10 Ways of Contacting Ghosts

Some believe in them and some do not but we all do had or have nightmares sometimes showing there is still a glitch or fear even for those who don’t believe. However, we live in a modern era but most people before us haven’t lived in it, they had their myths, traditions and beliefs. The desire to contact spirits and ghosts would have began since time immemorial, when the early human flesh had died, people would have tried to contact their spirits. Séance is the term used for an attempt to communicate with spirits and ghosts. This word is of French descent.

10. Driving in “Neutral Gear”

If you want to find a ghost, come to Texas, slip your pick-up truck neutral and if you’re lucky enough then you will enjoy a healthful shove in the land of dead children and San Antonio Ghost Train.Legend has it as it follows after ghastly event took in 1942. A group of young school children were so they say rattling among their bus on the way to school. But there arose the terror among the poor children when their bus broke down on a railroad crossing and imagine their concern when they saw a train hurtling towards them. It was clear that they’ll be skipping school that day. What passed through their mind when they saw it approaching more nearer would definitely be terrible, as it looked bigger and bigger until finally crashing with them. The end result was a bus loaded of innocent little children, all killed and splattered all over the country side from the crossing of Shane and Villamain Roads at San Antonio, Texas.

And the story goes that those children have haunted the train ever since. That’s true according to the legend. Legend has it that if you leave your car in the neutral, children will push the car away from the track, a little helping hand from ghost train angels keeping watch over the railroad. They say that the spirits protect others from meeting the same fate as they did when traveling across the track.

The place had been experimented for any such phenomenon and 20meters from the track, the car was placed in neutral and the car started rolling forwards, so were the ghost children giving them a friendly shove? Well a local Historian and Ghost train skeptic Docia Williams doesn’t think so, she says she has verified the land for no paranormal activity, it must be the slope. But the tale grew as history and has its own believers who believe they have contacted ghosts while driving in neutral.

9. Visit a Haunted House

Haunted houses are often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property. Supernatural activity inside homes is said to be mainly associated with violent or tragic events in the building’s past such as murder, accidental death, or suicide. In 2005, Gallup polls conducted in three countries—the United States, Canada, and Great Britain—showed that more people believe in haunted houses than any of the other paranormal items tested, with 37% of Americans, 28% of Canadians, and 40% of Britons believing.

Paranormal investigation is now a high tech affair unlike before, but like times ago, you should posses the right kit. Traditionally it involved crystal gazing, mirrors and candles and might some human skulls and Christ cross, but now the kit is different, camcorders, sound recorders and EMF meters. Tooled up with digital thermometers and other gizmos, one could go and with his own 5 senses sense the hypoxia or vibrations. It is this place where you should hastily deploy your sails, spooks could be anywhere, even in the ceiling. Either you use the traditional kit or new one, your faith should be strong and hopefully you might hear or see a ghost.

Some of the phenomena generally associated with haunted houses, including strange visions and sounds, feelings of dread, illness, and the sudden, apparently inexplicable death of all the occupants, may be attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning. In one famous case, carbon monoxide poisoning was clearly identified as the cause of an alleged haunting. Dr. William Wilmer, an ophthalmologist, described the experiences of one of his patients in a 1921. “Mr. and Mrs. H.” moved into a new home, but soon began to complain of headaches and listlessness. They began to hear bells and footsteps during the night,  accompanied by strange physical sensations and mysterious figures. When they began to investigate, they found the previous residents had experienced similar symptoms. Upon examination, their furnace was found to be severely damaged, resulting in incomplete combustion that produces carbon monoxide and forcing most of the fumes into the house rather than up the chimney. After the stove was fixed, the family fully recovered and did not experience any further unusual events.

8. Find and Board Mary Celeste

The Mary Celeste was a brigantine merchant ship notably discovered in December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean unmanned and apparently abandoned, despite the fact that the weather was fine and her crew had been experienced and able seamen. She was in seaworthy condition and still under sail heading towards the Strait of Gibraltar. She had been at sea for a month and had over six months’ worth of food and water on board. Her cargo was virtually untouched and the personal belongings of passengers and crew were still in place, including valuables. The crew was never seen or heard from again. Their disappearance is often cited as the greatest maritime mystery of all time.

The fate of her crew has been the subject of much speculation. Theories range from alcoholic fumes, to underwater earthquakes, to waterspouts, to involving  extraterrestrial life, sea monsters, and Bermuda Triangle. But he Mary Celeste was most commonly described as the archetypal ghost ship, since she was discovered derelict without any apparent explanation and her clocks and compass were not functioning which is believed to be a play of ghosts. They say if you want to see ghosts and die with them, then board it.

