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To Psyche or not to Psyche…

Aug10
by pattyhap1863 on August 10, 2008 at 11:26 am
Posted In: Author-Pattyhap1863, Editorials, Psychic

~Written By Pattyhap1863~

What is happening in the paranormal world? We are surrounded by ‘sensitives’ and ‘psychics’ who reassure us that our loved ones passed on and they are in heaven, smiling upon and watching over us. While I think this is comforting and believe it to a certain degree, I do have a lot of difficulty accepting this as entirely true, especially if the person who is telling me this is being paid a large sum of money.

All around us we see a great many names of ‘famous’ psychics charging astronomical sums of money. Some of them hold ‘conference sĂ©ances’ for a great many people in an auditorium or large room. In fact, many people form long lines, in order to get to these conferences. Of course, there are times when the tickets are sold out. So what do you do then? Well go online, of course! You can find information about the said psychic, as they will normally have a website which will inform you of the steps you take to get your own personal reading. One of these steps will invariably be how to pay for their services.

Now, I’m not against payment for services. Of course, one has to make a living. What really annoys me, however, is that these people charge vast amounts of money to play the role of psychologists in many cases, without having gone to medical school. So, you argue, what’s wrong with that if it comforts a person? I would answer nothing, if it was a one-time deal. However, these psychics hone in on people who are truly lonely and desperate, and manipulate their readings in a way that keeps the ball rolling, and the client (or should I say victim?) is left needing more and more, and will continue returning and paying for the service.

So why are we listening to them? The human being is a wonderful creature, with a great capacity for optimism. It is all too common that the client will latch onto the two or three things that are mentioned to him which are true, or come true, but forget all the mistakes and misinformation. The only thing the psychic has to do is guess correctly ONCE, and he will be one step on the right track, slowly gaining the client’s trust in him. Once we put our trust and belief in someone, all too often we open up and start supplying the psychic with information about ourselves, making their job so much easier. With this feedback we give a lot about our character away, and by observing this, along with our body language, it is easy for the psychic to piece together even the smallest of details, and can then offer us a ‘credible’ reading. We may laugh at TV shows like “Psych”, but the fact is that there are many psychics out there that do pretty much the same things that Shawn Spencer, the lead character in the show does, and they can make a great living out of it!

The Crystal Ball by John William Waterhouse

What about speaking with the dead? There are some psychics who claim to be able to do this. This may be true or not, but I do believe that some of them are sincere and believe they do this wholeheartedly. There are many others that are not entirely honest, and use this ‘power’ to get into a grieving person’s moneybag. This is despicable and should be avoided at all costs. What is worse is that the dead person, who is presumably communicating with the living, is long gone and cannot be asked directly if he means this or said this. There is no way to get confirmation at all. These psychics prey on people with money, but sometimes will also prey on people who don’t have a whole lot of money as well. Many of them are con-artists who set up phony sĂ©ances and do their homework, researching their clients and even going through their garbage cans in order to get information.

So how can we tell if the psychic is fake or not? First of all, be wary of those who ask a lot of questions
and NEED answers. A true psychic will often blurt out things and not ask anything at all if possible. Secondly if the psychic makes a general statement that can be true, like “You have a good life, but lately you have had a great many problems”, or “You enjoy going out, but sometimes feel lonely”, you can bet your bottom dollar that this one is not entirely the real deal! Be careful if they tell you that the sĂ©ance may have to be repeated once or more times.

There are also psychics or sensitives in paranormal teams as well. A few of them are an asset to their teams and are truly gifted. But as with all the others, there are many of them who can fake information and completely ruin an otherwise good paranormal investigation. Some of them suffer from over-bloated egos and insist that all the paranormal activity is around them all the time. Others will put on a show and give out details of violence, murder and bloody gore. And many others may tell you it will take some time to ‘remove’ the spirits from your home, thus ensuring two, three or more visits. You can be sure that these will be asking for a fee for the ‘cleansing’ too!

So what about the true psychics? Do they exist at all? Of course they do. But they are not easy to find and are overshadowed by the famous, flashy ones. A true psychic will seldom ask you for money, and if he does, it will be a very small fee. A true psychic will not plague you with questions or endless visits. A true psychic will not perform on demand, but spontaneously. Most of all, a true psychic will be compassionate and caring, and will often try to help you without asking for anything in return. Does all this sound familiar? If it does, then you are in touch with someone that has a special gift. For it is a gift that is not meant to be stepped on or muddied. It is a gift that is meant to help, and bring peace and comfort to others.

