In honor of the Halloween season, where we symbolically confront our personal and cultural shadows…
I offer you a humble guide to the spirit realm for your comfort and convenience.
This small and simple effort makes no claim to be the last word on this complex topic of intangibility, the nature of reality, and in some senses, our very existence…
For there will always be more questions and all of what follows requires at least a certain level of faith that there is something more going on than what our five senses can detect.
Here is a basic break down:
1.) Energy: We are it and it is us. It is all around us — constantly moving and vibrating. Nothing is stagnant nor is it stationary. So the first thing to know about what often ends up deemed as “paranormal” or “supernatural’ is that majority of the energy that causes upsets, weird vibes, chills, disturbances and freaky feelings comes from the LIVING.
Yes, the living.
We are constantly sending out energy. Be it through unconscious emotions, thoughts or actions, which send signals out into the energetic field that works like an invisible web, connecting us to everything and everyone. Much of the time, these energetic pings will dissipate on their own, losing steam as they dart through the field and out into the atmosphere.
But sometimes these pings — which vary in intensity — will get trapped in the spaces where we hang out. Then those who are empathic and/or intuitive (which is just about everyone to varying degrees whether they’re aware of it or not) may pick up on it or sense something they can’t explain – a chill, a discomfort, an uneasiness. This is primarily what people feel when they feel “spooked” in structures. It’s just old human generated energy banging around — reverberating in the space and being a nuisance. 
This is why people think that places like old prisons and mental institutions are haunted. Sure, they’re creepy by nature, but I wager that most of what is happening in those spaces is old pain from the former inhabitants, created while they were alive. This pain and fear can be so powerful, it can fool us into thinking it’s an entity who roams the earth, but it’s not.
It’s all different forms of lingering invisible energy created unconsciously by us.
2.) Deceased People:
There are two main categories.
a.) Our loved ones, who of course we miss dearly and want to hear from. When our loved ones depart this plane and move to the other side, they will want to reassure us that not only are then happy where they are, but they also will pop in from time to time to make sure we’re okay. Our connection to them is never broken, no matter if we’re here and they’re where they are — this soul connection is eternal.
This key thing to remember is that our deceased loved ones have completed their time here on earth and once they shift into their body-free existence, they quickly see (after their own healing and life review) that where they are is pretty awesome.
They no longer view Earth or life as they did when there were here. They send us constant love and reassurance that they’re with us though, but they also are limited to how much they can physically help us since their new body-free vibration is so much higher than ours. Be assured that we can talk to them and they will hear us and send us love. They will do what they can to help us if they can, but they don’t become our full-time angels, since that job is already filled (see below).
b.) Those we don’t know, but who need our help and will reach out to anyone who may be sensitive enough to pick up their signals like a medium or psychic (even to those who aren’t aware they posses this sensitivity, such as children).
Category “b” of deceased people breaks down into three subsets:
b.1.) Those who died traumatically and/or unexpectedly.
b.2) Those who don’t know their dead, but are benign.
b.3.) Those who, while they were alive, created trauma.
b.1) When someone passes traumatically, say in a tragic car accident and their death was a shock, what then can occur, I refer to as the “95/5 Rule.”
This loosely means is that 95% of their soul automatically transitions peacefully to the other side, but because of the shock, a small echo — or 5% — can leave an energetic imprint near their place of death.
When I come across these echoes, I feel nothing but compassion for the 5% left behind and perform a healing (please see my previous post my medium life: a spirit walk for more information on this).
It’s like finding a lost teddy bear on train. Your heart breaks for the child who’s missing it and you do what you can to get it back to them. It’s not scary. It’s poignant.
At the same time, while their souls are at peace on the other side, this residual energy would still like to leave here and be reunited with its soul and be made whole.
b.2.) This is a somewhat rare set, but occasionally a person will pass, but not realize they’re dead because they are attached to a particular place or person. They are overly identified with their life here. This energy is generally benign (and can be cleared and healed by a professional). These energies aren’t meaning to “haunt” anything or anyone because it’s like they didn’t get the memo that’s it’s time for them to go.
b.3.) This is what I call the “Times Square Classification.” When my daughter was younger, she and some friends wanted to play with a Ouija board at a sleepover. I was upset about this because most children are naturally psychically open and more vulnerable to the denser and lower energies that are attracted to a Ouija board.
I explained to my daughter that working with a Ouija board when you really don’t know what you’re doing (i.e. you don’t know how to protect yourself energetically) is like opening your front door in Times Square and letting anyone walk in and hang out. There is no guarantee that they will leave because this energy is looking for someone to attach itself to so that it can stay sustained because it’s needy energy and looking for a place or person to plug-in.
Are they really spirits who have crossed over and are communicating with the living? They would like us to think so, but it is my experience that this phenomenon is more like the negative former human pain and trauma that has been left here like a skid mark. This negativity is real, but it has no real power.
In other words, it’s not a conscious energy that is seeking healing like the 5%. It’s more like a thousand TVs have been left on in a warehouse. Just like they’re not really people living in TVs, but they are images and sounds from previously created “reality TV” i.e. life, that are all attempting to be seen and heard. I would strongly avoid working with this energy unless you’re really experienced, because these TVs can be hard to turn off once on and they’re looking for power sources to keep going, i.e. us, who needs that static?
This energy is not malicious or trying to hurt us. It has no authentic power over us or anything. It does not think or feel or have an agenda. It, like all stray energy requires healing and compassion to be cleared. Think of this energy as the dust bunnies of the energetic realm. They need to cleaned and cleared, but not judged.
Angels: The first thing I’d like to tell you about what we think of as “angels” is that they are everywhere. I mean everywhere! And there are way more of them than there are us. If I were to walk into a high school cafeteria where three hundred kids were eating lunch, there would be 1200 angels there too (this is just a guesstimate, but just to give you a sense of the ratio). They are light beings who have either had only a few or no lifetimes on Earth.
Their job and their joy is to support us while we’re here. In addition, they support the planet and all of its life, including plants and animals. They are of a very high vibration and can rarely been seen with the human eye, but they can be more easily felt (i.e. that wash of love or peace that suddenly comes over you). They want to help us, but they are also not supposed to interfere with our “free will” so we must get into the habit of asking them for help, which they will happily do. We can ask them all day long and they will gladly do it, if it’s in our best interest. These beings are also part of our Spirit Guide team who are here to here to help us whenever we ask.
Ghosts: What we would think of as ghosts actually are can usually fit into one of the previously described categories. However, there is a fascinating phenomena I must add.
When someone actually sees a ghost, like, they see with their physical eyes, say, a dude in 18th Century duds standing right in front of them… I posit it that what is really happening here (which is way cooler than seeing a “ghost” because remember souls generally don’t hang out here to haunt us because they have way better things to do on the other side) is that we are peering through the sliding doors of time.
Yes, seeing through time, because time, though we think of it as linear and chronological, is actually layered — or stacked — and therefore, many realities can be playing out at once, particularly in a place where there was once an intense energetic experience. So you’re not seeing the “ghost” of a dead man, but an alternate reality where that man also exists.
I know this raises many questions about dimensional realities (which is too complicated to get into here), and I’m sure many other questions as well. Remember, this is just a simple overview from my perspective as a professional intuitive. However, if you have questions, please leave them in the comments section and I will absolutely do my best to answer them.
Happy Halloween!
Love,
Alix