Over the next 13 years, the vessel changed hands 17 times. By then, the Mary Celeste was in very poor condition. Her last captain and owner, identified as G. C. Parker for sake of an insurance fraud in the Caribbean, attempted to run her over reefs but plan didn’t work and it failed to sink so he burned it. Later he was caught but died under unknowingly which further made people’s superstitions about the ship stronger. The partially burnt hulk of the Mary Celeste was deemed beyond repair and she was left to eventually slip off the shoal and sink. And once it sank, it’s trace could never be found. They say it disappeared under water just like the crew did. Some even claimed to find it but carbon dating proved them wrong. I am sure if you find it, repair it and board it, you’d contact them too.

7. Dream a Succubi or Incubi

A succubus is a female demonic legendary creature who seduces men in their sleep. Religious tradition holds that repeated intercourse with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, or even death. She often visits monks. Its male counterpart is the incubus. Succubi draw energy from men to sustain themselves. In the past succubi were depicted as frightening and demonic, usually with wings and a tail. Sometimes the wings are that of a bat or a bird. The tail takes various shapes, sometimes that of a snake or an aquatic tail like that of a mermaid.In modern times, a succubus may appear in dreams and is often portrayed as a highly attractive seductress or enchantress.

In beliefs of pre-Islamic Arabia, qarînah is the word used instead  “sleeps with the person and has relations during sleep as is known by the dreams.” They are said to be invisible, but a person with “second sight” can see them, often in the form of a cat, dog, or other household pet. ” Only certain people are possessed and such people cannot marry or the qarina will harm them.

It is believed by some in the field of medicine that the stories relating to encounters with succubi bear similar resemblance to the contemporary phenomenon of people reporting alien abductions, which has been ascribed to the condition known as sleep paralysis. It is therefore suggested that historical accounts of people experiencing encounters with succubi may have been in fact symptoms of sleep paralysis, with the hallucination of the said creatures coming from their contemporary culture.

6. Table Turning

Table Turning or Table Tipping is a type of séance in which participants sit around a table, place their hands on it, and wait for rotations. The table was purportedly made to serve as a means of communicating with the spirits.

When the movement of Modern Spiritualism first reached Europe from America in the winter of 1852–1853, the most popular method of consulting the spirits was for several persons to sit round a table, with their hands resting on it, and wait for the table to move. If the experiment was successful the table would rotate with considerable rapidity, and would occasionally rise in the air, or perform other movements. Whilst by many the movements were ascribed to the agency of spirits, two investigators—Count de Gasparin and Professor Thury of Geneva—conducted a careful series of experiments by which they claimed to have demonstrated that the movements of the table were due to a physical force emanating from the bodies of the sitters, for which they proposed the name ectenic force. Their conclusion rested on the supposed elimination of all known physical causes for the movements; but it is doubtful from the description of the experiments whether the precautions taken were sufficient to exclude unconscious muscular action – called the the ideomotor effect or even deliberate fraud.

5. Scrying

Scrying also called as crystal gazing, is a magic practice that involves seeing things psychically in a medium, usually for purposes of obtaining spiritual visions and less often for purposes of divination or fortune-telling. The most common media used are reflective, translucent, or luminescent substances such as crystals, stones, glass, mirrors, water, fire, or smoke. Scrying has been used in many cultures as a means of divining the past, present, or future. Depending on the culture and practice, the visions that come when one stares into the media are thought to come from ghosts, spirits, the psychic mind, the devil, or the subconscious.

Scrying is actively used by many cultures and belief systems and is not limited to one tradition or ideology. As of 2009, the Ganzfeld experiment, a sensory deprivation experiment inspired by scrying, provides the best known evidence for psi abilities in the laboratory. Scrying is different from Channeling or mediumship in a way that scrying involves gazing into a glassy medium for source but in channeling or mediumship, a person, animal or any object may be taken over by a spirit or ghost to convey his message.

4. Using an Ouija (Planchette writing)

One of the first mentions of the automatic writing method used in the Ouija board is found in China around 1100 B.C., and it is first recorded in historical documents of the Song Dynasty. The method was known as fuji “planchette writing”. One source notes that, according to a Greek historical account of the philosopher Pythagoras, in 540 B.C. his sect would conduct séances at “a mystic table, moving on wheels, moved towards signs, which the philosopher and his pupil, Philolaus, interpreted to the audience as being revelations supposedly from an unseen world.

An ouija board, also known as spirit board or talking board is a flat board marked with letters, numbers, and other symbols, supposedly used to communicate with spirits. It uses a planchette (small heart-shaped piece of wood) or movable indicator to indicate the spirit’s message by spelling it out on the board during a séance. The fingers of the séance participants are placed on the planchette, which then moves about the board to spell out messages.

