44 Days of Witchery: Day 18

The Paranormal *cues creepy music*

Strictly speaking, I'd argue that what most people think of as "paranormal" is really just plain old normal.

I think the chances are that things like aliens exist, but I'm not won over as far as whether they visit Earth. It just isn't likely that we're the only life in the universe.

I have had experiences with ghosts, most of which are extremely private. It started when I was a child, and I eventually got to where I blocked it. Modern society says that people who can communicate with the dead are weird at best and delusional at worst. I put up walls. Now I am working on breaking those barriers down.

I even do the occasional ghost hunting with a friend or three.

I guess that's about it. I can't think of anything else that might fall into the category.

Ultimately, I think my view of it is that there is more to life than is dreamt of in all of our philosophies, to paraphrase Shakespeare.

44 Days of Witchery: Day 15

The afterlife. It is the question that everyone asks eventually, I think. What happens when we die?

Any ounce of honesty requires one to say, "I don't really know."

But I have had dreams of other lives. I am certain that something of us survives, and I believe death to be a doorway.

Now when I say that I've dreamt other lives, I don't mean that I think I was Cleopatra or Napoleon. That's ego speaking when people think that... maybe.

I mean that I was the child of a farmer. I was the daughter of a slave. And I don't remember much.

I have a complicated understanding of the afterlife, however. It was born out of the contradiction of believing in ghosts (I've seen those too!), Ancestors, and reincarnation. Why establish a practice talking to one's Beloved Dead if they're already back amongst us?

Now I don't really see a contradiction, but my original solution to the question holds still. The Afterlife isn't beholden to the same laws of time as this existence. Perhaps my next life will be in Sumer. Maybe I'm already living out my next life right now in the Czech Republic. Who knows?

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

I believe that we have lessons we take in and that we have the chance to integrate our experiences when we die, and then we come back. Outside of that, I don't have a clue.

I don't think of life as something to escape. I consider the idea that the material realm is automatically foul to be short-sighted and anthrocentric. I believe that animal souls and plant souls are just as vital and important as we are, and that we can come back in those forms as easily as we can as humans.

As a Panentheist, I don't believe that there is anything that doesn't partake of the Cosmic Soul, who I name Hekate like the Chaldaean Oracles have for centuries.