Medium

LL Cool Joe's post for today reminded me of an incident which happened to me around 4 years ago.

I was taking a part-time course to become a psychotherapist. (I never did finish the curriculum, for reasons I won't go into here.) I had done my first year, taken a year off to do a different course, and then returned to do my second year with a new group of students.

The new group I joined had a trauma to deal with. One of their classmates had committed suicide over the summer break. The class had only 20 members, so everyone knew this fellow quite well. He had been very bright, with an ironic sense of humour. I'll call him Don. Those who had spent time with him had liked him very much. The suicide had come as a complete shock.

When I started my second year, everyone in the class was new to me, except for one woman. I'll call her Audrey. I had been in a weekend seminar with Audrey the year before, and we'd gotten to know each other a little. It just so happened that out of everyone in that class, she had been closest to Don. His death had hit her very hard.

A few weeks into the school year, we gathered for a class on the topic of suicide. This was a part of the regular curriculum, however of course it had a special significance for our group. The teacher wisely began by allowing the class time to discuss Don's suicide and how we felt about it.

I sat quietly and listened to my classmates share their pain, confusion, and dismay. Some people were sad. Others were angry. One woman said she'd never liked him much and she wouldn't miss him.

Audrey put up her hand. She began to talk about her regrets, how she had promised to spend some time with him over the summer, how it had never happened, how maybe if she had just tried a little harder to get in touch with him and pin him down to a date... Maybe she could have been that one friendly face that made the difference between life and death.

I listened, completely focused on what she was saying, feeling sad for my new friends, respectful of the serious atmostphere, and helpless.

Then all of a sudden, someone flicked my left ear, hard. Someone had come up behind me, pressed their middle fingernail against their thumb, and then let fly against the back of my ear. I heard the loud "thwack" and my hair, (it long back then), was pushed forward by the impact. I jumped about six inches out of my seat.

I looked back sternly to see who could possibly be fooling around in such a serious class.

There was nobody there.

Everyone around me was sitting respectfully at their desks, listening to the discussion with 100% concentration.

I could only think of one even semi-logical explanation.

After the class, I went over to Audrey. The teacher had tried to tell her that if Don's mind was made up Audrey couldn't have changed it, but Audrey hadn't accepted that. She was still very upset.

I told her what I had experienced. Of course I couldn't prove it, but I had a strong sense that Don was trying to get a message to Audrey through me. My best guess was that he didn't want her to feel guilty about his death. I got flicked just as she was wallowing in the depths of regret, saying how maybe she could have changed things. My intuition said that the message was "No". I think he wanted her to know that no one could have saved him.

Audrey got weepy again and thanked me for sharing my experience with her. I'm not sure how much she believed it. I'm not sure how much I believed it. Some things run so contrary to Consensus Reality that it takes a lot of practice to believe them, even if they happen to you personally.

That wasn't the only time that I had a very bizarre experience in that school. They did a lot of meditation classes where the intention was to up one's psychic sensitivity, so the place was abuzz with high-frequency vibes. But this experience is the one with the most interesting back-story.

I hope that Don's spirit has found peace.

True Scary Story

Sometime quite a few months back, Ken and I are heading home after meeting our pastor at the church to make the initial plans for our wedding. The sun has just set. It's a regular weekday evening. Lights are on in all the units in our condo complex. The air wafting from the building vents smells of boiling rice and stewing beef. You would be hard-pressed to find a more domestic, cozy scene.

We reach our front door, unlock it, flick on the entranceway light, and step inside. I reach around the corner and hit another light switch, which illuminates our living room. Everything is just as we left it. I'm glad to be home, looking forward to putting my feet up and relaxing.

As I'm reaching to untie my shoes, Ken suddenly startles, and jumps back against the wall. His face perfectly illustrates the expression "he looked like he'd just seen a ghost". He's staring into the middle of the living room like he's spotted something terrifying. I look back into the living room. There's the sofa. There's the TV and remote control. Nothing out of order.

Ken is still backed into a corner between all wall and the hall closet door. His face is grey.

"Did you see that?" he asks me.

"See what?"

"That guy."

I look at him like, more information please!

"There was a man standing right there in the middle of our living room."

"What did he look like?"

"He was tall, bald, and creepy-looking. He was wearing a long dark coat. He saw me looking at him. Then as soon as I saw him he started vanishing from the feet up. He was gone by the time I asked you if you saw anything."

Ken was not fooling with me. He wasn't drunk, overtired, or on medication. He has no history of schizophrenia. I'm as sure as I can be that he can see disembodied spirits.

Ken's dad and his brother also have the ability to see ghosts. This isn't the only ghost story I have from Ken, but it was the only time I was there. And it made me really, really glad that, despite my ability to experience some things beyond my five senses, I can't see ghosts. Because that apparition scared the poop out of him.

Fortunately the scary ghost man never re-appeared in our living room.

Believe what you will, but this story is true to me. Happy Hallowe'en! May you have lots of fun and candy, and no ghosts.