Experience Your Good Now!

Louise Hay's new book Experience Your Good Now will be out on Tuesday, May 18th, and with it a CD that lets Louise talk to readers with reinforcement of her philosophy and encouragement for maintaining a positive outlook every day. Hay House was kind enough to send me a copy of the book and CD to review.

I've been a fan of Louise Hay and her publications since I first listened to her book You Can Heal Your Life on tape about a decade ago. I have to admit that at first I was skeptical that just saying positive statements could change anything more than my mindset, and even that would take some doing--more than just saying something that I wanted to be true. I had been taking antidepressants and contemplating divorce for several years, and it seemed to me that it was the act of believing lot of fairy tale hype about love and the American dream that had set me up for the let down I was experiencing. So did I want to believe in this positive affirmation philosophy as the answer to my life's problems? This was before the success of The Secret and before I knew anything about the Law of Attraction or Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich.

It's not a new idea to believe in and focus on what we want. In fact Louise often quotes biblical texts that make reference to the fact that everything we need is provided for us--Matthew 21:22, "And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive," and Mark 11:24 "Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."This is the key, Louise says -- believing you already have what you want, what you are asking for, saying it with love in the present tense (e.g. "My income is constantly increasing" or "I always work in harmonious surroundings.").

To some people, this approach seems a bit too "woo-woo" to even take seriously. Why say things "with love"? But Louise's Hay House colleague, scientist Gregg Braden, supports the notion of emotional expression of what we want as a key to changing our circumstances, and at the very least, our health. He cites experiments that show that the heart produces much more electrical and magnetic energy than the brain does, and that if thoughts are energy capable of changing the web of energy around us, emotions are even more likely to do so. The human heart, he says, is designed to change the electrical and magnetic field far beyond the space around us, which can thereby change atomic makeup. What Gregg talks about provides the scientific basis for what Louise has been saying for decades--that our feelings can rearrange the essence of the world around us so that the world reflects the reality of those feelings.

What convinces me to take Louise seriously is her own story of being an incest survivor who carried a burden of low self-esteem for years, and a cancer survivor who, after having worked with AIDS patients in the 1980s to improve their health through positive affirmations, found herself faced with her own health problems and the opportunity to practice what she was preaching. Gregg Braden also experienced a similar serious health issue and healing which he credits with the use of positive emotional focus in addition to medical care. Louise's positive outlook, her beauty, self-confidence, and warm way of communicating with others is a testament to the fact that she has not succumbed to what could have been a negative outlook based on unpleasant experiences in her life.

While this book re-states much of what Louise Hay's New York Times best seller You Can Heal Your Life touches on, she brings in affirmations that address negative thoughts about aging and death, which is new to her repertoire and good to see addressed. Much of our culture ignores those two realities and many people suffer silently in denial, fear or uncertainty.

I really like the CD and the idea of hearing Louise's soothing voice and encouragement and her own personal experience. Even though I am cognizant of these principles and believe they have worked in my own life, I fall into the usual negative self-talk and thinking and forget to use these precepts. Experience Your Good Now was a good reminder to me in facing whatever challenges are in my life now to make those changes in my thoughts and feelings. It is a small, easy-to-read book and the CD lets me keep my mindset where I want it to be.

With the publication of this book, Hay House is also offering a chance to win a spot on an "I Can Do It! At Sea" Caribbean cruise in January 2011 to spend a week with some favorite Hay House authors. Click on the above link or go to www.experienceyourgoodnow.com to enter. Share it with your friends online and get more chances to win. People who enter the contest also receive several free downloads from Hay House and a coupon discounting the purchase of a Hay House publication.

Let the Deceased Decide

Check out my article TLC's Paranormal Court is in Session on Technorati about the newest paranormal show featuring medium Robert Hansen, from Long Island.

Here is a preview from YouTube.

