Ghosts Among Us - James Van Praagh [28]
During one of my TV demonstrations, I witnessed something I had not seen before. While tuning in to a young woman in the audience, I immediately became aware of an older, unkempt female spirit pulling the strands of her hair as if it were made of string. This ghost stood to the participant’s right side, and I knew immediately that it was her mother. I was a little scared to proceed because of what I saw and felt. Around the mother was a dark brown, tarlike energy that I could only describe as “dirty energy.” I knew instinctively that this ghost was on a very low level of the astral world.
The mother faced her daughter and was screaming profanities at her. Each time the mother articulated her negative energy toward her daughter, I noticed the daughter would bow her head lower. This was my cue to protect myself, so I quickly pictured a wall of golden light between the ghost and me. It was a wall of protection to keep this lower astral entity’s negative energy away from me. (This is a quick technique for instant protection against harmful and depressing energy.)
I told the young woman, “Your mother is very angry and is blaming you for all of the bad luck she had in life.”
The woman’s head just bowed even lower.
I felt sorry for this woman because I could tell that she was very sweet and had a beautiful spirit. However, the years of mental torture and abuse by her mother had stolen her youthful innocence.
I got the sense that the mother was a drunk and had had a heroin addiction during her earthly life and that she never took responsibility for any of the wrong choices she had made. Instead, she blamed others for her predicament, became bitter from an unfulfilled life, and died penniless.
As a spirit, this woman entered the lower astral world, her same negative mind-set intact. Instead of attempting to break her old habits, she stayed in a perpetual misguided loop. This was all she knew, or all she wanted to know.
When I tried to help the ghost to understand her situation, she snapped back, You don’t know what you’re talking about. Then she mentioned that the other spirits who resided where she was were nasty, angry people who never listen to me. Interesting how like attracts like.
The ghost continued to yell at me. I turned to the young woman and said, “I’m going to ignore your mother because her behavior is atrocious.” That made the ghost even angrier.
Nevertheless, I continued to counsel the young woman. “You know,” I said, “you are not responsible for your mother’s life.”
The young woman looked at me and smiled, as if she had been waiting to hear those words her whole life but never had.
I ran into this young woman several years later. She told me that she had been in therapy and was a completely different person. She no longer kept her head bowed, but stood up straight, proud to be who she was.
“Are you still bothered by your mother?”
“I don’t have dreams of her anymore. I now know she is in a place that she created by the way she lived her life. Whenever I think of her, I just send her love and blessings.”
Not only is the lower astral realm made up of our collective negative thoughts and emotions, but we continually feed it through our negativity, including negative forms of entertainment. Violent movies, television shows, and music that exaggerate people’s fears and cruel behavior may seem exciting, but they only exacerbate the baser thoughts of society. The creators of such negative images may be under the influence of ghosts of the lower astral world. All is energy, and negative energy like fear, anger, and hate becomes imbedded in the lower astral level. Like a vicious cycle, these thought forms come back to haunt us by causing more fear and hatred.
We talk a lot about saving the outside environment, but it all begins with the environment inside ourselves. I know it sounds clichéd and boring to think that love, peace, and kindness can save us, but it’s true. Positive thoughts help to counterbalance