Haunted Pictures

Haunted Candle, Demon, and The Lady ~ PHOTOS

These photos were all taken by me and seem to have manifested something paranormal in each.

This image was taken from an Edward Gorey book that I got for Christmas from a friend. When I was a child the image frightened me, so I planned to tell the friend of my childhood fear. The image in the book is black and white--my image is NOT. Now the picture scares me even more.

None of my images are enhanced, highlighted, altered or changed in ANY way except to crop for size.

This image was taking while driving home in the fog during the winter. Notice the woman-shaped figure in the tree trunk.

The next image was taken on Gallows Hill Road in Cranford, New Jersey. I aimed my iPhone toward the spot that used to contain a gallows, and is purportedly one of the most haunted locations in NJ. When I took the shot, I accidentally took two pictures, the first one contained this green, demonic face, and the second showed nothing. Please tell me what YOU see.

An Open Mind

I am a member of a few conspiracy theory groups, some anti-religion pages, and numerous science pages on Facebook and elsewhere. 

Although many of the thoughts and insights are interesting, I find myself a skeptic of the skeptics. The idea that the sun is a hexagon-shaped mechanical heat source fueled by planes and other rocket-like craft may be a bit too much for me.

Chem trails? Could be. Agenda 21--all signs point to yes.

But I keep an open mind. 

Is the entire paradigm we have been taught false? Is religion a way to keep us living in fear and a way to create a non-questioning society? What about demons and devils, or even God? 

I asked myself if science was a light in the dark--the only measurable truth we have. But even science is a zoo of theories, many of which have been refuted and proven wrong time and time again. Yes--there are facts I, along with the rest of the world, believed to be true. But even our idea of a finite universe has been challenged, and our string theory and the idea of an expanding universe is becoming more mainstream.

We collect data and formulate theories as best we can with the information we have, but there are certain things that cannot be measured or compared. 

Personal, internal experiences at this point in time can be described and our blood pressure, temperature, and other responses can be kept track of, but the actual experience of the individual can only be described in words. It is their reality, and we have no way to tell if the situation has been repeated exactly, or interpreted differently by each individual.

So to make a long story short, we know some stuff--but there is plenty of other stuff we have no idea about yet. 

We seek answers and applaud those who find the answers that are apropos for the time--but we need to keep our minds opened forever, and never stop learning.

Facts do not need to be completely refuted to change--an element can be added or subtracted to a fact to completely change it, while maintaining its original idea.

Yes, there are atoms--but we know they are not the tiniest thing any more. The God particle? We'll find it and on it's coattails we will glimpse the Eternity Orb. 

Keep your mind open--you never know what will walk in.

COFFIN HOP 2014

Welcome to the 2014 Coffin Hop!

Please visit all the other authors after you are done here by clicking the horrible pumpkin button ---------------------------------->>>>

My Coffin Hop challenge this year will test your mind reading capabilities.

I will choose a series of FOUR letters from the alphabet and focus the energy of the letters on the crystal ball in front of the mind reading gypsy. Please use your psychic powers and see if you can tell what letters have been chosen, and put your answer in the comments below. (The four letters do NOT form a word and were chosen yesterday and sent to Axel, the Big Daddy of the Hop, to keep everyone honest.)

At the end of the hop, the person who has the best psychic abilities will win GHOST WRITER ~ a miniature, leather-bound book about a tiny ghosts who faces the same problems as we the living have here on earth.

Ghost Writer has issues with grammar, syntax, punctuation, and has a pile of rejection letters as long as your arm. 

The book is hand-bound with wax coated string, and has original art on each of its ten pages.


Please, please, please SCARE ME!

Thanks for stopping by dearies. XO

Just CLICK to Follow on Twitter if you like.

Angels

I have an aunt who loves angels. She believes we have guardian angels, and that there are other holy beings that protect us from the bad guys, getting into accidents, or just straying off the good path. I know many who feel the same way. 

In the bible is says that God made angels one at a time, and they cannot die. Even if we are super good here one earth, we would never become angels. The number of angels never increases or decreases. Some say there are at least as many angels as there have been people who existed on the earth.

I asked one of my friends who wholeheartedly believes in angels what she thought they looked like. She told me that angels look exactly like we see them in pictures; beautiful, typically clothed in white, with wings and if not a halo, a very holy countenance or glow. She also described a female entity.