A number of years ago I had gone to a Borders book store where Hansen appeared in front of a group of believers hoping to get a message from beyond. A good friend of mine did get messages from her brother -- or at least answers that fit the personality of her brother. I thought some of those answers could have been from the person I was hoping to hear from -- my grandmother--but I didn't claim them and my friend did.

I subsequently went to see Hansen give audience readings (a la John Edward's gallery), which he did at the time in his karate school in Wantagh, Long Island. I did not get a reading that night, though I paid to be there. I noticed a few years ago that Hansen was doing regular Saturday night audience readings for a reasonable price on Long Island, and never had the chance to go. It just bothered me to keep paying to go, and not to get a reading.

At least the Spiritualist church in NYC where I went to a seance gave everyone a reading who paid to participate -- don't know if that is a good or a bad thing -- makes you wonder if they are really getting a message or just making sure you get your money's worth so that you'll keep coming back.

Unfortunately, I was out of town the night this aired and I was unable to DVR it. I asked a friend to tape it, which he did, and he accidentally taped over it. So I guess I wasn't meant to see the show. However, I understand that he gave readings similar to the way Lisa Williams did on her show "Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead" but that Hansen has a specific mission of solving disputes, and that when he gave the answer, everyone agreed to abide by the "ruling."

For a couple of reasons I hope Hansen's show succeeds -- one reason is the selfish fact that I am writing about paranormal television for my dissertation and the other medium shows have been cancelled, for the most part, except for Psychic Kids. The other reason is that I think Hansen is a good medium and a really nice person. I just don't know if the whole premise of the show will fly or at least be sustainable for the long haul. I think just doing a basic show about a medium's work is better than a medium with a gimmick, but this show is airing when the others are not (Cross Country with John Edward, and Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead).

Good luck, Robert. Hope to see more of your show, and more of your peers.

Wayne Dyer's "The Shift" -- Nothing is Everything

Humans at every level of society, from renowned philosophers to ordinary individuals, have sought meaning in life and in death. What does it all mean? What is the meaning of my life? Is there a purpose, and if so, am I fulfilling it? How can I know?

We live in a time when meaning is primarily associated with what we do, who we are, or what we have accomplished, yet all too often a sense of meaning eludes us despite our best efforts. Is a job or career really the basis of a meaningful life? Is the kind of car we drive or the brand of clothes we wear going to ultimately make us or break us?

Wayne Dyer’s new book, The Shift (Hay House, 2010), and its related DVD, explore the concept of meaning as it relates to our place in the world as well as the universe. The thread Dyer follows throughout the book relates a sense of nothingness to where we come from – “It appears that nothing exists at the moment of the transition to something….we originated from something that has no form, no boundaries, no beginning, and no substance” – to where we belong—“[T]he most efficient way to know and experience where we came from is to make every effort to reconnect to nothing by creating the experience of no attachments, no things, and no thoughts…”—and where we are going--“That which is formless cannot be destroyed,” he writes. “[O]ur essence is eternal, and it is only the physical body that appears to come and go in a cycle of birth and death.”

As a writer and speaker who touches frequently on Taoist philosophy, Dyer often quotes Lao-tzu and the Tao Te Ching, and the philosophy that “by doing nothing, everything is done.” While we undergo an earthly experience, he says, we struggle while attempting to let ambition and achievement dominate our day-to-day lives. Letting go of everything and all our attachments rather than pursuing a sense of entitlement through ambition, brings us back to where we came from, and thus provides us with a sense of meaning and connection with the source from whence we came. Instead of continuing to strive without arriving, it is only when we let go, that we finally do arrive.

The “shift” refers to what Dyer calls a “quantum moment” in which an individual experiences a fall of some kind. It is a quantum moment in that its extraordinariness produces an epiphany and a sudden transformation. Again quoting from the Tao, he writes, “Hidden in all misfortune is good fortune.” Once we decide to make the shift, we go through a series of U-turn processes that change our focus from the external to the internal, from the world to the Spirit.

