Ghosts, and Angels, oh my!

Angels are experienced by many perfectly sane and stable people - so are ghosts, on occasion. Even more common are people who hear a voice with a clear message that resonates with perfect sense. Joan of Arc heard voices, as did many saints and mystics down through the ages.

Apparitions are a phenomenon that many have experienced. Many have also ignored them or put them out of their mind, for fear of questioning their sanity. Others, however, have embraced their voices or their visions and tried to learn from them.

So what in the Heaven is going on? First, are these things real?

Of course they are real. When you see a movie, was it a real movie? Sure it was. Did it tell a real story? Sure it did. But it was a different KIND of reality from the reality of your morning coffee, or the pants you pulled on this morning. It was a real experience, and like any other experience, it has the validity and the meaning that YOU bring to it. What does it mean to you?

I once was told of a SHARED apparition - a man in a slicker waving a lantern on a foggy coastline road. Both driver and passenger saw it clearly, but as they approached it simply vanished. They stopped and circled the vehicle with no result. I can't help wondering if they avoided some danger by stopping!

Since there is only the One Mind, One Intelligent Power, within which we all have our existence, then to the extent we share consciousness with each other, we can also share the forms and projections of this One.

We all inhabit shared spheres of consciousness in addition to our own individuality. In addition to our individual thoughts and attitudes, we are likely to be part of a family with certain shared thought patterns. We live in a community where people share certain attitudes and expectations. Our city, provice or state, is home to certain shared attitudes, as is each nation. We hear this talked about all the time. We belong to groups which share a common consciousness.

A marriage is a shared consciousness between two people, layered onto their individual consciousnesses.

A family is a more complex shared consciousness (a gestalt mind) with some shared experiences, values, habits, sayings and stories. So is a community or a nation a set of shared beliefs, values and stories. In this century we are beginning to build a shared global consciousness, with the United Nations, air travel, and the internet as the physical means. Many of our world disputes are arising out of the attempt to form a common set of values and attitudes.

We draw forth our experience out of the gestalt consciousness of our environment, as we apply our own judgment to it. Experience is called forth from the demands of our unconscious as well as our conscious thoughts about events. Sometimes in answer to our fears or concerns or other dominant thinking, an apparition may become the answer to our hidden questions.

Most people deny such experiences. No one wants to have to defend their sanity!

Have you had an inner voice, that you didn't recognize as your own, whisper directly to your mind? Have you seen or interacted with a person, who simply vanished? Was it at some crisis point in life, or was there a message in it?

If so, it is your own inner mind, your own Higher Power, trying to reach you with a message of Truth. You have projected it outward from yourself because you were not sufficiently tuned inward to 'get it'. Angels are truly God's messengers, but not from somewhere 'out there'. They come from somewhere 'in there', in response to our unconscious thoughts - in my opinion.