Spooky

[QuestJan]

"Paranormal" was my normal and I was blessed for nearly 40-years. Then the PTSD happened and it all went away. I had been like the traditional Fool of the tarot, but now I just fall off the cliff...

 

[Nairobi]

"Paranormal" was my normal and I was blessed for nearly 40-years. Then the PTSD happened and it all went away. I had been like the traditional Fool of the tarot, but now I just fall off the cliff...

I am sorry to hear about your PTSD I sometimes think that I have complex PTSD, I at least have some symptoms. What do you mean by saying your life used to be full of paranormal, and that you felt it was a blessing? And now it is gone?

I had a phase where I was obsessed with tarot and oracle cards. Not for divination, not for asking the cards, or my guides, or Spirit, or the Universe any questions. But because they so beautifully express the archetypal bare skeleton bones of most human stories to be found in literature, film, and life. Looking through the cards helped me identify what was actually going on in my life when I was full of overhwelm, then I would deliberately arrange them in ways that showed me how they related to each other in my life, then I was able to make a logical strategy for addressing the issue, if that makes sense?

I'm not so keen on occult imagery due to my beliefs (no offense to any pagans or witches here - I actually share a lot of their aesthetic and love for nature and crystals, just in a different way), but I still have a couple of decks without any occult imagery - as well as a few oracle decks that I find psychologically helpful - again, putting images to those key words, that is very helpful for me because I tend to think and feel in pictures and inner landscapes, so they help me identify my thoughts, feelings, challenges - my inner life and my outer life.

I mostly now have decks with Bible verses or decks that are focused on healing and mental/emotional health. But the feeling of decks and cards in my hand, being able to quickly flip through them, the visual stim of the imagery....I really love that. I had to reign in my card obsession because it was just too costly and too tempting to visually stim with all of those gorgeous cards, sinking into those beautiful worlds...and neglecting my actual life around me! Now I just have what I think of as self-help decks, and they sit in a box until I feel I need a therapist, but I am terrible at communicating verbally with a therapist, so I just go through a helpful deck

 

[SusanLR]

"Paranormal" was my normal and I was blessed for nearly 40-years. Then the PTSD happened and it all went away.

I read this statement and related to how I feel the same way.
The paranormal has been just normal to me most of my life also. Always having experiences
and using the energy for Reiki and I've done card reading, cold readings, seeing things in peoples
auras, psychometry, etc.
I even taught it for a while at a metaphysical college.

Then my world fell apart and have had CPTSD for some years now.
Life doesn't seem normal or happy anymore and my experiences and energy use in the
paranormal just seemed to disappear with it.
I believe without the positive, happy, energy inside, the ability to experience the paranormal
becomes less.
You need the positive energy to connect to the higher energies we call paranormal.
When your own energy is low and negative, the connection just isn't there.
That's what I've experienced anyway.
You need to be an open channel. Not a channel full of negative energy blocks.

 

[Misery]

I read this statement and related to how I feel the same way.
The paranormal has been just normal to me most of my life also. Always having experiences
and using the energy for Reiki and I've done card reading, cold readings, seeing things in peoples
auras, psychometry, etc.
I even taught it for a while at a metaphysical college.

Then my world fell apart and have had CPTSD for some years now.
Life doesn't seem normal or happy anymore and my experiences and energy use in the
paranormal just seemed to disappear with it.
I believe without the positive, happy, energy inside, the ability to experience the paranormal
becomes less.
You need the positive energy to connect to the higher energies we call paranormal.
When your own energy is low and negative, the connection just isn't there.
That's what I've experienced anyway.
You need to be an open channel. Not a channel full of negative energy blocks.

Aye, that's a good way to put it.

A concept that has often occurred to me, particularly lately as things keep getting weird, is the concept of belief as power. Well, belief and focused will. I rather suspect that a lot of supernatural/paranormal acts/interactions are based on this concept. Granted, that's just MY theory, based on a lot of observation and WAY too much free time to ponder things, but it seems I'm far from the only one to think of it. And it sure seems to work for me...

But when you're in a negative frame of mind, things get all funky. You think everything sucks and the good or interesting stuff just aint gonna happen, because you're all focused on the suckage. Your concentration is lowered, your ability to focus is lowered, and your ability to NOTICE things is lowered. That will and/or belief is less likely to get applied... How are you supposed to do anything in that state? Well, anything other than potentially attract some... unhappy thing. I dont believe for a fraction of a second that all paranormal stuff is positive in nature, as the world just never works that way, much as I wish it would. I mean it'd be just super if the world was all friendly puppies and kittens and stuff, but noooo, you also got THE BEES, NOT THE BEES!!! and then all the stinging.

All the more reason to stay positive!

