What made you finally believe in the paranormal/spirit realm?

a reply to: Reverbs

You know imagination doesn't lock doors or blow out candles or light up an entire beach..

That depends on the soul but not all things that come inside are from within. Fortunately most of things for me is awareness based and not physical manifestation.

originally posted by: Gogore
Saw things, witnessed events and personal experiences made me realize one thing : our material senses are greatly limited.
Having a keen interest in many things, I also understood that nothing is impossible, just improbable.

. And in the right field the improbable becomes 100% manifested.

a reply to: shinethelight

When I was around 10, I had a premonition that came true immediately after having it.

That showed me that ESP was real,
then at 17 a being appeared in my home,
that showed me that there was other things out there that pay attention to what we do.

Then at around 25 one of my best friends who had died several years earlier came to visit me,
(my first ADC)
that showed me that there is life after death.

a reply to: Darkblade71

Can I just ask what things they're paying attention to? I'm genuinely curious?

a reply to: ringdingdong

It's easy to say 'it's just an overactive imagination ', until you experience it yourself. And no, it's not lucky to have to battle demons.
Watch paranormal witness, the dead files, sid Roth, do you really believe every single individual with an encounter is making it up? Not saying it's all true, but discernment is needed.

With me it was watching my accountant, intellectual, skeptical father melting clouds with his mind when I was 18. I had had a lot of childhood "mindreading" events, but had mostly forgotten that by my cynical teen years.

After that, and realizing the reams of "occult" stuff had some varying levels of "truth" to it, the flood gates opened and ghosts, UFOs and all the rest popped up infrequently... mostly haunted rental houses, though.

Now, some in this thread have alluded to the really strange events that they won't talk about... but to me, that's where any answers, or good questions at least, are formed.

I have friends who encountered inhabited shacks from past centuries in the woods, missing time, evil beasties and one who swears they lived a whole lifetime during a drug event and awoke back to this world with almost a century of new experiences on some "almost earth" ... so I'd like to hear the more crazy tales is what I'm getting at...

This

Although my only witness has passed away, this was the one that did it for me.

a reply to: Joneselius

I was heavy into Satanism at the time, and practicing spell casting.

Long story short, I was told that it was not my path, there was something else I was to do, to change, and all would be ok.
It was one of my first threads on ATS back in 2004:
Being of Light/Angelic Warning
A much more detailed description of what happened is on that thread

I was 11 and then I became 12. That was the tipping point for me.

a reply to: Darkblade71

Hi darkblade, I read your thread of your first angelic experience, and I know you ran in fear. But I have to ask, did you stop practicing satanism?
Fingers crossed, please say yes.
Also many people have encounters with Jesus, doesn't matter if they're religious, good, bad, etc. He loves us and He leads us on paths of righteousness.
But ultimately, we have to choose. We have a choice, make it count.

a reply to: rukia

I read your dirty laundry post, I'm glad you don't talk to the dirty laundry any more.
But in all seriousness, I've read and heard stories about those entities going after small children, it makes me so upset that they pray on the weak.

a reply to: shinethelight

Of course I did..lol



Stopped everything at that point.
Spiritual growth took a while to kick back in.

I have had plenty of O.B.E's and can say with 100% certainty that the spiritual realm is a reality that exists within this Universe.

When I was 18 years old I saw a ghost, clear as day 50 feet away from me sitting on a boulder in a field outside of the school building. It was in senior high school and I was standing together with my school mates listening to the teacher, when I saw her sitting on that boulder looking at us. She had this dark brown cloak with a hood that looked typically middle ages, maybe she was a nun (there's lots of old monasteries in that area). And what made me instantly realize that she was a ghost was, she was half transparent.

At that point I observed my class mates if there was some kind of reaction coming from them as I couldn't just exclaim "hey guys, do you see that ghost over there?" But there was nothing, it was as if I was the only one seeing her or the others just didn't notice her, I don't know. The second time I looked back to the boulder she was gone, just like that in an instant.

