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The
Romance Reverend’s Fascinating Interview with
Famous "Ghost Hunter" Hans Holzer
Dr. Hans Holzer's experiences with things that go
bump in the night and the expansive nature of spirit
friends transcend popular images of Casper and Halloween
haunting. In fact, he speaks of ghosts and other spirit
entities as if they are real people, like you and I, who
are simply headed for or living in a different
dimension. With the world’s most noted counselor to
the disembodied spirits, sitting around telling ghost
stories takes on new meaning. "I’m a scientist
and this does not mean to know, it means to
quest for knowledge," he clarifies. "It’s
never finite. It always keeps changing and moving and
you learn new things. But you do have to have standards.
And scientific standards preclude me from accepting some
of these fantasies."
"The other side tends to confirm what most
religions teach," says Holzer. "If it weren’t
for the facts of parapsychology, religion wouldn’t
have a leg to stand on. Religion takes some of the
evidence, which we know in parapsychology, and uses it
for its own end--to distort the truth, to get people to
obey. I’m not against organized religion, but
spirituality is not religious; spirituality is a way of
life. You don’t need intermediaries for that."
Rev. Laurie Sue: Do you believe in ghosts?
Hans Holzer: I don’t believe in anything.
Belief is the uncritical acceptance of something you can’t
prove. I work on evidence; I either know or I don’t
know. There are three dirty words in my vocabulary:
belief, disbelief and supernatural. They don’t exist.
There’s no "supernatural world." Everything
that exists is natural.
Yet there is a dimension of existence that is as real
as your living room, even if the average person cannot
access it with all their senses?
I coined the phrase "the other side"
because it really is the other side, like one side of
the mirror. The spirit world, or "the world next
door," as Eileen Garrett called it, is not up or
down. It is here, moving at a different rate of speed.
And the dimension into which we all pass--except ghosts,
because they can’t get into it until they are
liberated from their compulsions--is concentric with
this dimension. It exists in the same special area, but
because it’s strung out further, it does not clash
with the thicker atmosphere, the thicker dimension, in
which we exist.
What’s "the other side" like?
Everything we have here they have over there. This is
a duplicate of this world except over there the purpose
is to develop the personality from the negative to the
positive, or to give them assignments or to send them
down for some more education.
What is the difference between a ghost and a spirit?
We are all spirit. When we pass on, we simply get rid
of the outer layer and, underneath, there really is a
duplicate layer. This inner body--like an inner tube of
a tire--is where our personality resides. At death the
physical body is worn out and dissolved, so the inner
body is where we live. So we need to have an atmosphere,
a dimension, that fits this inner body and that’s the
world of spirit, or the etheric world. The etheric world
is all around us. At death, we ride out into that world
and we are right there. That’s our normal
transition. However, once in a while something goes
wrong when somebody passes from the physical state.
What turns them into a ghost?
The death is not smooth. When there is trauma--an
unacceptable accident or shock or surprise-- this will,
in some cases, cause the personality to go into a state
of psychotic shock. In that state of shock they are not
aware that they’ve passed on. They are confused as to
their real status, because they can see everybody and no
body seems to be able to see them. That’s what a ghost
is...somebody who’s gotten stuck in the physical world
but is not part of the physical world. And they become
panic stricken for attention and eventually they do
things to get attention, like moving objects, creating
noises. This is not to frighten people, they’re just
attention getters.
But not everything that goes bump in the night is a
ghost.
It’s the exception, rather than the normal
transition. I have found that about 75 to 80 percent of
the sightings or auditory phenomena are not really
people stuck in our atmosphere, but replays from the
past. Like an imprint on the atmosphere. It’s a
psychic imprint; an imprint on the atmosphere, which is
energy like a television picture that is stuck in time.
To the average person it looks exactly the same as a
ghost. Even some mediums can’t tell the difference.
But if phenomena are observed exactly alike at the same
time in the same place and a number of witnesses have
reported identical experiences, then you probably have
an imprint. If, from different witnesses, you have
reports saying there’s a variation in what the ghost
entity is doing, then it’s a real person. That’s the
only way you can tell one from the other.
How are they different from ghosts who crave
attention?
The ghost personality is generally in various stages
of psychotic condition--otherwise they would move on.
The stay behind is someone who lived in one place for a
very long time, and usually dies a gentle death; they
just fall asleep, no violence, no pain. They are unused
to any other place, partially because their religious
belief has primed them to believe Hosanna with angels
wings on their back, or in some cases, fellows in red
underwear with pitch forks, would take them away. Low
and behold, at death, they’re still where they were
before. The physical body isn’t there--but there’s a
body and they see themselves, so they stay put. That’s
why people go to the funeral of Aunt Minnie, come back
and there she is in her usual chair.
You made a distinction between a ghost and a spirit.
Is there a distinction between a spirit and a soul?
No. The soul is the spirit. The soul is the
personality. The soul is energy that manifests through
and resides in an etheric body. This energy field, which
is us, is what the church calls the soul and what
the spiritually inclined people call the spirit.
Popular culture has offered a few glimpses into the
other side. In the movie "Ghost" we saw a
spirit shocked out of his skin, yet determined to finish
some business. An accurate portrayal?
Everything was correct except for that last
scene--which is Hollywood--where the furies come and get
the bad guy. It doesn’t work that way. There are no
furies, there is no hell. There is only that which you
bring with you to the other side. But movies are
fantasy. This is real.
So we do bring our baggage with us at death?
When you pass on you take your memories with you. And
if your life has been negative or a destructive one, you
will have to go to school, so to speak, and the next
time around you will have a chance to confront some of
those issues again. That’s the whole idea behind
reincarnation. I did a lot of work on reincarnation for Life
Beyond (Contemporary Books). I have no doubts
whatsoever it exists for everybody.
Yet in between gigs in human form, can our beloved
relatives communicate from the other side without being
ghosts?
It’s very common. Unfortunately, our culture
teaches people that it is not possible, there is nothing
out there, yet when somebody passes on, the first thing
when they arrive on the other side is they want to let
their loved ones know that they are still alive and that
they are well and they are happy being with other loved
ones. There is touching and cases where they feel the
person. Yes. Oh, all of this is very possible.
For More Information:
Everything you need to know about ghosts but were
afraid to ask:
GHOSTS:
True Encounters With The World Beyond, by
Hans Holzer, (Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 1998)
Hans
Holzer’s Travel Guide To Haunted Houses: A Practical
Guide To Places Haunted by ghosts, poltergeists and
spirits (Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers,
1998)
© Copyright
Reverend Laurie Sue Brockway All Rights
Reserved.
What would you like to say to an ex that would help you
move on and clear the path for new love?
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