Since its invention in the late nineteenth century, the Oujia board has been associated with the threat of demonic possession. Consequently, mainstream Christian denominations have warned against using Ouija boards. Occultists, on the other hand, are divided on the issue, with some saying that it can be a positive transformation; others echo the warnings of many Christians and caution inexperienced users against it.

3. Channeling

Channeling, previously called as mediumship dates back to Victorian times when spooky photographs were reported. It is the term used to describe an act where the practitioner attempts to receive messages from spirits of the dead and other spirits that the practitioner believes exist. Humans were used as medium. Some self-ordained ones are fully conscious and awake while functioning as contacts; others may slip into a partial or full trance or an altered state of consciousness. These self called ‘trance-mediums’ often state that, when they emerge from the trance state, they have no recollection of the messages they conveyed; it is customary for such practitioners to work with an assistant who writes down or otherwise records their words. This is distinct from the concept ofpossession, which is considered to be the complete, non-consensual takeover of a living being by a spirit.

Ectoplasm is said to be the medium through which ghosts can materialize. Physical mediumship may involve perceptible manifestations, such as loud raps and noises, voices, materialized objects, apports, materialized spirit bodies, or body parts such as hands, and levitation. The medium is used as a source of power for such spirit manifestations. By some accounts, this was achieved by using the energy or ectoplasm released by a medium. The last physical medium to be tested was in 1924. Most physical mediumship is presented in a darkened or dimly lit room. Most physical mediums make use of a traditional array of tools and appurtenances, including spirit trumpets, spirit cabinets, and levitation tables.

2. Via a Sound Recording (Phantom Words)

Download and listen to the Phantom Words

Caution: the recording is violent and may be too intense for some listeners.

The idea of talking to deceased beloveds dates back to Thomas Edison who postulated that it might be possible to record ghostly conversations with his phonographic equipment. But it wasn’t until the introduction of the domestic tape recorder that electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) grabbed the public imagination.

As the Spiritualism religious movement became prominent in the 1840s–1920s with a distinguishing belief that the spirits of the dead can be contacted by mediums, new technologies of the era including photography were employed by spiritualists in an effort to demonstrate contact with a spirit world. So popular were such ideas that Thomas Edison was asked to comment on the possibility. He replied that if the spirits were only capable of subtle influences, a sensitive recording device would provide a better chance of spirit communication. As sound recording became widespread, mediums explored using this technology to demonstrate communication with the dead as well.

Now thousands of people across world spend their free time in wandering around haunted locations and installing recorders and video cameras in hopes of spooks and apparition. The evidence could be found at City of Dundee in Scotland, a city packed full of dead people, really a huge part of this city  is formed over a massive ancient graveyard. It’s here wondering among the deceased, many EVP investigators have contacted ghosts via radios.

Electronic Voice Phenomenon or the Phantom Words are electronically generated noises that resemble speech, but may or may not be the result of intentional voice recordings or renderings. Some have claimed these sounds are of paranormal origin, while others give explanations such as apophenia (finding significance in insignificant phenomena), auditory pareidolia (interpreting random sounds as voices in their own language).

1. Staring into the Mirror Prolonged at Midnights

Is it possible to call a ghost by staring into the mirror? Well there is a strong superstitious tradition linked to it. When somebody died in a family, the mirrors were covered black so as to prevent the newly deceased soul from coming back and getting eclipsed before someone who is passing nearby the mirror. Bloody Mary was  known to be a famous ghost or witch said to appear in a mirror by staring it for long and her name called three times or sometimes more. She was bred young and beautiful until she was 18, and focus of beauty was her lovely wavy hair. Every night before going to bed, she would brush her golden locks exactly 100 times and once she was so busy that she didn’t notice a man concealed in her closet. He raped her and cut her all the gold, Mary couldn’t bear it and decided to end it all and hanged herself from her window. A hairy end for Mary but there is more.

People say if you stand before a mirror in the dark and repeat her name thrice, after chanting a hundred times at midnight, spinning around and rubbing one’s eyes with water running, she would appear in the mirror. In some versions of the legend, the summoner must say, “Bloody Mary, I killed your baby, while raping you .” This is similar to another game involving the summoning of the Bell Witch which is often a test of courage and bravery, as it is said that if she is summoned, she would proceed to kill the summoner in an extremely violent way or  will haunt them forever. Other versions tell that the summoner can talk to a deceased person until 11:08a.m and if  the querent doesn’t look directly at Bloody Mary, but at her image; she will then reveal the querent’s future, particularly concerning marriage and children.

Well the story might be made up but it gave scientists a clue to contact another dimension via mirrors. Physics say there might be parallel universes alongside ours. Lewis Carroll was a mathematician and he gave this too via his books Alice in the wonderland. Now science says that there may be a mirror (not a physical one but a barrier of energy) that would be separating a star-gate between our universe and another so even scientifically this Bloody Mary tale is not so crazy.