The Paranormal
 

I believe in the paranormal. I wasn't sure of where to put this thread, so if someone wants to move it, please feel free to do so. For me, it is not something that I take as a fun or fluffy topic. It is serious.

I wear at all times several silver medals that are blessed, St. Francis of Assisi, Mary, St. Michael, and St. Benedict. I also carry blessed Holy Water with me. If you know of any psychics, mediums, or others who are of the Catholic faith, you will find that they also pretty much do the same exact thing. One of the folks that I truely admire is Chip Coffey. He is seen on Psychic Kids, The Paranormal State, and so on. I go to Church quite a bit, and I do pray to God, and to all of His angels to shield me, guide me, and protect me. I believe it is the right thing for me to do, esp. when I am ghost hunting, or involved in a paranormal event.

I want to talk about everything from Demonology, Possession, Hauntings, Ghosts, UFO's, Cattle Mutalations, Aliens, Werewolves, Vampires, and so on and on.

Once again, I take this to heart. Not to be something funny, or a joke. I have witnessed too much for this to be perceived as such.

Namaste,
Andrew

Chip Coffey
 

Does anyone know of this fella? He is a wonderful person. I really admire him. He is a medium, psychic, and clairvoyant. He is Roman Catholic, and does wear silver medals of the Crusifix, and St. Michael, and St. Benedict at all times, and carries Holy Water with him in his pocket.

According to his website, Chip Coffey reports that he was raised in the Catholic faith. The website doesn't indicate that he currently identifies as a Roman Catholic. (As many can attest, being raised Roman Catholic does not make one Roman Catholic.) :eyebrow:


Q: Do you believe in God?

A: “Absolutely! I am a firm believer in God, which is what I choose to call the Supreme Being, but feel free to choose your own name. I was raised in the Catholic faith, which is filled with miracles, mysticism and manifestations. I have incorporated my spiritual beliefs with my Catholic upbringing, which has given me a very personal and private relationship with God. I never attempt to "force" my beliefs on others ... it's simply not my "job" to convince or convert!”

I find the differentiation between him being raised Catholic and identifying as a Roman Catholic interesting, for many reasons, especially because this is what the Catholic Catechism says (in part) about divination and magic:

This information is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part Three, Life In Christ, Section Two, The Ten Commandments, Chapter One, Article 3, The Third Commandment, III. "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me"

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future.48 Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

O

Outlaw,

I am totally lost on your post.

Take II in brief
 

He says he was "raised in the Catholic faith"... he does not say that he is Roman Catholic.

Just because someone is raised in the Catholic faith, does not mean that they are Roman Catholic.

O

To help the person move to the afterlife. Sometimes when someone dies, they have no clue that they died, and are roaming here searching for help or to find others or loved ones. That is what a ghost is. There is not really a haunting, but a nest. It is a place where the ghost finds comfort.

I also go to graveyards and cemetaries. I enjoy doing scratchings from headstones.

My Grandmother had a gift. She used it to help people. In turn, I was given this gift. I knew it from a very early age. I know that there are some things that I am attune into, and some I have no business getting involved with. That is when I reach out to others for help and advice. I never give advice or answers unless I am asked for it first. And even then, I have to know more about the person asking the questions, and what the questions are based upon.

If I have an answer to someones question, I give it freely. Never do I ask for money or anything in return, but prayers.

There is a lot more to this life than meets the eye.

You have to have a deep spiritual faith in order to do anything in this field. Anything. If you don't, then you/your soul can be taken over. Do not think for a minute that demons are not walking about freely. They are. And they are ready, willing, and able to pounce on anyone at a moments notice.

I wanted to say that I am here, sitting quietly in the background and watching. I may contribute at some point... but I also take this subject very seriously and do not offer up too much information too willingly. I will say that I have had a great deal of personal experience, that I also am gifted, in several ways, and that I often doubt my own gifts and am repeatedly forced to admit their reality and accuracy.

Sometime after my mom died, I was getting off an elevator to go to work. As soon as I hit the sky walk to the other building I smelled her perfume. It's happened a couple of times. Now that the holidays are here I can't get her or my three cousins off my mind. My great grandmother used to say that whenever we dreamed of the dead it was a sign they needed our prayers. Who knows?

