Beyond Belief

 Misty graves in Easton Maudit's church yard

photograph by R Neil Marshman (November 2005)

If you’re a regular reader here at astroPPM, you probably remember a post I wrote on parapsychologist (aka “ghost hunter”) Zak Begans not long ago.

Missed it? Well, okay…here’s the LINK.

Most of that post was about how Zak Begans’ chart works – in particular, his Aries Eris/Sun in opposition to Libra Pluto which so plainly marks Zak as a Gen X’er.

But ever since then – which is to say ever since I ran across ‘Ghost Adventures’ I’ve been thinking about the whole subject of ghosts and spirits and what happens to our spirit, our soul, that energy which is ‘us’ when we die.

In talking about this with a friend back east, his perspective was interestingly canny: creation isn’t wasteful. Why go to all the effort to make human beings then waste them? What, are you thinking someone just goes ‘forget the whole thing’? No!

I have to admit…I hadn’t really thought of human creation as ‘going to a whole lot of trouble,’ but that’s one way to view it. Being me, I’d thought of it more in the Einstein (and Mayan) mold: energy is never lost.

Which brings me back to ghosts. There are those who think that the spirits of our loved ones stay with us. That they ‘watch over us.’ A parapsychologist I had the pleasure of working with for several years told me that ‘spirits stay with us for a little while, then go on about their business. They have things to do. They may return – and if they do, it will be on a schedule of 7 years…’ …meaning that someone could conceivably come back 7 years, 14 years, 21 years later and so on.

Seven of course, is a standard Saturn number. It’s also a number well known by those who study human maturation. It’s even apparently rather well known by various legal systems.

Seven gets around, apparently.

And apparently comes back…or is that ‘comes back to haunt us’?

Religion aside (no, I’m not touching that pot of molten brain burners today, thank you…)…taking ghosts as a particular concept, the “popular” ghosts of hauntings and apparitions are apparently not people who are hanging around to watch over loved ones. There’s a lot of discussion about whether they’re tied to a building or to land, which is a discussion which gets all fuzzy when you ask what happens if they’re attached to a given building and the building gets torn down.

Apparently still haunted, this is a photograph of Australia's

Ararat Mental Asylum taken in 1880

 

In thinking all this over I came to the subject of ghosts who are apparently the victims of suicide. Every parapsychologist I’ve read (or talked to) says that ‘sudden death’ and high emotionality at the time of death (as in suicide, which a friend of mine refers to as ‘a permanent solution to a temporary problem’)…those are two of the major keys to why a person passing over becomes a ghost.

Does this mean that using a weapon is more apt to create a ghost? Does a person who slits their wrists increase their chances of spending the better part of eternity as a ghost than the person who – say – swallows a bottle of pills?

Some ghosts apparently know they’re ghosts. Some don’t. (Denial apparently lives on after death. How human, right?) What happens when someone on the other side freaks out realizing that they aren’t going to escape “this miserable world” (meaning the one you and I are living and breathing in) …and that they’ve perhaps condemned themselves to never moving on?

Could that account for the numbers of cranky...yea verily incredibly upset ghosts we hear about?

 A skull lies amidst the catacombs of Paris (photo credit Dooler, March 2010)

So all these things have been going through my mind. (Alleged or otherwise.) But thought parapsychology has been fairly recently gifted with all sorts of great new electronics with which to probe the rim of our existence on this here-now plane, there does seem to be a dirth of open and organized knowledge.

You know, a database.

I know this because as an astrologer, I formulated a supposition which would have been a.) very interesting to look into and b.) highly informative.

(Interesting plus informative being one of my favorite combinations!)

Here’s the theory: apparently some suicides get caught and remain tied to our 3-D existence (or 4-D, if you add in time) as ghosts. But not ALL suicides get stuck.

What’s the difference?

This should be something astrology could look at. After all, there are patterns in natal horoscopes which at a glance tell us you’re going to have an issue with addiction. I know of one pattern which specifies alcoholism. There are patterns for gluttony, self-absorption, problems with the truth – all sorts of things.

