(Continued from 3/30/12)

As I sat looking through the viewfinder on the camera, it wasn’t long before I saw more orbs of light. I even saw two at once. They bounced in arcs and faded like the lightning bugs I used to see in my uncle’s backyard when I was a kid. Before I could utter a word to describe what I was seeing, Ken suddenly blurted out, “Something just came straight toward us!”

Well, I didn’t see it, but I sure felt it—that overwhelming energy accompanied by a headache that came and went. What I did see though—those orbs of light—were definitely NOT dust particles. They were not insects and they were not refracted light from the camera or from anywhere in the house. They moved in a way that was unlike anything I’d ever seen before—they danced; they sprang up like you see in fast-motion pictures of grass growing or seedlings sprouting out of the earth, then they vanished as quickly as they had come. They were also too large to be dust particles or insects. Besides, one doesn’t normally see flying insects inside someone’s house in Colorado in February.

Not only that, but Ken could not have tricked us or staged any of it because he would not have been able to make me feel what I felt. That was what convinced me most of all.

Afterward, when I thought about it, combined with the physical sensations I had that night, I knew that those bits of light that looked like tiny shooting stars represented the presence of a spirit. How does one process such information? Because that’s what I do as a writer—I process my observations and feelings about those observations. And my headaches and chills subsided pretty much after Ken turned the light back on for good. I was left with a feeling of sheer astonishment. We had tapped an unknown realm.

But Mary Bell did not make me feel threatened in any way. Just to set the record straight though, as Jill and I walked back to my car that night, I turned around and faced the Harmon’s house, and I told Mary Bell how much I appreciated her showing herself to us but to please not follow me home—to please stay with that nice family she lived with. My life was already complicated enough; I didn’t need a ghost to deal with too!

I also realized that I gained what I’d hoped to from the experience—to prove to myself that the feelings I’d been getting all these years, the ones I wrote about in my book, were, in fact, the energies of a spirit trying to communicate with me. And I realized that initiating contact with ghosts was not something I wanted to do with my life. There are plenty of good mediums out there, but it isn’t my path. On the road to self-realization, not only do I have to discover the things that make up the person I call “me,” I also have to come to terms with what ISN’T me. I know that my path involves light—God, love, happiness, positiveness, joy, and putting myself in touch with the spiritual parts of me that are for my highest good and that of others. My life’s purpose is not to help non-living beings find their way to the light. My role is to help living beings find their way!

I also realized that my dear parents who died six years ago—whom I loved with all my heart—were still with me in spirit because spirit is made of energy. We are made of energy and one of the laws of thermodynamics states that energy never dies. It can be transformed into different things, but it cannot be destroyed. Love too, transforms. Love too, never dies and cannot be destroyed. Love is eternal.

Our thoughts are also made of energy, so wherever we focus our thoughts, there will also be our energy. By concentrating on a specific thing, we thereby attract it to us (as I did with this opportunity) and after I returned home that evening, I felt a sort of residue around me. I knew that if I wanted to further entice Mary Bell’s spirit, I could easily have encouraged it to manifest in my life. But I also knew without a doubt that I did not want to bring that ghost toward me, so as I lay in my bed that night, I prayed for God’s protection and for protection from the angels and energies of only the highest vibration and love and light. Then I thanked Mary Bell’s spirit once more for allowing me the incredible opportunity to interact with her, but I also told her in no uncertain terms that she was not to attach to me in any way. And I slept just fine.

The next morning, the residue was gone and I knew that she had respected my wishes. (I’ve since been told that if she would have been an evil entity, she would not have respected my wishes.)

In any case, I was amazed at how easy it was for something like this to get pulled into my life. And when I thought about it, I realized once again, the great power of my mind and spirit. I DO have control of my destiny, just as I do have control of my thoughts.

Perhaps when we ask for things in our lives and they don’t happen the way we think they should or as quickly as we want them to, we give up, or maybe we tell ourselves that it isn’t true that we can attract things to us just by focusing our thoughts on them. But to use my own situation as an example, for several weeks before this event took place, I’d been asking to be introduced to my next teacher—one in the paranormal or supernatural realm that could help me further develop my psychic abilities. I wanted to explore this aspect of my spirituality, to help me gain a better understanding of the unseen world that affects us all. And ha! Look what happened! I truly did not expect my teacher to be a ghost! But I put the intention out there—and sure enough, it did manifest—just not in the way I expected!

So with the power of my mind and spirit, I attracted this experience. And with the power of my mind and spirit, I also set my boundaries with it and learned a lot because of it. What better example of the Law of Attraction? We must never underestimate the power of the mind and spirit, but at the same time, as the saying goes, we must also “Be careful what we wish for!”

A few weeks later, as I sat in my chiropractor’s office waiting for the doctor, I gazed out the window at the pond behind the building. There was a fallen leafless tree partially submerged in the water. All of a sudden, what I thought was part of a branch, shimmied a bit, then disappeared beneath the muddy surface of the water. I knew it had to have been the fin of a fish, because I’d seen large fish in that pond before. And as I watched the rings in the water disperse and the surface become smooth again, I wondered if I had just imagined the whole thing. The more I thought about it (the doctor kept me waiting quite a while that day), the more I found the whole idea amusing. How interesting that what I took at first to be a dead branch because it was so perfectly still, turned out to be part of a fish. And when that fin moved and disappeared beneath the surface, into a world I couldn’t see, it left me wondering if I’d just imagined the whole thing. And I knew that was so very much like life—there is an unseen world out there—and in here—maybe many worlds—and some of us get glimpses of them once in a while, but when we do, perhaps we question whether they ever happened at all because like the depths of that pond, we just can’t comprehend the fact that there really is more to life than what we see on the surface.

So of course, my interaction with the ghost of Mary Bell Wilson begs lots of questions. Like–why is this ghost hanging around Ken and his family? Do all departed souls have the ability to hang out on this earthly plane in spirit form? If so, why do some choose this while others do not? Wouldn’t it be boring just hanging out and observing the living? There must be a more important reason than that. Are there literally millions of spirits surrounding us every day but we just aren’t aware of them? What role does God play in this?

This concludes the three-part series “Tapping an Unknown Realm – Ghosts”. Thank you for tuning in. Please share some of your questions on this topic.

Ken Harmon

A retired Fort Worth Police officer, Kenneth Harmon lives in Fort Collins, CO with his wife, four daughters, and a ghost named Mary Bell. Kenneth loves to write both fiction and non-fiction. He has been a prior finalist for the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association Zola Award, and has had short fiction published in numerous anthologies and on line. In addition to spending time with family and friends, he enjoys reading, sports, music, and taking long walks along the Poudre River. For more information, please visit www.ghostunderfoot.com.  Thank you for your interest.