Contacting The Dead

[invisible]

Sorry about the title, I considered a number of soft euphemisms but in the end I thought it would be better to be plain. Grief hurts, but we are all adults.

Have you ever sought to contact a loved one who has passed away? To call them up, to feel their presence, to converse with them? What process did you go through in your attempt?

If you have never made such an attempt, do you think that you ever would?

Is it right or wrong to do this?

 

[Ryso89]

Yes, and I have had success, with this:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WKBP9OY/?tag=infjs-20

About whether it is right or wrong - perhaps you've been wanting to take a leap of faith, and if it's that important to attempt to contact someone, perhaps you should. There is a real chance that you might not like something that will come through this device, and the interaction may lead to some paranormal activity. As to whom you might come in contact with, no one can give you any guarantees. As I said, this is leap of faith.

 

[invisible]

Not asking so much for personal purposes of what I might myself want or intend. More interested in the philosophy of it, general ideas about it all, and possibly experiences others have had with it.

 

[Sandie33]

'Sorry about the title, I considered a number of soft euphemisms but in the end I thought it would be better to be plain. Grief hurts, but we are all adults.'

@invisible No need to appologize when asking a direct question. Some folks will respect you more for doing so

My thoughts ...Grief and its duration affects each individual differently. When there is a loss of someone close within a family unit it fractures each in their own way. A coping tool one uses may not work for another...and so it goes:
Have you ever sought to contact a loved one who has passed away?
No. When my Mom passed away two weeks before my 18th birthday I found comfort in knowing her Spirit was needed elsewhere. It hurt like hell...the grief was consuming at times. My family thought me in shock bc I did not react in the presumed "normal" way a child reacts at the loss of its mother.
To call them up, to feel their presence, to converse with them? No. (Depending on a persons belief of course) One should use caution when calling on the "dead"...the spirit that answers your call my not be who you were seeking. There are menvolent spirits that can trick you into the idea that they are who you seek...they are trying to hold onto/get back to the physical world, these Haints can hijack the person and wreck havoc on the soul until the person can purge that spirit. You invited them in so you need to send them away.
What process did you go through in your attempt?na

If you have never made such an attempt, do you think that you ever would? No. There are beneficial spirits and then there are scary spirits and many along the line between the two...

Is it right or wrong to do this?
Is there any sense of right or wrong other than the individuals? There is no right/wrong answer to a persons grief...in how they manage it or what they find comfort in while moving through its stages.

I practice bless & release when faced with the passing of loved ones, friends and community members. One can make their own choices when making contact with a spirit that has passed. A word of thought is...if you do, show respect and be sure of who it is you are inviting to the conversation. <3

 

[invisible]

I don't think I believe in malevolent spirits. It seems like a monster under the bed sort of thing to me. Why would they want their way back into these crappy bodies we are shambling around in? That would mean they would be beset with illnesses and money woes. Surely it would be more fun for them to fly around yelling "EVIL!" and laughing maniacally? That's what I'd do if I were an evil spirit.

It reminds me of the time when Hawking said that we shouldn't welcome aliens because they just want to bleed the resources of our planet dry. Like hello? I think any beings who had developed sufficient technology to reach us would hardly be more interested in the resources of our tiny, abused planet than the resources of some other, uninhabited, more accessible planet? They don't need us, they're beyond us.

We've all met naughty things in dreams that wanted to give a fright but didn't we wake up afterwards? Did the nightmares really do any harm?

Just my personal perspective on it.

 

[acd]

I don't think I would. I can understand the desire to do so, but I think it would only make me relive the grief of losing them. I want to remember lost loved ones as they were on earth, not a disembodied spirit. I would try to honor their lives with mine.

I also would not attempt as in the past, I have had what I believe are unsavory paranormal experiences due to practicing the occult. I'm not sure what I believe. Maybe I imagined it. But it scared me enough to be done. I lean toward there being malevolent forces or spirits who need a pathway into our world. Don't want to be a conduit for that. Maybe that's my Catholic upbringing talking.

 

[sassafras]

I lost a number of family members over the course of the last year. My grief was in overdrive and I perfectly understand the desire to reach out and see if they're still there somehow, if they're ok. It's especially hard going from daily contact and conversations to suddenly nothing at all. It's not like you had a fight or they moved away. You saw the body. How eerie it was without life. They're no longer physically here.

And when so many gone in such a short time? Well, you start to get the feeling you're standing on a sinking ship and everyone is abandoning you. It's not literally like that-- them passing has nothing whatsoever to do with you-- but it feels that way anyhow.

I still have conversations wih my grandmother in my head, and I visit her at the cemetery a couple of times a month. She's the only one I have the luxury of visiting like this. Sometimes I get the sense that she hears me and is offering her comfort, but I haven't resorted to means like mediums or oujia boards or other spirit channellers to contact her. I don't know if there's really much of a difference between the kind of contact I have and those alternative methods, but what I do is something that works for me.