Another friend, a born-again Christian, believes they are huge. Not seven or eight feet tall, she means bigger than your house. She said they are fearsome creatures, wielding swords of fire...and these gargantuan beings look like humans--really big ones.

I think if I asked 100 people in the United States what they believed about angels I would most likely hear 100 different answers. It got me thinking--do we think angels have blonde hair? Blue eyes? Are they ginormous sword-wielding super spirits? Or do we imagine angels look like US?

I took a poll in a spiritual group I belong to and asked what they thought angels looked like. All the respondents here gave different answers--some said angels were spirit, and did not have a body we could see, others said some angels looks one way, and others another way.

I imagine that our personal visions of these divine beings make us feel comfortable and safe. We lie down in the snow and recreate the lovely wings and heavenly skirts we imagine them to have. They grace the highest points of our Christmas trees, and we make holiday cookies with wings and halos. We envision them playing saintly music on their tiny harps, and protecting us from evil with their shiny Swords of God.

In the bible, Daniel saw angel with polished-metal arms and legs, and a face like lightning. Christian text says since angels are not human but spirit, they are not visible to us at all. When anyone did see an angel in biblical days, they fell down and covered their faces in awe.

NOT how you would typically imagine an angel

But if we are talking about the angels from the bible we are a bit off track. First of all, most of the angels there do NOT have wings. As a matter of fact, most of the angels described sound a bit more like something from a sci-fi movie than a heavenly book. For example, seraphim, the highest ranked of the angels, have six wings according to Isaiah, two to cover his face, two to cover his feet, and the other two for flying.

Cherubs, or cherubim, those cute little Valentine flyers, have four faces, a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle. NOT cute. The thrones are even creepier, described as a wheel within a wheel, their rims covered with hundreds of eyes. The dominions are described as the human-looking angels with feathery wings--not so bad. Nephilim are a whole different story because they are giants who supposedly resulted from the unscrupulous affairs between angels and humans.

The word angel comes from a Greek word, aggelos, and the Hebrew word mal'ak. Both words mean messenger.

A CBS News poll reported that nearly 8 in 10 American people believe in angels. Women are more likely than men to believe in angels, and 4 out of 10 people who do not attend religious services of any kind still believe in angels.

But not every angel is a good-guy!

There is a faction of angels that went to the dark side and followed Lucifer, the fallen angel who dared to challenge God. We call them demons.

There is a supposed fight going on in the invisible world between good and evil, a fight between the good and bad angels. Although hard to understand why this would be allowed to rage on, the bad angels or demons are supposed to serve some type of purpose in the eyes of God, and when they have completed what needs to be done, God will put an end to it.

Ooohhh I want to believe I have a guardian angel! A benign and beautiful being floating around, always on the alert, and keeping me from harms way. Doreen Virtue says we can talk to angels any time we want--and they will listen and help us because that is their job. But we have to know how. We need to be specific, and truly ask for what we want. Well, it's worth a shot.

Now here is a seeming exception to one of the angel rules; Metatron. Ancestor of Noah. Enoch was transformed into an angel and named Metatron. I know, I know--angels are made by God one at a time and NOT from humans...sigh. Don't blame me--I'm just passing along information. You'll have to take it up with someone higher up than me. 

Death Day

By Paola Cirmia~http://tinyurl.com/phz2zaw

I love spring when life is stirring. Of course summer thrills me as the suns warms me for a while. But we are coming to that time of year where the invisible bones of my dead relatives walk through my yard, and the darkness that resides in us all peeks from the creaking closet door of our childhood nightmares.

Oh, Halloween, my October love. Your brittle embrace allows us a small glimpse of death before our time. 

As I sit on my front porch at dusk and watch the sky turn from orange to purple, I wonder why so many of us are moonstruck in the fall. Some of us feel the familiar pull, the same kiss we read about that turns mortal into beast; and with the waning moon, back into a human being. 

It is more than our memories of trick or treating in the dark, crunchy leaves blowing at our feet, and the crooked smiles of glowing Jack o'lanterns grinning in a slightly sinister way. It is something more primitive, an ancient stirring we feel calling to us, but we don't know how to answer. It confuses us because it is delightful and wicked, but makes us feel very, very good. It is related to death, but we don't know how to celebrate death here in the United States.

