There's a new show i'm watching called Extreme Paranormal. 3 guys - a host, occult expert and tech guy aggravate spirits by re-enacting and using conjuring rituals to get them to react and record it on camera. Freaking amazing! If it's real heh. Much more engaging than simply talking to spirits and telling them to go towards the light. These guys aggravate them.. lie to them.. and then send them back ha. http://www.aetv.com/extreme-paranormal/

And another show - Paranormal State where a group research paranormal activity. One had a demon which was brought on by the woman's menopause. Quite interesting. Wish I could better discribe what it has me groking. It's like not really believing or doing anything with the occult because geeze who wants to open that door?.. only to watch people who can deal with it effectively.. which helps explain it. Energy.

That is if they are true. :P Being in media I try not to be completely gullable.. and yet with a pisces/jupiter chart i'm the most gullable person i know.

Feels like uranus/saturn is opening a whole new world of understanding of what was thought to not be real. :P

antagonizing spirits seems like a good way to create bad juju seems to me.

no comment on the menopause line, though that pitch is right over the plate nice and slow :)

I have no knowledge of this and therefore no opinion but boy the soldier thinks it is beyond stupid to fuck around in the spirit world.

These types of tv shows make me nervous. A friend of mine today said she was going to a seance. I don't think I ever could -- feels too dark to me. Not right, somehow. On the other  hand, though, I've been in rooms with mediums and psychics -- so maybe I'm just picky how and when I let this stuff in...

Despite my dark and gloomy side, I feel pretty "light" in terms of spiritual matters. Not really sure how to explain that. But you'll never catch me with a ouijia board or watching The Exorcist, etc

I agree with Jilly and the Solider...

My grandparent's generation in my family on rare occasion would talk about ghosts - dead family members - they had seen except there was nothing scary about them. The ghosts were pretty ordinary in their behaviour. I've lived somewhere where ppl admit to seeing ghosts and little spirits once they trust that you're not going to disrespect them for it - again, pretty mundane tales (even though their traditional myths had scary spirits).

Someone once told me that the notion that ghosts are angry and vengeful partly stems from Christian attempts to discourage things like ancestor worship but I don't know how true that is.

Elsa: It's one thing to fuck around in the spirit world and it's another to have them seek you.

The people that go looking for this crap are going to find themselves put into their place pretty quickly. Those that find themselves in the midsts of it without doing it on purpose....well, that's another story!

I've lived in a couple of places where it was plainly obvious I/we were not alone, and experienced some things...well, let's just say there is nothing you could say to convince me it was coincidence or something logical and scientific.

There are things of a spiritual nature that strike me as "entry-level" for lack of a better word. This is absolutely NOT to level criticism at anyone--AT ALL. But to open it up for any casual viewer...I don't like the idea of it one whit.

It's like Alice Bailey, Rosicrucians, hollywood kabbalists et al. Some argue against the hierarchy and secrecy, saying it should be shown to all, I fall on the other side of the fence. Must be my Capricorn and 8th House Saturn. I'm old-fashioned when it comes to spirit stuff

Isthmus in my family, no one actually admits they believe in the spirit world and will deny that they do, until they start talking about ghosts and the fact they think the place is haunted:) Like my cousin who "doesn't like that stuff" then admitted to times she visited the old seer/psychic one village over..!

I have enough respect for the spirit world not to fuck around with it.  You won't see me at a seance or playing with a Ouija board, either.  Despite all the people that say "it's just a toy", there's a very real chance something negative could get into your house, or worse, you.

When I was in PA earlier this month, I finally talked Capricorn hubs into going to Gettysburg.  If you're sensitive, you can feel how charged this place is.  My kids and I were all hoping we'd have some confirmation that the place is indeed haunted.

My son and I, the Ghost Hunters fans, didn't have any experiences, but my sensitive almost 8 yo daughter did.

She said that when we were on West Confederate Avenue, she felt fingers press into her shoulders, and there was no one anywhere near her.  We were either at the Virginia or North Carolina memorials; she didn't remember which one.

What made the experience much more credible, to me anyway, was she kept it to herself until we got home, a day after it happened.

She wasn't afraid; she's watched too much Ghost Hunters.    I said to her it was probably a Civil War soldier wanting to talk to her or to say hello; nothing more and not to be frightened.

All in all, I was glad she had that experience.  It just proved to me to have lots of respect for places like this.  We didn't go stomping through it like some of these overeager amateur "ghost hunters" do.  Not only is it a battlefield...it's a graveyard.

I agree with the soldier and I hate those shows.  The people shown hunting ghosts annoy me and would likely annoy the dead even more.  

At one stage of my life I had to make a conscious decision to focus on people who still have their bodies because so many ghosts were trying to talk to me.  

They're going to end up on the wrong side of fortune one day. Wether it's when they're on their death bed at 80 or tomorrow, spirits don't forget.

LisLioness - agreed - Gettysburg is one of the most... charged... places I've ever been.  I hadn't thought about it until you said that, but there is just a layer of intense presence there that I remember clearly.

Wow, alot of people on this site believe in ghosts! 

