In the first half, Director of the Institute for Hermetic Studies, Mark Stavish, discussed his latest work on poltergeists, possession, and negative psychic phenomena. It can be hard to tell whether someone is under the influence of a hostile entity or just having a kind of psychiatric episode, and sometimes these two elements blend together, he noted. There are various classes of entities that could be communicating or influencing a person, he cited, including someone living, the spirits of the deceased, ghosts still attached to our world, angelic beings, demons, and elementals-- intelligent but hard to categorize spirit forms.
There are a number of stages that can occur before full possession such as obsession, in which people are influenced to do something such as drinking, or excessive spending, he detailed. These states tend to be emotionally powerful yet destructive, he said, adding that "emotions are the food of the invisible." The negative entities thrive on fear and dark emotions, and often go after children and teenagers because it sets up a feedback loop or increase of such emotions within a family, he continued.
A lot of current ghosthunters operate without a background in occult studies, and have a very narrow philosophical view, so they don't even think in terms of someone being possessed by another living person, he remarked. The people that are most vulnerable to these kinds of psychological manipulations or psychic influence are open in some way to receiving these communications, and lack a certain faith in themselves, he observed. Ghosts, Stavish revealed, exist in their own time and dimension and could cohabit the same house, potentially without even being aware of each other. We're awash in a variety of spirits and energies all the time, we just don't typically see them, he suggested.
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Midweek Open Lines were featured in the latter half, and a number of callers shared their own ghostly encounters and experiences. Dave from Washington state described an incident that took place in 1977, when he and two friends stopped at a local Catholic church and saw a magnificent female apparition that was reminiscent of the Virgin Mary. Ralph, a spiritual healer from Monroe, LA, talked about his clearing process, in which he moves a magnet across a person's forehead where their "third eye" is located. Rosie in California also related an experience from the 1970s, where she saw a 'Shadow Person' or dark entity standing under an arch at her family home in Chicago.
News segment guests: David Voights, John Curtis