Paranormal Information Association Conference

Poster for the 2014 P.I.A Conference

I just got home from about an hour drive from Sebring Florida where I attended the Paranormal Information Association Conference (or P.I.A for short), for my fourth year now. It was another great weekend accompanying the team I work with. Each year the P.I.A Conference is a chance for Florida Paranormal Investigative teams to mingle with each other, go over ideas and theories, and have a little fun while we are at it. This is the fourth year that it has been held at the Kenilworth Lodge an old historic hotel in central Florida.

The hotel itself has its own sort of glamor as an historic location. You can tell by the exposed pipes with sprinkler heads, the old slow moving elevator, and the decor that the Kenilworth has attempted to keep as much of its historical charm as possible with still moving forward into the new age of hotels that we seem to be entering. The place isn't for everyone, but if you are looking for a comfortable place to stay the night the rates and staff at the Lodge are very welcoming. The P.I.A. has been very blessed to have worked with the hotel four years now in holding their event, and each time the staff is more than happy to help. Anyway...before I go of on too much of a tangent here about the location let me get back to the point which is the P.I.A. itself.

The P.I.A. started out several years ago and was called the Florida Ghost Gathering, at that point it was simply a chance for other Paranormal Teams to meet with each other and get to know who's who so to speak. Once they found their success in that they wanted to be able to expand it a bit and, from what I have come to understand the P.I.A. was born. At the core of this conference is a group of administration teams, that from the beginning have seen to every aspect of the gathering itself. The main goal for this conference is to bring the Paranormal Investigative Community together and give them a place where they can learn, talk , and teach others as they go along.

Each year there are different classes, seminars and workshops that you can attend to either learn more about something that you are not familiar with, or delve deeper into something that you are. Different social events as well as dinners are scheduled throughout the gathering; and there are vendors where you can purchase anything from the newest up and coming equipment, to nic-nacks such as jewelry or candles. Some years as well have seen some very popular and well known special guests from within the Paranormal Community that have given their time to be there and speak, and learn alongside the many other groups. Now before I go too far and you start signing up you do need to know that at the present time the conference is not open to the public. In the future we will have to see if this changes but in the meantime there are rules regarding registration of the event that can be found at their site.

The people of the conference have always been great. I personally have always found it to be so awesome to be able to speak with different groups and talk about investigations, or theories, or even about their evidence or personal experiences. Its refreshing in a way to be able to speak freely among your peers especially about something that you know everyone there is passionate about in the first place. Though the conference started out focusing more on the Paranormal or "ghost" investigative side of things it has expended over the years to include other facets of the Paranormal Community as well. Groups such as MUFON are often there, as well as others that focus on more spiritual aspects and more still that work with Mythology, or even Cryptozoology. 

Now no conference of any scale big or small is without a few snafu's now and again. Schedule changes sometimes occur and you may not get to attend everything that you want to within the weekend format, but the P.I.A. itself is still very new and each year they look for ways to improve upon the last and make the event something that is as best suited to the attendees and members as possible.

I always have a great time away, beside a lovely hotel its great to be able to reconnect with people that I have met there in previous years. I look forward as well to attending next year, and seeing what the P.I.A. has in store as it changes again and works toward the future.

Well....its been far too long

I know that a lot of you are still looking up the page, and you have noticed that there haven't been any updates in quite some time. I would like to change that in the future. I have had some very serious family things happen to me in the past few years and they have taken quite some time to get through. I apologize for not being around and not posting more often, I had such wonderful intentions to do it all the time.

Anyway, I'd like to start posting again soon, I miss the communication with you all , and moreso miss learning and teaching alongside all of you.

Thank you for your patience.

A litte off topic......

So many of you have asked me where I have been over the past year, and though I try to answer people as often as I can sometimes it has fallen by the wayside. I do apologize, it was not my intention to be gone for so long, but you see Life has taken an interesting course over the past year.

My grandmother was diagnosed with non small cell Lung Cancer. It's the type of cancer that cannot be cured, but can be fought. We started out with really high hopes as a family as she began her first rounds of treatment with Radiation and Chemo-Therapy. It all was going well and she suffered little to no side effects for a good long time. In fact it was going so well that we all nearly forgot that she even had cancer to begin with.

The doctors and nurses at the Cancer Center that she goes to have been some of the most phenomenal people I have met in my life! They have all been so caring and concerned for her from the very start, and that concern continues to this day.

Recently this with her diagnosis changed, a small tumor was found on the bone of her rib. This new development was rough as it caused her a decent amount of pain. So much in fact that she went through several  very strong pain medicines only to not be able to take most of them due to side effects. This time, as her Chemo medication changed she started to show more and more side effects, and it sort of hit us again......she has Cancer.