In this era that we are living, where computers and communications take precedence over the spiritual, we discover that communications lack understanding, and computers lack sympathy. It suddenly all becomes a race for money and power. In the midst of all this, human beings are on a constant quest: The quest to find answers to mysteries that have not yet been solved through science and technology. This is one of the reasons why psychics are believed in. We trust our senses and forget another sense, the sixth sense. If you ‘feel’ something is not right about someone, then listen to your inner voice and walk away. Above all, before consulting a psychic, read up on him or her, watch video clips on them, and get all the information you can before embarking on a reading or sĂ©ance. Do all you can to make sure you don’t fall into ‘the wrong hands’ and you may just find the right one for you.

Please make sure to visit Patyhap1863’s website by clicking the banner below!

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The Legend Of Bloody Mary

Aug02
by BeyonderBill on August 2, 2008 at 10:20 am
Posted In: Author-BeyonderBill, The Beyond

~Written By Bill Stone~

There are over a million different stories like The Bloody Mary Legend out there. EVERY small town all over the world seems to have its own version of it. The Legend, has a buttload of names that seem to be different everywhere you go. Bloody Mary and Mary Worth are the most common. Sometimes, it isn’t even Mary, but the Devil himself.

Where I come from, in New Castle Pennsylvania, she was known as “Mary Black.” Kids would turn off all of the lights, look into the mirror, and say mean things like, “we have your children, Mary Black,” or something. Usually, all they succeeded in doing was getting themselves so scared that, they’d end up crapping themselves. Good thing they were already in the bathroom, huh?

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to New Castle, but if memory serves me correctly, she was supposed to be a witch or something that was burnt at the stake after her children were taken from her. I really can’t remember. The point is, that it’s probably a different story than what you’ve been told, yet oddly familiar.

Who was she really?
I’ve done a little research, and unfortunately, it seems that the truth of the legend was lost over the years. That’s the problem with stories like this. Everyone adopted their own little spin on the story. Over time, as they pass from generation to generation, and from person to person, they become more and more exaggerated to the point that no one knows where falsehoods end and truth begins. We may never KNOW the truth.

There are a few sites that explore her origins. I’m not going to take their stuff and rehash everything they’ve said, and most will tell you the same old crap about the thing. It all leads to the same stories that seem to make no sense, or the inclusion of Queen Mary Tudor.

Queen Mary I Of England

I’m not going to go into some super long and boring history lesson about Queen Mary Tudor. I mean, if you’re really THAT interested, you can look it up on sites that are dedicated to her personally. All I’m really interested in, for this site, is her connection to the ‘Mirror Witch’, Bloody Mary.

Queen Mary I of the Tudor dynasty ruled England and Scotland from 1553 to 1558. During that time, her biggest project was an attempt to reestablish Roman Catholicism in England which led to the name, “Bloody Mary”.

Mary died at age 42. It is probable that she died of cancer, but it is not 100 percent certain. Many believe that it was actually ovarian cancer. She didn’t have a very long reign. It was only about 5 years. Her half-sister Queen Elizabeth I succeeded her, and reversed Mary’s efforts to reestablish Roman Catholicism in England.

Connections
Why is she connected with the Bloody Mary legend?

The Children
The Bloody Mary Legend: The Bloody Mary legend throughout the world has a very common theme of the ‘woman’ in the mirror and her children. People often use taunts regarding her children to summon her. “I have your children” and so forth.
Queen Mary I: She never had any children. She tried many times, and had multiple miscarriages, or false pregnancies. It has been said that producing an heir was extremely important to her, but she could never make it happen.

The Name
The Bloody Mary Legend: The name ‘Mary’ seems to be the REAL constant with most of the legends. Adding the word ‘Bloody’ to it seems to be an afterthought in many cases. Names like Mary Worth, or other variations are also used. There seems to be too many to count.
Queen Mary I: This woman actually earned the name ‘Bloody Mary’ in her lifetime. She is known as the Queen that brought Roman Catholicism back to England. She had almost 300 Protestant dissenters burnt at the stake.