To this day I wonder who she could have been, it was one of the most impressive experiences I had in my life.

i dont belive in a traditional "spirit realm", i do however recognize and refuse to dismiss different kinds of strangness. the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics, or something like it may hold some answers to much of this phenomina and others. if every possible scenerio of every possible event is playing out simultainiously in the space we occupy perhaps there are thin spots and or some of us can better recognize the "other side" than others. maybe some of us who genuinly claim to see or hear "ghosts" are really seeing someone from another reality briefly sharing the space with us.

if the number of realities are infinite and include "realms" not only like our own but an infinite spectrum including the truly bizare this could help explain not only Ghosts but intangible glimpses of everything from beings from folklore to religious phenomina and cryptozoology. what if some of the ufos reported by everyone from common folk to police and military could be advanced versions of ourselves or something even stranger whove learned to open doors into our reality? many reports seem to suggest a scientific interest, and the ufos themselves are often reported to simply blink out rather than being visible as they head back to some star. in my opinion we made up the "space alien" thing because some of us saw these things back before quantum phisics was taken seriously and decided that if theyre not from here they must have come from another planet. and likewise if we see shadow people or wispy visions of others or even just noises or unexplained voices of others in our space the mind scrambles to make sense of it and for a long time "dead spirits" seemed to fit.

call it a theory of unified wierdness, it brings it all together. i suspect the strangness is real, its just not what most of us think it is.

a reply to: RedCairo

Excuse me? I was neither rude, nor a troll. I didn't use the word "moron" either.

I have no clue why my post was removed. It was on topic.

a reply to: shinethelight

I'm saying it's all nonsense, and it should be obvious to anyone who has "proper discernment".

There are degrees of naivety, ignorance, and self-delusion which may interact with trauma and a fragile, developing ego in some of these circumstances.

The more self-aware eventually pull their self out of the errors of thinking. Sometimes it takes high emotional intelligence, sometimes it takes critical analysis, and sometimes it just takes decades of new experiences to run through the prior ones in a new light.

There are archetypes interacting with modern cultural memes to bring about the often talked about "spiritual realm".

Don't assume I haven't experienced any of this, the difference is I realize it's deep unconscious desires manifesting into my semi-conscious state, whether that be in a full dreamscape, or some form of blend of reality and dream. I've had numerous OOBE's, traveled the stars, had guides teach me things... it's all who you are, none of it is legit.

My father passed away when I was 12 (2004) A few things have happened since.

- The night he passed we had gone to the hospital with the ambulance. Our neighbours (who we are very close with) were in our driveway discussing the events I presume... And all of a sudden the garage door started thudding... banging really loud. Out of nowhere. Now we had a rabbit in the garage (my first explanation) but when we checked she was locked in her cage (as always at night) and couldn't make the noise they described.

- He died on a Tuesday evening and we spent that night at my Grandma and Grandads. The day we went back (wed/thurs) the house would not settle. We have a house alarm we set every night. The alarm would not set. It would keep going off. It took around an hour for us to make it stay set (it sets after we close the door downstairs and go upstairs) But it just wouldn't. We'd never had that problem before/since.

- For quite a while after he passed if you were sat in one of the chairs in the room your would get a sensation of someone walking from one end of the room to the other (as he used to most mornings drinking his tea looking out the window) and it was so bizarre! Its quite a big room so you would get a sensation of someone walking behind, passed you and to the other end of the room. Very strange, none of us could explain it but we all had it.

- A birthday card decided to move on it's own. Me and my brother both watched it. It moved slightly and turned a full 180 degrees. There was no draft, no windows/doors open and me and my brother were sat down. This was directly in the way of the place we used to feel someone walking through the room.

- My mother was once upset over something...I can't remember what (a year or so after he died) and was on her bed crying. I went in to see her and my dads side of the bed there was a large warm patch. And I mean WARM... very warm. She had only been sat on the edge of her side and couldn't explain it. It the size as if someone had been sat there but nobody had.