The ups and downs we've experienced since are the equivalent of taking a roller coaster ride from the top of Mt. Everest...straight down....then right back up again. It leaves your stomach in knots, causes stress and illness, and leaves you feeling confused and yes at sometimes hopeless.

She has been a fighter since day 1, especially since she was a Breast Cancer Survivor as well. She has been bound and determined not to let this Cancer beat her, and we commend her for that. Seeing the pain she goes through some days though is heart wrenching.

Something people tend to forget about though are the caregivers. The people that stand along side the Cancer patient and fight each day with them. The ones that help to feed, bathe, and care for them. The ones who are up all hours of the night with them, and take them from appointment to appointment with little regard for their own schedule, work or lives. The ones that sit there and watch as a person they love deteriorates before them, gets better, then deteriorates again.

This is what I have been doing this past year. I have been the caregiver for m Grandmother who is suffering with Lung Cancer. Each day is a battle for all of us, and there are some days where I am surprised that we find the strength to move on at all.

To all those that are suffering with any form of Cancer, or those that have lost loved ones dear to them because of it. Please take a moment each day to pray, send energy, and love to the patients, the caregivers, the families, and the Doctors and Nurses that care for them as well.

Doorways of Life....

One of the hardest things that we can ever remember is the fact that, in life, when one door closes another opens.

We have all been in a place before where it seems as if things are not going our way, are stagnant, or even coming to an end. The great thing about this though is that fact that it never really stops moving forward. You are bound to find some pitfalls along the way in your journey. Spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, all of these are going to have challenges associated with them when you travel down your path. Keeping in the back of your mind though that everything that is happening now is for a reason. It is all happening so that you can close a door on your path and open a new one to journey on. I can hear you now "Easier said than done there Thomas." and yes it is easier said than done, but at some point you have to just let go, and let Goddess! Let that hand guide you to where you are supposed to be instead of taking so much control that you wind up stuck knee deep in one of your pitfalls. Realize that you are guided by a higher power, a universal force, a Goddess or God. Let go of your control even for just a moment and let things play out the way they are supposed to.

I'm not saying that it is going to be good all the time, and in fact may lead to other stresses or "lessons" that need to be learned before that other door opens. The point is, that you have to shut down one end in order to open the other end. Sometimes in order to do that you need to simply let go. Its on of the hardest things that we as human beings can learn to do. We in the spiritual world are used to taking responsibility for our actions and emotions, sometimes so much so that we forget we are being guided in a larger scheme of things. Let that hand move you along, even if for a moment and experience it. Let if lead you forward to where you should be going and listen to what it has to say.

Those that fail at history...............

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.....when I was in High School (well not that far for some but far enough for me), my history teacher mentioned a phrase to the class at the beginning of the year that made us all want to work a little harder. He said "Those that fail history are doomed to repeat it."

Now in my high school mind the first thing I thought was that if I failed his class I would have to go to summer school and take it over again. I'm sure that every other student there thought the very same thing as we sat wide eyed and trembled at the possibility of summer courses.

It wasn't until years later that the thought came to my mind again and I realized its deeper meaning.

"Those that fail history are doomed to repeat it."

Life, among other things is about lessons. We enter situations and meet people and make choices all in order to learn a specific lesson from it at some point. We have a choice in all of this mind you, to either learn the lesson, or not. This is the deeper meaning. All those times that we failed to learn the lesson we were supposed to, those times of anger, grief, annoyance, pain we will repeat. These are usually the situations that we fail to learn lessons from because we get so emotionally involved within them that we cannot objectively learn from them.

These situations will come up over and over, again and again, until we finally buckle under and learn what we are supposed to learn. It is quite possible the hardest thing that we can force ourselves to do when confronted by these types of situations. We get caught up in our emotions, its part of being human. The idea here is to allow yourself ample time to get out of the emotional round-a-bout, and then take a step back. See things from the wider perspective.

Part of self awareness is recognizing patterns in your life. Learning when certain things are going to come back around that great wheel and smack you in the butt! If we instead learned from these situations wouldn't we then be able to incur a better come a round from that wheel? If the wheel is full of nothing but positive life lessons than that is what is going to come back again and again.

This isn't to say that negative ones aren't going to manifest from time to time, after all there needs to be a balance and sometimes a person needs that extra kick in the bum in order to get the lesson learned, but all in all its about objectivity and awareness.

Next time you find yourself in a situation where you know there is a lesson to be learned, and you are so caught up in it emotionally, recognize it and take that step back. Try to view things from all angles, meditate, converse with your Guides, do what you need to do to see things objectively so that you can begin to learn the lesson that is in store for you.

Creating your own Guided Meditation

Guided meditations are found nearly everywhere within the New Age and Spiritual areas of study. They are used to help keep the mind from wandering as well as to experience something specific in order to learn or grow from it. Guided meditations, or visualizations; gently lead the participant through a series of events. This type of meditation is great for the beginner, and can help prepare one for deeper more fulfilling meditations.

