Editor’s Note:

The following article is controversial, disturbing, and thought-provoking, for it explores deeper levels of consciousness. Specifically, it examines how our thoughts interact with a greater reality, and asks if our negative thoughts attract negative beings, such as disturbed ghosts. Would these unseen entities require our negatives energies to feed their energetic bodies? If so, they may be motivated to keep us having more negative thoughts so that their appetites continue to be satiated.

This article begs further: are our habits, addictions, and unconscious behaviors more than just the sum of our neural nets of memory triggering feel-good receptors? Also, from the religious perspective, exactly what is a “guardian angel?” Or conversely, when “the devil made me do it,” how does that work?

In this piece, author Anuttama devi dasi describes these unseen entities as “ghosts,” and examines her life-long interactions with these beings. Anuttama is a contributing writer to the Mountain News-WA, and comments to this article are welcome – just post them at the end of the piece and I’ll send them to Anuttama.

Also, a movie currently available on Netflix, The Lovely Bones, illustrates how some of these dynamics may occur.

Don’t Feed the Ghosts!

By Anuttama devi dasi

When I’m confronted with knowledge that goes against what I’ve accepted to be true, I rely on synchronicities to verify/substantiate the knowledge. Synchronicity is defined as “…a concept, first explained by psychiatrist Carl Jung, which holds that events are ‘meaningful coincidences’ if they occur with no causal relationship, yet seem to be meaningfully related.”

This article is about my journey, which has been fraught with synchronicities. It has led me to conclude that probably all mental illness/addictions/depression are caused or exacerbated by ghosts and that having negative thoughts attracts ghosts the way that blood attracts sharks. I’ve learned that I am sometimes influenced by these unseen miscreants and the ability to banish them has enriched my quality of life immensely—like going from staying in a fleabag hotel to a five star resort.

The first encounters with ghosts that I can remember occurred when I was a child in the townhouse that my family lived in near the center of London. We lived about a half-block from a very old church, and the rumor was that the townhouses had been built on a graveyard. My parents did not believe in ghosts and scoffed at the idea that our house was haunted, but I can remember waking up in the middle of the night terrified and sometimes feeling that I had to fight for control of my body when I was sleeping.

Then, as a teenager, I set out on a quest to discover the purpose of life and to find out if God existed. I also wanted to know, if God existed and He was good, why are some people born into horrible circumstances while others have it easy their whole life. Through an amazing series of synchronicities I became a follower of my spiritual master, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Prabhupada wrote over 50 volumes of texts on spiritual matters which answer my question above and also cover the subject of ghosts. Here is a quote from Srila Prabhupada’s Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 4, Chapter 18, Verse 18:

Those who are very sinful and attached to their family, house, village or country do not receive a gross body made of material elements but remain in a subtle body, composed of mind, ego and intelligence. Those who live in such subtle bodies are called ghosts. This ghostly position is very painful because a ghost has intelligence, mind and ego and wants to enjoy material life, but because he doesn’t have a gross material body, he can only create disturbances for want of material satisfaction.

In other places, Srila Prabhupada explains that one receives a ghostly body if he departs his physical body in an untimely fashion, such as due to violence, an accident or sudden illness. This process can also be triggered if one commits suicide or leaves under the influence of intoxicants. Today it is likely that a large percentage of people who die are influenced by pharmaceuticals or have untimely deaths. We can surmise that there are a lot of ghosts floating around with a mission of “creat(ing) disturbances for want of material satisfaction.” Additionally we can surmise that these disturbances can take on a variety of forms because the disturbers are likely to have a wide range of material desires to fulfill.

I have a godsister who suffered from bulimia, meaning that she would consume huge quantities of food and then vomit into trash bags. Once when she was sleeping in the ashram, another godsister saw a ghost hovering over her in a possessive stance, exclaiming, “she’s mine!” When the bulimic woman was confronted about the ghost, she initially agreed to have a group of trained exorcists help her to rid her of the menace, but when the time came for the group effort, she declined to participate by combating the ghost to assist them, and her bulimic activities continued as before.

I remember one night being attacked by a ghost when I lived in a temple in Miami in the early ’80s. One moment I was peacefully asleep, and the next moment it felt like someone was sitting on my chest and holding me so that I couldn’t move or breath. I called out to God (Krsna) and was immediately released, but wide awake. I got up and put on a tape of Prabhupada chanting the Holy Name of God. In those days it was a cassette tape and when the tape ended (there was no “replay” option on my cassette player) the ghost was right back and I had to fight again for control of my body. It probably happened half a dozen times that night and several times to my husband, too.