Ol' Jet,

It means that they are around you. Anytime you smell perfume, cologne, tobacco, or something related to a dead relative or friend, that is your connection. You can pray for them, but they are checking in on you. They are taking their energy to come back into this plane to reach you. The scent is the means of contact.

You might be right Andrew, I don't know. After experiencing so much trauma in my life my belief system is skewed with things like this. As a traditional Catholic I believe and don't believe certain things, but hey, far be it from me to know what's really going on.

Yes, I understand.

On occasion, I will get a whiff of roses... my mother LOVED roses and used to grow American Beauties. This is how I know she's around me.

The funny thing is - Mare recognizes her mother's presence the same way, lol ... and one time, we both caught a whiff of roses at the same time. We just looked at each other - we were trying to figure out which mother was around, lol. (Of course, we acknowledged both).

I have been known to be a prophetic dreamer and occasionally experience waking visions. I was more in tune to this when I was much younger - and after dreaming my mother's, godfather's (and believe it or not) my dog's death - I just shut down. The emotional trauma was just too much to bear - especially after my mother's death - which happened not too long after "that" dream. (and my godfather and dog passed away shortly after my mom died.)

I have always been fascinated with the paranormal. Both Mare and I enjoy visiting cemetaries, especially really old ones. There are quite a few here that date back to the 1700's, and I am pretty sure we visited them all.

My entire life has been surrounded by the paranormal, so I do take the subject rather seriously. I also have to laugh about it at times, but I think that is just my way of coping. I have always considered myself a rational, logical person - but there are things that most certainly defy logic and reason.

I don't laugh or joke at the paranormal. I take it quite seriously.

Awesome thread Andrew.
I don't consider myself a psychic. But I do see apparitions more than I would like to admit. My Aunt was a spiritual healer, psychic clairvoyant and pretty well reknown in Hawaii.
When I was younger, I always felt things around me. But as hyper as I was, I never really took them serious because there was always another tree to climb, fort to build, and skate board contest to win. As I got into my teens, I was surfing. I caught what seem to be the perfect wave, well I wiped out, board hit my head, and I was pulled under. I don't remember, but they say another surfer pulled me in and a life guard revived me from a flat-liner. So I lived to surf another day, is how I put it. A few years later, I got cancer, and once again,and fought a long hard battle, I was classified as a flat-liner. Then 6 almost 7 years ago, I got into a motorcycle accident, Once again, I don't remember, but friends said, I was clipped on the back wheel from a 18-wheeler, went air borne about 30 feet, ate pavement for about another 20 feet before being embedded by a tree branch that split my helmet and went through my skull.
This time I was clinically considered dead, dead, flat-lined. The part I do remember, is liftng above my body, seeing people I didn't know trying to revive me as I laid there, I felt peace, no pain, just kinda, in limbo of serenity. Then I seen a very bright white and silver light beam, to which I could feel myself being drawn to. As I was being pulled towards this beautiful light, I seen my parents, my grand parents, cousins, friends, all just smiling and waiting. I was once again feeling very happy, excited, relaxed, pain free. Then with a mighty feeling of being yanked and sucked through a hose, I guess I was revived, and the pain, the aweful pain was all I felt, then again, I don't remember.
Weeks later, I was brought out of a coma, then had to relearn to walk, talk, eat, and do all the normal things that we take for granted. Any way. It started then. I started seeing apparitions, first they seemed like a dream. Then they started coming to me, as to ask for help, I guess because I could see them. Then I started seeing apparitions everywhere I went, and everything I did. The spirits, I can handle, it's the dark apparitions that tend to freak me out, I don't know if they are taunting me, trying to scare me, or just being evil as there energies are, as they draw lots of energy to manifest. Oh well. That's what I deal with, be it a gift, or a curse. It's what I deal with 24/7 a day/night. So for those who think that I have a wild imagination, or that I am crazy. Think as you will... The more I talk about it, the easier it becomes for me to accept what I am/do. Laugh if you must. But unless or that is until you walk in my shoes. I think it will be me that perhaps, just perhaps may have the last laugh...