We mourn our dead. We have somber ceremonies because a loved one has passed. But we don't celebrate what they were or the spirits they are now, happily haunting us for the rest of our lives. We wish their spirits would stay with us and never leave. We would not fear them.

We are only afraid of the ghosts that don't belong to us. 

Whether it be a simple memory or flash of movement out of the corner of our eyes, our private ghosts are precious. Far too few of us admit a belief in the otherworldly, but October thins the veil between our world and theirs, and the lovely creature-under-the-bed feeling we all experience in the fall is nothing but a temporary stroll between two worlds.

We don't realize it, but we have a foot in each of these worlds. We spend much of our time being rational and logical, states that can be overrated and over valued. But our beloved science is a study of humility, discoveries and revelations constantly being overridden and facts found to be false. 

Knowing when the phone is going to ring, saying the same thing at the same time as a close friend, and a flash of insight about the right thing to do are all tiny windows of our intuitive side, the B side of logic and rationale. Some say children and animals have a natural connection to the great beyond because no one has talked them out of believing, or told them they it is all their imagination. Maybe they trust everyone because they are being guided by the invisible hands of the dearly departed.

The sun sets earlier now, and we are exposed to the dark for longer periods each day. We think differently at night and fear different things. Our belief in the supernatural blooms during these long-shadow days, and we prickle with a faint knowing we don't understand. Why does it feel so good to decorate our homes with trappings of the dead for Halloween? Death is so sad, after all. 

Or is it?

Is this our secret way of celebrating death? Of allowing our intuition to embrace the knowing we have deep in our hearts that our loved ones have simply moved to a different location?

In Mexico and other countries they celebrate Dia de Muertos, an official holiday that honors the dead with sugar skulls, favorite foods of the deceased, and visits to the graveyard. Ghosts walk freely among the living during this three-day event, and friends and relatives do not feel so alone.

We Americans would never admit to celebrating death in such a way. But we will:

* decorate our houses with skulls, monsters, bats, and Jack o'lanterns on Halloween

* get dressed up as Dracula, a mummy, zombie, or any number of undead creatures and go to a party

* call psychics, astrologists, and tarot card readers to hear about our future or contact a dead relative or loved one

* attend a seance for messages from the grave

* watch shows like Ghost Hunters for clues and signs of spirits

The difference is we will do it in the name of FUN. We don't take any of these things seriously, right?

Maybe we should.

Maybe that sigh we heard from the kitchen was not the dishwasher again, and maybe the flickering light in the laundry room was not a loose wire. That perfume...isn't that what Gramma used to wear?

Maybe our minds are naturally more open during this spiced cider time of the year, when we are a bit more in tune with the other side, and the thoughts we have might be more than a little influenced by those we had known and had to bid farewell.

Zero by the amazing Nate Wragg--more here:  http://tinyurl.com/pghs2fd

I call for a Death Day of our own here in the United States to celebrate the lives of our lost parents, children, grandparents, friends, family, and pets. They deserve more of a place in our lives than just a picture on the mantle. October 30th sounds good to me.

So keep a cup of tea close at hand and don't be so quick to cover your eyes when you feel a shiver of fear. You never know who is close by.

For Marg <3 Woof

A Sunday Sleepover for Jesus

When I was in junior high my best friend asked me to sleep over her house one Saturday night. I was excited because it meant snacks in her bright pink room while we watched her tiny television until 2am.

There was one caveat--she wanted me to go to church with her in the morning.

Ah crap.

I was 13 and had already decided in my middle school, know-it-all fashion that church was not for me.

I had my doubts from the beginning. I did not believe for one minute the story my grandmother told me that thunder was god and the angels bowling. (I had the real, scientific scoop from my dad who told me that the raindrops fell from the sky because they did not get along and the clouds rubbed together and created sparks that became lightning.) Nor did

I believe it when she told me when I had the creeps it was probably the devil at my left shoulder and that I should stomp firmly on the ground and yell GO AWAY DEVIL.

I was also a bit traumatized from one memorable Sunday when I was six and I went to our Russian orthodox church. My mother decided that I, like all the other parishioners, should and get up from the pew, kiss the cross, and get a piece of holy bread to eat from the priest.