From this experience of personally being attacked by a ghost, I have seen how a ghost must depart at the sound of the Holy Name. But apparently he felt free to return the moment that there was no chanting. The bulimic disciple probably chanted the Holy Name, as instructed by Prabhupada, and she certainly lived in a spiritual environment, but apparently the ghost was personally attached to her and would hover around her to influence her mind to binge eat and purge.

I’ve discovered that ghosts have to feed on emotional energy or prana. Ghosts, when they first assume the ghostly form, they are surprised that they’re not dead. Then they realize that they need energy, prana (life energy), to maintain their subtle body of mind, ego and intelligence. Out of a natural desire for self preservation, they look for a food source. And like any embodied soul, they have individual palettes: some prefer violent situations, some like self-pity, some desire kinky perversions. So they find situations where they can enjoy creating disturbances that allow them to continue. Many ghosts will attach to a particular person, so that the living person is constantly being influenced by the ghost’s thoughts. Just as if we stop eating for a period of time, eventually our body will no longer support our soul, similarly the ghost needs nourishment and he will drain our energy, if we let him.

My first experience with a very malevolent ghost occurred about eight years ago. Our cow, Dhana had just had her first calf and she violently rejected her cute little heifer. If we let Dhana get near little Lani Moo, she made angry sounds and lunged at the baby with her horns lowered. We were forced to keep them apart and had to bottle feed the colostrum and restrain Dhana while her calf nursed. After several days of this sad situation, I called our vet and described what was happening. Dr. Briskey surprised me saying, “you have a ghost.” He told me not to go out to the barn while he mentally dispatched the malevolent ghost. It took just a few minutes and when I went out to see Dhana, something was different: she was much calmer. So I let her smell her calf and she finally made motherly, loving sounds, began to lick Lani Moo and allowed her to nurse.

After Dr. Briskey de-ghosted our barn, I began to mentally review the various odd injuries that had been plaguing our animals in that barn. We had several instances where horses had cut themselves requiring stitches when they apparently were frightened while in a vulnerable situation—such as when their head was through the bars of a gate and they cut themselves on the gate latch while pulling their head out of the gate. Additionally, two horses died from eating foxglove in hay—horses normally scorn poisonous plants. Once I saw a normally laid-back young horse jump a 4′ stall door from a standstill, apparently from fright although I was unable to see or hear anything frightening. And I seriously sprained my knee and ankle from tripping in the hayloft. But, once the ghost was gone we had no further injuries in that barn.

My husband, Billy, and I wondered what activities could have attracted a malevolent spirit that chose to remain and cause distress. One possibility is that the former owner of our farm raised pigs and turkeys and we felt that he enjoyed the power he had over the animals as he slaughtered them. Further, he would hang the pig corpses from two trees that were very visible to the neighbors, which was a disturbing sight.

I consider it to be synchronistic that we happen to have a vet that diagnoses ghosts.

Billy and I live in a beautiful valley in Western Washington where we are learning to live a self-reliant lifestyle. We grow most of our food and keep cows which we treat as though they are family. We milk a cow and distribute the various dairy products to friends and neighbors. By breeding a cow only every two years, we are able to keep our herd at a manageable size without sending anyone away. The boys are trained to work as oxen and the girls may become future milk cows. While we refrain from practicing violence against our bovine family members, we do try to be consistent and assertive with how they are handled. One of the rules is “no horns on humans.” From the time they are little calves, they always get firm negative reinforcement if their horns even “accidentally” touch a human. I’ve never been worried for my safety when I’m around our bovines. In fact, I remember one instance when I went out into the pasture after dark to bring in a cow to be milked and the whole herd came stampeding towards me. It was so dark that I couldn’t see their bodies—only the reflection of their eyes, shining back from the beam of my flashlight—and I could hear the thundering of their hoofs against the ground as they grew close. Because they were galloping, the visible disembodied pairs of eyes that were bobbing up and down looked almost like a silly cartoon. I started to laugh out loud because of how the eyes looked and the absurdity of the situation. Plus, I had no fear because I knew the cows wouldn’t hurt me.

