Free E-book by Eric Weiss: The Long Trajectory: Reincarnation and Life After Death

http://ericweiss.com/the-long-trajectory

Fear of Ghosts

There seems to be good evidence that fear of ghosts is innate. This evidence consists of reports of apparitions causing terror in animals. A number of these are recounted in Miracles and Modern Spiritualism by Alfred Russel Wallace (co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection). They are told in the section "Are There Objective Apparitions" in the subsection "Effects of phantasms on animals". Here are a few examples:

I have already mentioned the case of the female figure in white, seen by three persons floating over a hedge ten feet above the ground, when the horse they were driving suddenly stopped and shook with fright.

...

In the remarkable account of a haunted house during an occupation of twelve months by a well-known English Church dignitary, the very different behaviour of dogs in the presence of real and of phantasmal disturbances is pointed out. When an attempt was made to rob the vicarage, the dogs gave prompt alarm and the clergyman was aroused by their fierce barking. During the mysterious noises, however, though these were much louder and more disturbing, they never barked at all, but were always "found cowering in a state of pitiable terror."

...

In the account of haunting in a house at Hammersmith near London, which went on for five years, where steps and noises were heard and a phantom woman seen, "the dog whined incessantly " during the disturbances, and " the dog was evidently still afraid of the room when the morning came. I called to him to go into it with me, and he crouched down with his tail between his legs, and seemed to fear entering it."

...

In the remarkable account by General Barter, C.B., of a phantasmal pony and rider with two native grooms seen in India, two dogs which immediately before were hunting about in the brushwood jungle which covered the hill, came and crouched by the General's side, giving low, frightened whimpers; and when he pursued the phantasm the dogs returned home, though on all other occasions they were his most faithful companions.

If animals are naturally afraid of ghosts, then people might be also. There are certainly many cultural influences that may cause people to be afraid of spirits. Scary ghost stories, horror movies, and religious admonitions against communing with spirits are some of them. However, an innate fear of spirits may be the underlying reason people are afraid of spirits and that might be the reason these cultural influences got started in the first place.

I think fear of spirits is unfortunate. It's a form of prejudice. Many people don't realize how hard it can be for a spirit to communicate with a loved one who is still on the earth plane. Sometimes the best the spirit can do is to tap on the wall or turn the lights on and off. And what happens? The people in the vicinity become terrified. Sometimes they move to a new home. Other times they call an exorcist. Either way, a new story about "evil spirits" starts making the rounds - even when there is nothing evil about the spirit.

Isn't that a terrible way to welcome Grandma who might be trying to see how her beloved grandchildren are doing? As a society we have a lot to do to learn to accept spirits and treat them fairly, the way they deserve.

Copyright © 2009 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Ectoplasm and Materialization

Michael Tymn has an excellent series of blog posts on ectoplasm and materialization of spirits.

Ectoplasm is a substance some mediums are able to produce with the help of spirit guides during a seance. It is drawn from the body of the medium and it can be manipulated by spirits. Ectoplasm is used as an interface between the spirit and the physical world. One of its uses is to allow a spirit to take on a physical form which can be seen and sometimes heard speaking during the seance.

If you weren't aware of this phenomenon it might seem incredible. However, many eminent scientists and investigators including Charles Richet (Nobel prize winner in Physiology and Medicine), Alfred Russel Wallace (Co-discoverer, with Charles Darwin of the theory of natural selection), Sir William Crookes (Inventor of the cathode ray tube), and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Medical doctor and author of Sherlock Holmes Stories) have studied this phenomenon and verified it as fact.

These blog posts by Michael Tymn explain the details and include photographs of ectoplasm coming from mediums and spirits materializing. They also include many convincing proofs of the reality of this phenomenon:

• The Mystery of Ectoplasm - Part I

• The Mystery of Ectoplasm -- Part II

• Thought Imagery & Ectoplasm (Part III in a series)

• Ectoplasm, Part IV: Do you know what you look like?

The final part of the series will be posted on Dec. 6

Many books and other references by or about the people mentioned in Michael Tymn's posts are available on-line.

• Phenomena of Materialisation by Baron Von Schrenck Notzing

• Thirty Years of Psychical Research by Charles Richet

• Researches into the Phenomena of Modern Spiritualism by Sir William Crookes

• There Is No Death by Florence Marryat

• "The Voices" and "Glimpses of the Next State" by Vice Admiral W. Usborne Moore

• The Blue Island by W.T. Stead through the mediumship of Pardoe Woodman and Estelle Stead

• Camp Silver Belle Booklet by Lena Barnes Jefts

• Silver Belle Materialization Séance Epharata, Pennsylvania 1953 Ethel Post-Parrish, Medium Jack Edwards, Infra-Red Photographer

Alfred Russel Wallace mentoned above is the author of Miracles and Modern Spiritualism.

Also of interest are these photographs of the medium Jack Webber producing ectoplasm. The photographs are from the book "The Mediumship of Jack Webber" by Harry Edwards.

