Advice

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Q: any advice on how to haunt someone after death? Like say you met with foul play and either want to haunt the perp or point someone to a clue. (sorry if you’ve covered this)

I… don’t recommend that you do this.

In order to “haunt,” you have to not cross, which means being a ghost, which means being trapped between alive and dead, filled with longing for Home but with no idea how to get there.  Bound by the agonies of your life, without a concrete form in which to resolve them.

I have the deepest sympathy for ghosts- it’s a horrible sickness, and the longer you’re a ghost the harder it is for you to understand how to go Home.  You never, ever want to be a ghost.  Child ghosts are a shattering tragedy to me.  Poor lost babies, wandering the world invisible and alone.

Trust in the Universe making things right, because it will.  You never need to seek revenge or harm another, because that person will receive a bill for their actions.  If you take vengeance into your own hands, you turn that ugly energy at yourself, and you now adopt their debt.

If this is hypothetical and you’re saying, “Okay if I was murdered, how would I direct the person to my killer?” Well that’s hard, because mediums that report crimes are very rarely believed.  And again, if you crossed, you’d immediately lose your need for revenge.  The only way to hold onto that energy would be to not cross, and therefore be trapped in a much deeper hell than some foolish person would be worth.

That’s the great irony, I guess.  As a ghost, you have the desire for revenge but no way to execute it, and as an unliving person (someone who has crossed over) you have ways to help people put things together but no desire to see a resolution to a matter that no longer matters.

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Q:  you mention mediums here, and i’m wondering how you feel about mediums, and whether you’d consider yourself a sort of one. (sorry if that seems like it should be obvious?)   

I think most are fakes and frauds who prey on people looking for comfort.  I have very little patience for people who claim to be able to speak to the dead for others’ benefit.

I’m also kind of arrogantly firm about certain beliefs I have.  People don’t have to believe me, but I literally dgaf about what anyone else says on the matter.  I know what’s Really True, because I sacrificed/donated seven (eight?) years of my life to it.  I’m not weaving a fantasy, I’m reporting the news.

I also think it’s interesting when people say they believe me as a person who they know and trust, but don’t really believe what I’m saying (and I get that a lot a lot a lot).  I’m not sure how you jive with that level of cognitive dissonance, but that’s for you to sort out, I guess.

…But at the same time, I get that skepticism.  It’s a lot to absorb.  Let me also say people send me messages alllllllll the time about supernatural experiences they’ve had, hoping for help or advice or guidance, so you’re totally not alone, and I’m here for you if you need to get something off your chest.  I believe you.  I don’t judge you.  And you can tell me anything, no matter how weird.

Someone else asked me once if I consider myself a medium and I…. guess?  I mean if anything I really do consider myself a witch, whatever that even means.  It sounds less hokey and less serious, I guess.  I won’t attempt to talk to your family members and I do not have messages for you, other than the general theme I say here always: your family loves you and they want you to find peace with their death.  They’re not as far as you feel like they are, even if you don’t see signs of their presence.  You’re not alone, and when you die you get to go Home no matter what you do, so don’t worry.

I love the dead, and I have a very deep relationship to them.  I think that I’m a channel through which True Things travel.  I do believe that I have healing powers, and that I purposely absorb the suffering of people I care about in order to lighten their load.  The things I say about the dead are given to me more than they are conjured from my memory.

I feel like these are the only real important things that I do, to be honest.

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Q: What is a demon exactly?

You know that whisper in your ear, that one that tells you to do things that you know are wrong?  The things that cause shadenfreude or the things that give you that sneering side smirk and sneaky little heh heh heh feeling in your belly?

That’s what a demon is.

I also think that vampire stories are largely about demons.  Being invited into a “home” and having your life slowly drained out of your body until you are left feeding on others.  When I was sick, I was also a severely selfish, nasty, viper-mouthed, tantrum-throwing brat.  Everything light and pure and good about me was siphoned out and replaced with darkness and hardness and cruelty.  It took a long, long time to work that poison out of my body.

You don’t have to believe in demons for them to believe in you.  They live on anyone’s sadness, fear, rage, selfishness and self-hatred.  The weaker you are, the more you give them, and the more they want to take.  It’s why people who are depressed are shown to be shrouded in shadows, in black smoke, in thick oil.