In spite of the firm, considerate handling of our bovine family members, I was attacked by Precious, a two-year old Jersey heifer. I was petting her withers and she suddenly lunged at me, pinning me against a support column of our porch. She gored me and then came at me repeatedly as I tried to evade her horns by going around the column. Like the heroines of ’50s B movies, I screamed for help (rather than a better tactic of fighting her off) and was rescued by my hero-husband, Billy, who rushed out of the house and chased Precious away. I ended up with at least 100 sq. inches of black and blue bruises on my stomach, hips and legs that graduated to brilliant greens and golds before fading away. I warned Billy that Precious’ behavior was abhorrent and that he needed to be aware that she could attack him at any time, too. Billy gave lip service to heeding my warning, but I could tell that he thought that the attack was a fluke.

About 6 months later, Billy was in the cow barn feeding hay while I was milking Lani Moo nearby. I heard a loud “thud” and then an sharp exclamation from Billy. Billy doesn’t exclaim or scream. He rarely cusses. Once, when he was working on a roof, I found him hanging from a truss twelve feet up, calmly saying, “I could use a little help here.” So it was the exclamation that alarmed me. I jumped up from the milking stool and found Billy, looking disheveled and squared off with Precious. I think my screaming distracted Precious long enough for Billy to exit the pen, but he was really hurt. He described later that he was leading her by her collar to where her manger had been filled and she lagged behind and then picked him up by the rib cage with her horns and propelled him against a 6 x 6 support beam. That was the thud. He probably had some fluid around his heart, in addition to spectacular bruises, judging from his symptoms in the following months, but he eventually made a full recovery.

Naturally after this latest attack we were perplexed about what to do with Precious. Most people would have taken her for a one way trip to a sale, but we are vegetarians and try to behave in consistency with our beliefs. Although be know a lot of people, we couldn’t think of anyone who either wanted a milk cow or that could handle the potentially dangerous behavior. One morning, after mulling the situation throughout the night, Billy and I came to simultaneous conclusions that Precious should be euthanized.

Synchronistically, I happened to be having a cheese making class at the house that day and was telling the students about our sad conclusions regarding Precious. One of the students, Sally, said, “my husband is a cow whisperer. I think he’d be willing to take on Precious as a project.” After discussing it further with the student, I found out that her husband was a police officer and had lots of experience with bulls, making him a rare, qualified individual to deal with our dangerous bovine. And indeed, when Lonnie came to pick up Precious, he handled her like she was a perp in a drug bust, and we felt good about our decision to let her go with him. Additionally, Sally brought me an enamel punch pot with a spout to be used to catch the whey from my makeshift cheese mold (a pasta strainer). I use this enamel pot every time I make cheese (currently about once a week), and marvel at how uniquely perfect it is for my cheese making. It is the perfect size to hold my stainless steel mold (pasta strainer) and the drain at the bottom eliminates the need to unload the weights to remove the excess whey. It is also a cheerful, bright red that makes me smile. Since it was, in essence traded for Precious, I consider that its usefulness and appropriateness to be a nod from the Supreme Person that we made the right decision in sending Precious away to her new home. I did suspect that Precious’ behavior was due to ghostly influence, but I lacked the skills to be able to sense the presence of ghosts and the skills to deal with them safely.

Shortly after we sent Precious away a friend/godbrother moved into our neighborhood having bought a distressed property that had been empty for some time. Peter told me that he had been “harassed” by a ghost as he was going to sleep but felt that he had been able to expel it. When Peter had a house guest, Vinny, it became apparent that the ghost was still there. “It attacks me every night,” complained Vinny. So we arranged to have a ghost expellation ceremony, led by another godbrother, Jerry. Jerry claimed to be expert in such matters, so he took the lead. Before we started, I sat down quietly and tried to “sense” what was going on. I felt the presence of two timid (female?) ghosts and a strong malevolent male. We put Holy Water around all the windows and doors, and then went through the house loudly singing the Holy Name. Then Jerry chanted a lengthy Sanskrit prayer. After the ceremony, I told Jerry that I felt the ghosts had hid under the stairs and that they were still in the house. I felt that we should have chased them out of an open door and then sealed it with Holy Water, but Jerry was defensive about his protocol. He said that they can go through walls, which I do not think was the case with these particular ghosts.

Sure enough, the next morning Vinny complained that the ghost was still there. Interestingly (synchronistically) a short time later Peter had some a visitors who claimed to have grown up in the house. One of the young visitors claimed to be able to sense ghosts and told Peter that there were three ghosts, including one particularly malevolent ghost still in the house. When I heard about the interesting visitor’s insight, I felt that I was being encouraged to develop my ghost detecting abilities.

