Don't be Morbid: Touching (& listening to!) The Void

Part of why I set up my Lost Voices website is to jabber on about topics that get little or no air-time in the somewhat muddy, rocky, and indeed befuddled field of all-things paranormal. All too often I’ve been asked something, a broad BROAD question that would require hours, nay, days, to answer if given the due attention it deserved, and then any answer I may be able to squeeze in gets shot down and laughed at in seconds. Even on my Facebook group of the same name, produced witty yet ignorant answers, sassy to the syllable yet ultimately stemming from someone who hasn’t one flipping clue. This is my space, let me speak! So what to do? Take away the chit chat and get my own views out there! I’m not saying I’m right – just I want a platform from which to speak, and Lost Voices is it. This is my soap box folks, so I’m going to talk. And you know what, once in a while someone really special comes along who understands. You're a rare person.

As I’ve droned on about on the site, I personally think that the whole paranormal scene has become way too synonymous with all things morbid. It’s not all about death, dying, and the deceased. Mostly yes, it is and I don't deny that, hell a cracking Saturday night for me is to be alone in the dark communing with the dead – but it's not all the time, not 100%. Hear me out...

Of course, the point and purpose of many investigations whether they be of an EVP nature, séance, or say Ouija board-based (on the whole I’d say ALL!) is to contact the deceased. And, as I’ve also whittered on about in my other blog (Amusing Musings) I feel that this is because this next, most immediate phase of existence to the one in which we currently find ourselves, upon this conveyer-belt called mortality, is whatever lies directly beyond The Veil, the gate, that mysterious turnstyle through which we all will eventually pass. And that’s bloody scary isn’t it?

If there are as suspected, many progressive stages to what happens after we shed our mortal bodies, then surely attempting to contact those who have recently crossed over from mortal to deceased would be the most accessible way forward. That said, it has been possible to apparently make contact with not just people who have recently died, but those who perished years and years ago. How long does this phase last?!

Dr. Anabela Cardoso, author of several fascinating books on ITC, DVR and EVP, claims steadfastly to have had confirmation (not just once, but many times over the years from regular communicators from another dimension/reality/’’the other side’’) that the ‘contactable’ phase of post-mortal existence does not last forever. Moreover, individuals will move up a level to the next phase, and although they can still be contacted by us lot ‘down here’, will be unable to make contact in turn in the way that we/they have been accustomed. That’s a brain twister and a half!

So as I once again ramble off point, where am I going with this? Oh yes… despite the fact that 99.99% of the ‘ghost hunting community’ dabble with the dead, it’s not everything.

I return to one of my most treasured examples to prove that death is not the be-all-and-end-all of paranormal phenomena and experiences, and for that I will repeat (again, for I’ve used it several times on my website already) the true story from my friend and medium, Carolyn Findlay.

Carolyn was called to a house into which a young married couple had moved. They hadn’t been there long, but unbeknown to the other, each had ‘seen things’ in the living room – a little girl colouring in a book. Both had seen her separately, got decidedly freaked-out, but said nothing to the other until one day, they opened up to each other.

Carolyn was contacted to help out – after all, a childless couple seeing a small girl in their house who disappears as they look at her is NOT an everyday occurrence to most folks! The first thing Carolyn did was to ask if they’d contacted the previous owner, which they had not. With Carolyn present, the question was put to the previous proprietor. Had she seen the ‘ghost’ girl too?! The couple described her an what she was doing, sat on the floor furiously colouring in.

The woman went white, and confessed that the child was her from many years ago. The little girl was the previous owner, but at a time when her parents were going through a messy and brutally upsetting divorce. The only solace she could get was to shut herself away and colour-in. This was her outlet...

So, the sky high emotion of the time somehow imprinted this child in some physical form upon the environment in which the trauma was strong. You may say that she wasn’t physical, but if light photons are a form of matter (and they are) then you would be actually seeing a physical thing, even if that was a shadow of what the thing once was. Not flesh and blood, but a mirror of it. A true apparition. Like a reflection of a flame in a glass door – you’re not seeing a flame, but you ARE seeing something that’s mimicking the flame that is there, is real – just in a different form. If you were to hold a mirror up to the reflection within the glass, that flame would be depicted in another form, and so on. There is a physicality to what you’re seeing. Just not a real candle and flame. It goes on and on and on.

Back to the story… Let me add that the owner is still alive and well. Carolyn refers to these surprisingly common appartitions of the living (yep you heard me, common. They happen all the time) as atmospheres. She conducted a tour at HMP Shepton Mallet and was describing on A Wing, a gentleman who used to work at the prison. Physically, and then gave a name. Two other ex staff (friends of mine) were tagging on at the rear of the tour and were very sceptical of Carolyn, piped up that she had it wrong. This man was still alive! Carolyn replied that a ‘ghost’ does not have to be of the dead. That shakes up quite a lot of the wannabe ghost-hunters’ ideals methinks.

This got me thinking. What cicrumstance allows such an occurrence, in broad daylight, for the past to be quite literally replayed right there in front of people on a regular basis? This is no headless horseman, no Anne Boleyn cruising the grounds of Blickling Hall, no spectre chilling on a tomb in a graveyard. This shall be covered in much more detail when I get my brain into full analysis gear, but for now, let us move the physical, the visual apparition aside – and as if it is possible to receive AUDIO appartitions in the same way.

Can EVPs be captured from the living?

I read whilst embroiled in EVP research over the years, that EVPs have been captured from coma patients that have gone on to recover. This surely, is an example of an audio ‘apparition’ if ever there was one, don’t you agree?! I can’t recall the source but shall be right back researching that one I can assure you. How about mute people, could this be a possibility also?

If time is not linear, if as many believe, that rather than being a straight forward A-Z line, that it bends loops and grazes back upon itself, then the ability to occasionally scuff the audio peripheries of sound waves in the present somewhere, is indeed plausible. Not easy to think about, but wow, yes, it makes sense. If you can have visual ‘ghosts’ then why not audible versions?

As I tell ghost hunters all the time at the prison (I’m a night supervisor for para’ nights) when they ask me, “So, have you ever seen anything here?” It’s not all about the seeing. We as a species are sold utterly that seeing is believing, when actually, we have five senses. And these are just mammalian functions, and as we know, there is SO much more out there that the humble Homo sapien can’t even begin to comprehend, that just five senses may be considered paltry when compared to whatever is in the great beyond. There must be so much more.

Look at dolphins, able to see in the moment with their sonar, the physical reactions of the body as chemicals are realeased, as endorphines kick in, as hormones are ignited. The body produces responses on a minute scale, and dolphins have the ability to ACTUALLY SEE THESE HAPPENING. Hence why then can see if someone has cancer, how they can see if a woman is pregnant without her even knowing it herself! These are true cases. As a guide on a dolphin watch boat I made it my ‘thing’ to study in-depth, as much as I could about dolphin intelligence and their magnificent brains that put ours to shame.

Now, I’ve sort of swapped fields, applying the same sort of mental scaffolding to paranormal things has now taken me in a different direction, but my point is that there’s more to sensory perception than us humans can begin to grasp. So I repeat; It’s not all about seeing – or hearing. We have five senses at our disposal, so let’s use them all and think, really think, about how we perceive ‘the paranormal’, and in particular, what we see. Can these fluctuating blurred lines of reality then be applied to other facets of the field?

I think so! And it’s going to be FASCINATING to further explore this massive sink-hole of a topic. So grab your headtorch…. We’re going in.