Tag: paranormal

Do Spirits “Notice” You?

Alex Matsuo

I received a great question on the Facebook page from Sara D., who asked,

From my own personal research, I have found many share the view that by actively participating in the paranormal (ie: investigating, ganzfeld experiment) or the occult (ie seances, ouija boards) you open yourself up more spiritually and make it easier for spirits to “notice” you. Others say that it doesn’t happen and you shouldn’t worry about it. So, what is it? Be concerned or not?

What is my answer to this?  Yes.  there should be a concern and a respect for these methods and devices because they have the potential to be powerful tools.  First I will address investigating.  Investigating the paranormal is entering into a new lifestyle in general.  Your awareness of the unknown is heightened.  Now are spirits really following you, or are you senses heightened to the point where anything that moves is a shadow/ghost/spirit?  You know it’s there, and I know for me, I seem to keep an extra eye open and I notice my surroundings in greater detail than I did before I began investigating.  I believe that when you start investigating, especially going against more malevolent beings, it is possible that they will notice you and know who you are.  When you approach an investigation and you ask for communication with spirits, they know who you are.  I know investigators (including myself) who do protection rituals and make it very clear that they cannot harm me or follow me.

Now the Ganzfeld Experiment…such a fascinating element of parapsychology.  Does the Ganzfeld Experiment open yourself up to experience things you couldn’t in your everyday life?  I believe so and no.  Does it permanently leave you vulnerable to psychic and spiritual phenomenon?  It has the potential.  Does participating in this leave a permanent bullseye for any spirit to notice you and possibly go after you?  I doubt it, but I would certainly love to talk to someone about it who knows more than I do

Now when it comes to things like seances and ouija boards, that is another ballgame.  Or is it?  When investigating, you are asking for communication.  And with seances and ouija boards you are requesting communication.  It’s a fine line, but I believe there is a difference.  Seances come in many forms.  Seance comes from the French term, “sitting” or “seat” and rose in popularity when Spiritualism broke out.  There is something to be said sitting in a circle with other people trying to communicate with spirits, especially through a medium.  And with ouija boards, I have a great respect for them but I would probably never use one.  I’ve heard and experienced too many negative things tied with a ouija board, especially when it comes to the disposal of one (always bury, never burn).  Ouija boards are typically associated with bringing in an inhuman spirit.  What else is funny is that ouija boards are sold in toy stores and made by Milton Bradley.  There are also ouija board necklaces being sold.  I was actually offended when I saw this.  Paranormal investigating or “ghost hunting” is already seen as a novelty as it is.  Technically you don’t even need to buy a ouija board, you can draw a board on a piece of paper or napkin and go from there.  It’s that simple.  Ouija boards are made by toy companies, what happened to the respect of the possibility that these things can do potential harm? Wearing a necklace with a ouija board shouldn’t be a fashion accessory or seen as cute.  That could open you up for potentially negative activity as well.

Is there a safe way to use a ouija board?  I’m sure.  But you need protection which leads me into my next point.  Protecting yourself is very important.  There is a fine line between not protecting yourself and building a wall so thick that you cut yourself off from any activity.  Where do we draw the line?  It’s hard to distinguish.

In closing, when you decide to investigate the paranormal, you need to make sure you do what you can to stay safe while still allowing yourself to experience activity (at least for me, for purposes of collecting evidence and documentation).  And protecting yourself not only during an investigation but during your normal everyday life.  I started investigating when I was 14.  Looking back, it was probably not the safest thing to do, especially investigating solo as a teen with only the internet as my guide.  But it taught me so much about myself, the paranormal and how to protect myself and conduct myself on an investigation.  I’m still not an expert.  I read as much as I can and watch other teams as they do investigations.  What I want to close this post with, is that you should always be in the pursuit of knowledge.  Keep reading, keep watching, and never stop learning.

Ghosts of My Past

Alex Matsuo

It’s a cheesy title.  But the best I can come up with.  This might be a tad embarrassing to talk about on my blog but this topic has been weighing heavily on my mind and it will affect the development of Japanese Eyes/American Heart.
In the play, Amaya is plagued by ghosts of her grandfather’s unknown past.  These “ghosts” are not seen in the world of the play, but can be seen in the audience’s world.  When the Shakespeare text was intertwined, the characters from The Tempest represented theses “ghosts”.  I originally kept the Shakespeare in because I’m stubborn.  It’s an ambitious decision to intertwine Shakespeare into contemporary text of my own words.  Plus, I was writing this play as my thesis for my graduate degree.  I hadn’t thought that this play would have a life outside of school.  However, I was mistaken.  It has begun to generate interest from others, hence to why I created this blog.  I realized after looking at my last few entries, I hadn’t been writing about the play development lately and for that I apologize.  When I get into my “zone” I don’t think about, “Oh, I need to go blog about this.”  I spend so much time in my books and researching, that I forget about the reporting aspect.  If you know me personally, I love being a dramaturg in theatre about as much as I love performing on stage.  It’s a way to stay involved and also learn as much as you can.  I’ve been doing so much research on Japan and World War II and how it affected Japanese-Americans that I find myself going on tangents when I talk to friends when they ask how my research is going.  Even though Little Women closed in May, I’m still sorting through research on Louisa May Alcott and her work.  I love historical research.  Period.
But now that I’ve taken the Shakespeare out, I feel like there is something missing.  I want Amaya’s interest in learning about John’s past to be more than curiosity, because my intention was more than curiosity.  It has been shaped from the void that is in me because I only had my grandpa for seven years before he passed away.  Seeing the characters I created come to life on stage brought the memories back and made the memories more real than ever.  I still get positive feedback from audience members and there is a strong consensus that the play stands well on its own without the help of good ol’ Will.
I had a few of my actors from the staged reading look at some old family photos of me with my grandparent’s in which the seven year old version of Amaya is based upon.  One took a look at the photos and said, “I can totally see the personality you wrote about in your face.”  I didn’t think it translated as well as I had thought.
Anyway, back to ghosts.  I wrote about the ghosts of my past echoing into my present.  But that’s not all of it.  My family seems to attract paranormal activity.  I’m not going to talk specifics here because I rarely talk about it at all.  But lately, I’ve been trying to educate myself in the paranormal not only for my play, but also to help answer questions that have plagued me almost my whole life.  Education aside, it’s also made me more interested in becoming an investigator and try to help people who are going through something unexplained.   Right now, I have this unexplainable drive to become more involved in my education of this realm that terrified me as a child and continued well into my teens and he offered an online class, and I took the opportunity.
I always felt like that something is motivating me to keep going with the Japanese Eyes/American Heart project.  Something supernatural and something I cannot explain.  I feel like there needs to be a story told; about identity, making peace with your past and accepting that you may never be able to know all the answers or explain everything.  How will the ghosts of Amaya’s past manifest on stage?  Will there be an actor physically leading Amaya to the medals?  Or will it be a fog machine?  Will they be actual actors on stage or will they be the result of lighting and sound designers?  I won’t put the answer here.  All I’ll say is, right now I’m focusing on memory.  If I could draw a diagram of the memories between Amaya and John…Amaya would be God-like, in it that John only exists in her memory, and therefore, his memories exist in her memory as well, but she just doesn’t know it.  Maybe next time I’ll draw something out and scan it so you can see.  It’ll probably help my actors too.
Well, that’s it for now.