Dowsing to detect ghosts

When we bought our present property about 5 years ago, part of the process during escrow was to have the septic system checked. Joe, who came out to do the inspection, was pretty much what you’d expect in a sewer guy: he drove a well-used truck, was very direct in his communication, and you could easily imagine him watching football and drinking beer in his underwear on Sunday afternoon rather than attending a psychic fair. So, when he pulled out his dowsing rods I was surprised and intrigued. Joe walked across the lawn in the area where he suspected our drain field for the septic system with a bent copper wire in each hand, and I watched as the wires, which were parallel, pointing straight ahead, crossed to touch each other as he crossed the drain lines. It didn’t seem woo-woo, it seemed more like a gauge. He let me try and while I tried to keep the wires parallel, when I walked over certain areas of the yard, the wires seemed to move on their own accord.

Afterwards, Billy made me my own dowsing rods, with handles made from rowan wood. I experimented with them and was pleased with how they worked. First, I was able to walk directly to some missing keys that Billy had been searching after for hours. Then, I was able to accurately find water lines on a friend’s property, and have used them to help diagnose illness. They can also help me to detect ghosts.

My dowsing rods are basically two pieces of copper wire bent at a 90 degree angle. Each short end fits into a wooden handle that allows them to pivot with minimum friction. I hold a rod in each hand and have the ends point forward, parallel to one another. If I walk into an area with a ghost, the copper wires will come together, pointing to the ghost.

Ghosts create havoc through telepathy

Although famous ghost stories frequently involve poltergeists—ghosts that can move objects or make sounds—most ghosts affect people primarily through telepathy. I have frequent experiences where I communicate with people and animals telepathically, so I have no more trouble believing in telepathy than I do in believing in the existence of giraffes. Anyone who is skeptical of the possibility of communicating telepathically should Google “science telepathy,” and you’ll be able to read numerous scholarly articles from university researchers on the subject.

The aforementioned problems with our animals demonstrate how a thought can cause havoc, not only in the animals’ lives, but also in the lives of the people connected to the animal. It turns out that ghosts, while they cannot eat food, sustain their subtle bodies with the emotional energy that they create through influencing the thoughts of embodied beings. Negative emotions such as fear, hate, depression, self-loathing, jealousy, anger, irritation attract ghosts the way that blood attracts sharks. Here is a hypothetical story of how someone becomes a ghost and how that ghost makes the decision to suck the life energy from embodied beings:

Imagine driving home from the office along a busy freeway. You’re listening to country music on the radio, thinking about what you’ll have for dinner while at the back of your mind you’re aware of your daughter, Annie, sleeping in her car seat in the back. While it is raining and the sun has just set, traffic is moving along at a good clip and you’re anticipating being home and relaxing with a glass of wine. Suddenly you see the cars in front of you swerving and you see the headlights of a huge truck bearing towards you through the wet windshield. There are horrendous sounds of metal colliding, crunching and tires skidding. The airbag punches you violently in the face and then it is eerily silent. You feel like you are almost being unbuttoned from your body and sense some alarming presences, but you realize amazingly that you are alive. You look into the wreck of your car and see your daughter covered with blood and crying. The driver of the truck is groaning and you see your body crushed behind the steering wheel, motionless. You feel a pull towards a light, sensing that there are almost ropes attached to you, tugging you along, giving you a strong feeling that if you surrender to that pull there will be no turning back. You also sense that if you go on that path that you will have to accept responsibility for the decisions you’ve made in your life. It is just too much to process, and you need to stay with your daughter so you resist the pull to follow the path of the light and break free from the ropes.

You’d never been a particularly religious person. You went to church occasionally as a child and were open to the idea that God may exist, but didn’t ponder what would happen when you died. You figured you’d find out what happens when it happened. You didn’t expect to have choices to make, so you choose the simplest path—staying in your present situation, albeit without a gross material body.

At the funeral you try to get people’s attention, but they don’t seem able to see you. However, some of your friends and family seem to “hear” your thoughts, and your cousin walked right up to where you were standing under the flag and told you how much she’d miss you and that she’d look out for Annie. You had been feeling weak and weary before the funeral, but now found that you could invigorate your new, subtle body by drawing from the emotions of the people at the funeral. Just as your gross material body sustained itself with a variety of food, you found that you could sustain your subtle body with emotions.

