Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Ghost Town


Last night we watched the movie "Ghost Town" starring Greg Kinnear, Tea Leoni, and Ricky Gervais. This comedy was about a dentist, Bertram Pincus, who has a Near Death Experience during a medical procedure. After he is revived, he discovers that he has the ability to see and hear ghosts. The ghosts all want something from him and pester him incessantly. The story is summed up with the premise that we, the living, are the ones that hold them here. That they can't leave until they take care of whatever it is we need.


That has not always been my experience with ghosts. I consider them more spirits or souls than ghosts and I have encountered a number of them through out my life. I know many healers, like Reya, who work with vast numbers of spirits at a time. By this I mean, they work in areas where many people have died, like battle grounds or cataclysmic event locations. Most of the time, my work is on a one-to-one basis.


I have practiced, what most people call, hypnosis since I was 12 years old. I think of it more as relaxed focus because, well, that is an apt description. When we relax, our brain waves slow from Beta, our normal waking state, to Alpha or Theta and our state of consciousness alters. An example of an Alpha wave state would be how you feel right before you go to sleep or upon waking. Although we look asleep, we are hyper-aware. We are able to bypass our logical, or conscious, mind and tap into vast amounts of information stored in our subconscious mind.


During Past Life Regression sessions, I have encountered beings that have died but not yet crossed over. I dialogue with these souls through the person with whom I am working. It is pretty easy to tell who is who. I'll be talking to my client when all of a sudden, a different tone of voice and pattern of speech will appear. The first time I encountered this, I was quite unsure of how to proceed. Finally, I asked who I was talking to and discovered that I was dialoguing with a different being. This is not just a different personality of the same person. This is an energetic being of its own.


They are, usually, quite willing to give information as in most cases, they haven't had a voice or anyone to communicate with for a long time. Most are not malevolent in nature. The person, with whom they have the relationship, is rarely aware of their presence. Doing the work of allowing the spirits to leave this plane is relatively simple. It is generally a kind of negotiation between the two parties. Sometimes the person isn't ready to let go of the deceased. Sometimes the soul needs to be assured that the person will be alright after they go. Sometimes they just died in a position or a place where they didn't see the Light.


Being involved in solving the problem of what these souls need in order to return home is very rewarding and interesting work. It is work I don't speak about often...for the obvious reasons. But I am not a loony and my friends would probably say that I am a very intelligent, solid and grounded individual, albeit with esoteric curiosities. This movie wasn't a Movie of the Year, but it was light, interesting and had a ring of truth to it that I don't often see. And although I thought the premise that ALL spirits are held here by the living a bit too pat, I really want to know who the author is and what incident sparked this story.

14 comments:

tony said...

yea, Ronda ,I have experienced hypnosis.Your right,it's a useful tool...it gets around many personal barriers.Interesting & Rewarding Work.
I havnt seen the film but if i see any info re:author or background, i will pass onto you.

Candie said...

Oh that was so interseting.Do you do past lives regression?I'd like to try one day,but I'd like to do it with someone I trust,so I hope one day,I'll get the chance to take an appointment with you.Yeah I'm serious,lol,if one day I go to USA,I'd definitely meet you!I'd like to assist at a conference by Allison Dubois as well.My mom did past lives regression too,and she found out she was Isadora Duncan in another life,and others,but I don't remember who.Well,that woman didn't have an easy life,just as my mom and if you look deeply,well Isadora has been visiting my mom more than once,referring to alcohol and drugs problems.Yes I guess some bad habits never die,isn't it?Again,Nice post Ronda.Thank you!:)

Ronda Laveen said...

Tony: Yes, if you do find anything out about the author or back story, please let me know.

Candie: Yes, I do past life regression. I haven't heard of Allison Dubois but will check her out. I think you would be a fascinating regression. What an interesting story about your mother.

Brian Miller said...

i have been fascinated with ghosts...i have seen enough freaky stuff to know there is definitely something going on...will have to check the movie out...

Ze O said...