Though it WOULD help if it all wasnt so bloody confusing. The elements that I'm aware of and exploring is all quantum in nature (which I've discussed a bit with a few people on here), and frankly I get a tad irritated with it at times. Which doesnt help. And then I want to punch it for the crime of being obnoxious and cryptic, but I cant quite figure out how to punch the fabric of reality, so that just annoys me more. And then it's also hard to figure out what's real and what's not, and things get even more confusing, and then I just hate everything. Also doesnt help that I dont exactly have much patience.

*cough* yeah, bit of venting there.

metaphysical college.

There's a metaphysical college? I'm having trouble picturing whatever that is.

 

[QuestJan]

Then my world fell apart and have had CPTSD for some years now.
Life doesn't seem normal or happy anymore and my experiences and energy use in the
paranormal just seemed to disappear with it.

you also got THE BEES, NOT THE BEES!!! and then all the stinging.

It goes deeper than just keeping a positive attitude. I think the core of PTSD is that something - quantum, spiritual, whatever - is crushed and needs to be healed in places that modern science doesn't even acknowledge.

It is as though what connects us to the Source is severed and we are feeling around in the dark for the two ends to reconnect them. In the dark too long and one feels alone, lost, despair. The layer of trauma adds feelings of danger to the dark that trigger freight/flight.

We have witnessed evil up close

Perky & upbeat feels like a weak and unreliable ally.

What do you mean by saying your life used to be full of paranormal, and that you felt it was a blessing? And now it is gone?

My life was like the fool's. Something (I'll call the Source) protected me even from my own risky, foolish decisions. Source saved my life dramatically at least twice, but also showed up for things like running out of money and someone I hadn't seen in years calls me to return the money I had forgotten that I had loaned them long ago. I have many, many such examples.

I also had minor emotional healing powers. When an autistic can heal NTs emotionally, that's magical. When I was in nursing school, my instructors called it a "therapeutic personality". It was just love beaming from Source through me to them. They could feel it.

That was my life. I was blessed and was useful in a satisfying way. Then the PTSD happened and it vanished. I was abandoned in the dark.

It's beginning to creep back in small ways that I deeply welcome.

But I don't have a support system and I experienced a recent setback. So I came running here. Autistic forums seem to have more empaths than the 68.2%. Many religious fear empaths, even though it is only love.

But because they so beautifully express the archetypal bare skeleton bones of most human stories to be found in literature, film, and life. Looking through the cards helped me identify what was actually going on in my life

This is exactly how I use the decks: To increase awareness & understanding of my feelings.

I am morally opposed to religions, never met one that did not oppose the 4 Gospels. The Gospels are my rock.

A big setback sent me running here. NTs so often think they are doing one a favor when they alter the truth. I struggle so to devine what they are trying to communicate and the cards seem to support my understanding far better than their approach.

But the cards do not substitute for my growing relationship with Christ.

but I still have a couple of decks without any occult imagery - as well as a few oracle decks that I find psychologically helpful - again, putting images to those key words, that is very helpful for me because I tend to think and feel in pictures and inner landscapes, so they help me identify my thoughts, feelings, challenges - my inner life and my outer life.

I switch between the Stolen Child and William Blake decks. Stolen Child is new to me but brings a small nightlight into the dark. Blake has more capacity to shine light on the dark that has my heart clenched in its fist.

Tarot is not magical or satanic, but as @Nairobi described: Archetypal stories of the human experience. Yeats & Blake (beware the band at top of page, could trigger migraine or seizure - quickly scroll down to text) were both deeply spiritual poets.

 

[SusanLR]

There's a metaphysical college? I'm having trouble picturing whatever that is.

It is a subject matter like any other. Business college, Arts or anything.
A metaphysical college teaches HOW to use those energies for Reiki, psychic readings, channelling,
psychometry, the paranormal uses.
They also discuss and teach what has a scientific explanation vs what doesn't.
We did what people would call ghost hunting. When someone thought there was an entity, well,
Who Ya Gonna Call? We got those kind of calls.
Astral projection, seances, anything of those natures. It wasn't a religion, it was a study of
the unknowns.

You can get a degree in metaphysical arts. I have an associate's.

It goes deeper than just keeping a positive attitude. I think the core of PTSD is that something - quantum, spiritual, whatever - is crushed and needs to be healed in places that modern science doesn't even acknowledge.

It is as though what connects us to the Source is severed and we are feeling around in the dark for the two ends to reconnect them. In the dark too long and one feels alone, lost, despair. The layer of trauma adds feelings of danger to the dark that trigger freight/flight.

We have witnessed evil up close

Very good way of putting it.

 

[QuestJan]

They also discuss and teach what has a scientific explanation vs what doesn't.