Back at the hospital you watch Annie gradually recover from her injuries and you notice other people experiencing grief at the situations of their loved ones. You are embarrassed to intrude on their tragedies, but you feel drawn to their emotions as a way to invigorate yourself. You are ashamed to do it, but feel almost driven to suck from their energies. Just little sips. Just enough to survive.

There were other subtle beings in the hospital, too, you notice. Some of them were particularly nasty, sucking up the grief and pain, while nudging the bereaved to lower depths of despair. Others unashamedly provoke arguments and seem to have made intruding into embodied people’s thoughts an art form. People don’t seem to notice that ugly monsters were prodding their thoughts. They just reacted to the thoughts entering their consciousness, allowing the monsters glee from the resulting mayhem.

Just as there are innumerable personalities among embodied people, similarly there are innumerable personalities among the disembodied. What they have in common is that they need to provoke emotions in embodied people to sustain their subtle bodies. Some ghosts are unable or unwilling to leave a specific location and resort to manipulating emotions within embodied people who happen to chance upon that location.

I’ve come to the conclusion that ghosts are almost ubiquitous. They congregate in places with high levels of emotions such as hospitals, jails, theaters or motels. But they make house calls, too. Anyone who spends time sitting on a pity pot can expect to have his emotions amplified by the heebiejeebies he attracts. Marital spats: delicious! Contemplation of perversion: tasty! Thoughts of suicide: a feast!

Ghosts are Miserable

I had an encounter with the ghost of a friend, Kathleen, shortly after she died of MS. She had been a very close friend who I had decided to avoid when I became aware of some questionable decisions she had made. She was a horse breeder and withheld a commission which had been earned by one of her riders—giving the commission to another rider who didn’t actually train the horse. She also bred a very old mare who had produced $40,000 worth of foals, but was not in condition to carry another foal. The mare died during the birth of her foal and the foal also died. My daughter informed me of Kathleen’s passing, but I was unable to attend the funeral. I was standing in my kitchen about 30 minutes after the funeral was over and strongly sensed Kathleen’s presence. I spoke aloud to her, telling her that I was sorry about her passing, but that she needed to continue on and not remain on this Earthly plane. She let me understand that she was unwilling, and afraid to face the consequences of her decisions when she was alive. I told her that she would only suffer and that she would be unable to find any joy or pleasure while she remained in a subtle body, and that she should grit her teeth and face the music. I got the impression that she wouldn’t be able to confront the truth of her life’s decisions and that she would be staying. Over the next several weeks, she occasionally checked in with me, but I showed her no sympathy and told her to move on.

Once a month I perform a ceremony where I invite disembodied spirits to pass through and get on with their evolution. I explain to them that it may be disturbing and painful for them to face what awaits them, but in the long run it will be much more to their benefit than remaining as they are. Everyone has desires to fulfill, and the options for fulfilling them as a ghost are very limited indeed. Additionally, I pointed out that they didn’t die when they died, and they aren’t going to die by taking the leap and passing through the light. I felt Kathleen pass through in the first ceremony that I performed and I wish her the best.

I’ve come to understand that most people who suffer from personality disorders, depression , bulimia or addictive behaviors are probably strongly influenced by at least one ghost. Many ghosts become attached to a particular living person, and end up changing the thought patterns of the affected person, always to his/her detriment. I know of one young person, Amy, who is considerate, helpful, charming and capable. Then at times, it is almost as if a cloud covers her and she becomes an arrogant bully. To anyone who has dealt with her at any length, it is almost as if she were two separate people. Amy really is a great gal: it is the ghost that is the ass. Now that I’ve made her aware of her attaching tormentor, she has a handle on dis-empowering the ghost who we’ve named Samantha. All Amy has to do, when she feels Samantha trying to take over is to order Samantha to leave. I’ve had Amy visualize a weapon which she mentally activates with God’s power. She uses the weapon to expel Samantha and it seems to be working very well.