Dyer has focused on the spiritual perspective before in his books – providing us with spiritual solutions, insights into the power of intention, perspectives from the masters of philosophy. What this book offers for us today in a time when unemployment is at a peak, our sense of security is fragile, when earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and other natural disasters plague us in ways we have not seen before in recent times, is the guidance to make the shift to find our way to the inner sense of security that we arrived with. The second part of the title of The Shift is Taking Your Life from Ambition to Meaning. When you’ve been thrown overboard, going from a six-figure job to serving beverages in a coffee bar, or driving a Lexus to taking the bus, does that loss of status mean a loss of self? Dyer provides the life preserver that allows us to find our way back to the shore.

It is, in a sense, the opposite of The Secret, which focuses on manifesting worldly wealth by creating our own reality. Rather the "shift" is eschewing a reality of worldly wealth and finding contentment in a world of carefree acceptance of what is. Letting go of ambition, to go from the role of a human doing to becoming, once again, a human being. Is it possible? How often do we hear of people getting to their deathbed only to realize they missed what they come to believe is the point of life. They “gained the world and lost their soul.” The Shift implores readers to re-examine things sooner rather than later, and to find that meaning now instead of wasting a lifetime looking for peace in all the wrong places.

Note: The blogger for this post received this book for free from Hay House in order to write this review

The Haunted on Animal Planet

I think it's great that just about every cable station has one or more paranormal reality show on it. When I saw that Animal Planet had a show about hauntings (The Haunted) I laughed. What could the rationale possibly be for Animal Planet to be showing a ghost show? Duh! Animals are more aware and sensitive to paranormal activity. Of course!

Which begs the question then why, if animals can sense things that we cannot, are they not brought in for these threats more? They are used to find bombs, bed bugs and bodies and other things that have specific smells. Even with the terrorist threat, they bring in expensive technical equipment to look at us naked. Instead, have a team of dogs each with its own special scent tracking capability and have them walking around the security lines at airports. Then pick the people off the line and forget about questions of racial and ethnic profiling, the dog would give reason for checking them out.

By the same token, we have a whole show about how sensitive animals are to the paranormal and ghosts and demons and spirits, etc. Why then do we have a gazillion paranormal investigation shows -- plumbers, cops, Texans, college students, mediums, private eyes, etc.-- and not ONE of those groups uses dogs or other animals to detect the presence of spirits. (the canary in the coal mine, so to speak). They have EMF detectors that MAY or may not reveal paranormal activity. They have digital cameras, digital voice recorders, infrared, full spectrum cameras, thermal imaging cameras. All kinds of man-made devices -- they even have psychic mediums who, I guess, could be called the "dogs" of the human race -- who are more in tune with these non-physical presences than the rest of us. But you have to PAY psychic mediums for their time. You can just FEED a dog and throw them a biscuit. Give them a place to sleep at night.

Last night's The Haunted on Animal Planet featuring Carrie, her sister and mother moving into a haunted house prompted me to wonder why, if people realize something is wrong, do they choose to ignore it? Obviously the dogs were barking for a reason. They were acting strange as if there were an intruder. They were acting afraid. Why do people ignore that? (on a side note, I read an article by a man who said that the behavior of the dog during the Nicole Brown Simpson murder should have been part of the evidence because that specific breed behaves in a different way around its master than it does around a stranger, and that dog behaved in a way that indicated the master was present at the murder scene--in other words a stranger did not commit the murder, OJ did). But I digress.