I’m not saying that everyone who is sad or a jerk is “possessed” by demons, by any means.  But I am saying that they are out there, and they’re constantly trying to encourage people to do the wrong thing.  That’s why it feels so easy.  That’s why sleep paralysis often has the same themes, even for people who know nothing about them before experiencing them.  Everyone knows what evil looks like.  We just pretend that we don’t.

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Q: Why are you cosmically connected to rock stars? Why isn’t it like…Bob from accounting.

 

A: Right?  I know.  Trust me, it bothers me.

My first thought is that it’s to keep me quiet.  Because the minute you mention a famous name, people start to doubt you.  The first time I told the story online, I changed the names of everyone (like I did here), so people would just read the story and not start a “fact-checking session.”  I just needed to get those words out somewhere, to explain what I’d just survived.  Here I did it for legal reasons, because the site is public, searchable, and the last thing I really want is to get snared into a case of slander.

To claim something as crazy as, “Oh I loved this dead guy but also he was a semi-famous musician but also he was a demon,” is like literally the most fucking weird shit anyone can say.  And that’s not even the fucking weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me, so.  It’s very alienating.

But also, maybe it’s like “What Dreams May Come,” where someone comes into my life “dressed” as someone else so I can place a face to the person who has come into my life to help me.  I thought about it obsessively when things with “Alex” first ended, when I wanted to convince myself I was insane.  When believing I’d had a dip into pure psychosis was better than what really happened.

I mean maybe it was never Alex, you know?  Whoever he is is someone that is really, really good at mimicry, so.  I mean there’s a great chance it was only ever a demon, and never Alex at all.  To be honest, that answer hurts so much I can’t think about it being true.  I’ll just wait until I die to find that out, when it won’t matter as much anymore.  It will make watching his soul be destroyed a truly magnificent moment.

But there was a time I really loved him, you know?  There’s a photo series that keeps coming up on another social media site I frequent where he is flirting with whoever is taking his picture and his eyes are dark and mischievous and his smirking mouth makes my heart like a pebble skipping across clear water.  And I just.  I just.

In the early days, we asked Alex if he knew any famous people.  He said that being “famous” is kind of a …. joke over there.  Like it’s something you get teased for.  People only really ever identify you as that person, for better or worse.  So when you’ve had a Really Famous life, you have experiences here AND there that no one else really understands, which creates a little… group.  Clique?

Anyway, he said yeah, of course he knew people who are recently dead and famous musicians.  He had a little crew of people he talked to a lot, people we also occasionally talked to (more often whenever Alex became sick and they started to intervene to warn us that he was waaaayyy more ill than we knew).

I honestly think the fact that I know other musicians is really only coincidental, not that I have some kind of cosmic tie to them.  Actually, one of them hasn’t been friends with Alex in a long, long time (pre-Alex) and is only really my friend.  Also I, interestingly enough, am not a fan of his music from this life, though others are.  So I mean…

tl;dr: maybe I am, maybe I’m not.

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Q: What was your scariest supernatural experience?

A: There are a few that I can think of immediately.

One night, the shadows on the bedroom wall started moving at the corners of my eyes and I kept hearing whispering and footsteps, so I sat up in bed with my hand pressed over my heart, my eyes darting around so I would stop having a “corner” of my eye, panting in terror. Just then, my cat pushed the door open, and when it creaked loudly, I screamed my husband awake.

Another night, I somehow ended up sitting on the bathroom floor with my face pressed into my knees, waving a wild arm over my head to try to “swat” away everything I could feel swarming over my head, whispering, “Please stop, please stop, please someone save me.” The first time I saw dementors I thought yes… that’s exactly it. That’s exactly what it feels like.

And by far, the scariest one was while my ex and I were split up, about a month before we “banished” “Alex” to the island. We’d lost our home in this mess, and living with my parents. Their house was violently haunted (but now looking back on it, and having slept in my parents’ house since, it wasn’t the house that was haunted at all), and during that time I heard two little girls giggling in the back bedroom in the middle of the night, a man who sat in my father’s chair all night long and stared at me with burning eyes, a cacophony of footsteps on the ceiling all night long, and that one time I got poked in the forehead while holding blankets over my head, so sure of my safety.