Ghosts Lie

Some people who are particularly telepathic are able to hear complete sentences or describe detailed scenes transmitted from ghosts, and some ghosts are better than others at transmitting telepathic ideas. I have a friend, Atma, who while visiting India ran into a street “magician” who wanted to tell his fortune. To “prove” his abilities, the street magician asked Atma to write a number on a piece of paper which he folded and handed to the magician. The magician put the paper into his pocket without being able to see it and was able to correctly say the number that Atma had written. Then the magician wrote on a paper, folded it and put it in my friend’s pocket. He then asked Atma to name a flower. Atma said that he clearly heard the word “rose” in his mind, but said “lotus” instead. Indeed, when the paper was read, it said, “rose”. In spite of his failure with the “rose”, the street magician claimed to be able to correctly predict the future and tried to sell his predictive services to Atma. Atma strongly suspected that the magician was working with a ghost, and that he had no actual predictive abilities at all, but was making use of the telepathic abilities of the ghost he was working with to secure customers. We can only wonder how the magician paid the ghost.

Further, I know a woman, Martha, who seems to have a highly developed ability to communicate telepathically with ghosts. She actually claims to hear voices. One time I saw her give a Tarot card reading to a friend and she was able to give the names and some personal details of this friend’s relatives who had died suddenly, one by suicide. She claims to be able to give details about properties she’s never seen that are thousands of miles away and believes that she is in telepathic contact with Sasquatch that roam just beyond her property. Unfortunately Martha does not realize that ghosts lie. As with the ghost-assisted magician described above, ghosts tend to cloak their lies with truth. The magician could, probably with the help of his ghost, read the number written on the paper, but he couldn’t predict the future. In Martha’s case, she hears the ghosts and probably because she is generally a truthful person, she assumes that the information she hears is truthful. Some of the information is true occasionally, as in the visualization of distant properties and the details about the dead friends. But the ghosts deceive her to her detriment.

I have wondered why Martha seems to have very little respect for me. Whether it was regarding horses, spirituality, politics or philosophy, she has never valued my insight or realizations. In fact, her disregard was so obvious that my husband wondered why I associated with her. Eventually we discovered that Martha was interacting with a neighbor, Gordon, whom we had introduced to her at a social event at our home. We were aware that Gordon was under the influence of a particularly malevolent female ghost (who, as it turned out was probably the ghost that caused Precious to attack me). Although he is in his sixth decade of life, he has never been able to live with another human being and complains about being lonely. Apparently he has a history of bedazzling beautiful, intelligent women and once they are under his (her) spell, he grinds their emotions to mincemeat and then discards them. I know of at least four women that he has treated in that way. I’m pretty sure that Gordon’s malevolent ghost was dissing me to Martha at every opportunity and she could hear it clearly, although she probably thought that the thoughts were coming from her own intuition.

One instance stands out. I had happened to make a fairly banal statement regarding a undisputed political event (the fact that the US has given itself the right to execute anyone suspected of terrorism without a trial) and Martha responded, “I don’t believe that.” I told her that it was well-documented, and she replied that she’d have to hear it from several Liberal news sources before she could believe it. Naturally I was hurt, and in hindsight I should have asked her when she thought I had become a liar. Instead, I responded to the issue in question and sent her links to several Liberal news sources confirming what I had claimed. Instead of apologizing that she had doubted me, she minimized the information and then attacked me for being a bully. In a very hurtful e-mail she used the very same words that Gordon had used with the sweet woman he had just dumped: drama, shaming, blaming, insulting, belittling. Martha is a beautiful, talented and interesting person, and I became worried that she had fallen under the spell of Gordon’s evil monster. I implored her to do some research regarding the truth. It would be a simple matter to ask people who have known me for decades whether I create drama and lie, and then ask people who have known Gordon for decades whether he creates drama and lies. Martha was so convinced that what she was hearing in her mind was the truth that she refused to investigate my claims.

This is an instance where a ghost, simply using telepathy as a lever, was able to successfully create a maelstrom of ugly emotions and destroy a potentially valuable friendship. Do not minimize the power of a malevolent ghost’s lies!

How to determine if you are affected by ghosts

Unless you are basking in the bliss of Brahman Realization, if you inhabit a human body on this planet at this time you are affected by ghosts. Ghosts can affect people in a variety of ways, depending on the circumstances and the individuals—ghosts and humans/animals—involved. A person who weakens his natural protection (aura) by consuming alcohol or drugs can become so susceptible to ghosts that he may begin to hear their voices. I recently listened to an interview with a PhD psychologist who claims that he has been able to reverse psychosis and schizophrenia by having his patients ignore the voices they hear, or, even better, do the opposite of what the voices demand. “Dr. Jerry” says that he works within the prison system and that his efforts have been criticized by his supervisors because within the medical profession schizophrenia is incurable.

