"Ghost" Writing....

[Zagreus]

Originally Posted by bgruagach

It is naive though to assume that invisible beings are somehow more honest or honourable than random people you might meet on the physical realm. Some will be good people but some will be bad people too. And lots will be somewhere in between.

Yes, this is part of my point. But I'm referring specifically to the astral plane. This is the world of glamours, of illusions, and of greatest challenge for humanity. Think a thought, or imagine someone/something, and lo! There it is.

Souls can become trapped here for centuries - not always unhappily so, or irretrievably - but not to any great advantage for their evolution. Also, the astral world has many living inhabitants whose entire focus, or thrust in life, is to become engrossed with a denser, more material level of reality (either the denser astral, or the physical). We usually call that `evil.'

All about point of view, but some of these will, or would, possess us in a heartbeat - given the opportunity. Nature provides safeguards, but not totally impossible scenarios. And I do think there is even plenty of room for the occasional dabbler.

Hey look, the Spiritualistic Movement of the 19th and early 20th Centuries has advanced us light years in our understanding of the world(s) beyond. But for higher inspiration, seek higher worlds. I'm not knockin the life after death. I'm just saying the majority of stuff that comes from automatic writing, even the stuff that seems sensational and revelatory, really isn't anything we haven't seen already.

Is it a real phenomenon (sometimes), in which other agencies, human and nonhuman participate? I'd bet my life on it. It's fun & games for a lot of people, on both sides of the equation ... but it isn't always totally innocent or just about curiosity.

Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread. And I have been, continue to be, a colossal fool, at times.

~Zag

[chakraman]

i'm not sure i agree totally, but you certainly bring an interesting angle to the chat zag...

of topic a bit...i rigged a sceance once - me and my mate ted, tricked 2 of our mates into being thoroughly $h1t scared. we only planned to mess around for a few mins, but it worked so well it went on for hours. imagine a dark room 4 lads round a circular horizontal mirror with scrabble letters on it. i had 3 pieces of string behing going off to various objects round the room which i managed,with much glee to make "fly" at certain times during the evening.
during one speedy vacation of the aforementioned room the scrabble letters were knocked on the floor. i managed to sneek back to the room, whilst the rest were trembling outside, and right "death to all" on the floor. as you can imagine when i finally got them back to the room this pretty much finished them off .
eventually i owned up and showed them the strings - one of them took it quite well but me other mate wanted to take my head off...he didnt and calmed down eventually swearing he'd get me back oneday. he did as well... it was perhaps irresponsible but hey, i was young...

[17th Angel]

lol I used to do things like that I loved to "encourage" people to chase fantasy and dreams... "There is a ghost here!! aaah" *softly chuckles..* I think my neice and sister got it the worst because they are so set on the 'spirit realm' So they get it at any possible opportunity.

Also young is a state of mind... ;/ I shall be forever young... (laymen terms: forever causing trouble and pulling pranks.)

[heavensblade23]

Originally Posted by Rouge47

Actually, Ghost Hunters isn't all that cheesy. No strings attatched. They really do real investigations in areas that call them up. Have you seen the season finally where they investigate the Stanely Hotel (which was Steven King's insperation for writing "The Shining")? That stuff was real! I'm planning on going on a vacation to that hotel just to scare the bajeebees off myself.

The show is staged for the audience's entertainment much like anything else on television. Their 'psychic' does research beforehand and then when the cameras are on, pretends the things he learned came to him through psychic intuition.

[Raksha]

Not talking about when you make a fake name to put on a novel... Obviously I mean the ghost writing where you simple get a pen or whatever and some blank paper and relax... and you can ask questions and such or stay silent and just concentrait and your hand seems to write or draw.... Whats your take on this?

17th Angel, Zagreus and everyone,

Interesting topic! What you're describing here is a technique I've been using on and off for about 20 years, but I don't call it "ghost writing." In fact I never heard that name for it until I started reading this thread. I call it automatic writing or channeling. I first learned it in a creative writing workshop as a way of getting past writer's block--we were instructed to just write as fast as we could, anything that came into our heads whether it made any sense or not.

I started this exercise with the belief that I could never be a fiction writer because I couldn't write dialogue. Every time I tried, it sounded stilted and phony and not like natural speech at all. Maybe I was being overly critical, but my attempts at dialogue were so embarrassing I couldn't stand the thought of anyone reading them.

But to my absolute amazement, my automatic writing took the form of dialogue immediately! And it flowed naturally and wasn't difficult at all. After a couple of days, the dialogue took on a question-and-answer format, with me (ego/persona) asking the questions, and my source answering. So I asked him what kind of being he was and what his name was, etc.

He replied that he was my "resident earth spirit," that he had been my invisible companion since birth, and that part of his job was to keep me out of trouble whenever possible.

Right away I felt sorry for the poor thing, because I knew better than anyone that it usually was usually NOT possible, especially when I was in my late teens. My source had a very philosophical it's-a-dirty-job-but-someone's-gotta-do-it attitude towards the whole project. In those case (meaning most of the time), his job consisted of damage control and mopping-up operations.

I enjoyed the process and felt I was gaining a lot of insight from it, so I continued. Since then, three other beings have identified themselves. One is an air spirit, but the other two are from a much higher plane than the elementals. These four have been with me ever since. As long as I confine my conversations to them, there is no danger. It's only when I wander off my home turf that I can get into trouble.

Do you believe there is some force actually responding to you? Or something there in the back of your mind wishing for answers so you write them down yourself and just don't realise that it is you and ONLY you doing it?

I've never been able to make up my mind about that! When I first started channeling I assumed the "voices" I was getting were from my unconscious--either the personal unconscious or the collective unconscious. As a devout Jungian I was predisposed to see these entities as the archetypes of the collective unconscious, especially the two highest ones.

So I was VERY surprised when they insisted that they were real astral beings! They didn't especially "mind" if I wanted to see them as archetypes and weren't about to argue with me, but they said it just wasn't the case. Recently I've been wondering if what I'm actually doing is what Jung called Active Imagination. Jung himself channeled a being he called Philemon, who may have been his guardian angel or daimon.

The one thing that confuses me when I read the descriptions of Active Imagination from Jung's disciples is that it's supposed to be very difficult. For me it's always been very easy--but as I said earlier, I just kind of stumbled across the process by accident.

Namaste,
Linda

[Raksha]

Also, the astral world has many living inhabitants whose entire focus, or thrust in life, is to become engrossed with a denser, more material level of reality (either the denser astral, or the physical). We usually call that `evil.'

Zagreus,

This is one situation where "Just say NO!" is definitely applicable. There's a difference between being receptive and being passive. In order for the process to work, you DO NOT have to be in such a totally passive or "mediumistic" state that you entertain anything that comes along regardless of whether it is good or evil. If you sense evil...STOP!!! Just stop channeling and go wash the dishes or something.

Another thing: A "good" entity will never attempt to interfere with your free will. Mine have even told me they can't or won't do that, much as they might like to at times and as much trouble as it would save them in the mopping-up department.

Also, there's a limit to what they can do where karma is concerned. They can mitigate the natural consequences of your actions but can't nullify them completely. I guess it's obvious that I only have experience with protective spirits, although I understand there are other kinds.

--Linda