But the worst night by far was late late at night, after my parents had gone to bed and while I could hear them both snoring. I heard heavy, ominous footsteps above me slowly cross the living room through the kitchen towards the staircase behind me. I stopped being able to think a coherent thought (which happened a lot back then, honestly) and then I got this image of a withered old woman brokenly crab-crawling down the stairs with blood pouring out of her mouth and eyes over and over and over and over and over again as I sat frozen in terror, silent tears pouring down my face. As soon as I was freed from this horrible cycle of thoughts, I rushed myself into bed so I could be safe in sleep.

That kind of primal terror is so different than any other fear you can feel. It’s why I don’t watch scary movies. I’ve been frightened enough for at least one lifetime. I also think it’s why I still have dreams where I have to say “Hail Mary” and “The Lord’s Prayer” to keep myself safe.

They’re only just behind me, all the time. I’m sure of it.

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Q: What do you think about the notion that we are reunited with our ancestors in the Hereafter? I think it’s probably not true, but I really wish it was. I want to meet them.

A: Okay so here are my thoughts.

I believe in reincarnation because I literally don’t feel like I have a choice, given the things I’ve seen and experienced.  I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie “What Dreams May Come,” but it basically encapsulates my entire belief system.  The person who is your grandmother in this life may have been your daughter in another.  A lover could be a brother could be a father could be a son.  I actually intensely believe that we layer lives with certain people, which is why they feel so familiar.

Have you ever passed someone on the street, locked eyes with them and felt your stomach swoon? I believe in that.  I believe that’s a family member.  It’s someone you used to know and love.

I believe the longer you exist, the more lives you live, the more family you have.  I believe that we all think when we die we get to see our grandparents and parents and cousins from this life, but there are SO MANY MORE people we don’t even know about that can’t wait to see us.  I feel like when you die you see someone you THOUGHT you knew in this lifetime and you scream, “OH MY GOD IT WAS YOU ALL ALONG!” and you laugh and embrace and sob all at once.

I think we’re all much more connected than we think, and when you die, you get to see all the threads, like a microscope on a tapestry.  It all makes sense and it all is so beautiful and logical and you can’t believe how you didn’t see it before.

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Q: Regarding multiple lives – I once heard that the idea is that we all live 1000 lives (not sure of the exact number, but a lot of lives at any rate), and we learn various lessons during each life/stage, then if we learn it, we move “up” to the next life. So people who have their shit together (so to speak) have lived more lives. Does that theory hold true in your opinion?

A:  Yes.  100%.

When I meet someone who is a mess, who doesn’t hold themselves accountable, who complains endlessly, who is weak and points fingers, I think to myself, “That’s a first lifer.”  It’s someone who is brand new to the Universe.  They can’t do better because they don’t know how to do better.  Spiritually, they’re an infant.

I’m not sure about the number of lives, but here’s what I was told.  Basically, The Other Side is like summer camp.  It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s peaceful.  Nothing bad happens.  And as we all know, pain and suffering cause growth.  So the only way to become better is to come here, where you know you will suffer.  The entire time.  In a way it’s like agreeing to jump out of a tree, knowing for sure something will be broken in your fall.

The older you are, the more fucked up your life is.  The more you suffer.  The more the Universe pushes you to a breaking point.  That’s how you become stronger.  That’s how you evolve.  We’re not here to be happy- we’re here to be better.

One of the “people” I still am in contact with has only come down here a few times and he says it’s because he’s lazy and weak.  Because living is hard, and it means being torn up for a long time.  It’s ugly.  But it makes you better.  I think it’s Pema Chodron who says that we don’t ask a bud if it hurts to break open into blossom.  I’m sure it does.  All transformation is agony.

The more you resist change, the more you stunt your own growth.

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Q: What do you think about going years, never feeling connected after a hardcore loss of a loved one .. like zero signs? I feel because I am so open to it (want it) from one person is why it has not/will not happen. Maybe its for a reason.

A: I get this question a LOT from people.

We all want to know our loved ones are with us, and it’s devastating when we feel abandoned.  But this sort of ties into my previous answers.