I'm not sure if I believe they exist. But even if they don't, for safety, I wouldn't play around either.

well, i wouldn't advise their method of trying to antagonize the spirit world, that's for sure. and if i were looking to connect, i wouldn't go seeking those who had troubled, disturbing, or otherwise dangerous energy in general, either.

I hear ya, Liz.  You and me against these un-ghosthunters.

Let's toast to the pisces jupiter thingy in our chart.  And oh, mine's tightly conjunct juno so have learned to live with my boyfriend from the underworld.  Like Luci said, they seek us.  So I hope one of these days, "they" would email me the winning lottery combination.  To compensate for all the trouble, what else?

Ghost Hunters is the only show I'll watch.  They've gotten a lot of criticism for the way they go about things, but a lot of it seems to be the production company emphasizing "entertainment".  These guys have been at this long before they got a TV show, and I've read their earlier cases.  It's fascinating.  These other shows?  I can't get into any show that came along after Ghost Hunters, or the silly hysteria that goes on in Most Haunted.

I'm pretty infatuated with the occult.  It fascinates me to no end because of my many first-hand experiences with the paranormal. 

I don't believe any of the major religions' core beliefs coincide with the idea that human spirits roam the earth or get "stuck" here.  I whole heartedly believe they do, which leaves such a gap of information that I believe holds the key to the age old question "What happens to us when we die?"  If we could only find the answers ;)

I liked Ghost Hunters at first but I agree with LisLioness about production upping the entertainment ante.  They have some pretty cheesy sound effects now, and I most hate when they try to decipher what the spirits in the EVP's are saying when they are very unclear.

I want to get into paranomal investigation so badly, but the thought of something attaching itself to me, and me bringing it home....eh.  I do believe I have a gift for it though. 

In case any of you missed an old board post of mine, it's pretty interesting. 

Never even seen Ghost Hunters. It would scare me. I leave that world alone and they leave me alone (so far) -- as I wrote before though, I think I have a lot of light spiritual energy around me though -- not sure I even know how to describe it but others have mentioned it too, angelic energy of some kind. Even when I got into Tarot pretty deeply and was started to "know" things, I got a bit nervous -- like I wasn't supposed to. Or, I don't know-- maybe I was tapping into something I wasn't ready for.

Of course, that's a bit different from ghosts, but related I feel--

Why is it that some people have spirits attaching themselves and some people don't? Sometimes I think it's regional, like it happens in remote or rural areas or in big empty old houses lol

And this may not be related but I swear I can feel very dark energy with some people (who are alive, by the way). That they just vibrate a dark or sickly vibration and their actions reflect it.

Okay, back to earth plane now..........

aww i missed your post before Shell.

Seeing ghosts and other unexplained things is somewhat of a norm in my extended family. My mother has seen a few ghosts, and my father has astral travelled to my mom when he was away on business. One aunt has seen 2 or 3 ghosts - one was the face reflected in the toaster at my grandmother's old house. He had thick glasses. They looked him up at the library and he had been the previous owner. That house was known for things like a crystal bowl that stayed on the piano being found upside down on the floor intact. I grew up with these stories.. something that fuels my storytelling passion. Oh and one uncle has also seen ghosts. One aunt died and visits my other aunt - the sister she was closest too. I also had signs while in distress - dimes appearing. Since returning home these signs have disappeared. So for me I believe my family - believe that they exist but not everyone can see or experience them.

For me though I have no desire to see or encounter spirits. I have enough sensativity as it is. That's what makes these shows so compelling. It's about only professional people - people who can control the energy doing the exploration .. and what is learned makes it possible to understand the energy.. and the superstition.. hence making it "real" which to me makes it less scary. 

I read from Silvia Brown that as people we can create negative entities. Hence why people who believe passionately in demons have experiences where it manifests as scratches etc. And hence why the belief in the other - God - is stronger - then we manifest good stuff. So I don't really believe in demons as a gremlin but rather as a really dark energy.. which made the idea that if you are in a dark or confused emotional space you can attract a manifestion of the feelings you are in. And hence you can stop attracting them through a new energy.. and hence it can be controlled.

For me I choose to just believe in God and leave the dark side to the dark. BUT LOVE watching it on tv being dealt with by people who are equipped to not be afraid. Then we all learn about this dark side. Instead of fearing it. Would LOVE to video edit for these shows.

Unless of course something actually happens to the hosts of these shows. Then I hope the stations would tell us. "This program not available due to the fact that the ghost ate him". Priceless.

Wish it could stop suicide bombers though. I mean a bomb in your ass?? What the hell is up with that?? But I digress..

I believe in it, and want absolutely nothing to do with it. I don't want to see a ghost until I am one (Saturn in 12th?).

I knew of some people who talked incessantly about ghosts and otherworldly stuff....nothing out of the extraordinary happened.

Then some people didn't choose to talk about it because they've come face to face with these entities so real that they can feel its breath on their faces.

i go with what the soldier said.  seems like jumping into a hot zone in afghanistan with a a big "hi!  i'm a  stupid american!" sign in farsi pasted on you.

only it's harder to recognize when you've been shot.