I was fine until I looked up at the life-sized crucifix with a bloodied and tortured Jesus nailed to its center. His thorny crown stabbed his head causing punctures I could see from my seat and filled his upward turned eyes with blood. That was IT for me. I would NOT be eating holy bread, and I certainly was not kissing anything is this hall of tortures.

After running from the church into the hot July sun, my mother explained to me that I would not have to kiss THAT cross, but the one the priest was holding. I didn't care. I wanted nothing to do with the otherwise beautiful church, even if my mom told me it was the right thing to do on Sundays.

That evening I asked her why there was a statue of a dying, almost naked man in our church. She explained the story of Jesus to me. I didn't like it. Then I asked her why we had to die. She told me "so we can meet Jesus in heaven."

Nope. I didn't even want to see him in church anymore, and I surely didn't want to spend eternity with him. I got very upset and told her I did not want to die. Not at ALL. She said god was our father. Now I was frantic. Who was the man who lived with us all these years!

I began to cry. She asked, "don't you want to meet Jesus one day?" "NO!" I cried, and continued to cry for about 45 minutes.

"OK," she finally said.

"OK, what??" I sniffed.

"You don't have to die," she said.

And that was all I had to hear. She did not make me go to church anymore, and she tried to make me say my prayers for a while--but I was having none of it. AND I got the good end of the deal. No dying for me. Part of me is still convinced I am immortal.

So fast-forward a few years and there I was, faced with a major choice. Popcorn, cookies, and covert TV til all hours sounded awesome. BUT--I had to go to CHURCH. I had put all this behind me years ago. 

I told my friend of my dilemma. She said, "first of all--there is NO bloody Jesus at our church and no cross-kissing. Second--it only lasts about a half hour."

I figured I could put up with this obviously more civilized version of worship for 30 minutes. I slept over and we had a great night--we talked and talked and didn't even need to watch TV. Totally worth the church visit in the am, I told myself. 

But what they didn't tell me was this church had their OWN version of holy bread. I watched as the rows and rows of people walked to the front to take their wafer and a sip from a gold cup.

"What are we eating and drinking?" I asked.

"The blood and body of Christ," said my friend's brother.

Twilight Zone. The room got hot and I felt like running out the doors again.

"WHAT?!"

My friend told me it was just wine and a wafer--but my Post Traumatic Church Disorder was kicking in full-force, and before I knew it I was standing in front of the priest with my mouth hanging opened like a carp.

"The body of Christ," said the priest, and I stood there blinking like a fool.

Nope again. I do NOT want to eat a piece of Christ.

After 20 or so uncomfortable seconds of silence, the priest told me I should not be there, and I should leave. 

I was kicked out of church.

There was no explanation. He was a bit angry too.

I have been to church several times since without bursting into flames. My wedding, my son's Christening, and several funerals went off without a hitch.

But I still cant quite shake the feeling that something is going to happen every time I walk through the doors...or that I will get my Eternal Life Free Pass revoked.

So for now at least, I will stay away, and keep my immortal status.

I Have Issues with the Bible

My issues with the bible started when I was about 15 years old. I had a friend who was very ill, and many people told me that if I prayed, it would surely help. Indeed, there were prayers for the sick in the bible, and I diligently said them many times a day. Needless to say, my friend's condition worsened and she eventually passed away. 

The bible ended up in shreds, and I became an instant atheist. 

A few years after that I became acquainted with a born again Christian who suggested that I read the whole bible instead of being in a bad place about my friend's passing. 

So I did.

I have an open mind if I have anything, and I certainly liked the idea of giving God and the bible another shot. I had a funny, positive feeling about her suggestion. I felt I would read this book and have many revelations (no pun intended). 

And I did--but not the kind I thought I would have.

Instead of learning that God is a loving and kind being that the priest told me about when my mom could still get me to go to church on Sunday, I read that God is pretty vengeful and tricky.

For instance, he created man in his image, and gave him free will and the ability to choose. He also gave him original sin, although I do not understand why. So then he didn't like what his creations were doing--and destroyed them all! What? God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because he did not like what the people in the city had become? The bible said its inhabitants were "depraved". So instead of helping and fixing things (he was right there waiting!) he "rained down sulfur from the heavens." And he had already done this once before with Noah--not with sulfur, but with a terrible and all encompassing flood. Hmmm....

Sounds like a bad father to me...