So imagine you’re someone’s sister/mother/grandmother/daughter/cousin in this life and you die tragically, leaving everyone bereft and heartbroken.  Everyone is calling out to you for a sign, and you can’t wait to reach out to them.

But then you get over to the Other Side and it turns out you have a loved one from another lifetime that’s in trouble.  They’re sick or they’re possessed or they’re in danger.  You have to run to take care of them.  Over There, time is meaningless, so what takes a few moments for you is five, ten, fifteen years for the people you love.

Or maybe you have to bounce back to Earth with someone else you love to help them.  Maybe you get recruited to be someone’s difficult baby.  Maybe you’re trying to reach out but you don’t know how to get through, because your signs aren’t clear enough.  They don’t see you.

I can’t explain why loved ones disappear, especially the ones some of you are looking for most.  I know it’s awful and it hurts, but because I believe in reincarnation, I really believe that once you get to the Other Side, there are SO MANY people who need you, miss you, love you, want to kiss you and be near you that it’s easy for them to get wound up in reunions and realize later that decades have passed down here.  If you can take comfort in anything, it’s that the ones you love are so loved Over There that the people who are happy to see them back Home is a line so long that it’s taking years to get through.

They still love you, but it’s also easy for them to forget the pain because they know you’re coming Home to them someday.

It’s hard for us.  We don’t have that certainty.  We just have the loss.

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Q: If I can’t feel my deceased loved ones around me, does that mean that they have moved on to the beyond or are they keeping their distance because they know I’m afraid of spirits?

A: What I have experienced in my life is a mix of ghosts that are Here, and the actual dead, which are Over There.  Ghosts are people who don’t want to go Home, mostly because they’re so fucking angry about how they died they refuse to let go of it.  Or they’re children and they don’t understand that they’re dead.  The longer you stay in this harsh darkness, the harder it is for you to ever go Home.  If there is a Hell, it’s being trapped between worlds.

One of the “jobs” on the other side is trying to convince ghosts to go Home, by the way.

If your loved one embraced their death and goes Home, they become not just the person you loved but all of the selves they’ve ever been.

Being alive is like being an onion with its skin still firmly sealed shut, and dying is becoming one peeled open like a lotus blossom.  Alive, you’re one person only, with hints and glimpses of people you’ve been before (”I can’t believe I did that, it’s so out of my character.”  “I have always been afraid of the ocean and I don’t know why.”).  When you’re dead, you’re everyone you’ve ever been.

There are those that immediately come back here to try again.  Some people lose touch with the earthly world and become enmeshed in their Welcome Home party.  Also, time is different there.  What is years and years to us could feel to them like a day.  There’s a lot to see and remember and there are a lot of people who are so happy to see you again.  It’s a big soft bed with clean, cool sheets after the longest, worst day ever.
I do believe that when you’re in trouble, when you are in danger, when you are afraid, the people you love are watching out for you.  They just might not be the people you remember right now.

How to tell if your house is haunted

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Items randomly go missing and reappear where they should have been all along

Strange noises while you’re in the shower, like footsteps or knocking

Faint music/whispering/laughter from another room

The feeling of being watched from corners of rooms or ends of hallways

Flashes of light out of the corner of your eye

Swearing you just saw someone walk by, but there’s no one there

A sudden influx of insects/birds/bats coming into your house

Waking up in the night with the feeling you’re being stared at

Waking up any time during the hour of the dead (3 a.m.)

Strange marks appearing on your skin- fingerprint bruises, scratches, red welted circles

The feeling of a room being “loud” or “crowded” when it’s not- the subway station sensation

Strange sightings in the background of mirrors

Abrupt and severe changes in room temperature

Getting chills/goosebumps seemingly out of nowhere

Suddenly feeling like your throat is closing, or you want to hysterically cry without reason

Rotten or pungent smells, also the smell of smoke or incense

Things falling over on shelves or off of counters without explanation

Doors opening/closing, or even the sound of them opening and closing with no sight of it

The windows on the house feeling at though they have “eyes” and are watching you

Feeling as if someone is standing right behind you

Televisions or lights turning on/off out of nowhere

Electrical issues, especially in a car or with small appliances

An overwhelming sensation that you “don’t belong” in a room or that you aren’t “allowed” to be there

Pets that stare at “nothing” and go absolutely insane or act terrified without cause