The Mirror
The Bloody Mary Legend: There is very little room for doubt that mirrors or other reflective surfaces are an important aspect of The Bloody Mary Legend. Pretty much ALL variations of the legend incorporate them.
Queen Mary I: Mirrors and Queen Mary Tudor, based on my own research have no connection to speak of.

My Personal Opinion On The Queen Regarding The Legend
I have to say… At this point, I don’t think that Queen Mary I of England has ANYTHING to do with the Bloody Mary Legend that we’re talking about on this website. It just doesn’t make sense. The thing, whatever it is, that people are seeing in their mirrors, to me, based on what I’ve learned, doesn’t seem to have ANY real connection with the Queen, aside from the name.

I DO believe that the name itself came from her. I think that the legend somehow got confused with the Queen Mary I history, and people over time merged BOTH stories into one.

This is just my theory.

Does ritual really matter?
The things that people say, and the rituals people use to conjure her change with each legend as well. In some of them you have to do the ritual at 3AM while spinning on your head, and eating a ham sandwich. Then, and ONLY then will she come through the mirror, and kick you in the nuts.

Like I had stated before, the stories are different, yet the main points remain prevalent throughout almost all of the legends.

A psycho woman, supposedly named Mary, comes through the mirror to do harm to someone who is chanting her name, or taunting her in some way. All legends seem to agree on that.

I’ve heard a LOT of stories about odd things appearing in mirrors while someone was trying to conjure her, too many to count. And, believe me, they all didn’t have the same back story, and I’m sure the ritual they used to bring her forward was different as well.

So the real question is, does it really matter what legend you’ve heard, and what ritual you use?

Doesn’t look like it matters at all, which is an unsettling thought.

If the ritual doesn’t matter, is it possible for something to pass through the mirror without any help from us?

Is this idea REALLY far too removed from reality?

It’s a common belief that mirrors can be used in other applications, divination for example.

If you believe that divination is possible by scrying in a mirror, the next logical conclusion would be that there’s something about a mirror that either amplifys ones own abilities, or possesses some of its own, conceivably both. So, which is it? What’s in there? What’s on the other side of that portal? Something has to be there, right? Too many people have reported seeing something. Is it possible for them to ALL be wrong?

Somehow, I doubt it.

If you’re interested in more reading about The Bloody Mary Legend, please visit our Main Bloody Mary Page. This article is just a condensed version of that.

Or, you can visit our Bloody Mary Legend Archive. Readers from all over the globe have submitted their hometown versions of the legend.

Or, you can Submit Your Own.

Every now and then, I intend to adapt(and condense) pages on The Beyond into articles for the readers on the RSS feed. This is the first. I hope you liked it.

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The Devil`s Exorcism

Jul27
by danielle lee on July 27, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Posted In: Author-Danielle, Editorials

~Written By Danielle Lee~    

Long gnarled horns protruding from his sinister head, hooves dripping with blood and evil. Hot red skin that enjoys and absorbs the heat that oozes from the torrid depths of hell. Whips slash and echo in the caverns of hate and the embers of fire burn unceasingly never allowing the ash to form. Cries of pain and unending torture reverberate off the walls of eternal agony.

The devil has long since been the nemesis of the light and goodness in the world. Born from the pages of the most ancient best seller, his plague of existence has been the bane of our mortal fears for thousands of years. His minions create terror in our conscious and subconscious for fear they will erode and devour our soul, consuming our very material reality and forever owning our soul.

He has been bestowed with many an alias over the centuries, from Lucifer to Satan to Beelzebub and Belial, all spark fear and terror in the hearts and souls of those who give him credence.

Religion and the bible maintain that specific rules, regulations and general moral attitudes must be strictly followed or the consequences will be a dire and horrible eternal existence with this monstrosity. A tyrannical and morbidly petty god from above will banish his beloved children’s souls forever to suffer their disobedience against him.

Why do humans inflict this sort of thinking and belief system upon themselves simply because a book told them so?

Imagine yourself back in the time of Greek mythology when there was a specific god for nearly every element and force in nature. The gods of fire, war, water, earth and sun. The Greeks had well over thirty major gods not to mention the vast array of minor gods and goddesses. By today’s standards, these whimsical storybook gods of old are considered obsolete and even silly, but the people of that timeframe believed with all of their hearts and souls in these fairytale archetypes. Imagine yourself trying to explain to them about your own vastly different belief system and how they may react.