Deuteronomy has plenty of He-Man Woman Haters Club quotes that not only make me angry, but make me feel I want nothing to do with the Christian religion. (I AM Christian, Russian Orthodox to be exact, but do not practice).

For example:

Deuteronomy 22:13-21 states that if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding night she must be executed. (No mention of men here...)

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 tells us that a virgin who is raped must marry her rapist.

Deuteronomy 25:11-12 warns that if a woman stands up for her husband in a fight by grabbing the other man's genitals then her hand shall be cut off and no pity shall be shown to her.

What the hell?!

God could not have said these things...could he?

And speaking of God saying things, why is it he was talking up a storm back then, but we hear nothing but a resounding echo of our own voices when we talk to him now?

Back to the bible...

Remember when you were in school and kids got picked on by bullies? The bullies said they would beat you up after school, or tell you to do something mean to another unsuspecting victim or else they would beat YOU up. Awful kids. Well, remember what God said to Abraham? He told him to take his only son Isaac and kill him. Abraham was ready to do it. Suddenly God said nope--it was just a test. I would not care if I were offered eternal life, a home in heaven, feathery wings and a solid gold halo--if someone or something told me to kill my only son I would cordially invite him to go fuck himself. I don't see much difference between this God and the bullies in school. Here is a chart that supposedly explains what God meant:

God told Abraham to kill his son

Why do I need a chart to explain this? Why does Jesus speak in such confusing language? In Mark, Jesus says he speaks in parables to confuse people so they will go to hell :) Again--what?? When Jesus was asked why he spoke in parables, he told his disciples they would be shown the mysteries of heaven--but not the others. So basically you had to believe BEFORE you were shown any of the truth.

Sigh. I don't like his methods.

Again--I would not hang around with this person in school and would not want him as a friend--why would I want to consider him my heavenly "father".

Old Testament, you say? True. But the new says in Matthew 5:17:

Jesus strongly approves of the law and the prophets. He hasn't the slightest objection to the cruelties of the Old Testament. 

I also don't care for the fact that we are told we can't do anything without Jesus--and we are nothing without him. That is very much contradictory to what I want my son to know. He should know that you have the power inside to run your own lives, and the decisions you make are what will shape you.

And why did Jesus need to kill a fig tree? A fig tree that he was mad at for not bearing fruit--even though it was not fig season...ah...he did it to show how much God hated figs, because he wanted figs and could not find any. This sounds like a petulant three year old who is told they can't have a lollipop.

Of course there is the part that says "true" Christians can cast out devils, speak in tongues, take up serpents, drink poisons without harm, and cure the sick by touching them. Nope. Just not true. Another radical Christian lost his life this past February after handling poisonous snakes and refusing medical treatment after he was bitten.

Yes, I know people go to church and feel Christianity and the bible show them the "good and proper" way to live, and I have nooo problem with that, if you are actually using it to be a better person. If you are a believer who condemns others, looks down on certain lifestyles, judges anyone who is not a believer in Jesus, or harms others because of your beliefs, then maybe you should find a better way to be a "good" person.

To sum things up, the bible is too contradictory to make any sense as a guidebook for my life. There are too many cruelties and atrocities and I would rather not follow a guide who condones that mindset.

Although I can't prove there is NOT a God, the book that tells me that I must believe in one or I will forever burn in a fiery pit of hell is not the kind of book for me.

The Anti-Valentine Post

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I'm not sure I like it.

Everyone knows relationships are not easy.

The beginning is lovely: hot, blurry, and fast, with not a whole lot to worry about.

Reality sets in relatively quickly, some moving into a comfortable and safe haven of support and familiarity. Some follow a different path.

Some fall out of synch--the passion they once felt passes and they realize they have nothing in common. Others need a change of pace, or haven't found the "one". Unfortunately there are those that cheat, and aren't up front enough to inform the partner the relationship is done. Whatever the case may be, breaking up is hard to do...most of the time.

Of course there are clear-cut situations where the relationship should end, but what about those cases where you are not quite sure what to do? Maybe you don't really talk that much anymore, maybe you have grown apart, maybe you are too comfortable in the situation and ending it just seems like too much of a big deal.

Many self-help books tell us that we deserve to find a relationship that will fulfill us and satisfy our every need. But the older I get the more I wonder if this exists. Is there really such thing as a relationship that keeps its spark? Where the partners are passionately in love--after 20, 30--50 years?

