Twilight Path Studies
Journal Excercises
Back to Life | Distinguishing Residues from Ghosts | Meditation on the Dead Child
Distinguishing Residues from Ghosts
By Michelle Belanger
A true ghost is the sentient remnant of a human being that has lingered past that being’s death. True ghosts are attached to the lives they once lived because there is something they are having trouble letting go. Echoes, residues, and constructs are products of the living, but they are not sentient souls. When found in cemeteries, these lingering energies are usually constructed of intense emotions left behind by the living as they mourned for the dead. Hopes, fears, and other emotional responses to the reality of death are inherent in these, and because of these associations such residues can be a potent focus for connecting with the energy of death.
But how do you tell a residue, construct, or an echo from a real ghost? Sometimes this is difficult, especially in the case of constructs that can arise from the mourners’ ideal image of the deceased. A potent construct will not only have the appearance of the deceased but can also behave like the spirit of the dead person. However, while a construct will go through a rote set of motions that are essentially “programmed” by the person or persons who created it, there is no real sentience behind these activities. When it comes down to it, a construct is really just a machine. Even the cleverest AI program, once you’ve engaged it in conversation for a while, will eventually reveal itself to be a man-made thing. So it is with most constructs. For those who are new to this aspect of reality, however, the best method of telling ghosts apart from other things is practice, practice, practice.
So let’s get some experience sensing a “ghost” that is not a ghost. For this exercise, you want to find the grave of a person who has only recently been buried. Ideally, you want a grave that has all of the flowers and other offerings from the actual burial still arranged around and on top of it. If your cemetery is rather old and doesn’t see much use, this may be hard, but keep an eye out. If you absolutely cannot find a fresh grave, look for a gravesite that family members frequently visit. This is typically a clean and well-kept grave with fresh wreaths, flowers, and other mementos.
When you have found such a grave, either that of someone recently interred or of someone regularly visited by family, go over and examine it. Take a few moments to center yourself, closing your eyes and turning your senses inward. Reach out and feel the area around the grave. What impressions do you get here? Can you sense the emotions of the family members as they mourned their departed dead?
Take a few moments to sift through all of those sensations, examining the many facets of hope, grief, and despair. Depending on how the person died, how old or young they were, and how unexpected the death might have been, the emotions will have different shades to them. For example, the emotional residue lingering around a child’s grave is often intense and severe, filled with anger and frustrated dreams as well as sorrow and despair. The emotions lingering around the grave of someone who suffered from a prolonged and painful illness are often bittersweet, for such a death, though sad, is also a comfort to those who watched their family member suffer for so long.
As you sense the energy around the grave, you may get an impression of a person. In some cases, this person will seem as real as a ghost. Using your subtle senses, you will be able to “see” what this person looks like, and you may even be able to “hear” feelings and thoughts.
This is the memory of the departed, an ideal image of them built up by each and every family member or friend who comes to this grave to pay their respects. Although sometimes these memories can take a life of their own, they are not ghosts. They are echoes or constructs, an intense and specific image imprinted upon the fabric of the subtle reality by the strength of thought and emotion released by the living.
Take some time to examine your perceptions of this “ghost”. If it is a particularly strong residue, more akin to a construct, you may even be able to engage it in conversation. At the very least you will be able to get a sense of personality from it. This “memory ghost” is typically a composite of what all the family members felt this person to be. Experiment with interactions that show you the hollow nature of this construct, how it is more a hologram projected into the subtle reality than a real person. Learn to see the cues so that you will more readily recognize phenomena of this type when you encounter them again. If it converses and reacts to you intelligently and over a long period of time, however, you may have stumbled on a bona fide ghost.