I am a scientist. I believe in scientific method and evidence-based practice. Science is a discipline of measurements. If we cannot measure it, it is not science - no matter its reality. For example, the last time I was exploring the science of the mind (the cognitive processes which we can consciously access), neuroscience was unable to measure it. To do so, the scientific community needs to define the terms for things to be measured across labs and consensus had not been reached. Yet, we all can relate to "I think therefore I am".

I also believe that while our scientific knowledge (what we are capable of measuring at this time) has been evolving since before Galileo founded Experimental Science, we still know only a small percentage about reality. There is soooo much more. Science - unlike religion - is inquiry-based. It evolves with new discoveries. Outside of this neat little package of measurements - anything remains possible: Possibilianism.

"Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story (say, a man with a beard on a cloud) is true or not true. But with Possibilianism I'm hoping to define a new position -- one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing to any particular story."

I feel very free to rummage around in the giant bag of possibility to pull out anything of interest. If it disappoints, I throw it back. If it works for me, I hang onto it. I have had some profound experiences.

@SusanLR, please tell us more about your degree in metaphysical arts

 

[Misery]

It is a subject matter like any other. Business college, Arts or anything.
A metaphysical college teaches HOW to use those energies for Reiki, psychic readings, channelling,
psychometry, the paranormal uses.
They also discuss and teach what has a scientific explanation vs what doesn't.
We did what people would call ghost hunting. When someone thought there was an entity, well,
Who Ya Gonna Call? We got those kind of calls.
Astral projection, seances, anything of those natures. It wasn't a religion, it was a study of
the unknowns.

You can get a degree in metaphysical arts. I have an associate's.



Very good way of putting it.

Good grief, there's so many elements to this and pretty much none of it makes any sense to me.

The only stuff I have any knowledge of is quantum something-or-other (heck if I know what to call it), and chaos magick, which I dont know too much about but seems suited to my usual "I dont know what to do for this so I'm just going to hit it with a stick and yell alot until something happens" way of approaching things.

And that's about it. Finding good ways to learn about whatever is bloody difficult. Some things I can sort of go off of my own experiences and observations, but that tends to just be confusing. Like, "okay this bit here clearly works, I can do this thing, though I havent the foggiest bloody clue what it IS, but it works so I'll just keep doing whatever it is".

Granted this is how I am with any subject... I'm typically regarded as the computer geek of the family, but my method of dealing with computers is to just poke things until something happens. Much to my bafflement this does tend to result in a solution to whatever the problem is. Doesnt make sense, happens anyway. Even if it's like fixing a car by duct-taping it back together.

I've totally lost track of what else I was going to say, or if any of what I have already said even makes sense.

 

[SusanLR]

Good grief, there's so many elements to this and pretty much none of it makes any sense to me.

The only stuff I have any knowledge of is quantum something-or-other (heck if I know what to call it), and chaos magick, which I dont know too much about but seems suited to my usual "I dont know what to do for this so I'm just going to hit it with a stick and yell alot until something happens" way of approaching things.

And that's about it. Finding good ways to learn about whatever is bloody difficult. Some things I can sort of go off of my own experiences and observations, but that tends to just be confusing. Like, "okay this bit here clearly works, I can do this thing, though I havent the foggiest bloody clue what it IS, but it works so I'll just keep doing whatever it is".

Granted this is how I am with any subject... I'm typically regarded as the computer geek of the family, but my method of dealing with computers is to just poke things until something happens. Much to my bafflement this does tend to result in a solution to whatever the problem is. Doesnt make sense, happens anyway. Even if it's like fixing a car by duct-taping it back together.

I've totally lost track of what else I was going to say, or if any of what I have already said even makes sense.

Your method is using the physical body as you know it only.
And if something of a different energy comes out through all of that, so be it.
Chaotic, yes.
Throw enough mud together, you might end up with a rock that didn't take millions of years to form.
After all, the universe creates this way. The solar system came from what the sun's energy created.
And the sun and stars came from what? Some Hydrogen atoms that exploded or a sea of black
energy that we don't even understand yet? And before that... hmmm.
Digging deeper is how we learn and start to think outside the box.
Keep hitting with that stick and when something happens maybe you might think about why it
happened.

And those dreams, even though they are chaotic also, are an extension of your personality.
Maybe a mind trip to Hogwarts is in order. lol. Interesting soul you are.

 

[Misery]

Your method is using the physical body as you know it only.

Right now I dont really have much of a method.

The stick bit is just an analogy, how I mentally tend to approach things.

But this stuff? There's been some reading, a small bit of learning... not too much, as I dont quite know where to go for it... but at least some.

But how it actually happens... well, it just plain happens. Over and over, and over and over... unlike most people I hear about who do this paranormal/whatever stuff, doing rituals or meditations or whatever, I dont decide on it or do any specific act, it merely just keeps happening. Though I at least have an idea of what fuels it.

