My resident house-ghost, Joe, re-appeared in my back hallway a few days ago, after being gone again. Backstory: Joe came to my house for the first time several months ago, and he and I struck a deal whereby he would bring Earth-bound spirits to me, and I would use my psychic abilities to help those spirits ascend (read “My Ghost Joe”). The first group he brought included 17 troubled souls, which took me several days to sort out and help ascend (read “My Ghost Joe and the Impatient Horde”). The second group was rougher, with more unfinished business and chips on shoulders, and included eight souls (read “He’s BAAACK!”). With this group being much more difficult to help than the last, it should not have surprised me that the third group Joe brought to me was four suicides (read “The Suicides”). And now Joe is back. And who has he brought this time? The man who killed him.
BEST HAUNTED HOTELS IN AMERICA
My eldest son had the brilliant idea to head out to a haunted hotel for Halloween weekend, and asked me to check pictures of the place he was considering. My psychic abilities enable me to tell from a picture what is going on with the spirits inside a place, and I happily obliged. This gave me the thought that others of you might be free for a spur-of-the-moment overnight jaunt, and be looking for a good Halloween scare. So, I engaged my spidey-senses to provide you a public service. I took a look at pictures of hundreds of so-called haunted hotels, motels, and bed-and-breakfasts from all 50 states (phew!), to see what was what and to find the best of the best.
THE SUICIDES
![photo by Roy Shapley](https://i0.wp.com/www.speakingofthedead.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Roy-Wet-Leaves-edited.jpeg?resize=376%2C470&ssl=1)
My resident house-ghost, Joe, arrived a few days ago with his latest group of “recruits.” Joe and I struck a deal some months back, whereby he brings troubled souls to me, and I help those souls make their peace and ascend. I have ascended two such groups so far (see My Ghost Joe and My Ghost Joe and the Impatient Horde and He’s Baaack), the second being more troubled than the first. And now the third such group arrived in my attic. And, oh boy, what a group it was: four suicides.
In general, dead is dead, and a spirit is a spirit is a spirit. BUT, suicides are a special class of spirit, as they are universally troubled and carry a great deal of spiritual baggage. I have done psychic readings for suicides before, and have helped those individuals make their peace and ascend. I am proud of this work, but those readings are always long and incredibly intense. What I haven’t done is help a suicide that was a complete stranger — unknown to me or the person on the other end of the phone line. Joe’s group posed a sobering challenge in this regard, as suicides have a lot of guilt, and are often reluctant to talk. I was not sure how far I would get with them, but I agreed to try.
THE BORDERLANDS
![photo by Roy Shapley](https://i0.wp.com/www.speakingofthedead.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Roy-Beluga-Slough-edited.jpeg?resize=482%2C379&ssl=1)
Questions keep cropping up in my mind regarding the limits (or not) of my psychic abilities, as I keep discovering things that I can do that I didn’t know that I could. Because of some lesser things happening, a bigger question has arisen: can I communicate with spirits that have ascended? I have been quite certain for a very long time that I absolutely cannot. But now….now I’m not so sure.
This is an Earth-shattering, life-altering, mind-bending question for me, but several friends have responded to my struggle with the same casual, this-is-so-obvious comment: Oh, of course you can. You just need to find a borderland, where the veil between worlds is thin.
WHAT? I NEED TO WHAT?
HE’S BAAACK!
My resident house-ghost, Joe, was gone for three weeks, and I was more than a little worried. Joe and I made an unusual deal, whereby he brings troubled souls to me, and I help those souls ascend. Within a few days of making this deal, Joe brought 17 such spirits to me, which I wrote about in an earlier post (see My Ghost Joe and the Impatient Horde). With Joe gone so long this time, I wondered what he was going to bring me next. As each day passed with no sight of Joe, my visions became more fantastical and melodramatic, so that by the time Joe reappeared, I fully expected him to be accompanied by a gang of zombie demon terrorists.
PSYCHOPATHS AND SERIAL KILLERS
In my last column, I boldly stated that heaven is for everyone, that all you have to do to go there is die, forgive yourself, release your guilt, make peace with your life and your death, and ascend. This statement was a real, “But of course!” thing for me, but it raised A LOT of questions for my husband. In particular, he wanted to know what happens to the spirit of a person who is incapable of feeling guilt, like a psychopath or serial killer? Do they have to stick around in an Earth-bound state until they get a conscience? Does the stuff that they did during their lifetime weigh on their soul, even though they have no remorse? Can those people ascend without acknowledgement of and forgiveness for their crimes? Do they go somewhere else for awhile? Does death have a way of opening a person’s eyes to right and wrong? Can death change a person?
GHOSTS ARE PEOPLE, TOO
I may be guilty of some inadvertent fear-mongering, in my zeal to get everyone on board with my “Ascension is Great!” campaign. It is possible, I admit, that I may have overstated a few things, and given the impression that ghosts are dangerous. I sincerely and humbly apologize for this, because GHOSTS DON’T HAVE THE POWER TO ACTUALLY HURT YOU. Really. Ghosts are pure spirit energy, so the power they possess is ethereal and energetic, with no physical substance. Yes, they could come at you with a knife, but it would be a ghost knife and all it would do is cut air. And I’m pretty sure you aren’t going to be hurt by that AT ALL.
MY GHOST JOE AND THE IMPATIENT HORDE
I’ve spent the past hour staring at my computer screen, trying to figure out a way to write about what I did yesterday, without sounding absolutely bat-guano crazy, and have determined that it can’t be done. My current house-ghost, Joe, is a big brute of a dead guy, and he has been bringing other dead people to my house so I can help them ascend. This is the psychic work that I do, and the agreement I made with Joe seemed a no-brainer at the time, but I’m sorry, there is no way to say in polite company that I have a giant ghost named Joe in my house and he goes out every day to collect other ghosts and then comes back at night with a bunch of them, and makes them stay in my attic until I have time to deal with them. At least, not without a straightjacket with my name on it arriving shortly thereafter.
But that is, in fact, what has been happening at my house, and is, in fact, what led to me helping 17 dead souls make their peace and ascend yesterday. Which, in truth, also sounds crazy.
MY GHOST JOE
My most recent house-ghost, Joe, helped me out a month or so ago with my tests of ghost-detection apps, and I set out to keep my promise and help him make his peace and ascend. Things with Joe didn’t turn out quite the way I thought they would, though.
I was not sure what drew Joe to me, as we have no familial or spiritual connections, and he has no past ties to my house. Joe died sometime in the 1990’s in a hunting accident that wasn’t an accident. The man who killed him walked away from the crime unpunished, but wound up going crazy insane over it. As Joe put it, he “would have been better off if he’d been thrown in the slammer.”
I asked Joe what drew him to me or to my house, and, if he knew that I could help him, how he knew that.
TESTING, TESTING
My apologies for the interruption in my regular posting schedule, but my husband had major surgery and I’ve been a bit busy. But while he was recovering, our kids came to stay for overlapping periods of time to help out, and on one random day, my oldest son queried, “Did you know that there are apps for finding ghosts?”
WHAT?
No, I did not.
But I do now.
A quick search led me to a surprising number of apps that promise to “locate ghosts” and “measure paranormal activity” and “analyze energy readings looking for unusual patterns” and I could not resist downloading a bunch and checking them out. I focused my research on free apps with the highest ratings, and avoided those apps that were deliberate pranks, such as the one that will add a ghost to any photo. I have a new ghost in my house who really wants my help, so he agreed to be my test subject, ostensibly to butter me up. His name is Joe.