Sunday, January 31, 2010

WHICH WITCH IS WHICH?
January 31, 2010 By Stephen Ellis

The other day I received a letter from a reader that was so unusual, I had to re-read it carefully before I could respond. The letter was from a young lady who told me that she was afraid that she was a witch; that she believed her mother was a witch.

The topic of witches and/or warlocks (the male witch) is one I have never written about although it is certainly a worthy topic.

First of all…what is a witch? There is no clear definition of a witch: someone who uses magical powers to harm someone; someone who concocts magical potions to capture someone’s heart or to do them harm or to give them power. The basic concept of witchcraft throughout history is that witches used their power against Christianity. It was on this basis that numbers of innocent women were burned at the stake in the 16th and 17th century and during the early years of colonization of America. Believe it or not, there are still areas of southern Africa and the Caribbean islands where witchcraft is used today; especially in areas where the religions of Voodoo are practiced.

Literature has had a “field-day” with witchcraft up to and including the Harry Potter series. Potter, like witches, is supposed to be able to fly on a broomstick, mix magical potions and cast spells.

Actually, more current literature has distinguished “good” witches from “evil” witches such as seen in “The Wizard of Oz or in the hit play “Wicked”. Good witches are supposed to be beautiful (“The Witches of Eastwick”) while evil witches have a characteristically long, hook nose, a face with lots of boils on it and, invariably, either wear a black hood over their heads (in Walt Disney’s “Snow White”) or a pointed black hat (“The Wizard of Oz”).

The distinguishing thing about witches and warlocks is that they have the power of “black magic”. Black Magic is a power that supposedly emanates from the Devil (the Anti-Christ) himself. Literature, especially 15th through the 18th century books, often speak about the power of the Devil, the summoning of his Demons through witchcraft through designs of the pentagram, etc. Often witchcraft has been used to give sexual powers to men and make wanton sluts out of virginous women. It’s all pure literature!

The fact is that Christianity, as we know it today, was not created until 326 AD at the Conference of Nicaea. Although the Devil was mentioned as a fallen angel in the Old Testament, it was Dante’s “Divine Comedy” written in about 1320 AD that first described what Hell and the Devil looked like and attributed magical powers to him.

Is witchcraft and black magic all nonsense? Probably. There are still many things in our world that defy rational explanation, and possibly witchcraft and black magic are among them. To me, however, it is highly unlikely.

So what about the girl who is afraid she is a witch…and believes her mother is one? The word “fear” rears its ugly head again!

Perhaps she saw her mother mixing potions…perhaps she saw her mother attempting to cast spells, etc. and was afraid her mother fit the description of a witch. Witches are not the only ones who do such things: Witch Doctors and pseudo-physicians do this too…as do many people who are fanatically religious.

Even today, Jews flock to their Synagogue on Yom Kippur to atone for their sins and pray that God will seal them in the Book of Life for another year. Christians re-avow their love of Jesus to give them the strength to fight the sins tempted by the Devil. Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca to purify them from their sins. I could go on and on. The reason for all of this is “fear” and “superstition”.

The woman who wrote to me feared that she had inherited some evil traits from her mother. Her fear is understandable because superstitions are readily passed down from parent to child. The truth is that there is some evil in all of us, and all of us have the ability to overcome it. Every human has the right and the wherewithal to say “no” and to not do something they believe is wrong or harmful. In the case of my reader, the fear that her mother’s practices had been inherited has dominated her life. The practice of evil is not inherited…it is taught! She can gain her freedom from the thoughts that have imprisoned her mind by recognizing that she is her own person, and not just her mother’s daughter.

Years ago I witnessed a Voodoo ritual where black magic and witchcraft was supposedly used. It was interesting to watch. If you have ever seen a Voodoo ritual and/or joined others trying to practice witchcraft, even if just for fun, please tell me about it.

Stebrel@aol.com

Monday, January 25, 2010

AFRAID TO BE PSYCHIC?
January 24, 2010 By Stephen Ellis

The mail I get from readers is wonderful. I always manage to find the time to answer all questions E-mailed to me despite the fact that I still have a full-time job (even at my age). To me, the mail I get can be as much a learning experience as it is a chance to help others become acquainted with themselves. I have written about “fear” before: How people are afraid of ghosts, UFOs and almost anything associated with the paranormal. For some reason, I never stopped to think about the fear of people who actually have a sixth sense, can communicate with the dead and/or are sensitive to psychic things. It seriously concerns me.