As for whether it's right or wrong, in general, I don't think its something that we can ever judge in absolutes. I think ultimately grief is a private thing and the morality of it is relative. You have to feel it's right. It's not for the benefit of the dead person; I think that they have transcended these kinds of issues. You have to listen to your own heart on this one.

 

[hush]

I've lost a lot of people, and I often wonder about their fate, what comes afterward, if anything, but no. There are currently approximately 7.4 billion people alive on this planet, and it's hard enough trying to connect with even a handful of those individuals. I mourn those who have passed away, deeply, but I have to move forward.

If people feel the need to attempt this to bring themselves some form of comfort, it is not my place nor desire to cut them down for it. Like Sandie, I lost one of my parents right around when I was 18, all of grandparents by the time I was 10, my cousin by suicide when I was in 8th grade, and that grief is hard. Whatever people need to do to cope, go for it. For me personally, there is just too much life still around me to linger overly long on what is gone. Of course I still wonder, and time will never lessen the love I feel for those I've lost, but to linger so much on death, in my very humble opinion, is to forfeit appreciating all the life before me.

 

[Wyote]

I've never made attempts to contact known individuals. I've made attempts to sort of contact "general spirits" with Ouija boards and incantations and the like.
Mostly I did these things because some people are terrified that they are demonic practices or something and being the rebel that I am I was like fuck that I'm doing it.
As far as I know I'm not currently being possessed or haunted or demonized, so that's a plus.
I feel as though I've been contacted by individuals close to me, but only briefly after their death. Others often claim similar experiences so I don't know if it's just a natural part of the grieving process or if something "otherworldly" may be occurring. I leave all options open.

When I did make attempts to contact spirits, weird things did happen. But it could very well be self-fulfilling prophecy type stuff.

 

[Stu]

sorry about this but...

 

[invisible]

Giving some serious consideration to figuring out a plausible motive of an evil spirit for attempting to enter or interfere in the human world. Its non-corporeal body is permeated with a sense of loneliness and emptiness which its ghostly company cannot satisfy? It is dissatisfied with its drama-free spirit existence and longs to star in the Blair Witch Project ep.17? It is a "loser" type personality deriving a sense of power by fiddling with humans?

Anne Rice has written a number of deeply Catholic novels about spirits who enter the human world. Does anyone here believe her stories are plausible as reality? I don't think Rice believes that.

 

[sassafras]

Giving some serious consideration to figuring out a plausible motive of an evil spirit for attempting to enter or interfere in the human world. Its non-corporeal body is permeated with a sense of loneliness and emptiness which its ghostly company cannot satisfy? It is dissatisfied with its drama-free spirit existence and longs to star in the Blair Witch Project ep.17? It is a "loser" type personality deriving a sense of power by fiddling with humans?

Anne Rice has written a number of deeply Catholic novels about spirits who enter the human world. Does anyone here believe her stories are plausible as reality? I don't think Rice believes that.

Generally speaking, it is also possible that human logic and/or story telling as we understand it may not apply to the spirit world. What we as three-dimensional, mortal beings may consider a 'motive' for behavior may not be the same as what an 'evil' spirit may consider. There might be layers to our present world of which we are not aware that may be beneficial for evil spirits to draw upon/explore. Or maybe the spirit isn't 'evil' at all, but something about it might upset the balance of this dimension with us trying to interact with it or we fucked up trying to bring it in via a 'one-summoning-spell-fits-all.' Maybe the spell didn't complete the transition and the 'evil spirit' is simply the spiritual equivalent of a chicken running around with it's head-cut-off just causing fucking chaos all over the place. Or maybe the summoner's deep, dark unconscious is what is projecting on the spirit in this plane and that's what is really causing havoc. Maybe it's not even a 'spirit' at all. Maybe its some aspect of ourselves given a new form.

Maybe we're part of a great game. Maybe it's all just random. Maybe it's all just in our heads. Who the heck knows?

It's still fun to speculate though.

I'm personally fond of the 'more than we know' theory---that we're just peering at our world through a teeny, tiny peep hole relative to our human minds and thinking we know all the answers when really, there are layers upon layers of the world that exist at frequencies of which we are blissfully unaware. We might be co-existing with other frequency beings and not even know it. A stacked multi-verse theory, anyone?

 

[invisible]

Generally speaking, it is also possible that human logic and/or story telling as we understand it may not apply to the spirit world. What we as three-dimensional, mortal beings may consider a 'motive' for behavior may not be the same as what an 'evil' spirit may consider. There might be layers to our present world of which we are not aware that may be beneficial for evil spirits to draw upon/explore. Or maybe the spirit isn't 'evil' at all, but something about it might upset the balance of this dimension with us trying to interact with it or we fucked up trying to bring it in via a 'one-summoning-spell-fits-all.' Maybe the spell didn't complete the transition and the 'evil spirit' is simply the spiritual equivalent of a chicken running around with it's head-cut-off just causing fucking chaos all over the place. Or maybe the summoner's deep, dark unconscious is what is projecting on the spirit in this plane and that's what is really causing havoc. Maybe it's not even a 'spirit' at all. Maybe its some aspect of ourselves given a new form.

