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Maggie can’t leave the kitchen while anything is cooking.  As long as she stays in the kitchen everything is fine.  But if she leaves, the stove top, oven, toaster, whatever she has been using, mysteriously shuts itself off.

She has narrowed this phenomenon down to the presence of her “kitchen ghost,” as she likes to call it – a woman who had died, and carried with her a fear of fire. Maggie has resolved the problem by bringing into the kitchen good music and plenty of reading material whenever she wants to cook. “I like my kitchen ghost,” she confesses. “I never want her to leave. Now I don’t have to worry about whether or not I turned the coffee pot off.”

Alice, a single teenage mother with an infant, lives with her own mother in a two story home. Alice goes to school part-time and Grandma Sarah, while not working, watches the baby. After Alice sees a spirit in the living room one day we are called in to do a “ghost clearing” Alice hopes the session will explain the unknown footsteps in the middle of the night, doors mysteriously left open, her feeling of being watched.

We go in and, forming a healing circle, convince the spirit of an angry elderly man to leave the house and complete his journey to Spirit. He moves on to a better place, joining his ancestors in peace. A second spirit, a nice woman, moves on as well…easily…almost too easily. First she is there, and then she’s not. We don’t see her anymore and the house is at peace. So we leave, thinking our work is done.

It is now two months later, and we get a call from Alice. She says that she smells perfume every-so-often, and that at one point she felt a comforting presence, watching over her during a period of sadness and despair. “Steve, do you think I could have prevented the spirit from moving on during the clearing? At one point,” she relates sheepishly, “I thought to the spirit that she could come back anytime she wanted to.”

Alice finally shares something she hadn’t shared before. A few weeks before the clearing session, she had left the baby alone in the bedroom while going quickly to another room to take care of errands. “It’s safe,” she thought. “The baby can’t even roll over yet.” But, while in the other room, she heard a noise and rushed back to the bedroom to behold something amazing. The baby was hovering midway between the bed top and the floor, and was slowly being “lifted” by invisible hands through the air, to be gently placed upon the bed. “I’m not ready to let go of the ghost yet,” she confides. “I really want the extra help.”

While traveling, we might see an advertisement about, and actually participate in, a “ghost tour.” Some of those ghost tours actually do include ghosts! Many of the spirits may be comfortable where they are – Earthbound. There are many people that wish the spirits to stay, and many of the spirits might feel good about being wanted, and attended to.

Claire had told her husband, before he died, that he could evaluate, or at least meet, prospective husbands for her before he succumbed to terminal cancer. She hadn’t wanted to agree to this, but did so in order to appease him and alleviate his fears.  A short while later her husband died and after some time of mourning, she decided to date again.

Her first date had car trouble before going to pick her up; the engagement never took place. Her second date tripped on her front doorstep, severely straining his ankle. Some time later, she actually went out to dinner with a man, only to have a chandelier fall from the restaurant ceiling, narrowly missing his head. “Steve,” she admits. “I think it might be time for me to let go of my husband.”

As Light Workers, part of our job description is to help bring people higher levels of awareness, a greater sense of peace. And this is not limited to those people still embodied, but also to those who are disembodied – ghosts. At the time of death, and thereafter, having not taken advantage of the gateway to a Higher Reality, these Earthbound Spirits often roam unconsciously around the Earth, haunting various people and/or places. As a service, we can help these spirits become more aware of their surroundings, and their choices – to stay upon the Earth Plane, or to continue the journey to Spirit, joining their ancestors in a place of greater peace and contentment.

At times, it may seem hard to decide if and when to release spirit. If the spirit has become a problem then we may easily decide to send him or her onward. Doors or closets opening and closing, lights coming on or off,  bad smells, people having negative physical interactions with the spirit, bothersome noises at times, other more negative interactions – all these may prompt a person to send the ghost onward.

But what about a spirit that just wants to help, a spirit who is comfortable where he or she is? What about a spirit that is more of a helper than a hinderer? In the first example above, the situation with the kitchen ghost, Maggie did not even help the spirit become aware of her choices. She decided to keep the spirit in the dark, assuming that the spirit would be more than happy to stay and watch the kitchen. This, to me, may have been an unethical decision on Maggie’s part. I felt the need to communicate with the spirit, to see if I could help. However, I was not given permission from the homeowner to do so. Even if I had tried to send the spirit onward, the homeowner might have just as easily kept the spirit there.

In the second example, Alice, the single teenage mother, had the heart and the willingness to help lead the spirit to a greater state of awareness, but then, out of fear or the need for additional help with her baby, she invited the ghost to stay. During that incident, we were able to communicate clearly to the spirit that she had an option to find greater peace with her ancestors. However, the single mother and the ghost had reached an agreement in which the ghost would stay and help. The mother wanted the help, and the spirit wanted to help. Alice, however, did agree that at some future time when she was feeling better and more confident about her own parenting skills, she would once again contact the ghost. She would remind the ghost about greater peace and contentment being available. She would sincerely urge the spirit onward.

What about a spirit who is actually a loved one who has passed on? These situations can cause ethical, moral, and emotional dilemmas. For someone who has recently lost a loved one, it is often “normal” for the spirit to hang around for some time, normal for the bereaved to “hallucinate” the presence of the deceased. If the relationship is supportive and loving, I will not even try to send the spirit onward. There may be a need on both the person’s parts to continue the relationship. However, if the relationship turns harmful or limiting, if it interferes with the healthy functioning of either individual, then it may be time to intervene. It may be time to help both of them with the grief process, allowing, even encouraging, the separation. Claire, whose husband had died holding onto the thought of interviewing prospective husbands for her, had finally reached a new level of awareness herself. After realizing that her husband had been hanging around, being perhaps a bit too forceful with his interviews, she had reached a decision to help him reach a new, higher, level of awareness.

There is no pat answer as to when we “should” send an Earthbound spirit onward. For “simple” hauntings, those in which the spirit is just hanging around or observing, we may be doing a disservice to those ghosts that we know are present if we merely ignore them. The same holds true for more “complex” cases. We can review our motives, our needs and wants, and approach the situation with loving kindness, from the heart. We treat the ghosts as we would real people. They may be lost or merely unaware of the option to find greater peace. When the spirit is letting its presence be known, he or she is also more open to receiving our communications, to listening to us. We can, at that time, communicate with them. We can let them know that they are dead, their responsibilities upon the Earth are over, they are forgiven for what they did or didn’t do, and loved ones are waiting (in the Light) to greet them and to help them. If family, they can come back to visit on holidays and other times, but they must not linger.

They have their own lives to lead…in Spirit.

Steven Rogat will be a guest on The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show in early 2010 . Check back for the official show date coming soon.

More about Steven Rogat…
Steven is a gifted clairvoyant, medical/emotional intuitive, and shamanic healer renowned for his ability to touch others’ lives with his wisdom, insight, and healing. He is a National Certified Counselor and Licensed Professional Counselor who brings to his practice extensive training with indigenous healers in the Hawaiian, Mexican, and Native American traditions. He is also a massage therapist, hypnotherapist, Eye Movement Therapist (EMDR) and Thought Field Therapist (TFT) whose variety of skills and natural clairvoyance create a unique opportunity for healing. Steven’s books include Healing Thoughts: Applying Therapeutic Shamanism in Your Daily Life and, co-written with Marcia Rogat, Spirit Journeys: Freeing the Soul in This Life and Beyond. More info at: www.CreativeThought.org

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