So shouldn’t there be a pattern which would tell us who is going to end up a ghost?

Or is it a combination of natal chart and transits at time of death?

By studying a database of “identified” ghosts (i.e., those we know the identity of and therefore can trace the birth and death dates of) we should be able to come up with an answer. So – yes – I volunteered to walk into the astrological darkness and do this work.

The only problem is that pesky database.

No, there doesn’t seem to be anything openly available on the internet. There are a zillion other things posted about ghosts, but not what you might think is the most basic of basic knowledge: a list of locations, names and dates (birth and death).

So….okay. I take it upon myself to write a few parapsychological types an email, asking if they know where to find such a database.

And do you know what I get back?

From several “official” parapsychology groups, I get nothing. And from the last name on my list, I get a fairly hostile ‘don’t bother us’ message complete with a notification that astrology is ‘totally left field and unaccepted.’

Seriously? I had to laugh! I’m not sure whether serious parapsychology is older than a couple of hundred years. Astrology? It's six thousand years old. I don’t know of any governments which actively use parapsychology, but I do know of several which have routinely used astrologers. Heck, even the Vatican has a corps of astrologers – they’re in the Jesuit Order. The theory there is very much in line with (as it happens) how Jews think (which seems sensible, seeing as Christ was Jewish). The basic idea is this...the more you know, the greater your appreciation for God can truly be.

That aside, life would be a whole lot better – and we’d probably all get a lot farther in that life with a lot less hassle – if we stopped condemning others out of hand just because they think or behave differently than we do. Having a different belief system does not equate with being bad. Science eventually catches up with most things. The parapsychologists are stretching their wings and astrologers are patiently going about their business while the world catches up with the idea of what E=mc2’d really means.

The solar system…the universe…is one. We are, as the Maya appear to have put it…contiguous.

Which would mean that ghost are connected to us.

Which would mean that we’re connected to each other.

And all of that would bring us to what is the far, far greater question: ‘what makes us think we’re separate?’ On a human and individual basis that 'thing' would seem to be the mortal ego. Ego begetting consciousness and consciousness of Self is what stands to protect our survival, what manifests as our survival instinct and which must have some value, or ego wouldn’t have survived.

Yet if it becomes too great, it destroys itself – and others.

I think we stand to learn a vast amount from exploring other dimensions and the map of time/space-plus-time markers which astrology gives us. Maybe we don’t want to eradicate ghosts. But maybe we want to know who’s in danger. A database would be good...and given enough time, maybe someone will say they know of one.

So many people think astrology is a joke. Even those who know astrology isn't a joke tend to use it for matters important, if ordinary. Things like careers, love, where to live, who to start a business with...all that.

But it has the capacity to be so much more. So very much more.

And why are people so unwilling to hear one another. If wishes were horses (and pigs could fly) I wish those parapsychologists had asked ‘how do you think astrology could help here?' Or maybe 'I’m not familiar with how astrology works. Does it actually have any scientific basis and if so, could you explain that to me?’

I would have. But they didn’t ask. And the core of why they didn’t erupted as hostile dismissiveness aimed in my direction.

And to some extent, that’s why ghosts happen.The human dismissing of other humans, our lack of care and civility, the constant plague of 'you're not one of us' which humans don't seem to be able to shake - that's what leads to human tragedy.

And that tragedy leads to ghosts.

So maybe I'll have to shave off some time here and there to track down names, dates and locations of those who known to have passed into ghost-life, suicides et al.

And more importantly, maybe we can all benefit by investing a bit of thought towards why ghosts come to be.

Wouldn't you want to know if you were destined to become a ghost?

Or is that too scary?

If you know of someone who has (or has

access to) a database of identified ghosts

with birth and death dates, I would like to

be connected to them in order to discuss

conducting an astrological study.

Please contact me at mentorus@gmail.com