Now picture yourself a thousand or more years in the future, do you think the beliefs and ideals of this new era will vastly disagree with your own era’s? Do you think a highly evolved society will have a more advanced and logical state of awareness.

It’s a very distinct probability that they will have conquered the ideas and concepts of the twenty first centuries fears and mass illusions of an evil underlord.

In regards to exorcisms and demonic minions who possess the unwilling human soul, consider this, babies and animals never seem to ever be afflicted with this atrocity. The apparent possessions and horrific experiences of demonic infliction seem to only resonate with those at a certain level of consciousness.

A baby for example has no verbal capabilities nor understanding of judgement, bibles or demons until a much later age. Animals have no comprehension whatsoever of any moral or restrictive bylaws, therefore do not qualify as possession potentials for the wayward demon. A victim must have verbal understanding and self awareness for the darkness to be able to manipulate them. They prey on the weak who have been taught to only think or act with permission.

The devil is merely a late night fable told by those who wish to control the masses by fear and restriction. Enlightenment and positive self awareness is the only cure for the malady of dis-ease of society. 

Copyright Danielle Lee All Rights Reserved 2008

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Camera Phone Ghosts

Jul24
by pattyhap1863 on July 24, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Posted In: Author-Pattyhap1863, Beyond Endorsed, Paranormal Investigation

~Written By Pattyhap1863~

Ghosts seem to be popping up more than usual these days. You can see various websites dedicated to the paranormal that are constantly screaming “ghost” in every picture they take. Common sense and reading up on photography makes no difference to these amateur ghost hunters. Since camera phones are very easy to carry and manage, they appear to be very popular for the wannabes out there. Words and phrases like low resolution, slow or fast shutter speed and even “hold the camera steady” mean nothing for these intrepid photographers. They point and shoot and if they see a smudge that they think is not accounted for, they say it’s a ghost. They are oblivious to pareidolia (matrixing) and fail to understand even the simplest rules of basic photography.

“The term pareidolia (pronounced /pĂŠra??do?li?/), referenced in 1994 by Steven Goldstein, describes a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hidden messages on records played in reverse. Carl Sagan hypothesized that as a survival technique, human beings are “hard-wired” from birth to identify the human face. This allows people to use only minimal details to recognize faces from a distance and in poor visibility but can also lead them to interpret random images or patterns of light and shade as being faces”.(Definition taken from Wikipedia)

Very recently we conducted an experiment on GhostsAmongUs.Net. People were asked to take pics with their camera phones and then shake the camera around to see what popped up in the picture. To our surprise, not only did the picture turn out strange, but also appeared to have certain faces in it. Had we unwillingly captured the image of a ghost?

On investigating further, we came to understand that when the area of a photograph is blown up to the max, we can see faces in the pattern. These are not real faces, nor ghostly ones. They are merely our brains straining to make sense of the anomaly we see. Thus, by cropping a small portion of the pic, and zooming in on it (blowing it up) we join and connect the dots and form a face or several faces depending on the shot. This is especially true if we over enhance the pic.

We also have to admit that there are some great programs out there for ‘enhancing’ photographs. Indeed, Photoshop is the greatest program for creating ghost images. By applying certain filters one can get astounding results. Take the photo below for example. This was taken by one of the members of the site. It is a picture of her computer screen monitor. She moved the camera phone on purpose to get the blurred effect:

If this picture is cropped, so that the screen monitor becomes less noticeable you can get this one below:

If it is darkened and blurred using Photoshop, you can get this image below. The smudge tool is also applied to get the desired orb effect as well.

If you look at this picture, you have a perfect example of a picture of a ghostly apparition. Furthermore, if you combine this picture with another one of a cemetery and use layers you can get a fabulous ghost picture, as demonstrated by another member with this picture below:

What people don’t seem to realize, is that light plays a very important part in camera phone pictures. They take the pics and don’t care if there is little or no light in the room.

One of our members illustrated how easy it is to confuse real people with ghosts in a room where there is little or no light.