The other thought I had was that people do not believe what is happening because society tells them that these things are not possible or people who believe in spirits, ghosts, demons, psychic phenomena are kookie. We have no place to get legitimate information (other than these paranormal shows--which is another risk of being considered kookie, if we believe what's shown on these programs), so there is no place to really get such information on demons, spirits, and what is known and what is normally done. This family knew something was not right but thought by ignoring what they saw going on that life would be normal for them. When their dogs are barking and trying to protect them in the middle of the night from things they did not see, they go under the covers. They have no knowledge of how to get psychic and spiritual protection. Even religious institutions do not give much credence (publicly) to these encounters or make known what they would recommend in the face of a demonic haunting or a negative entity attacking someone. Paranormal media actually is the only place where one finds out about burning sage, the St. Michael prayer, excorcism or house blessings, demonologists (like Lorraine Warren), rescue mediums, Native American beliefs about the dead. What we don't know can hurt us, and it is what these people don't know that leaves them vulnerable.

Another question I had was about real estate -- trying to sell a home that is known to be haunted or have demonic activity. I wonder if there is a haunted real estate site that let's people who are interested in being in such a place know where they can buy one. If you are afraid people won't buy it because it is haunted, then figure out a way to market to people who WANT to live in a haunted location. Perhaps paranormal investigative teams could buy such a place and use it to train new people -- like Ghost Hunters Academy did in specific haunted locations. Once on Ghost Hunters a southern paranormal investigative team brought in TAPS to allow them to train a new investigator in a house they knew to be haunted. Why not buy up these places as training grounds for teams. An offsite training weekend for the paranormal.

On another note, I am seeking people who watch paranormal television to tell me their stories about why they watch and whether the programs have changed their views on the paranormal, and if not paranormal, death and afterlife beliefs.

High EMFS on Ghost Lab vs. Ghost Hunters

Has anyone else noticed that when Jason and Grant's team members on Ghost Hunters are getting high EMFs around electrical wiring or pipes, etc., they do not attribute any of those readings to paranormal activity? They say that the high EMFs make people feel as if they are being watched or can give them hallucinations or make their hair stand on end. But they discount claims by people based on those traceable EMF readings.

On the other hand, Barry and Brad Klinge on Ghost Lab attribute those areas of traceable high EMF readings to being a cause of paranormal experiences.

So basically Ghost Hunters says areas that create high EMFs due to a high number of electrical connections cause a PERCEPTION of paranormal activity that is not valid, while Brad and Barry claim those areas that generate high EMFs are like a "nest" that draws out actual paranormal events.

ASSAP web site does talk about this on their website under "Ghosts, Baselines and EMF meters."
Here is an excerpt from their article about EMFs and hauntings:

Can EMF meters detect paranormal activity? Given the problems outlined above, it seems unlikely. In summary:

•EMF meters cannot show frequency data so that different readings cannot be compared
•there are many natural sources of variability and spikes in low field areas (including non electrical sources) which cannot be easily distinguished with EMF meters
•EMF meters cannot identify 3 phase interference
•EMF meters cannot identify fields capable of causing hallucinations (EIFs)
In addition, EMF meters are often not used in the best way they could be. Problems include:

•baselines at the start of vigils which are little better than random
•what constitutes 'paranormal activity' is often poorly defined making comparisons between different vigils and different sites problematic
•mediumistic information is sometimes included as 'activity' even when nothing is witnessed by non-mediums
•paranormal activity is not always investigated exhaustively to eliminate natural causes

Brad and Barry do an EMF "sweep" prior to the investigation -- getting an overall baseline reading of the entire area. Jason and Grant don't show that they do that (they might, but we don't know). ASSAP says that a proper baseline EMF reading should be taken over a 24-hour period prior to an investigation, and that there are other types of readings, called EIFs (varying magnetic fields), which may explain possible hallucinations that seem like a haunting.

ASSAP says the best way to do EMF readings is:

A single baseline measurement is therefore not very helpful. A much better solution is a 'positional baseline'. With this sort of setup you position a pair of EMF meters so that one is in a 'hot spot' (where lots of paranormal activity has been reported) and the other in a control area (somewhere nearby and as similar as possible but with no reports of activity). In this setup, instead of comparing readings to a more or less random baseline, you compare contemporary readings in different places. The 'control' instrument effectively provides a continuous baseline for the 'hot spot' one. It is then easy to spot if there are higher readings at the hot spot compared to the control.