Many psychically sensitive people are not only afraid that their parents or friends will think they are crazy, but they sometimes think to themselves that they actually are crazy: How is it they can hear sounds others do not hear; how come they can sense the presence of others who cannot be seen? Isn’t hearing voices in your head a sign of schizophrenia or paranoia? And what about the way other people look at you if you tell them about it?

A lot of kids have imaginary friends…but imagine how your parents must feel when you scream at them to be careful because they are about step on your unseen friend. Adult reaction can be very frightening to children.

The line between bi-polar disorders and being super sensitive to paranormal phenomena is very thin…and sometimes it’s as imaginary as that imaginary friend. It would not surprise me in the least if many children diagnosed with bi-polar disorders are actually children with a sixth sense who are too young to know how to handle it.

The truth is that many children are born super-sensitive to paranormal things…but there is enormous pressure around them to stifle their natural instincts and “behave like an adult”. Family and friends have, undoubtedly killed or subdued the psychic powers within a lot of children.

Please do not underestimate the psychic powers of children: Just about every single case of reincarnation that has been verified with overwhelming evidence has come from a child: How would a four-year-old child know, when taken to an aviation museum, that the bomb-shaped metal casing beneath a military aircraft was a spare fuel tank and not a bomb? Yet this is exactly what happened! How would that child sense he was a pilot on a P-40 fighter plane that was shot down near Iwo Jima in WWII? Even to the extent of describing the Mitsubishi Fighters that shot him down or the little-known aircraft carrier where he was based. How about the three-year-old girl city dweller who described living in a mountain shack in Tennessee a hundred years earlier (including a description of an outdoor water pump and an outhouse)?

Or, how could a seven-year old child describe the interior of a WWII submarine and the effect of a depth charge on it.

May children are psychically sensitive as children…and they seem to outgrow that sensitivity. Memories that they spoke about when they were five or six are completely blotted-out from their memories by the time they are ten. Or, perhaps the memories have merely been suppressed by an adult world. The memories are still there when hypnotized.

We all live in a world where the greatest single desire of humans is to be loved and accepted. Fear of losing love and respect has destroyed an infinite number of lives.

So it is when we find we have a super-power or a strong sensitivity to things the world terms as paranormal, we tend to hide or suppress those things out of fear rather than chance we will lose the love or respect of those we love or whose love we want and need.

The truth is that we are hiding who or what we really are from the rest of the world. If you want to be loved and respected, earn that love and respect for who and what you really are. Don’t let the pressures of everyday life kill one of the most beautiful things inside you.

Please write and tell me about the psychic things you try to keep secret. I won’t use your name unless you tell me it’s OK to do so.

Stebrel@aol.com

Monday, January 18, 2010

HYPNOTISM

January 17, 2010 By Stephen Ellis

One of the most common, yet still unexplained, things we have all heard about is hypnotism. Most of us have seen shows where a hypnotist makes the subjects do weird (sometimes funny) things; where it is demonstrated that a hypnotized person can be made immune to pain or possess great strength. More serious hypnotists will practice painless childbirth, painless dentistry, the breaking of habits such as nail-biting or smoking. Some qualified hypnotherapists will evoke memories of long buried things, explore past lives and use hypnotism as a tool in psychotherapy.

Yet, very few understand the “why” and the “how” of working with a hypnotized person. Hypnotism may be a key link between the normal and the paranormal.

First of all, let’s clear up a few myths: 1-Not everyone can be hypnotized to the same extent. You have to be willing to allow yourself to be hypnotized. There are certain drugs that can be used to help hypnotize an unwilling subject, but the result is quite different than hypnotizing a willing subject. 2-If you are hypnotized, despite false and misleading stories to the contrary, there is absolutely no chance that you will not wake up. If left alone, a hypnotized person will covert to normal sleep…and wake up normally.

On the surface, the only thing we really know about hypnotism is that it results from what we call “suggestion”. The hypnotist suggests something and the willing subject actually feels what is suggested. The hypnotist suggests “sleep” and the subject sleeps. The hypnotist suggests that pain cannot be felt…and pain cannot be felt.

But, as I just said…that’s what’s on the surface. Now let’s explore what is really happening:

As I have so-often stated, mind (or aura) is completely different than the brain. If the brain is injured, the mind/aura continues to function normally. When we are awake, the brain is in control. But, like every other part of the body, the brain needs to rest or sleep. When it does, the mind/aura takes over. That’s why, when we sleep, we dream…but what we see in our dreams is a distortion of reality because we are not seeing with our optic nerve and we are not hearing with our ear drum. So, even things that are familiar to us look and sound differently when we dream.