Maybe we're part of a great game. Maybe it's all just random. Maybe it's all just in our heads. Who the heck knows?

It's still fun to speculate though.

I'm personally fond of the 'more than we know' theory---that we're just peering at our world through a teeny, tiny peep hole relative to our human minds and thinking we know all the answers when really, there are layers upon layers of the world that exist at frequencies of which we are blissfully unaware. We might be co-existing with other frequency beings and not even know it. A stacked multi-verse theory, anyone?

In this context, I think that any or all of those things are possible, feasible. I'm perfectly OK with spooky story telling, it just doesn't seem like a very reasonable worry within the context. I'm not saying that the context itself is entirely reasonable, I'm just saying that it seems like unnecessary fearfulness or paranoia. In this case as you can see by responses to this thread, this kind of spooky speculation is not being experienced at all as fun, but as a meaningful barrier to real world experience, which is why I interrogate it a little bit. Not to close off meanings necessarily, but just to interrogate them.

As you suggest, with my examples especially what I was trying to question was the idea that human ideas of evil apply to this context. What is an evil spirit, a sociopath who is so chronically lonely for human company that it kills people? A fame-hungry narcissist? Whatever! - these are totally human ideas of "evil". I maybe think "evil" altogether is a fairly ridiculous concept, because it tends to operate in some sort of mythologising way to turn something that is actually quite mundane into something that is overwhelming and absolute. I understand that others don't always think that way, but I think they should at least consider it.

So you want to talk to Aunt Dorothy in the bathroom mirror and see if she says anything back. Oh no, an "evil spirit" might answer instead! Well so what if it does? We are grown ups and can handle scary things. Look away from the mirror if you get frightened and go talk to the plants instead.

Regardless as you say if it's an aspect of ourselves given a new form - we could learn something.

 

[invisible]

@atree sorry if I basically just resaid what you'd already said in a fuzzy, disorganised, and distorted way. Or if I didn't. I need to go away and study and come back to the forum properly when I can give people the attention they deserve.

 

[ImaginaryBloke]

A lot of people out there appear braindead or brainwashed to me. How to do I make contact with and establish a discussion with the living?

 

[Happy Phantom]

It's a nice thought to think our loved ones who are no longer living are sitting in the clouds watching over us, but as a non believer I don't think this is possible. That being said, there's no way I'd use a ouija board. lol

 

[Eventhorizon]

If you ever listen to Richard Dawkins. ... I mean really listen... the poor stupid bastard doesn't even really believe himself.

If he did... he would understand that it doesnt matter how you live your life or what happens in life.

I am stuck though. Glued to the fucoiking insanity. I just want to be let go. I have no desire to live in this shit created world. Why must be forced to. Release me of your ignorance. Your world suck. Like a childs drawing of an animal thats nothing but lines and expecting praise from a teacher. Whoever created this world is as daft as a rock. And thats being kind. Release me!

 

[Stu]

I am definitely on board with the ouija taboo....That said, it is very normal and understandable to want to be with the departed. It is also unknowable as to whether someone has or has not made that connection. Many feel as though they have and find solace in that, many firmly believe it is not possible and find that reaffirms their belief system. Who can say either way?

 

[Happy Phantom]

If you ever listen to Richard Dawkins. ... I mean really listen... the poor stupid bastard doesn't even really believe himself.

If he did... he would understand that it doesnt matter how you live your life or what happens in life.

I am stuck though. Glued to the fucoiking insanity. I just want to be let go. I have no desire to live in this shit created world. Why must be forced to. Release me of your ignorance. Your world suck. Like a childs drawing of an animal thats nothing but lines and expecting praise from a teacher. Whoever created this world is as daft as a rock. And thats being kind. Release me!

Dawkins is far from stupid, yet I agree with your opinions regarding him. I don't like labels so I avoid using the term atheist since it's essentially a formed organization. I identify more with the term agnostic, and Neil deGrasse Tyson sums it up perfectly here. http://bigthink.com/think-tank/neil-degrasse-tyson-atheist-or-agnostic.

As for your rant, perhaps you should consider speaking with a good mental health care professional. Yes, life sucks ass sometimes, but you've got to take the good with the bad. I've lost loved ones and yes time helps you heal, but missing them never goes away, at least not for me. I also mourn the loss of people who are still living. If you're unable to cope, get help.

 

[invisible]

In terms of wanting to make contact with living people, I think it is a matter of recognising different types of expertise. There is no person who is a master of them all, so why not try to appreciate what others have to offer? If you are not able to appreciate what others have to offer, then I think that you need to try harder to figure out why.

In terms of this world not being good enough, this is the only world we've got. It is exhausting to try to contribute meaningful work towards a better world, but we have to do our best with what we've got, don't we? Because after all, otherwise there really is no point. I think that this may be a fundamental difference between construction and destruction.

I'm sorry, but this thread seems to have wandered quite off topic. These ideas may be worthy of distinct threads of their own, perhaps in the emotional support subforum. Don't be afraid to create new threads for things you really want to discuss!