“From ghoulies and ghosties, and long leggedy beasties, good Lord deliver us.”
Some claim the old saying was Scottish, others it was Cornish—but who cares? Halloween is gaining ground as an annual festival. In Latin America there is a celebration of the Day of the Dead. In the Catholic tradition the festival is of All Saints Day, followed by All Souls Day, but historians trace its origins back to a Celtic celebration of the end of Summer—using bonfires to ward off evil spirits. In Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, the fire festival became more linked to the flames and rockets of the once-Protestant celebration of Guy Fawkes’ Night.
Today’s Halloween festival, especially in the northern hemisphere, has become wholly commercialized with little lights on houses, garden decorations, and fancy garb. For children there is touring neighbors’ houses to play trick-or-treat on them, and for adults there’s celebrating in costume parties with an excuse to drink something black—or blood red, to match the costume you’re wearing.
The festival is now commercially supported: by farmers selling pumpkins and the last fruits of autumn, by makers of fancy costumes, by chocolate manufacturers, and by anyone who can get into the act to encourage the public’s buying habits in the frenetic run-up to Christmas, the Pavlovian music of which is already to be heard in some stores.
Friends tell me Halloween is their favorite festival, because it is full of good humor and neat ideas. Christmas is full of compulsion to send cards, give presents, visit family, attend annual office parties, and so on. New Year’s night is for sexy young adults getting tight in the middle of the night. But beloved Halloween is when you may hear giggles of children’s laughter and open the door to hand out small chocolate bars to wide-eyed tots dressed up as witches, ghosts, goblins, and little Frankenstein—however did he get included?
WODEN SAYS: I’ll be dishing out the treats this year as Mrs. Woden (a goddess in her own right) is off working somewhere. Hopefully we will overstock the sweets so I can put on a little weight eating up what is left. Woden truly is a weighty deity.
In our increasingly secular world it is easy to make a mess of All Souls Day, ghosts, witches, and the like. Halloween is an entry point for children into the world of adult fear: fear of ghosts, fear of the paranormal, and especially, fear of death. And our society is truly afraid of death. Compared with the Middle Ages, we’re less fearful of hell (which was why we used to burn witches) and more fearful of total extinction (which is why our bookshops today reflect the pitched battle between the forces of God and the forces of atheism).
We need to bring a little light to this celebration. Human beings really need to understand what happens to the soul at death. Souls are destined to transition Home at death. That’s the norm and most souls do just that, especially if they’ve had a few lifetimes already and know the drill. Each soul, when it incarnates here on planet Earth (or other planets used for soul training), leaves a portion of its energetic self as an anchor and as a conduit for Source energy to flow. So the homeward pull is built into the system. But instant recall to the realms of light does not always happen and souls stay around for a while. Why?
There are no accidents. Souls get confused as they approach death. Some confusion is physical and some concerns the nature of death itself; some is linked with religious teaching on divine punishment for sin; some is anger related to the cause of their death; much is related to an unresolved fear of dying. There are many variations—involving the desire to control others or to get revenge.
When souls are lost in this way, the memory of how to return Home is self-obliterated for a while. This memory will eventually return, usually stimulated by the persistent whisper of friendly spiritual guides. Until that happens, the soul remains body-less (discarnate) in the energetic interface between the heavy energy band of planet Earth (the third dimension), and the lighter fifth dimension of the Other Side, which is Home to us all.
In this discarnate state the soul may take on the semi-human appearance that we associate with ghosts, or may, unseen, play energetic tricks on people (as poltergeists), or may even seek to occupy the body space of a living person. Lost souls may amuse themselves with malicious tricks or black magic, but in the main, discarnates are just lost with nowhere to go and nothing to do. It should not surprise us that this is so—the Earth is full of people without purpose in life. We call them “couch potatoes.”
In the end? The control freaks discover they cannot control the living; the lost do find a purpose; the malicious finally get bored; those who imagine themselves in hell see the Light. Then the normal working of the universe operates—like the Prodigal Son they come to their senses and go Home. The soul is a fragment of the Source of life: You cannot trap or kill the soul.
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on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Commentaries.