A person's mind/aura is extremely powerful. If the mind believes you can feel no pain, you can comfortably walk over a bed of hot coals and not feel pain. If you allow your brain to function and create doubt, your brain knows that hot coals will burn your feet, so the brain steps in and your feet get burned…but not if your mind/aura stays in complete control.

So, effectively, the hypnotist is putting the brain to sleep and communicating directly with a person’s mind/aura!

The brain (which tries to protect your body) tells you that the human body has its limits in strength and endurance. But your mind can expand these limits so that a hypnotized girl of 90 pounds can have a cement block sledge-hammered over her rigid body while suspended between two chairs…and a man can lift the rear of a car off the street with his bare hands.

Your brain is an incredible computer and can store every memory of everything you’ve ever done or said. But because the brain’s filing system is so clogged with the sights and sounds of everyday life, it sometimes takes days or even weeks to bring up a forgotten memory. Your mind, however, doesn’t have that problem. It is oblivious to the sights and sounds around it and can bring up forgotten memories in an instant. Thus a hypnotized person can recall their third birthday party…who came to it and what presents were received. Or, if the brain sleeps deeply enough, the mind can bring up a prior life such as has been shown in numerous reincarnation studies.

In one short blog, I can only scratch the surface of what can be and is being accomplished through hypnosis. Hypnosis can be a great tool in psychotherapy; it can open the doors to astral projection; to non-medical healing, etc. There are far too many advantages to being hypnotized to set forth in this blog. Being hypnotized is a wonderful sensation and can do much for your life, in general. There is one very important caution:

You must know and completely trust your hypnotist. A hypnotist can make you do some strange things by making suggestions directly to your mind/aura. So be certain that anyone who wants to hypnotize you is professional and always have a trustworthy friend in the room with you when you are being hypnotized.

There is much, much more to say about hypnotism…what it can and cannot do, etc. If you have questions, I’ll provide the answers. Write me at stebrel@aol.com.

Monday, January 11, 2010

SCIENTIFIC PROOF

January 10, 2010 By Stephen Ellis

There is a very old adage I have repeated many times: “If you don’t believe something, no amount of proof will convince you. If you do believe something, no proof is necessary.”

This adage was brought home to me in a very powerful way: A reader spoke with me about UFOs and told me that although she has an open mind, she is still not a believer that UFOs really exist. She wonders about why all photographs have been fuzzy; she wonders what sort of people can develop machines that fly faster and higher than our latest high-tech aircraft; she wonders where they came from and where they go to; she wonders why none of them seem to communicate with us…and how (according to numerous descriptions), they can be the size of large cruise ship.

That’s a lot of questions, and not all of them can be answered. Only a year ago, she thought that UFOs were the product of vivid imaginations and never really existed. Her questions indicate that her mind has started to open to other possibilities. Still, she is clinging to an element of skepticism like millions of others who want “scientific proof”.

This particular reader is very special to me. She is exceptionally intelligent (she has a PhD) and she is my daughter. She has read my book “Explaining the Unexplained”, I have flooded her with articles written by people who have nothing to gain by deception, she’s seen videos, photos, etc. and what I call overwhelming evidence.

I’m certain she would like some “scientific proof”…but the fact is that “scientific proof” does not exist outside of the laboratory. Science can prove (with reasonable certainty) such things as water being composed of H2O or what the reaction will be when you mix certain chemicals; beyond that, there is very little “scientific proof” of anything. Science can’t explain how it is that we live on a little ball in the middle of nothingness, how it is that the ball keeps spinning at the same pace or how it is that it rotates around its star (the Sun) at the same rate annually. Science will use a trash pot term such as “gravity” to try and explain it, but science will admit is does not know what gravity is or how it works…only that it exists. Then, too, science keeps changing its mind: They used to say that the Earth held its accurate rotation because there was no friction in space to slow it down. But, as our satellites have shown, there is friction in space and it does slow down the rotation of satellites. Science used to say that gravity kept us equidistant from the Sun…only now our space research has shown that our orbit around the Sun is elliptical and not circular.

It is highly unlikely that there will ever be “scientific proof” about anything paranormal.

There have been millions of people who have had encounters with ghosts…but there is no “scientific proof”. There have been numerous cases of former lives with documented, verified facts and knowledge about a former life the living could not possibly have known…but, not with “scientific proof”. There have been more than two million UFO sightings and hundreds of thousands of photos and videos taken…some by figures of national and international prominence, others by military leaders of many nations…but, of course, no “scientific proof”.

