Lessons in the Occult

Lesson 3: Seeing ghosts

 Like I already mentioned, some people can see ghosts. It turns out that people can only see ghosts if they are trying to see ghosts. Such people might be campers telling ghost stories or people who visit old houses that they think are haunted. People going about their daily routines, however, aren't usually trying to see ghosts, so they don't. That is why I decided to haunt a park. No one wants to see a ghost in a park, so I wasn't likely to scare anyone.

Now I wanted to take a moment here to explain why ghosts look transparent, in case you ever see one. Transparent means that you can see right through them. Let's talk about your eyes. When you see something with your eyes, you are actually seeing two images. One image is from your left eye and one image is from your right eye. Your mind takes these two images and turns them into one. Now look at the picture on the next page, holding your thumb an inch or two in front of your right eye. You will notice something interesting.

 Your left eye took an image of the whole crocodile. Your right eye took an image of your thumb covering part of the crocodile. Then your brain mixed these images together, and you saw the picture of the crocodile with a ghostly transparent thumb in front of it.

Ghosts appear to be transparent for much the same reason as your thumb did. To understand how, you should know that you have a third eye (sometimes called an inner eye). Really! It is a spiritual eye connected with the pineal gland of your brain. Unfortunately I am not an expert in spiritualism or neurology, so I can't tell you exactly how it all works. What I do know is your eyes take an image of the world around you, and your spiritual eye takes an image of the ghost. When your brain mixes these images, you see a scary transparent ghost floating around in your world. If you were just looking with your spiritual eye, we ghosts would appear quite solid.

You may wonder how I determined that ghosts seem transparent because of how the brain mixes images from your three eyes. Why not assume that ghosts are made up of transparent material? Well, suppose a ghost were just made of material that you could see through, like a slightly dirty window. Looking at a ghost you would see through the clothing to the skin, and through the skin to the organs and bones, and through the organs and bones to the skin and clothing on the other side of the ghost. But, thankfully, that is not how we see ghosts. We see the external surface, consisting of the clothing and exposed areas of the body. This shows that it is the image of the ghost that appears transparent, rather than the ghost itself being transparent.

It may seem odd you have to want to see a ghost in order to see one. This is probably due to a type of third eye amblyopia, which is sometimes referred to as lazy eye. I suppose there isn't usually much to see in the spiritual world around us, so our brains get in a habit of ignoring information from our third eye. Like with other amblyopic conditions, the only way to get the brain to pay attention to the things the third eye sees is to force it to. Not that I would recommend that. Since the spiritual world cannot harm you it really isn't all that important to see it.

If you do see a ghost, they usually appear to be wearing clothing. That leads me to believe that people see a ghost in the way that the ghost remembers himself. I usually wore a suit and glasses when I was living, and now I always appear to be wearing a suit and glasses. By some cruel twist of fate, though, my hat did not become part of my ghostly attire. I have heard people say that life isn't fair, and the same seems to be true of death. At least I was glad that I didn't try a comb-over when I was alive. A comb-over is when a bald person grows the hair on the side of the head long and combs it over the top of his head. It would have been a real embarrassment to put up with that hair style for an eternity.

Not that any of that matters unless people see you, and I just wasn't being seen. I just floated around the park day after day. I did a lot of thinking and generally just enjoyed the beauty of the trees and flowers. It was really quite pleasant. It made me wish that I had taken more time to do this sort of thing when I was alive. Then, at least, I could have felt the warmth of the sun and smelled the flowers. It is unfortunate that ghosts can't feel or smell.

It had been spring time when I died. From that point until it was almost summer time, I haunted the park quite happily. Then one summer evening my life changed forever. Well, I mean that my afterlife changed forever. You know what I mean.

I was floating along a park path toward a dark haired boy. He was looking at his feet as he walked along, as if he were in deep thought about something. He looked about thirteen years old. When I was just a few feet in front of him, he happened to look up. His face turned white and he let out a scream. I can tell you that this startled me quite a bit. I spun around to see what had scared him, but all I saw was the path, a bench, and some fireflies. I looked back at the dark haired boy and saw that he was still pale with fright.

"I wonder what scared him so badly" I muttered to myself while looking around again.

"You scared me!" the boy shouted right at me. "What are you acting so surprised about? If a ghost goes floating around a public park then it's bound to scare someone!"

Oh. It seemed that this boy could both see me and hear me. I hadn't been expecting that at all. Maybe it was wrong of me to float around a park where anyone who could see ghosts might happen to see me. I decided that I had best apologize for being so inconsiderate. He was so white it looked like he had seen a ghost. Well, I suppose he had seen a ghost, so that was understandable.

"Well, I am very sorry, young man" I apologized, "I didn't mean to scare you. It's just that most people can't see me, and I guess I just wasn't thinking."

My polite tone seemed to ease him a little. He took a few deep breathes and then spoke to me again.

"It's all good," he said in a shaky voice, "I just didn't expect to see a ghost when I started this whole business."

"Well," I responded reasonable, "if you don't want to see ghosts, you shouldn't go around looking for them. People can only see me if they want to see ghosts."

"I wasn't trying to see ghosts!" he shot back in an exasperated tone. "I am trying to see vampires."

A woman was walking past at that moment. She gave the boy a strange look. To her it looked as if he were standing there talking to the air in front of him. The boy noticed and turned red with embarrassment. It was good to see some color come back to his face.

"Why don't you follow me to my house" he suggested to me. "I will explain everything there. At least then we can talk in private."

I quickly agreed to this. He led the way to his house, and I floated close behind. I was very curious. In all my life—or death—I had never imagined that vampires really existed. This boy was about the age of the students I used to teach. Now I wondered what he would teach me.

* * *

Having read this lesson, you know almost everything there is to know about ghosts. Please notice that I used the word almost. If you are the kind of reader who looks through the Table of Contents before reading, then you realize that near the end of this book there is a lesson called "What are ghosts good for, anyway?" If you are not the kind of reader who looks through the Table of Contents before reading, well now you know that the lesson I mentioned is coming up anyway. That will be the last lesson on ghosts because after that you will know everything there is to know about us.