- A key he (and the rest of us) looked for for a long time whilst he was still here decided to pop up out of nowhere a year or so after he died too. It was down the side of the couch. Which we had completely taken apart to try find the key. Hahaha.

Side note, probably just a dream but... VERY shortly after he passed away I had a dream I was walking down a huge road. It was sunny and it had palm trees. I was with a few of my friends and I looked up in the window of a tall building and he was there waving at me and I just smiled. I know it was probably just a dream but I've never had one similar before or since.

I know it's my father. And I know many of you may believe it's wishful thinking but rest assured all of the above have happened. I tend to believe it was him. I strongly believe there is more after this life.... and the events that happened after he passed solidified my beliefs.

PS this isn't the only stuff that's happened. But the only things I can link to my father.

Pretty much for as long as I can remember.
My first memory of a spiritual/paranormal experience was around 3yrs old.

40yrs later...well...had lots and lots of experiences that just kinda well, makes it *normal*.


Still don't believe/think that everything that goes bump in the night is necessarily a spook/spirit...hey a banging door probably just needs to be closed properly so wind/air pressure changes doesn't keep it banging all night.
Doesn't immediately equate to calling in a someone to spiritually nuke the place...

So too even if there is a *something* kicking around...still doesn't immediately require any intervention.
Heck not everything needs to be shuffled on or anything like that...

Discernment is key.

*to be clear, I'm not in any way claiming any boss-level ability to discern...I just do whatever I do however I'm asked to do it...whether it's the *right* action probably isn't hugely up to me persay...

One rather humorous example of a paranormal nature:

Some years ago my sister (who lives in Perth, Australia - I live in New Zealand) was quite ill and our mother went over to visit her and look after her for a while as she recovered.
Our mother doesn't particularly like my sisters partner...and she makes no secret about that either. Despite him and my sister now being a couple for almost 20yrs. Mum still tosses in her snarky opinion about him.

Anyhoo.
My mother is someone who is pretty 'spiritual'...volunteers in a 'healing clinic' in the small town her and Dad lives in...works mainly with our native plant medicines, healing techniques etc.

I was talking with her via phone while she was over there...and she was mentioning that there was a real bad *energy* in my sisters house that she felt was impeding my sisters recovery.
While Mum was talking with me I was kinda - well, only way I can describe it is *remote scanning* the sisters place on a 'spirit' level to see if I could pick up anything that might be an issue there...

I've never been to my sisters house.
Never seen pictures or anything of the interior of it - except one picture of her and her partner sitting in their lounge and a few of the front of the house when they first moved in many years ago.
BUT - I got a real strong *sense* that there was something my mother needed to see...to check out...as I *felt* that it was the core of the issue.

So...I basically directed her through the house...
Guided her down the hallway (again, never been there so had no prior idea of the layout of the house), out through the laundry at the rear of the house, into the garden...and told her that the issue was approximately 2 metres in front of her now...

Mum was saying she couldn't *see* anything that might be an issue.
I kept saying "It's concrete, no, its like terracotta, what's in front of you that's in any way terracotta"
"There's a terracotta planter in the garden"
"That's it. It's there. Whatever it is is right there. What is it?"
"It's a planter. Nothing more. Are you sure it's the planter?"
"Well. No. But it's to do with the planter, or around it, or in it...what's in it?"
"A plant"
"What type of plant?"
(my Mum is an avid gardener)
"It's...oh...I know what plant it is...it's..."
"What is it?"
"Oh. Very funny."
"What???"
"It's called Mother Inlaws Tongue. Is this a joke?"
"No Mum. It's not. That's what I had a strong sense you needed to see...as that was what was *shown* to me to be the core of the issue..."
"Hmmm. Yes. Maybe my words towards your sister's partner aren't helping matters..."
"Maybe not Mum. You know as well as I do...healing takes purity of heart...hard to keep things pure when you're speaking poison"

....sometimes *Spirit* (call it what you will) sends it's message in rather humorous and clear ways...if you don't listen the first time...