They excitedly see a figure and lighten the picture up to prove that they have got something, and when they see the result, they almost fall off their chair, for there is a figure there! On inspecting it closely, a part of them realizes that the figure looks like their brother, sister, partner, and so on. However, they push the thought away and the more they look at it, the more they convince themselves that it is the real thing.

Another factor that people fail to consider when taking a cam phone pic is that if you enable the zoom in feature, you are invariably going to take grainy pictures, thus resulting in even more anomalies which can be mistaken for faces. If you add to this a shaky hand, the results will be even more confusing.

There are many more pictures that our members have taken using their camera phones to experiment how easy it is to get anomalous results. We urge you all to click the links below and take a look at the results as well.

http://www.ghostsamongus.net/v2/Forums/viewtopic/t=3497.html

http://www.ghostsamongus.net/v2/Forums/viewtopic/t=3512.html

A word of advice to all when looking for ghost pictures on the net: When you come to a site that advertises having taken real ghost pictures or pictures of demons using a cell/camera phone, do your homework first. Read up on the different features that a camera phone uses, and use your common sense when you are looking at the pictures. Not everything is as it seems, and certainly not everyone is for real. Not even the ghosts or demons in the pictures themselves!

Pictures taken by AshelyElizabeth, Munchkin1973, and hdhse.
Special effects by BeyonderBill and Pattyhap1863.

Please make sure to visit Patyhap1863’s website by clicking the banner below!

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Haunted St. Augustine Lighthouse

Jul18
by pattyhap1863 on July 18, 2008 at 10:32 am
Posted In: Author-Pattyhap1863, Famous Hauntings

Written By Pattyhap1863~

The St. Augustine Lighthouse on Anastasia Island in St. Augustine, Florida is referred to nowadays as one of the most haunted (if not the most haunted) in America.

It was first established as the only lighthouse in Florida in 1824 at the site of an older watchtower first built by the Spanish. The old watchtower itself crashed into the sea in 1880 but the lighthouse still remained standing, and was being lit at the time. In 1980 a restoration project was started on the lighthouse which lasted for 30 years. Today the lighthouse buildings consist of the 165-foot 1874 tower, the 1876 Keepers’ House, two summer kitchens added in 1886, a 1941 U.S. Coast Guard barracks and a 1936 garage that was home to a jeep repair facility during World War II.

St. Augustine watchtower 1824 (Wikimedia commons)

There are many legends that surround the lighthouse and numerous deaths have been reported there over the years. One involves one of the keepers who was supposed to have fallen from the tower and crashed onto the rocks below. The facts here are that while two of the keepers did in fact die at the lighthouse, and one of them did fall from the tower, it was from the old watchtower and not the new one on site today. The stories surrounding the deaths of three children however are true. The superintendent of the construction of the tower, Hezekiah Pittee, moved to a house on the site with his wife and five children from Maine as the project was taking so long to complete. They used some kind of rail cart that they used to bring in supplies from the beach to the work site. The children loved to ride in it for fun. In July 1873, all his children were riding it when it suddenly derailed and plunged into the ocean. The fishermen around the area were only able to save two of his children, a boy and one of the girls. Two of his daughters, Mary (15) and Eliza (13) along with a young black servant girl could not be saved and were drowned. To this day the stories of visitors and workers are that the girls can be seen running up the lighthouse stairs playing or laughing; while a female figure is said to be seen gazing towards the ocean. The bereaved mother perhaps?

The stairs in the lighthouse (Wikimedia commons)

Other stories include the apparition of a dark male figure in the basement, said to be a former caretaker who hung himself there. The truth is that there is no record of a caretaker ever having hung himself, but there are rumors of a man who hung himself in the house in the 1930s. Visitors and workers have also heard footsteps and voices in the lighthouse tower.

Visitor entrance (Wikimedia Commons)

TAPS visited the lighthouse in 2007 and caught a female voice saying “Help me!” as well as video footage of a shadow on the staircase in the tower peering down at them. The fact that the shadowy figure did not set off the motion sensor light makes this one of the most compelling pieces of evidence to date. Click the link below to watch the reveal with the figure peering down at them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF5aYG2UCdQ

For more on the ghosts of St. Augustine, please click on the links below:

http://www.staugustinelighthouse.com/abt_ghosts.php

http://www.articlepay.com/archives/haunted-lighthouses-the-st-augustine-lighthouse

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