Match.com and eHarmony have become a popular way to meet a mate, or at least find someone to date. They ask us questions and allow us a window into the lives of potential new friends. Do you like sports? Reading? Pina coladas?
 

Although I DO think it is a good method to find someone with similar interests, and I know many people who found partners through these services, I'm not sure they really get to the heart of who we are. I have different interpretations of the answers to these questions that translate into scenarios that occur later in the relationship. For instance:

* I love sport turns into--I will not be available most weekends during football season (in other words, 27 weeks of you include probowl, preseason and the Superbowl--more than half a year). Then there is baseball season, from April through October--well--you get the picture.

* Loves children--seems to be a potentially scary way to covertly say clock is ticking--wants kids...maybe ASAP.

* Loves books--many long, quiet nights ahead--in the house.

* Free-spirited--this is a big one that could mean they don't have a job, or they don't shave (male or female), or they are disorganized. Don't look for a spotless house. (I speak from experience with this one...)

* Loves cats--well--I like them too, but not enough to announce it to the world. Potential cat person. You will only be fed AFTER Pooky, Dusty, String Bean, Kim Kat-dashian, DeeDee, Marshmallow, Daryl Dixon and Jelly Bean.

Any of these are fine if you know what you are getting yourself into--I just think sometimes the meanings are lost in translation. But back to relationships...

I see many relationships that sort of fade into a vanilla ice cream kind of happy--not bad--but could use some sprinkles or chips. Maybe that is all we can ask for--someone to be there, laugh with, and maybe even understand us a little. I personally do NOT think the Prince Charming scenario exists, but at this time in my life I even wonder if anyone truly stays in love.

I would love to hear what you have to say about this.

Happy Anti-Valentine's Day! <3

Experiment Results ~ Do Our Thoughts Create Energy?

My last post asked for volunteers for a Reiki experiment. The brave souls who accepted the challenge ranged from 30 years old to almost 60 and were all female, including the one Bernese mountain dog. I am related to two of the volunteers, and very close to another. Several of the others I do not know. All names have been changed to protect the innocent.

If you read my last two blog posts, you know that the experiment started because I received Reiki when feeling under the weather. After the session I felt terrific. The practitioner and I were in the same room, and the session lasted a little under an hour. Although I have been certified in Reiki for years, I never used it, but the session made me reconsider. I looked up Reiki on the web, and pulled out my old information to refresh my memory. 

My brief searches showed me information on energy, homeopathy, water memory, and ultimately the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto and his mystical work that brings science and spirit together in his book The Hidden Messages in Water...but more on that later. 

The Reiki in my experiment was done remotely, using a power symbol that acts as a bridge between the practitioner and receiver. I won't show you the symbol because as a practitioner I was instructed to keep the Reiki power symbols private as asked by Usui many years ago. The first volunteer, Pearl, allowed me to do Reiki three separate times. The first time I did not tell her what time I would be sending, and she asked ME about the time, and was accurate.

(Hey! Did you try some Reiki on me last night some time between 10 and 10:30?)

Actually--I had.

I asked her if she felt anything, and this is what she told me: Some point in that time frame(in bed trying to fall asleep)... All of a sudden I was surrounded by green (healing) energy. It was just there. When I do my own version of healing work I have to put some effort into it so I knew it wasn't me. It was a different shade of green--it was super neat!

This was very exciting to me! It seemed to be working, and she asked me to do it again the next night--here is what she told me:  Ok. This was a little different from last night. First I felt warm. Not uncomfortably so, just like the sun had come out and I was lying in a sun beam. Then I felt(?saw?) a half cylinder of white energy descend over me. As it came down I could see bands of green and dark blue(indigo?) and blue green ripple through it.

The cylinder "landed" and everything washed out green for a bit. Then some dark blue/indigo/purple washed down over my head. Next everything washed out to white and I felt like I was hearing some one say "peace" several times. As that faded, I thought about you and how grateful I am to have you as my cousin and I got a burst of yellow. I had been lying on the couch...when I got up I felt motivated? rejuvenated? I guess able to take the energy that had been getting channeled into stress and redirect it into productive things. Whatever the colors mean, this works for me! Thank you!!

