Who needs proof of a cause when I have results?

(I would also like to pause for a moment to say that not all atheists are intolerant.  Several of the most accepting and respectful people I know are atheists.  I also want to make sure readers of this post understand that I don’t even think that most atheists insist on questioning spiritual phenomena or trying to invalidate the beliefs of others; while this sort of thing does happen, I would think that it happens rarely.)

In terms of your particular experiences, you should approach images of death and the dead with caution but not fear.  I think your description - “Beautiful, and scary” - is a fitting one.  Death and darkness are the accomplices of life and light.  We need a universe where both exist.  Sometimes I feel people in our society want us to believe that everything is part of a false dichotomy - good/evil, male/female, brain/mind.  But we need balance more than we need a crusade in any single direction, no matter how noble that may seem.

I’ve noticed that you feel unable to have experiences you perceive as spiritual after describing several experiences which were, at least in part, negative.  I would suggest two possibilities.  In the first place, I recommend daily meditation.  And, in your case, I recommend a more Western style.  In other words, while an important part of meditation is letting go of the identity and ego, you may find it useful to then open yourself to a spiritual journey or contact from spirit guides once you’ve achieved a state of egolessness and cleansing - to, in effect, use a lack of ego to propel yourself toward an encounter as your higher, your most spiritual, self.  The second thing I would recommend is that you carefully explore the nature of death (and/or the shadow-self, since it seems possible someone’s shadow-self or shadow guides might be involved) through story, ritual, family history, film or through any other avenue you or your guides might think is safe and appropriate.  Negativity, death, and the threshold of the shadow aren’t the bugbears most modern Westerners believe; they’re only monstrous when out of balance.

Sorry to ramble on for so long.  You seem fluent, but there’s no accounting for different dialects of English, so please let me know if I’ve said something that makes no sense (it wouldn’t be the first time).  I am sending positive shadow energy with this message (energy of black and white that will cause extremes to balance in a way that is positive and healthy).  Don’t worry if you don’t want this energy, however; if you don’t want energy from me for any reason, even on a subconscious level, it will return to me or one of my guides or other allies without affecting you.  May each destination become another journey and best of luck in finding your own, unique path.
Aett of Cups

Book of Spirals is my author site.
The Sentient Hillside is my blog.
Spiral Tree is an ezine for pagans I co-founded.

Tags:
 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
9 Replies
2500 Views
Last post June 19, 2012, 01:01:17 am
by Shada
5 Replies
1293 Views
Last post January 28, 2012, 02:07:26 pm
by Jenett
6 Replies
1917 Views
Last post April 18, 2012, 07:27:46 pm
by Wickerman
1 Replies
11646 Views
Last post May 20, 2012, 05:06:14 am
by PlaceboArtist
16 Replies
4241 Views
Last post August 05, 2012, 09:41:13 am
by Sage

Beginner Area

Warning: You are currently in a Beginner Friendly area of the message board.

* Who's Online

  • Dot Guests: 171
  • Dot Hidden: 0
  • Dot Users: 1
  • Dot Users Online:

* Please Donate!

The Cauldron's server is expensive and requires monthly payments. Please become a Bronze, Silver or Gold Donor if you can. Donations are needed every month. Without member support, we can't afford the server.

* Shop & Support TC

The links below are affiliate links. When you click on one of these links you will go to the listed shopping site with The Cauldron's affiliate code. Any purchases you make during your visit will earn TC a tiny percentage of your purchase price at no extra cost to you.

* In Memoriam

Chavi (2006)
Elspeth (2010)
Marilyn (2013)

* Cauldron Staff

Host:
Sunflower

Message Board Staff
Board Coordinator:
Darkhawk

Assistant Board Coordinator:
Aster Breo

Senior Staff:
Aisling, Allaya, Jenett, Sefiru

Staff:
Ashmire, EclecticWheel, HarpingHawke, Kylara, PerditaPickle, rocquelaire

Discord Chat Staff
Chat Coordinator:
Morag

'Up All Night' Coordinator:
Altair

Cauldron Council:
Bob, Catja, Chatelaine, Emma-Eldritch, Fausta, Jubes, Kelly, LyricFox, Phouka, Sperran, Star, Steve, Tana

Site Administrator:
Randall

SimplePortal 2.3.6 © 2008-2014, SimplePortal