If you ever have negative emotions, the frequency of those emotions attracts ghosts. I’ll use myself as an example of how the ghosts capitalize on these negative emotions and amplify them. Here’s what happens to me: Sometimes the person I live with does something (or doesn’t do something) that annoys or irritates me. In this example, he forgot to put the “stern gratistat” away, and I need it. In my mind I’ll think, “I wonder where he left the “stern gratistat?” Maybe he was using it in the garden.” And I’ll go look in a likely place in the garden, and as I’m walking there, I’ll think something like, “he never puts things away,” actually a very unfair judgment, but it’s how my mind works. At that point, because I need to use the “stern gratistat,” my life has come to a standstill until I can find it. That is when my unfair judgment attracts ghosts and their malefic influence turns my mind from being slightly annoyed to being extremely irritable. I’m unaware of the ghosts’ influence, and my thoughts are becoming increasingly irritable do to their meddling me, “why can’t he put things away? How can I imagine where he used it last? Doesn’t he think about anyone besides himself?”

I’ll consciously fight the irritable thoughts, but they’re relentless. Finally, I’ll consciously decide not to grouch at him, but I almost always embarrass myself by speaking harshly when I see him—because the ghosts won’t rest until they’ve really stirred things up and been able to energize themselves on the feast.

The ghosts that affect me are able to influence me only when my “shields” are down due to letting in negative thoughts. Some people have “attached” ghosts, ghosts that make it their personal mission to cause havoc in their chosen person’s life. These ghosts may have been relatives when they were alive, or have become attached due to the living person’s susceptibility to their influence. If you think that you or someone you care about has an attached ghost (a ghost that hovers around a particular person and affects the person’s behavior patterns) here are some symptoms that indicate the problem is probably a ghost:

• The person in question has been diagnosed with a personality disorder.

• He/she seems to have a variety of personalities in different circumstances.

• He is taking antidepressant pharmaceuticals or is morose and depressed.

• He is a pathological liar.

• He has addictive behaviors.

• He is lonely—ghosts influence their attached person to drive away other people so that the ghost can have the person to himself.

People who have welcomed attached ghosts to the point that they can clearly hear the ghost are diagnosed by the medical profession as schizophrenic. In most cases, people with personality disorders or schizophrenia have weakened their own shields/aura by consuming intoxicants or by engaging in abhorrent behavior. This allows the ghosts access to the embodied person’s consciousness.

How to banish ghosts

Each ghost is an individual personality, so there isn’t a text book procedure to expel them. However here are some guidelines that can be applied to various categories of ghosts.

Hobo Ghosts: The easiest ghosts to expel are what I’d call the “hobo” ghosts, ghosts that wander around and crash various venues. They tend to seek out uninhabited buildings or outbuildings that are dark, dirty, damp and drafty. You can learn to use dowsing rods or a pendulum to help you verify the presence of ghosts, but chances are, if the building is vacant and dank, it has ghosts. All you usually have to do to expel them is to firmly tell them, “OUT!” They’ll leave, but chances are, if the conditions remain vacant and dank, you’ll just get new hobos. In a situation where it is not practical to inhabit and clean the building, it is a good idea to put up a sign in any vacant (or occupied building) letting future potential loiterers know that they’re unwelcome. The “Om” symbol works very well as a sign to keep ghosts from inhabiting a structure. The symbol is associated with Higher Consciousness, and that is exactly what ghosts are avoiding, so they’ll stay away from a structure that has the Om symbol over the doors and windows. Additionally, sprinkling spiritualized (holy) water around the doors and windows sets up a frequency that deters ghosts from entering.

Localized Ghosts: Some ghosts who are compelled to stay in a specific location, often because they left their gross material body at that spot, will “haunt” a particular house, barn or outdoor area. This type of ghost is generally fairly easy to remove but may be pesky if they have become comfortable in the situation. Throughout my life, I’ve occasionally participated in “cleansing” a building or other location, but recently I’ve become much more aware that it is a “calling” for me to do this. People who have no experience doing this should find someone who has had success and enlist their help. The bottom line is that the ghost needs to be confronted into leaving. The attitude needed is something like a confident dog that walks into a room where other dogs are sleeping. The presence of the confident dog, along with barking and hackles, will result in the sleeping dogs vacating the location. In my experience, that confidence really comes from the knowledge that I’m not really the one expelling the sleeping dogs: I’ve got backup in the form of Paramatma also known as the Holy Ghost. Beings in ghostly bodies cannot remain in His presence.

