Of course, I hope after reading the free books I capture your love of my stories enough to buy more of my work. There is another mystery available, Dead Man Haunt, and Dead Man Hand should be ready about mid-September, well prior to Halloween to set the tone for that delightful day. Two more sets of diaries are out there for your reading pleasure, and I'll release Volume IV close to the same time as Dead Man Hand. Winter Dreams is a new book from me, a dark paranormal suspense. I've also re-published all of my romances, some sweet, some sexy.
So onward to further Alan escapades. Yesterday, Friday the 13th (I love that day), I taught my first psychic development class for a few friends who talked me into adding that to my already breakneck schedule. (I refuse to let that keep me from finishing Dead Man Hand and Volume IV, don't worry!) This class isn't necessarily a let-me-teach-you-to-see-ghosts class. We are all either writers or folks of a creative bent. Sarah, Floyd, Amanda and Angela are my initial students; Carl and Gloria should be coming next week. Some are writers, two are part of an Irish Celtic band, one is an awesome designer, one creates awesome crocheted items. Developing the psychic senses is a good way to open to the world around us, improve our writing and other creative talents. But, of course, most folks want to see a ghost in their lifetime, so there was that possibility included.
I decided to have the class at my friend Angela's, since she has a young daughter and it's not always easy for her to find a sitter if her mom is busy. She really wanted to attend, and I wanted her there. She's become my best hunting buddy next to Aunt Belle.
I did have a couple reservations. One was the portal behind her fireplace. The people attending the class have a varying degree of abilities/gifts. Concentrating those all near a portal caused me some hesitation. I haven't dealt that much with portals, and though we stumbled around, with some help from friends, and sealed this one, I didn't want it to pop open again.
"Do you still have the rest of the elements we used on that portal?" I asked Angela when I arrived.
"Uh huh," she responded. "They're still outside by the tree. Jason keeps asking me how long he'll have to keep moving those so he can mow, and I told him probably for a long while."
I nodded. During our attempts to secure that portal, we'd gone a bit overboard and used too much copper and too many magnets. That caused its own set of problems, which abated when we carried some of it outside to protect the house. We'll keep a close eye, and third eye, on this one. We have more elements to use if we catch the seal losing strength.
The second "pause" was Alan. That Alan is a strong ghost, with extremely well-developed abilities of his own. Paranormal abilities. He's a strong communicator, and we do have to discipline him now and then. He doesn't take to that kindly, but it has to be done. I knew there would be no way Alan would keep his nose out of our classes. On reflection, I decided one good point as to that was the class participants would have a good chance of actually seeing a real ghost.
One not-so-good point would definitely be Alan's ego. All that potential attention could "go to his head."
And it did.
We'd no more gathered and started talking when Alan made his first contact. I sensed him there, and I immediately talked to him, in front of the class. Most of them had heard me chat with a ghost previously, although it was a different sort of communication.
"Listen, Alan," I said. "I'm not going to tolerate any ghostly interruptions to my class. Remember when we banished you outside?"
"Yeah," Angela added. "You spent a couple days out by the mailbox, unable to come back in the house."
"We can do that again, if you don't behave," I warned.
He pouted, but he retreated into the kitchen to watch us from behind a curtain of beads Angela has hanging across the doorway.
Alan did pretty well. He didn't bother me even once … at first. But someone else did. About halfway through the class, which ended up lasting over an hour and a half, I felt some energy on my left arm. It was quite a bit fainter than the energy Alan emits, but it did last for ten or fifteen seconds. I finally glanced aside at it, and the energy disappeared. Concentrating on the class, I didn't spend much time on trying to identify the source of this energy. But I didn't really need to.
Robert. The name entered my mind. Ah, it was one of the other ghosts we had allowed to hang around Angela's house. I talked about him once before in here.
Well, Alan evidently took the fact that I didn't strongly reprimand Robert to heart. He thought it gave him permission to make his presence known, too. A few minutes later, I rose and walked over to Sarah as I made a point in the book I was using. Alan came through the curtain, all his energy crawling up my left side. I sighed and without explaining to the others what I was doing, flicked my fingers at Alan and chased him back into the kitchen. He grumpily subsided.
Then Alan decided to show us he was, indeed, the star of our little gathering. He did something that actually confirmed his presence by showing himself to two of us in the same manner at the same time.
Angela has a picture of Frank Sinatra on her wall, just inside the front door. I was reading from our lesson book, and suddenly a movement caught my eye. I turned to the look at the picture, and Frank was moving! It was like he had stepped out of the photo and was just going back into it. Well, his upper torso had moved, anyway, since that's all there is to the photo.
I didn't mention it right then. However, at one point, Floyd asked, "Who's the Sinatra fan?"
"Angela's mother, I think," I answered.
Angela had been out of the room for a moment, taking care of her daughter. When she came back in, I repeated Floyd's question to her.
"Oh, it's Mom and me both," she said.
Floyd and I nodded, but at the time, I didn't realize we both had been interested in that photo for the same reason.
After class, we started recapping, especially since we'd done some meditation and I wanted to know what the others had experienced. It's a meditation focused on what the third eye is "seeing," so it's a bit more specialized than a yoga or other type. We all actually had a few similar experiences, saw a few of the same things, so I knew the class was working.
Floyd kept glancing up at that photo. Finally, he said, "I saw someone else in that photo. His image overlaid Frank's, and he was moving."
The paranormal world still holds a few surprises to me, and I do love a confirmation. My mouth dropped, and I said, "Almost the same thing happened to me. I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and it drew me to look at that photo. I didn't see a different person, but by the time I looked, whatever happened was disintegrating."
Floyd smiled, and I went on to explain what exactly confirmation can mean to a paranormal investigator. It's one of the most satisfying feelings we can get. There is a lot of naysaying by critic that we have to tolerate. So whenever validation happens, pride in our gift quickly follows.
"What does Alan look like?" he asked.
I deferred to Angela, and she said, "He looks a lot like Jason, my husband,. But he's a little taller and a bit rounder."
Floyd's response was a nod. He's still dealing with his new gift ability, and he obviously kept mulling things over, since I got a phone call after I got home. It was Sarah who called, though.
"Floyd wants to know if Alan had blond hair," she said.
"Yes," I replied. "Well, it's a rather sandy color."
She repeated what I'd said to Floyd.
"Is it sort of mop-like?" she asked next.
"Sort of. You know, he does look somewhat like Sinatra. That same wiry build. Same color hair."
"That's who Floyd saw," she said. "It was a different face superimposed over Frank's face. He saw him for a while, then he faded out."
"I caught it just as he was fading," I said.
And smiled again at that confirmation feeling as I hung up the phone.
We'll be continuing our classes for about nine weeks. No, they aren't open to others at this time. I want to see how things go. We'll also do a few ghost hunts, using our senses more versus a lot of the technology available. Timmy, my equipment tech, insists we have at least a few pieces, though. And of course we want a film record as we go down this different path for a while. We'll also attend one or two Circles in Dallas, and hopefully, will all go on an overnight after the classes. I haven't decided yet which haunted location that will entail, but there are a few in the running in my mind. Some are places Aunt Belle and I already visited. One other is a new one I've always wanted to visit. That should make a really good diary for you to enjoy!
I always enjoy hearing from my readers on Facebook (www.facebook.com/tranam.simmons) or in email (tmsimmons@iseeghosts.com). I'm on Twitter at @TMSimmonsauthor.
Boo!
T. M.
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