Though there are many different guided meditations available, they can have faults with some people. Some find that the meditation is not aiding them in relaxation, or bringing them through things they want to experience. In this case one can create their own personal guided meditation by using a few easy to follow guidelines and equipment.

Before beginning to create a guided meditation it is a good idea to gather a few materials to start. A computer or pad and paper, and a digital recorder or recording device is good to start. After materials have been gathered, following these guidelines will help in creating a personal guided meditation suited to your specific needs.

Relax and Record:

            Guided visualizations have a clear beginning, middle and end. You should know how you will enter the meditative state, what you want to experience once you get there, and then how you plan on returning from that state. It’s a good idea to write down the generalities of what you want so you can better outline your purpose for your guided meditation. It is usually good to start with some sort of progressive relaxation method before getting into the actual guided meditation. This is done so that the body can relax and release the day to prepare for the meditative state. Keep this is mind as you begin to outline your guided meditation.

Music:

            Music can aid greatly in guided meditation. The music you select should be instrumental with either no vocals, or light chanting or singing. It’s best to not choose music that has harsh vocals or a lot of singing as this tends to take the mind out of the meditative state. Listening to the music before hand will help as well, that way you can be sure that it is soothing and relaxing, but won’t put you to sleep. Another thing to look out for in music is abrupt stops or abrupt spikes in sound or tempo; this too can jar a person from the meditative state.

Description:

            The key to a guided meditation is being descriptive. In essence the meditation is leading a person from one point to another allowing them to experience certain things. For them to experience these fully t is best to be as descriptive as possible. Using a lot of adjectives in your meditation helps in this. You do, however, not want to be too descriptive. If a guided meditation focuses too much on the descriptive nature of things it can make the meditation ineffective for two reasons. First, it will not allow the person experiencing the meditation to use their own imagination, and create and see the things that they may need too. Second, if too much time is spent describing something, the mind can begin to wander and get bored and tired, causing the meditation to be completely ineffective.

When you pull all of these steps together, you can start to actually record the guided meditation. Write, or type it out so that when you begin to record it, you have a clear focus, and don’t forget anything important. When you are ready to record the meditation on your voice recorder be sure to be in a clam relaxed state, with no outside noises or influences to bother you. You want to have the music playing softly in the background, but your voice should be the foremost thing being recorded. Speak softly and calmly, but with punctuation and inflection to your words.

After the recording has been completed be sure to try it out. You may find that you need to change some things, be more descriptive in certain areas, or even change the way you enter and exit the meditation to be sure its smooth and not jarring to the mind or body. After you have perfected it you can easily create guided meditations to suit any need you may find, and explore many different areas that you may not have been able to go before.

Personal and Space Protections

I am sure that you have heard the term protections at least once or twice within your psychic, pagan studies; but what does it actually mean to be protected and to use protections? First we need to talk a bit about two different kinds of protections (and I’m not talking about condoms or guns here either!). There are personal protections and space protections. The first focuses on people, and the second on a location.

Personal protections work on individuals, either you or others. This type of psychic protection is used to keep out negative energy or influences, keep from people stealing your energy, and keep your energy flowing strong and positively around you. Personal protections are usually used every day. Now there are a few different theories about them, and even a few different ways of doing them (saving that for another time). The theory that I follow is that personal protections should be re-done every 6 hours. The reason for this is that the energy of the poles shift every 6 hours, and in order to keep them strong you re-do them as the energies change. Some believe that every 12 hours is the pole change, it really is all according to what research you have done and follow. Personal protections keep you safe from negative people and energies, psychic energies that should not attach themselves to you, psychic vampirism and attack, and the appearance and creation of holes in the aura. The protections keep your energy flowing smooth and strong, keeping your aura strong and your energy high. For those of you that d divination or mediumship, it aids in keeping spirits that are nasty at bay and not allowing them to “enter” the medium to talk. Pagans and spiritual people that do paranormal investigating use protections for that reason as well, keeping the spirits at a distance in order to remain spiritually and energetically safe.

Space protections do much of the same thing. They protect a location from negative energy and create a “sacred space” in order to draw in positivity, or practice magick. Space protections are usually a bit more ritualistic and stronger than personal protections, though not always. Traditionally speaking one should do a space protection at least once a week. Now those that practice magick will be doing protections more often. This is because every time they do ritual, meditate, or practice magick they need a “clean and sacred space” in order to work. The most common space protections that you will run across are those for the home and the work place. This doesn’t always mean just your home or work space, it can be other peoples home or work space as well. It can even be locations that do not belong to you in order to aid in negativity removal.

Now that you know a bit about the two main protections it will be easier for you to understand and protect in certain situations. You are more likely to understand when to use a space protection, or a personal protection in your work.