Paracon 2015, Part 2 - Impressions

Some more thoughts on the Grey Ghost Paracon aboard the USS Hornet. This is the just the second time I’ve been to a “haunted” place since I’ve come out of the closet about the paranormal, both to myself and to world at large, and allowed myself to notice and feel whatever there was without discounting it. The evening “investigation” tours took all the attendees, in small groups, to many of the shipboard hot spots. My group was led by a woman who was an intuitive, and was a member of an investigation team that is based on on the Hornet. She had many personal stories to tell, which I find more interesting than the second hand ones.

The first stop was CIC. Though somewhat technically interesting, it was also hot and stuffy. I felt there was zippo activity there and the tech people got nothing as well. I the next stop was a Ready room, I think. This was the most interesting for me. There I had impressions of two people, one in the hall, outside the room, and one inside the room. It also seemed to me that these entities were less than full-fledged personalities, they just seemed two-dimensional, somehow. Perhaps these were what are called “residuals,” more like recordings than spirits.

The one in the all seemed to me to be a cook. He was sweaty and dirty and a little angry about something. He was stuck in the hall because he wasn’t allowed in the room, officer country, maybe? The other person was at the other end of the room from me. He was wearing a flight jacket, but he wasn’t a pilot. It took a while to sort out the impressions, but finally I realized that he was dressed more like a WWII Army pilot, not navy. He was extremely angry about something “she” had done.

The tech seemed to react more here than anywhere else. Near the end of our allotted time, I felt both impressions leave. A little while later the guide suggested that we move on, and I spoke up, for the only time on this tour, to vote yay because the entries had all left.

The next notable spot was one of the emergency generator rooms. The guide had a great story about what she, and others, had seen and felt in this room. All the interesting stuff happened on one place, but I couldn’t see where that was, because of the dark and all the people and equipment blocking my view. After she finished her talk and had answered questions. I wondered about the general area and got strong chills in one, particular, spot. I don’t know if that was “the” spot or not. (I’m not too worried about being “right” these days, I just want to experience what I can.)

Sick bay was the last interesting spot. This consists of a suit of rooms including offices, and a variety of examining, operating, testing and treatment rooms. It was interesting because of all the equipment and other details of the era, and because of a general feeling of the place. I had strong chills when I first looked into the entrance, and occasional “bumps” in various places.

I have now accumulated several first-hand accounts of ghost encounters aboard this ship. Most of them seemed perfectly ordinary, except that the “person” vanished, inexplicably. They happen to people alone in the dark, and on the hanger deck, in broad daylight, with hundreds of people present. Most often the ghost was seen by only one person, but sometimes more than one. I can’t help but wonder if many more people see these things, but just never realize it. I mean, how would they? If you saw a “sailor” on a ship with lots of veterans and others wearing various kinds of uniforms, would you notice?

This is an idea that has been forming in my head for a while. If the paranormal exists, then it’s part of nature and it’s happening all the time, all around us, the effects are just too subtle to notice, as a rule. On the other hand, we don’t want to notice this stuff, so it’s easy to edit it out of our experience. We chalk it up to inattention, confusion, wishful thinking or coincidence. Many great scientific discoveries have been the result of someone noticing a series of anomalous events, errors, odd things that were considered not worth explaining, and “connected the dots” to realize that there was a pattern here that said something new about the world.

Right now, the whole paranormal/psychic phenomena area is a mishmash of weird stories and scientific data points. All very confusing and mostly anecdotal, with no clear rules to sort the wheat from the chaff. By far, most investigators and ghost hunters are out to find cool stuff, so that have a good story to tell. It’s not really about advancing understanding, which really isn’t too surprising. I guess we are still waiting for a Newton or Einstein who makes the one, critical, observation that begins to make sense of it all.