When I talked about it to a certain someone else on this forum, he explained it to me as "your energy shooting off everywhere". As opposed to most users focusing and whatnot, I'm operating on auto and it's just flying all over the place. Granted I do that with more than a few things, but still. This particular subject, it just makes it that much more confusing. And annoying.

Why cant this stuff just come with an instruction manual? Would make it easier. Well, would at least test my patience less.

Though it is at least less annoying to learn about than how to deal with Windows. So there's that going for it.

 

[Valya81]

I am sorry to hear about your PTSD I sometimes think that I have complex PTSD, I at least have some symptoms. What do you mean by saying your life used to be full of paranormal, and that you felt it was a blessing? And now it is gone?

I had a phase where I was obsessed with tarot and oracle cards. Not for divination, not for asking the cards, or my guides, or Spirit, or the Universe any questions. But because they so beautifully express the archetypal bare skeleton bones of most human stories to be found in literature, film, and life. Looking through the cards helped me identify what was actually going on in my life when I was full of overhwelm, then I would deliberately arrange them in ways that showed me how they related to each other in my life, then I was able to make a logical strategy for addressing the issue, if that makes sense?

I'm not so keen on occult imagery due to my beliefs (no offense to any pagans or witches here - I actually share a lot of their aesthetic and love for nature and crystals, just in a different way), but I still have a couple of decks without any occult imagery - as well as a few oracle decks that I find psychologically helpful - again, putting images to those key words, that is very helpful for me because I tend to think and feel in pictures and inner landscapes, so they help me identify my thoughts, feelings, challenges - my inner life and my outer life.

I mostly now have decks with Bible verses or decks that are focused on healing and mental/emotional health. But the feeling of decks and cards in my hand, being able to quickly flip through them, the visual stim of the imagery....I really love that. I had to reign in my card obsession because it was just too costly and too tempting to visually stim with all of those gorgeous cards, sinking into those beautiful worlds...and neglecting my actual life around me! Now I just have what I think of as self-help decks, and they sit in a box until I feel I need a therapist, but I am terrible at communicating verbally with a therapist, so I just go through a helpful deck

Can you tell me which decks that don't have occult imagery? Should I just create my own?

 

[Booknerd515]

I find it incredibly interesting that that light bulb came on by itself. I don’t typically tend to believe in anything paranormal actually existing, apart from astral projection which I take very seriously, as I have had possibly paranormal encounters in the past which I have put distance between myself and them using projection as a barrier. Ghosts and other potentially harmful entities normally tend to be drawn to me so I avoid looking at them.

I do hope that you don’t have too many electrical disturbances, since they can be anxiety causing sometimes.

 

[Suzette]

And that's about it. Finding good ways to learn about whatever is bloody difficult. Some things I can sort of go off of my own experiences and observations, but that tends to just be confusing. Like, "okay this bit here clearly works, I can do this thing, though I havent the foggiest bloody clue what it IS, but it works so I'll just keep doing whatever it is".

I have avoided joining this discussion but I have a need to comment here. I should clarify a few things first. I don't believe in demons or the devil in the Christian sense. I believe we live in a conscious universe that exists in perfect balance. What mere mortals call "evil" is just the flip side of loving light. One can not exist without the other for you can not know there is light without dark.

When I say "open yourself to the univerese" people often get scared and think that means you have thrown open the gates to any indescriminate energy out there.
This is far from the truth.
YOU are in complete control of your experience. You do this trough having the knowledge that you will only experience what you wish. To make that idea simple: think about wanting to get a drink of water from the kitchen. You don't start out by being afraid you will end up in the bathroom instead. You just get up and go into the kitchen. Navigating the universe is no different. It really is just that simple. So, with that introduction.....

The easiest way to learn what you want to know is to set an intention and then open yourself to the universe to provide that instruction. You may need to practice if you are used to being guarded. But if you can learn to be at ease and simply allow your intention to meet the universe, you WILL get what you want.

That's the 101 on manifesting your desire.

 

[QuestJan]

Can you tell me which decks that don't have occult imagery? Should I just create my own?

You are so right, @Valya81. Tarot was developed by the Golden Dawn "secrete" occult society (19th/20th century) based on an Italian game from the 1500s.

I use William Blake. His life's work (poetry, painting, music, & science) was inspired by Dante, Pilgrims Progress, the Bible, and the same French Enlightenment Movement that inspired the founders of the USA.

I also have a Stolen Child deck based on the Yeats poem. There are only symbols from the natural environment and children.

I do not use tarot to divine anything. I use them to look at myself in the mirror. The symbols I resonate with help me sort through what is already inside of me. But in the hands of an expert, they can be amazing.