Ghosts - By Hans Holzer Page 0,37

because of it the individuals involved cannot understand what is happening to them. They are unable to see beyond their own immediate environment or problem, and so they are forced to continually relive those final moments of agony until someone breaks through and explains things to them. In this respect they are like psychotics being helped by the psychoanalyst, except that the patient is not on the couch, but rather in the atmosphere of destiny. Man’s electromagnetic nature makes this perfectly plausible; that is, since our individual personality is really nothing more than a personal energy field encased in a denser outer layer called the physical body, the personality can store emotional stimuli and memories indefinitely without much dimming, very much like a tape recording that can be played over and over without losing clarity or volume.

Those who die normally under conditions of adjustment need not go through this agony, and they seem to pass on rapidly into that next state of consciousness that may be a “heaven” or a “hell,” according to what the individual’s mental state at death might have been. Neither state is an objective place, but is a subjective state of being. The sum total of similar states of being may, however, create a quasi-objective state approaching a condition or “place” along more orthodox religious lines. My contact with the confused individuals unable to depart from the earth’s sphere, those who are commonly called “ghosts” or earth-bound spirits, is through a trance medium who will lend her physical body temporarily to the entities in difficulty so that they can speak through the medium and detail their problems, frustrations, or unfinished business. Here again, the parallel with psychoanalysis becomes apparent: in telling their tales of woe, the restless ones relieve themselves of their pressures and anxieties and thus may free themselves of their bonds. If fear is the absence of information, as I have always held, then knowledge is indeed the presence of understanding. Or view it the other way round, if you prefer. Because of my books, people often call on me to help them understand problems of this nature. Whenever someone has seen a ghost or heard noises of a human kind that do not seem to go with a body, and feel it might be something I ought to look into, I usually do.

To be sure, I don’t always find a ghost. But frequently I do find one, and moreover, I find that many of those who have had the uncanny experiences are themselves mediumistic, and are therefore capable of being communications vehicles for the discarnates. Ghosts are more common than most people realize, and, really quite natural and harmless. Though, at times, they are sad and shocking, as all human suffering is, for man is his worst enemy, whether in the flesh or outside of it. But there is nothing mystical about the powers of ESP or the ability to experience ghostly phenomena.

Scoffers like to dismiss all ghostly encounters by cutting the witnesses down to size—their size. The witnesses are probably mentally unbalanced, they say, or sick people who hallucinate a lot, or they were tired that day, or it must have been the reflection from (pick your light source), or finally, in desperation, they may say yes, something probably happened to them, but in the telling they blew it all up so you can’t be sure any more what really happened.

I love the way many people who cannot accept the possibility of ghosts being real toss out their views on what happened to strangers. They say, “Probably this or that,” and from “probably” for them, it is only a short step to “certainly.” The human mind is as clever at inventing away as it is at hallucinating. The advantage in being a scientifically trained reporter, as I am, is the ability to dismiss people’s interpretations and find the facts. I talked of the Ghosts I’ve Met in a book a few years ago that bore that title. Even more fascinating are the people I’ve met who encounter ghosts. Are they sick, unbalanced, crackpots or other unrealistic individuals whose testimony is worthless?

Far from it.

Those who fall into that category never get to me in the first place. They don’t stand up under my methods of scrutiny. Crackpots, beware! I call a spade a spade, as I proved when I exposed the fake spiritualist camp practices in print some years ago.

The people who come across ghostly manifestations are people like you.

Take the couple from