Clients, Dentists and Spirits

Lots has been going on and I’ve had a hard time focusing on things to write about. Finances have been on my mind. It doesn’t look like I’ll have enough savings to make it through to my my retirement kicks in. I’ve been looking for work, but no dice so far. I have a trickle of income from my practice, but it’s no enough to make much difference. I do feel like I’m starting to get some traction getting clients through connections, and that’s good, unfortunately that will take more time to pay off. I have a couple of steady clients, pro bono, but they have connections that could steer more clients my way. But first I have to prove that I can deliver the goods. Things are looking good so far….

I started to do the rounds of local dentists in the area, but just a couple of conversations made it pretty clear to me that I need to finish my certification first. Ouch. So I need to sit on my hands, so to speak, for another four weeks. That will be hard. I also need to put together a flyer tailored to dentists and physicians. Maybe my dentist will be willing to give me a few minutes to help with that.

I am pursuing other avenues though. MeetUp, for instance, produces a slow trickle of leads and other ideas. One of the people there suggested ParaCon, the Paranormal Convention, that’s only a few miles up the road this year. (Is that a coincidence or what?) I though I could be a speaker, but that ship has sailed, but I signed up to be a vender and I’m working on a short presentation/dialogue I can give people as they stop by. Maybe all those times I spent manning a both at trade shows will finally pay off!

Change of subject: More things happening around spirit releasement. (That’s really a mouthful, isn’t it: “spirit releasement.” I’m going to have to come up with a better term than that.) Working on my own, after class, I’ve released about ten additional entities. I can’t help but ask my self, am I making all this up? I mean, it does seem a bit excessive. I guess you can never be sure, but I have seen some tell-tail signs that maybe there’s really something to it after all.

The first sign is the different feeling of each personality. They are really different. They speak differently, they feel different. The emotions they express as they tell their stories are sometimes quite strong. The children especially. For example, there was the twelve year old girl who was stripped, raped repeatedly in some dark place, was told it was all her fault, and then shot. The boy of eight who, with a bunch of others, was told to hide in a cave during a really bad storm. Then the cave filled with water so that they were trapped and drowned. There was the three year old who really didn’t know what happened to him, he just was looney and scared. And then there was an eighteen year old girl that died in someplace very cold and very dark. You know, after a while you reach a point where you just don’t want to know any more. But am I really making all this up? It sure doesn’t feel like it.

The other sign I get is what I feel physically when these entities leave. In one case, when the spirit was present and active, I felt a pressure on the back of my neck, almost like a hand, and there was a distinct jittery, cold sweat, nervousness throughout my body. This is something I’d been noticing, on and off, for as long as I can remember. This feeling tended to come up when I found myself alone without something “important” to occupy myself. As soon as the spirit left, I felt my whole body relax. Those feelings haven’t been back, and I’ve been sleeping better as well. I’d gotten so used to having this guy around, and I had no idea how much trouble he was causing me.

Most spirit attachments don’t have such obvious effects. Good thing, since most people have attachments, to some degree or other, we’d all be running around like possessed wackos, otherwise. On the other hand, when you look at all the stuff you see on the news every day, you have to wonder now many of those people are really running on their own recognizance.

I also feel something else when they leave, an intense, not unpleasant, tingling. It varies in intensity and how much of my body it covers. That might have something to do with how strong the entity was or how strongly it was attached to me. Could be either, or something else entirely. But it a pretty clear sign. I can feel it, even if I wasn’t expecting them to leave when they did. I suspect it has to do with the the return of the energy that they were taking from me. Spirit attachments cause a constant energy drain on your system. Usually it’s too small to notice, but sometimes it can be a real problem. Like an app running in the background on your phone, slowing things down and draining the battery. Shut it down and everything runs that much more sprightly. I think that the tingling is a momentary jolt caused by energy being returned to me.

It’s interesting that I’m getting so much experience with all these kind of things, things I wouldn’t have admitted knowing anything about ten years ago. And I seem to be starting to run unto people who need help in these areas as well, so cross fingers and put stuff out there.