Copyright © 2009 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Reading E-Books Off-line

There are a lot of links to free e-books and other on-line documents on this blog and on my web site. It might be helpful to readers if I explained how to read these off line. Usually if a document will take more than a few minutes to read, I convert it to a text file and read it on a PDA. I have a Pocket-PC and I use the Handibook2 e-book reader software. (The PDA and software are quite old so I don't know if that software is available for current PDA's. Also, newer PDA's may be able to handle non-text documents better than old ones, so you might not need to convert to text to read a document on a newer PDA.) If you read a lot, you may save money in the long run by buying a PDA and reading free-e books from the internet.

If you try using a PDA or other type of e-book reader such as a kindle and you read a lot, try to notice if you wrist or shoulder starts to hurt. You may need to be careful of how you hold the device or how long you use it to prevent wrist or shoulder aches. Also, if the PDA uses standard batteries, you might consider buying rechargable batteres. If the unit comes with a rechargable battery try to notice if you have to place it in a docking cradle to charge it. It can be awkward to use the device while charging if it can only charge in a docking cradle. It is better if the recharger plugs directly into the unit itself.

I've also used a type of bed side tray to read from a laptop computer while lying in bed. This might be an alternative if you want to read a lot of e-books and don't have a PDA. This type of tray stands next to the bed but extends over the bed. It is similar to the type of tray you often find in hospitals but is designed to hold a laptop computer. It works, but is a bit too confining to be really comfortable.

Converting E-Books to Text Files.

If an on-line document is not already in text format, sometimes it can be tricky to convert it to text. Here are some methods for converting on-line documents to text:

(Some on-line documents may have copyright restrictions on how you can use them. Please do not use these techniques to voliate any copyright restrictions.)

• Save as text. If possible choose "save as" from the file menu on the application you are using to view the book, and save the book as a text file. This is obvious and simple, but it doesn't always work....

• Pdf files that are page images. If you have a pdf file where each page is a scanned image, you can't simply save as text since there is no text in the file. What you can do is print to a file and select fax as the type of printer. On the printer settings try to set the resolution to 300 dpi if you can. If the settings don't go up that high, set them as high as you can. Name the file with a .tif extension. Then you can use optical character recognition (ocr) software to convert the .tif file to a text file. I use Text Bridge which came with my scanner. There is also freeware ocr software. When I last tried it, it didn't work well, but that was several years ago. Hopefully newer versions will work better.

• Locked pdf files. Some pdf files are in text format but have saving to text disabled. You can print these files to a generic postscript printer and then open these file in gsview. Gsview is a freeware software package that allows you to view and convert postscript and pdf files to various formats. From gsview you can convert to text by going to the edit menu and selecting text extract.

  If that doesn't work, sometimes you can open the pdf file in gsview and then save as a pdf file by slecting convert from the file menu. Then chose pdfwrite as the device on the dialog box that opens. This new pdf file should let you print.

  If that doesn't work you can always fall back on the ocr method.

• Single HTML files. If the document is in one large html file you can either save to text from your browser or select all and copy and paste into a text document.

• Multiple HTML Files. If the e-book is in multiple html files, check the web page to see if there is a link to view the whole book on one page or download the book in one file. If not, it is usually not too hard to simply open each file and copy and paste them successively into a text file. I have written programs to download a list files and paste them together but I rarely use it because it is really simple to just open the html files and paste them into a text file.

Sources Of Free E-Books

The sources listed below are not a complete list. You can find many more sources of free e-books on the internet by using an internet search engine like google or yahoo.

• Spirituality and the Afterlife.

  • E-Libraries. Sources of free e-books listed on my web site.

  • Recommended Books A list of recommendations on my web site. Has links to free e-books.

• All Subjects

  • ManyBooks This site has books sorted by subject so it is a good place to browse for something to read. They have books from other e-libraries so they can be a good place to start looking for something to read.

  • Project Gutenberg It can be a little hard to browse the catalog, but if you know what you are looking this site is very good.

  • archive.org

  • Google Books Not all of the books here are free. You have to check for a "Download" link near the top of the right hand column.

• Science Fiction

  • Baen Free Library

  • Baen CD at the Fifth Imperium

Copyright © 2009 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Fanny Ruthven Paget & Caroline Larsen

Michael Tymn has a new post on his blog: A Near-Death Experience to Die For.

It's about Fanny Ruthven Paget's book "How I Know that the Dead Are Alive". The book describes a long near-death experience the author had during an illness.

Her book is available free to read on-line or download at archive.org.

"My Travels in the Spirit World" is a similar book by Caroline Larsen. It's available free to download in pdf format from spiritwritings.com, or to read on-line at magic7.com.

Copyright © 2009 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Telekinesis Proved In 1871

William Crookes tested the psychic Daniel Dunglas Home in 1871 and proved telekinesis is real. He tested Home in laboratory conditions that prevented fraud. Crookes even jumped up and down on the apparatus to prove it couldn't be moved by Home if he tried to cheat.

Crookes' book, Researches into the Phenomena of Modern Spiritualism, has diagrams of the equipment and wind-up chart recorder graphs showing the spontaneous movements.

It even has a drawing of the cage in which the accordion was seen to be playing itself.

Here is a link direct to the relevant chapter.

Copyright © 2009, 2013 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.