I think there are so many things between heaven and earth that we can't rationally explain and it would be short sighted to dismiss the supernatural. I tend to block it out of my life for some reason - even though I am often in very "high energy" environments: once worked in a nursing home (the nurses had some amazing stories to tell), I live in a house a lady died in and I work in an old heritage building that is supposed to be haunted. The Spirit Society of BC did an exorcism there once. I work the late shift, sometimes all by myself. I just don't pay much attention and don't get spooked. Maybe because people like to attach dramatic and "bad" labels to what may be going on - and I refuse to believe in that badness. So I guess I just peacefully co-exist with what's around me. Doesn't mean I'm not a believer. And if someone's got a message for me: I am all ears! :D

In terms of the slideshow. It's so easy, it's not even funny! All the bloggers at Blogspot who post any kind of imagery have them stored at Picasa (another nifty Google tool - much like Flickr). I found out by logging into Igoogle. At Picasa you just make that default album that's already there public and create a public url for yourself. Then you can use the blogger slideshow gadget and just point to your Picasa url. Done!
A little warning, though: careful with deleting stuff in your album, it may disappear in your blog! :-o Had that happen to me because there was a lot of "junk" in there that I didn't want in the slideshow(images I'd posted and then deleted in Blogger were still alive and well in Picasa - so much for the mysteries around us we are not aware of! ;)). My sicklish icons are gone irrevocably. They looked just terrible in the slideshow and I didn't really have a backup. Oh well.
Oh yeah: username and password for Igoogle and Picasa is the same as for Blogger.

Holy cow, what a ramble post! Hope it made a little sense...

Baino said...

Ah my comment was eaten! The writer of the movie is pretty famous and wrote loads of screenplays so nothing to intimate he had an interest in this particular topic. Do you tell your patients what they've said? I don't believe in the 'other side' so I'm intrigued at what emerges from the subconscious.

Megan said...

How interesting!

Mike said...

I still don't believe in ghosts! I would love to be proven wrong!

Ronda Laveen said...

Brian: I know what you mean by saying that you've seen enough freaky stuff going on to make you wonder.

Christina: Wow! Your experiences are fairly extensive for someone who blocks it out. I'll bet those nurses do have some interesting stories to tell and that exorcisim story sounds intriguing. But I think you have the right attitude about peacefully co-existing with the energies present.

Thanks for the slide show 411. I have found the Picasa and I also found out how by cleaning up those photos you loose them out of your Blog and vice versa. Sorry about the pictures you lost. I'll check it out soon.

Baino: Yes, I do tell my clients what they've said. And, actually, they remember everything too. It is not like you see on TV or in the movies where the hypnotist has control and you don't remember a thing. As a therapist, it is my job to get you into a place of relaxaing, keep you on track as to what you stated is the intent of your session, and document the session. So I always record or transcribe the session and give them a CD and/or transcript. I have collected many amazing stories over the years.

Megan: Very.

Otin: For a long time I didn't believe in ghosts either but over the years, I've heard and seen enough stuff that I can't say for certain that they don't exist either.

Linda Pendleton said...

This was written by a top screenwriter/director David Koepp along with John Kamps. Koepp has screen written things like Angels and Demons, Indiana Jones and Kingdom of Crystal Skull, War of the Worlds, Spider Man, Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible and many other good films.

I've not seen the movie but I really like Greg Kinnear. So will have to look it up. Thanks for the review.

I agree with you. Sometimes they are close by to inspire and guide us. Not because they are "held" here.

Reya Mellicker said...

This is great! It's so nice being on the same wavelength. I, too, find that most spirits or ghosts are lost and kind of clueless about their situation, neither maleolant nor particularly helpful. The ancestors, to me, are spirits that have crossed oer and then chosen to return to help the living.

The film The Sixth Sense was incredible in terms of how perfectly it depicted ghosts. (It was rather tedious, the film that is, but the way they described the wandering spirit - wow - it was right on.)

I like Greg Kinnear, too. I'll have to put this on my netflix list.

Ronda Laveen said...

Linda: Thank you so much for all of the information on the writer. All of those stories you listed have an esoteric streak in them. I thought he knew more than the average bloke and you confirmed my hunch.

Reya: You are so right about how the spirits in Sixth Sense were portrayed. It was totally right on. And in Ghost Town, the ending felt to me like some Hollywood producer came along and said, "you can't end the story like that it needs to be like this."

Hammer said...

Some great stuff to consider here. Movie-wise, I'm partial to "The Mothman Prophecies" despite the Richard Gere factor. Not ghosts exactly, but I like the way they played with the idea of humans being sensitive and receptive to energies that defy traditional explanation while being ill-equipped (or at least poorly trained) to interact with them.

And if you want to switch from ghosts to UFOs and go ever farther back, I always liked the way that "Communion" starring Christopher Walken handled the idea of the human mind trying to handle images and experiences that destroy our fundamental conceptual underpinnings. The film looks dated now, but I think it still has some merit.

Ronda Laveen said...

Hammer: I've never seen either of those movies and will now have to check them out. But in most cases, we are ill-equipped and untrained in subtle energies and people resist change of concepts and challenge of realities.

I think that is why I like psychics, people who meditate, cosmologists, and physicists so much, they are willing to entertain thoughts and theories outside the proverbial box and the universe.