I have not seen any of the paranormal investigation teams doing this or reporting this methodology being used in an investigation.

A new show called Paranormal Cops debuts this week on A&E, Tuesday night.

Keep up to date on paranormal reality shows being aired each week by following @dhdobry on Twitter.

SNL Parody of Celebrity Ghost Stories

I thought this would be interesting--a popular culture version of an officially produced popular culture program. SNL parodies Celebrity Ghost Stories.
Saturday Night Live Celebrity Ghost Stories parody

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/celebrity-ghost-stories/n12559

Celebrities in the Spirit of the Paranormal

Just a couple of nights ago medium James Van Praagh was a guest on Chelsea Lately promoting tonight’s E! Entertainment special Psychic Hollywood: The Search for the Truth. Interestingly, I don’t see a lot of hype around this show other than James’s guest appearance and some promos on E!. When you search for it on the Web, not so much comes up. Well, we’ll just have to see how it plays out. It airs tonight at 8 p.m., Friday at 11 p.m. and Saturday at 7 a.m.

Celebrity Ghost Stories airs on Saturday nights at 10 p.m. on Biography channel. I really like this show. It’s got celebrities and the paranormal. Put ‘em both together and wham! You’ve got a new sub-genre. Paranormal reality television has not yet been named as a genre as far as I’ve seen (and I’m looking), but it is. Every week you hear of new paranormal reality shows being added to the line up of even the most unlikely programming—i.e. The Haunted on Animal Planet. Animal Planet!!! It’s all about how the dogs and cats reacted to the haunting – but I digress. We’ll look at that one after I’ve had a chance to really check it out.

Celebrities have lives that fascinate people – who they date, who they marry, when they procreate, what their salaries are, what they’ve done wrong (Tiger?), where they live, how they dress…and on and on. Their personal encounters with the paranormal are not always very public, however. So I congratulate the GENIUS who put together the paranormal with celebrities and made it into television. We already know these people, we generally like them, we don’t normally see them as human, but when we hear them tell about being scared and having a weird, unexplainable incident happen to them, it’s interesting—more interesting than what they wore on the red carpet.

Some of the celebrities who’ve appeared on this show have surprised me. Joan Rivers talked about her experiences of living with the ghost of the woman who used to own the Manhattan building she lives in. Scott Baio told a very emotional story about experiences after his father’s death. Dee Snyder talks about his brother-in-law, who was murdered, and seemed to be trying to get a message to Dee and his family. Justine Bateman tells a funny story about the happenings after her grandfather died, and Ali Landry talks about a phone call she received from the godfather she was close to just after he passed away.

What I like about this show is that celebrities know how to tell a story. What critics don’t like about this show is that celebrities know how to tell a story. While my point of view is that this quality makes the stories that much more interesting to watch, one such critic mentioned to me that, “Actors are good at pretending, so you can’t believe what they are saying here.” That may be true in some cases – they may be stretching the truth to be featured on a show when their careers are lagging. But in other cases, you see the tears in their eyes and the genuine sincerity in their comments, “I am not crazy! I do not attend séances, and I don’t look for this kind of thing.”

The format of this program is a dramatic re-enactment of the story with a narrative by the celebrity. Other shows that do this are Ghostly Encounters, A Haunting, Animal Planet’s The Haunted, and other shows like Psychic Investigators. It’s a sort of documentary style and at the end the person who experienced the phenomenon usually sums up what it meant to them and very often they say, “I know now that there’s more out there than just this life,” or “I know my [loved one] is still around.”

When you think that celebrity endorsements pay top dollar because of their effectiveness, one might wonder what a celebrity endorsement of the afterlife, or spiritual activity or the paranormal might mean to a viewer. Inquiring minds want to know.

Let me know if you have an opinion about celebrities and the paranormal or if you’ve had your own paranormal experience. I’d be interested in hearing about it.