Shark Ghosts: Ghosts are attracted to frequencies that resonate with their particular mood, just as flies are attracted to poo, or a shark is attracted to blood, a ghost is tuned to various thought frequencies. An angry ghost will be attracted to an angry thought, a depressed ghost will be attracted to a gloomy mood, a blameful ghost will be attracted to blamers, etc. Any time a person’s negative attitude is irrationally amplified, shark ghosts are the culprits—they literally feed off of the amplification that their presence creates. Lately, now that I’m aware of ghosts, when confronted with a situation that makes me angry, I make the decision not to “own” any angry thoughts and to just drop the matter mentally. I expel any attracted beings by being conscious of the Supreme Truth and mentally fight them away with a sharp, flexible sword made of Light. It has worked wonders and I expect that the person I live with is grateful. In fact, this knowledge has hugely benefited my whole outlook on life because now I know that I can easily fight off the dark moods that sometimes plague me. I’ve learned to identify situations that spark negative thoughts in an effort to get ahead of the sharks. For me some of the situations that have the potential to spark shark ghost attacks include: having more to do than I can accomplish, finding missing articles, and doing things that cause pain to others, such as working with bee hives (bees inevitably get killed) or giving injections.

Since I’ve been able to overcome the shark ghosts, I’ve noticed a heightened ability to receive direction from higher sources. It seems that the sharks are always there, ready to feast, but when they are denied, the static interference dissipates and allows clearer access to intuition.

Attached Ghosts: Unfortunately attached ghosts are always able to influence the mind of their chosen person, making the affected person resist any effort to expel or even acknowledge the ghost. A friend became aware that his wife has an attached ghost, and he was advised to put Om symbols on the doors and windows and to put some spiritualized items in his wife’s bedroom. The wife refused to allow the Om sign on her bedroom window, and removed the items although they had been carefully hidden from her. She suffers from delusions, but refuses to confront the possibility that these delusions come from a being outside of her own mind.

Banishing an attached ghost is impossible without the assistance of the person affected. When I first became aware of my calling to combat ghosts, I confronted the female ghost who is afflicting my godbrother, Gordon. I entered a meditative state of consciousness and mentally battled her using my flexible sword of Truth. I was able to detach her from Gordon and left her weakened and hanging by her feet over an ocean cliff. However Gordon wanted her back and was able to nourish her to strength. Just as when Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed 700 times. I’ve succeeded in proving 700 ways how not to build a light bulb”, I did learn not to waste energy trying to fix something that doesn’t want fixing. I’ve also learned, in cases with attached ghosts that it is important to work with a group of like-minded people so that the work can be substantiated by others and the efforts amplified. Fortunately synchronicities have arranged that I have a support group of women who have a similar calling, which I feel has increased our abilities exponentially.

If someone wants to expel an attached ghost, that person needs to be very committed to the fight. He/she needs to avoid any mind altering intoxication and make an effort to determine the inner reason that he allowed the ghost to influence him initially. We all have a natural shield against invasion by subtle energies which is also known as our aura. Taking intoxicants, including pharmaceutical mind altering drugs, can weaken or cause holes in the aura that allow the ghost to affect the person in question. The person fighting an attached ghost should enlist help from experienced, capable people and should also appeal for help to the Supreme Person and His representatives such as Jesus. Ghosts are creatures of darkness and ignorance, so all that we need to banish them is light and truth.

Conclusion

A ghost’s subtle body is made up of three things: mind, intelligence and ego. While our gross bodies are affected by gross conditions such as heat, cold, loud noises, need for food, need of water etc., a ghost’s body is physically affected by thoughts. Actually, even embodied beings are also strongly affected by thoughts: have you ever seen a little dog put up his hackles and walk stiff-legged up to a much bigger dog and cause the bigger dog to flee? It is the little guy’s mind/thoughts that caused the big dog to back off. Similarly, all we need to do is to mentally banish a ghost. Here is how to do it: Imagine a weapon that suits you. It could be a bright light, a sword, a whip, scripture, a taser or even a bell. Then mentally activate that weapon spiritually by calling on a Higher Power. Depending on your spiritual understanding you could call on Jesus, Mohammad, Nature, God or Krsna to activate your weapon. To the extent that you are able to humbly ask for help, to that extent will you have access to the Greater Power. It is like a child confronting the monster in his closet. He has no worries if Daddy is in the room with him. Good luck and get those peskies out of you life!