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Pity the Poor Ghosts
“From ghoulies and ghosties, and long leggedy beasties, good Lord deliver us.”
Some claim the old saying was Scottish, others it was Cornish—but who cares? Halloween is gaining ground as an annual festival. In Latin America there is a celebration of the Day of the Dead. In the Catholic tradition the festival is of All Saints Day, followed by All Souls Day, but historians trace its origins back to a Celtic celebration of the end of Summer—using bonfires to ward off evil spirits. In Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, the fire festival became more linked to the flames and rockets of the once-Protestant celebration of Guy Fawkes’ Night.
Today’s Halloween festival, especially in the northern hemisphere, has become wholly commercialized with little lights on houses, garden decorations, and fancy garb. For children there is touring neighbors’ houses to play trick-or-treat on them, and for adults there’s celebrating in costume parties with an excuse to drink something black—or blood red, to match the costume you’re wearing.
The festival is now commercially supported: by farmers selling pumpkins and the last fruits of autumn, by makers of fancy costumes, by chocolate manufacturers, and by anyone who can get into the act to encourage the public’s buying habits in the frenetic run-up to Christmas, the Pavlovian music of which is already to be heard in some stores.
Friends tell me Halloween is their favorite festival, because it is full of good humor and neat ideas. Christmas is full of compulsion to send cards, give presents, visit family, attend annual office parties, and so on. New Year’s night is for sexy young adults getting tight in the middle of the night. But beloved Halloween is when you may hear giggles of children’s laughter and open the door to hand out small chocolate bars to wide-eyed tots dressed up as witches, ghosts, goblins, and little Frankenstein—however did he get included?
WODEN SAYS: I’ll be dishing out the treats this year as Mrs. Woden (a goddess in her own right) is off working somewhere. Hopefully we will overstock the sweets so I can put on a little weight eating up what is left. Woden truly is a weighty deity.
In our increasingly secular world it is easy to make a mess of All Souls Day, ghosts, witches, and the like. Halloween is an entry point for children into the world of adult fear: fear of ghosts, fear of the paranormal, and especially, fear of death. And our society is truly afraid of death. Compared with the Middle Ages, we’re less fearful of hell (which was why we used to burn witches) and more fearful of total extinction (which is why our bookshops today reflect the pitched battle between the forces of God and the forces of atheism).
We need to bring a little light to this celebration. Human beings really need to understand what happens to the soul at death. Souls are destined to transition Home at death. That’s the norm and most souls do just that, especially if they’ve had a few lifetimes already and know the drill. Each soul, when it incarnates here on planet Earth (or other planets used for soul training), leaves a portion of its energetic self as an anchor and as a conduit for Source energy to flow. So the homeward pull is built into the system. But instant recall to the realms of light does not always happen and souls stay around for a while. Why?
There are no accidents. Souls get confused as they approach death. Some confusion is physical and some concerns the nature of death itself; some is linked with religious teaching on divine punishment for sin; some is anger related to the cause of their death; much is related to an unresolved fear of dying. There are many variations—involving the desire to control others or to get revenge.
When souls are lost in this way, the memory of how to return Home is self-obliterated for a while. This memory will eventually return, usually stimulated by the persistent whisper of friendly spiritual guides. Until that happens, the soul remains body-less (discarnate) in the energetic interface between the heavy energy band of planet Earth (the third dimension), and the lighter fifth dimension of the Other Side, which is Home to us all.
In this discarnate state the soul may take on the semi-human appearance that we associate with ghosts, or may, unseen, play energetic tricks on people (as poltergeists), or may even seek to occupy the body space of a living person. Lost souls may amuse themselves with malicious tricks or black magic, but in the main, discarnates are just lost with nowhere to go and nothing to do. It should not surprise us that this is so—the Earth is full of people without purpose in life. We call them “couch potatoes.”
In the end? The control freaks discover they cannot control the living; the lost do find a purpose; the malicious finally get bored; those who imagine themselves in hell see the Light. Then the normal working of the universe operates—like the Prodigal Son they come to their senses and go Home. The soul is a fragment of the Source of life: You cannot trap or kill the soul.
Tags: ghosts, Halloween, lost souls, trick-or-treat
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Commentaries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.