Blaze,

I do believe you. I have seen things pretty much like you. My Grandmother was gifted, and also passed this onto me. I just struggle with expressing myself, and with what I have experienced. I do believe that spirits are with us at all times. I don't believe in "death" per sea, but that it is just a rebirth happening over again repeatedly.

There is evil in this world. As much as I hate to admit it, there is.

I do think that the spirit world is more attracted to those who are injured in some form or fashion. It just is a comfort for me.

When my sister was dying, she was at NIH in Bethesda at one point. Everyone wanted to be there. We never encountered anyone who was there just collecting a paycheck. The nurses were angels. I can't even begin to thank them enough. I know that when I was walking the halls at NIH, I would see aberitions. They were happy. Not one was sick, or suffering. Just smiling ear to ear, and looking so peaceful.

So yes, I do get it.

Well, I tend to follow promptings... and it appears that now is the time to talk, so here goes.

I may have a slightly different take on all of this then some of you. I am not Christian. But, I have been dealing with my "gifts" for as long as I can remember.

So, what I can do. I am a clairvoyant, an audio-sensory, and a reader. My clairvoyance is unique, I have yet to run into anyone who's works the same as mine. I don't hear someone thoughts, I see them. This makes things different, more difficult, but also give me the advantage of seeing things that are more deeply rooted, more subconscious. The strongest and earliest example I have was in my teens. A friend that I was close to was over to the house, and very suddenly I could see a yard, filled with smoke, and a red wagon with a crying baby in it. I felt scared and confused and shocked. I looked up at him and asked, when was the fire... He looked at me like he had seen a ghost. His family had suffered a house fire when he was a young child, his baby sister had been in the wagon, and they were standing on the road watching. I take this ability very seriously, and it takes a lot of effort to control it so I am not seeing thoughts from people projected everywhere I go. The cacophony can be extremely overwhelming and I also feel that it is an invasion of someone privacy for me to know these private and personal things about them without their knowledge.

The audio-sensory is more straight forward. I get whispers from spirits, ghosts, what have you. They warn me of things, ask for help, or just talk because they know I can here. When I was younger I could see them more, and I remember two people that no one could see checking on me in bed in the night... when my mother was in the hospital, in labor with my brother. I too have had experiences with the dark. Ones that will never leave my memory, and are as vivid today as the day they happened. When I was 4 years old, sleeping in my bedroom I saw an aperation. A figure with a green face studied me so intensely and then asked me if I worshiped the devil. I answered him no, and he went away. But, so many years later I still remember every detail, the sound of my mother washing dishes in the kitchen, the light coming in under the door, the tone of his voice. I shut off this ability at one point, denied it completely, when I allowed it back into my life it was different. I don't see them anymore. I can hear them, I know what they look like, I see flickers of shadows, but I don't actually see them. I still have many moment of denial with this gift in particular. But my Guides see fit to remind me of its truth on a regular basis.

Because of what I can do, and the insistent stream of people who seem to come in and out of my life looking for guidance and assistance, I have chosen to develop my skills as a reader. I read Tarot, as well as Oracles and Runes, and I read palms. I have never and will never asked for any money for my services. I do it because I am prompted to, because my Guides tell me it is needed.

I do understand the need to laugh sometimes. That there is so much around us, so many things that people can't or won't believe. Its a good thing, I think, to be able to laugh at it a bit. A ghost with a more annoying voice, or the sight of something out of the corner of my eye. The laughter helps for it not to overtake my life, makes it easier to keep from being overwhelmed.

Let Peace Follow the Way
 

Jenn,

I don't think it is a matter of being Christain, Wiccan, Buddhist, Islamic, Pagan, or whatever. It is a gift of granting peace to someone. Thanks for sharing yourself with us. I appreciate it.

For myself, I do carry Holy Water in my pocket, and I use it on a pretty regular basis all over my home, and on my pets. I also wear blessed medals of Mary, St. Francis, St. Michael, and St. Benedict all for protection. Does anyone else?

Namaste,
Andrew