This one is difficult for me, because I'm not sure how much I really want to reveal about my own experiences. I'll be as honest as I can, but I may have to alter a name or so to protect my privacy and that of others.
First, let's start with what we know. We know that the human brain looks for familiar patterns, so that when it is confronted with new information, it looks for a familiar label to describe this unknown element. It is NOT normal for a human to see a shadow and think it is a monster, in spite of what you've always been told. Rather the normal human reaction is to see a monster and dismiss it as a shadow. We've been raised to believe that myths and legends are fantastic stories created to describe a strange and frightening world as viewed by ancient cultures. It doesn't take much research to realize that the ancients knew as much or more than we do about the nature of existence, and I believe that all myth/legend/scripture will have some basis in fact. Humans simply are not that creative - we are imitative, to be sure, but it's rare for a human to create anything new out of whole cloth.
Having said that, I will add that I trust my own experience. I have had visions, dreams, daydreams, memories, past life memories, intuitions, precognitions, fantasies and hallucinations and I've done more acid than I care to admit but only in my late thirties after most of this stuff had already happened. My point is that each of these states of consciousness is a varied and distinct experience. A vision doesn't feel like a dream, a memory doesn't feel like an hallucination, a past life memory doesn't feel like a fantasy, etc. If you have had a given experience, you know what it is when it happens and you know how it feels. If you have not, you will be tempted to dismiss my experience. I submit that there is no more sense in that position than if I were to deny the existence of Japan because I have not been there. Just because you haven't done it, doesn't mean it can't be done. Just because we can't measure it yet, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Saying there are no ghosts or angels because there is no physical proof (though there is, and we'll get to that in a minute) doesn't mean they aren't there.
The first thing a person has to do to have a psychic experience is to accept the possibility. You are in control, for the most part, of your consciousness. If you want to deny the existence of air, you can go through life ignoring it. You don't have to believe in gravity for it to work - though if you want to measure or calculate it or its effects, you first have to allow that such a force exists. A little empiricism shouldn't be too much to ask from a person who insists on scientific evidence, but you'd be surprised at how little some will employ.
Now, about beings themselves. I'll start with angels, since it's that time of year. Every culture has some form of angel - the word "angel" meaning "message or messenger" and the function of such critters being to provide help or warnings. I have seen angels on at least two occasions. The first was after a funeral of a person I did not know. He was a young man who apparently committed suicide, and the angel came while I was with someone else sitting in my living room. No, he didn't see it. No, I won't tell you what it asked me to do, because that's no one's business but ours. I will tell you that he was transparent, had dark shadows where his eyes should have been, he was shades of brown like a bird, and his wings extended up through my ceiling. At that point in my life, I took no medication, didn't drink, had never done a drug. I was completely awake, described what I was seeing to my companion, and remember it as clearly as I remember the boy in his coffin, bless his heart.
The second encounter with angels involved good news. I attended a meditation group for a while and there were many different types of women who attended. One woman brought her elder mother with her occasionally, a very nice woman who had gone blind in recent years. One night at the group, I saw small angels - they looked as if they had been cut out of pastel construction paper of different colors - flying in a circle around her head. I told the person I was with what I saw, but didn't tell the group, because it would have freaked them out. Anyway, in the course of the evening it came out that the woman was about to have surgery that might restore her sight. I told my friend it would be a safe and successful operation - and it was.
Many people have documented encounters with ghosts. I've had too many to relate here, but I will say I've actually been pinched and several times I've been tapped on the shoulder, in broad daylight with no one near enough to touch me, but people all around me. In one case, I was reading cards for a man I didn't know in a rock and roll bar. I felt a tap, and turned, but there was no one else on our side of the room. I described the young man who's spirit was standing there, who turned out to be the nephew of the man I was reading for. He nearly fainted as I described the boy, how he had died and what he had to say. Spirits can converse, interact with us and impart information. There are energy measurements and pictures and reams of documentation of ghostly encounters, but there will never be enough for the skeptics until each of them meets one up close and personal - and I hope you all do. Most are benign, some are guardians, and they can throw things across the room if they really want your attention. Don't make them go to those lengths before you acknowledge them - it's bad manners to ignore people, incorporate or not.
Now, lets talk about the Virgin Mary. If you notice, sightings are always of the Blessed Mother, but never of the son. They have a marked tendency to occur on Fridays (Freya's Day, the day of Venus) and frequently on the 13th of the month - 13 being a sacred prime that was considered good luck until the Inquisition swooped down on the Knights Templar on the 13th of the month. If Mother Mary speaks, she encourages people to pray the Rosary - "rosary" meaning "roses" which are sacred to the Goddess; the beads representing the petals of the rose, which represent the labia of the Goddess; the repetition of prayers which was specifically scorned by Jesus, who said "The Pagans think they gain favor in Heaven through their much speaking; and then of course there's the text :
"Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee
Blessed are though among women and blessed also is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen."
- "Full of Grace" = Divine
- The Lord is obviously with the Lady in every culture, whether they are called Isis and Osiris, Morgaine and Arthur, or Mary and Jesus.
- "Blessed are thou among women" = worshipped particularly by women
- "blessed also is the fruit of Thy womb" = blessed because he came from Your womb
- "Holy Mary" is self-explanatory
- "Mother of God"= Mother Goddess, or as Pagans like to say, "Our Goddess gave birth to your god."
- Praying for the lost is always good, of course
- "Amen" - that came straight from Jesus - don't you think it strange that a Hebrew ended his prayers by invoking Amen-Ra, almost as if he were an initiate of the Egyptian Mysteries, as in He and Mary Magdalene taking the role of Isis and Osiris?
Makes perfect sense to me that the Goddess would take such a kind and beautiful form, and gently reinforce her love for us.
And I saw Her walk through my bedroom one night while I was burning a Santeria candle and saying a Novena. (Novena being the Catholic word for a 9-day spell invoking one of the Saints. Nearly everything in the Catholic religion is Pagan in origin, which is why they resent us so much. They co-opted our rituals then tried to exterminate us.) She was small, graceful and dark skinned like Our Lady of Guadalupe, which makes sense - she took the form of an Indian to appear to an Indian.
I can't say whether I believe in demonic possession, because I've never observed a case first hand. I have done minor exorcisms though, to address both psychological and spiritual needs, and I have an open mind. I've seen too many "impossible" things to dismiss the possibility.
At any rate, I'm firmly on the Theist team in this regard. If you've had the experience, there's just no denying it, and no one will talk you out of it. There is a Knowing that surpasses knowledge, and the spirit of it overwhelms attempts to reason it away.
