Month: March 2010

Am I a Ghost?

I awoke alone and didn’t know where I was at. The room was dark, and I felt confused like a drowsy toddler, stumbling about the room. My body still lies on the bed.

“Am I a ghost or what?” I said to myself jokingly. “I feel like a pair of eyeballs peering at the entire room.”

It was an unusual start for my day. Very unusual.

“How can I be here but my body over there?”

No one was upstairs with me. I was all alone, except for my dog who was strangely sitting in a corner, whimpering repeatedly. Despite the fate I found myself in this morning, I felt alright. There was no pain and I felt light and sort of new. I could see.  I could hear, and my mind was sharp, so sharp that it soon began panicking.

“Did I die?” I wondered.

I did not know the answer to that question. If I was dead, why was I very much alive? It could be that I am simply in an odd predicament within a dream. That’s happened to me before, many times. I’ve heard of out-of-body experiences, so perhaps that’s what’s going on with me.

“I must be dreaming.”

I pinched myself, or so I thought. Then, I realized I didn’t pinch myself at all. I mean, I felt the pinch, but I did not see my hands. In fact, I cannot see any of me at all. No arms, legs, chest. My body is over on the bed. I felt weird, different.

“Yeah, that’s right. My body looks lifeless, so how did I pinch myself?” I reasoned. “Freakin’ odd!”

“How do I figure out if I am trapped within a dream or an out-of-body experience? Worse yet, what if I really died?”

More fear set in. I decided I needed to quit messing around while there’s still time. If my body has died, I need to find somebody who will check it. Perhaps, someone can wake me up out of this stupor or maybe find help to rescue me if my body has expired. Time was wasting away. Now, I was frightened.

I tried to move from the bedroom to the downstairs living area, but I found it difficult to navigate. Having no legs, I didn’t know how to move. The ceiling seemed to be the only thing holding me in the bedroom. My back was against it as I helplessly stared at the floor. With some effort, and I guess strong intention, somehow I began moving out of the bedroom and into the hallway. I didn’t walk. I hovered, I guess, gliding along the ceiling and light fixtures.

Hearing no sounds of life, I figured my family must be downstairs, maybe still eating breakfast. Gradually, I levitated toward the stairwell. I was getting better at this. At least now, I was right side up. It took some practice, but I eventually made my way down the stairs and into the kitchen.

(To Be Continued…)

Life After Death?

It’s an interesting question, one which undoubtedly will nag the mind of all of us sooner or later. Is there life after death?

In 2007, a poll was conducted by the AARP with people 50 and over, asking them if they believe in life after death. As one might assume, 73% of 1011 polled believed in life after death. Of the believers in an afterlife, women were more likely to believe than men. Two thirds of those polled admitted that their confidence in an afterlife grew as they became older. Ah, the folly of youth! It is apparent that the closer we come to the day when our body passes, the more hopeful we become that death is only a bad joke.

There was another interesting statistic revealed by the AARP survey. The richer people were, the less likely they were to believe in life after death. This is not surprising to me because, as human beings, we have a tendency to focus our lives on external things. Everything seems to take place around us – outside of us. The world seems like it is only a place of things, places, animals, plants and people. All nouns. No verbs. Looking outside of ourselves, everything appears disconnected and temporary. Why wouldn’t those, whose focus is on the material world, meaning persons, places or things,  find it difficult to identify with something as spiritual as an afterlife?

What is the point of this article? I guess I wanted to spark the reader to consider looking at life from a different perspective. Instead of attempting to answer the question, “Is there life after death?” by examining our experiences that take place with the world around us, why not look within ourselves. Let’s begin there. Take a journey inward and listen to what you hear. You just might find there’s something there, something you may have overlooked. Is it time for you to see the world differently? Perhaps, there is something to meditation.

Is there life after death? The answer to that question can only be answered for each person who embarks upon an individual adventure of discovery. My journey began when I decided to quiet my mind in order to listen to my “gut” through meditation. It was only then that I knew I was to create a website to investigate life after death by exploring ghosts and spirits. Angels & Ghosts was born in 2004.

For six years now, I have been receiving possible evidence of ghosts and spirits, submitted by our viewers. Photographs, videos, near death experiences, out-of-body experiences, EVP and other evidences have come to me by e-mail from around the world. The Angels & Ghosts website has become a great resource for me and others to explore life after death.

I have also made it a point to get out in the field to investigate the paranormal firsthand. I will stop at nothing to attempt to “figure things out.” This has become another portion of my own personal journey of discovery. Through many experiences, I remain convinced that there is indeed life after death. To me, encounters with ghosts are possibly the best evidence that life goes on beyond the material world. Near death experiences also have given me much food for thought, and my own out-of-body experience further cemented in my mind the existence of spirit.