Let’s see if I can respond to some of my daughter’s questions:

1. Why are photos of UFOs always “fuzzy”? As I understand it, UFOs, generally, are moving at very high rates of speed. Moving objects are always “fuzzy” when photographed…especially when they are moving at speeds in excess of 1,000 mph.

2. What sort of beings can create machines that fly faster and higher…? To believe that the human mind and its capabilities are the highest possible is to have a monumental ego. I believe it is possible for other beings to have intelligence and manufacturing capabilities far beyond that of man.

3. Where do such beings come from and where do they go? I don’t know. There are several possibilities to consider: From outer space, from the dark sides of our moon, from other planets, from beneath our oceans, from another dimension, etc. The “Super String Theory” which is now the pet theory of astronomy and physics is strongly indicative that there are other dimensions we cannot see and there may very well be parallel planets, identical to Earth, in those dimensions.

4. Why don’t they communicate? Again, I don’t know. It’s possible that their system of communications is far too sophisticated for our listening devices…or possibly they communicate through telepathy.

As I said, there are many things I don’t know at this time but that I’m hoping to discover before I depart my Earthly realm. To me it is important is that we all open our minds to other possibilities and allow our imaginations to run free. But for the imagination of some people, man would have never learned to fly…to store food…to record music…to visit the moon, etc., etc. etc.

Humans are the only Earthbound creatures that can imagine and create. Don’t limit your beliefs to those few things that have “scientific proof”.

If you have any comments or questions, contact me at stebrel@aol.com

Sunday, January 3, 2010

EARTHBUND OR INTO THE LIGHT

January 2, 2010 By Stephen Ellis

A reader posed an exceptionally insightful question that definitely needs to be answered: The reader asked, when we die, do we (our spirits) go into the light or remain Earthbound?

Actually, this is a very poignant question that should concern everyone. The immediate and truthful answer is “I don’t know and I won’t know for sure until it’s time to add my name to an obituary column.”

However, there are a lot of clues:

Based on interviews with almost one thousand people who have had “near death” experiences and those who have actually been declared “dead” for up to one hour, the “death” experience is somewhat universal: Almost all those who have died (and returned) or nearly died say that the first thing they felt was effortlessly traveling into a long tunnel with a bright light at the end of it. Some people with strong religious beliefs have added they saw a figure (Jesus?) at the end of the tunnel. Others have said that when they reached the light they saw deceased members of their family who told the (nearly) dead person, they must go back…which they did.

Some scientists have claimed that this is merely an hallucination created as the blood stops flowing to the brain. To me, this scientific explanation is utter nonsense. People who have been declared medically dead for five minutes, ten minutes…one hour, etc. have certainly not had blood flowing to their brain for quite some time. But their minds are still working. This tends to confirm what I have published many times: The mind and the brain are two totally different entities. I can’t explain how it is that some people whose flow of blood to their brain has stopped for more than one minute have come back to life without any apparent brain damage…but facts are facts.

I have communicated with numerous people who, under hypnosis, have remembered past lives. While each case is different, there are some common factors coming out of past life experiences. Many such people seem to remember the experience of dying; remember their funeral and what happened subsequently. A very significant percentage of them, for many years, did not believe they were dead and tried to influence the lives of the living.

“The light”, as it is commonly referred to, appears to be the entry to a different dimension where the minds/auras of those who have passed-on seem to congregate. That’s where you can visit with your dead mother, father, grandparents, etc. Maybe that’s what’s called Heaven. Then, you go to what I call “the waiting place” where you wait to be reborn. See my blog on the “Before Mommy”.

It seems that those who do not have very many dead loved ones tend to get reborn more quickly. If someone dies a sudden or premature death, they may easily have predeceased their parents, etc. This explains the rapid re-birth of Shanti Devi, James Johnston or James McCready.

It seems that memories of young children are often the best when it comes to remembering a past life. As our brain matures it becomes filled with life experiences and learns ways to cope with life. This leaves less and less room in the brain for the memories of past lives. The brain never forgets, but it buries less used memories. Thus, almost all past lives (other than under hypnosis where the subject is first regressed to childhood) are best remembered by children.

Dead people who refuse to accept the fact that they are dead, hang around their favorite places on Earth and are called ghosts. A ghost will only disappear when it recognizes that he/she is dead and willingly goes into the light. Then…and only then can he/she wait to be re-born. Because their bodies are dead and buried, ghosts often appear to the living as shadows or orbs of light.

The reader’s question called for a very complex answer and I hope I’ve made it simple enough for all my readers to understand.

If you have any questions or experiences you’d like to share, please contact me at stebrel@aol.com