I was of course excited about this, but I wanted to remain skeptical because there were many others in the experiment that could say not a thing occurred. This was one person, and we are related and could have some type of connection that allowed this type of thing to happen more easily. Pearl and I ended up chatting for a while as I told her what my impressions were as I sent the Reiki to her. There were several places on her body that seemed to need help, so I told her. Yes--she confirmed--the places I had mentioned were troubling her. It seems the Byosen* scanning that happens during a Reiki session helped me see the areas that needed help. We talked more and I sent more Reiki later that week to a meeting with her son's school that she would normally feel very uncomfortable about. She said not only did the meeting run smoothly, but the participants listened to her and seemed to have open minds. She was surprised and again I was happy.

Participant number two was Diamond the Bernese mountain dog. She had extensive surgery on her leg the day before, and seemed to be in pain, was shaking, and could not find a comfortable position to rest. Her owner was concerned because she had the surgery on the other back leg two years before and had a very hard time. I sent Reiki and her owner called back almost immediately and said she stopped shaking, walked in a circle and promptly fell asleep.

Next on my list was Silver. I spoke with her earlier in the day and was told she felt awful and doubted anything would help. She told me:  I'm just beginning to show the earliest signs of menopause and sometimes feel like I'm going to start my period but it's not happening...like my body is struggling to do so. I loved having her in the experiment because she would have no problem telling me if not a single thing happened. I gave each person, including her, ten minutes worth of Reiki. When I called her she said she felt much better, and told me at 1:25 her period came--almost exactly in the middle of the session.

Another interesting thing happened as I was "beaming" her Reiki, I felt like I wanted to turn around, and send the Reiki in another direction. I also wanted to cover my eyes with the back of my hands while sending.

Silver also said I could continue my experiment, and send Reiki at random times and see if anything changed or felt different. One of the sessions had her feeling antsy the next day, and very restless--feeling like maybe it was a purge. The next day she felt fine.

Another volunteer was Goldy. She was out while I was sending. When I asked her how she felt she told me: You know, I actually do feel really good. Went to the chiropractor today (actually just got back), and I was like bouncing...and told her that I have no pain at all...! I think it worked!! LOL We're doing 2 week appt's now instead of weekly...so thank you!!!

Emerald, another volunteer, was having extreme pain in her knee. She called me DURING the session and asked: What did you do?! I told her I was sending Reiki as we spoke, and she said the pain was GONE. (Two weeks later the pain is still absent.)

Topaz could not sleep for several nights before the session. She was feeling a great deal of stress during the day also. During her biology class the next day I began sending her remote Reiki. She finally fell asleep--during class! (sorry)--but managed to get all the notes she needed. She feels she continued writing even as she slept.

I beamed Crystal after I got her permission, and heard she had no problem waking up in the morning the next day--which is normally a terrible time for her.

I wish I had more people to continue this experiment. I felt this would help me either debunk the idea of Reiki, or give me more insight into it. It has done even more. It has made me believe that energy and intention can truly affect us, and that we need to change the way we are thinking.

Dr. Emoto, who wrote the book I mentioned briefly earlier in the blog, also feels the same way. His amazing experiments show how thoughts and intentions have a direct impact on something as simple as water. He labeled a jar of water with the words LOVE and GRATITUDE and another with YOU FOOL. When this water was frozen, crystals formed and he took pictures of them with a microscope. The crystals that formed from the LOVE jar were beautiful, NO crystals formed at all from the YOU FOOL jar. In another experiment the water exposed to the phrase YOU MAKE ME SICK formed no crystals, and looked very similar to a man holding a gun.

Dr. Emoto feels words are an expression of the soul. He writes that in Japan "it is said that words of the soul reside in a spirit called kotadama, or the spirit of words, and the act of speaking words has the ability to change the world."

The water in these jars were exposed to no spoken words, but the intention behind the words was clear, and the energy of the intention affected the water in the jars. Dr. Emoto's book is beautiful and I hope you read it.

I feel Reiki works in a similar way.

Although the energy that is sent during Reiki is from a universal source, I hope I am sending good and pure intentions that will help the recipients. :)

*Byosen scanning: a method of scanning a person in their energy field, done with palm towards body, starting at the crown, and running downward over clients body. Areas of "dis-ease" may be felt as heat, cold, tingling, or just something different from the rest of the body. These areas may need to be treated with Reiki.