I encourage you to step out and explore the unknown. It is only then that you may have the privilege of knowing the answer to the question, is there life after death?

LC

Angels & Ghosts

Compassion for Ghosts

I have often marvelled at how ghost investigators on television can act cold and callous when dealing with lost spirits.

In one popular ghost hunting program, SyFy’s Ghost Hunters, the show’s stars will often ask the disembodied entities if they need their help, even to the point of telling the specters that they are indeed there to assist them. However, as the paranormal program nears the end of each episode, I am left waiting for the promise of help to be delivered. It never seems to happen. The ghosts are forgotten and the homeowners (and viewers) are catered to. I want to stand up and exclaim, “Ghosts are people, too!”

It just may be that such shows created solely for entertainment drove me to explore the idea of helping those in the invisible. After all, if we can hear and see ghosts from time to time, it might indicate we can also communicate with them and possibly assist them in order to resolve troubling issues. I’m all for helping the homeowner, like Ghost Hunters, but I think we are only scratching the surface by choosing to cater to homeowners solely.

This Spring, my new book will be published about how we can aid ghosts. The following is a short excerpt from the pages of Helping Ghosts:

“I become frustrated with television programs that show ghost hunters who capture ghostly evidence, even cries for help, then abandon the lost spirits after attempting to communicate with them.  Some even choose to taunt and provoke earthbound spirits for the sake of a reaction in order to prove their existence.  Those of us who embark upon paranormal investigation have got to become more understanding of the ghost mentality, with compassion being the motivator behind our actions.

The more I work to understand the reasons behind the behavior of ghosts, the more I come to realize that we must remain open to all possible explanations for why the spirit of a person may remain behind.  Many ghosts do wish to relay messages to loved ones and seek to resolve past issues.  Sometimes being a good listener is all that is required to ease the mind of the suffering spirit.”

Oh, there is more. Not all ghosts are easily compelled to step forward into the light and leave their past behind. Like many of us, self-condemnation in various forms seems to be prevalent:

“…other ghosts are simply afraid to move beyond the only world they have known, this realm providing their only source of comfort.  The more time they can spend with people, often those whom they can strongly identify with, the better they might feel if company eases their fears for awhile.  Even though their greatest fears are for a time abated, eventually those worries and concerns will surface to haunt them much like they haunt those whom they want to remain close to.

The intensity of the fear the disembodied spirit suffers can vary dependent upon the beliefs they learned while in-body. What could a ghost possibly believe awaits them in the future, that could be so terrifying? It’s something all of us feel from time to time. Many fear judgment for past mistakes.”

If we work to investigate haunting by ghosts, I suggest that we should attempt to put ourselves in their shoes. After all, it is possible for a ghost to be someone we might know, such as our Aunt Sally, or Grandpa Mac. How would we feel if we eventually met up with people in spirit whom we once knew? What could we say to explain our careless behavior? Considering the ghost hunting craze of the last few years, I have to wonder if such a scenario has happened from time to time.

Can we move beyond chasing after ghosts, like a dog attempting to run down a car, and possibly consider the opportunity that may be presenting itself when we encounter ghosts? Would you be open to communicating with ghosts, and if so, willing to help guide them out of suffering, if possible? If so, you just might find a new journey, far greater and exciting to embark upon. Think of it as reconciling the damned, the lost, the hurting.

For more about Louis Charles’ upcoming book, check back here or visit his website Angels & Ghosts.

Welcome to the Blog of Louis Charles…me!

Thank you for stopping by my new blog for Angels & Ghosts and my projects.

It is here that I will post my insights, theories and findings regarding ghosts and spirits. News about AngelsGhosts.com will be added to this page, too.

Soon, my new book entitled, Helping Ghosts, is about to be published, so look for this blog to keep my readers apprised with what’s happening with the project.

Louis Charles
https://AngelsGhosts.com

About

Louis Charles founded the website, Angels & Ghosts, in 2004 after having spiritual and paranormal experiences. Louis began researching evidence of ghosts, angels, and spirits by first soliciting photographs, videos, audio recordings and stories from others around the world. Eventually, this led Louis to develop theories concerning spirit communication and what happens to people after the body expires. Putting his theories to practice, Louis has worked with paranormal investigation groups to test his ideas during live investigations.  After years of research, Louis Charles remains convinced that ghosts and spirits interact with the living, and that we can help ghosts resolve issues in order to move forward in the life journey.

His new book, Helping Ghosts, will publish in the Spring of 2010. His remarkable stories and insights about the mental condition of ghosts, as well as how we can help them, will make this book unique. It follows on the heels of his 2009 self-published title, Jesus Religion, which was written to help free those who struggle with religious fears of demons, hell, and eternal punishment.