Sunday, January 11, 2009

The Haunted Mirror

In the comments to the Proctor and Gamble post, I got an interesting question from a reader. Seeing as it was off-topic for the P&G thread, I figured I would go ahead and answer it as best I could in a new posting.

OZWizard writes:

What is "alive" or "living" in the mirror in my entry hall?

It seems harmless and somewhat oblivious to me. It also seems to be some sort of guardian. It wouldn't move from its place and seemed un-distracted as if set in place or held in place. I asked silently if it was from God but there was no response.

I noticed it during the stress of the holidays and during an "altered state" after I had several nights without sleep and without my glasses ( I have astigmatism.)

I seemed to move out and back into the mirror as if held there. I was very tall, as tall as the mirror plus above the floor, so between six and seven feet tall. It was birdlike or angelic with huge birdlike wings. The wings seemed to move independently and rose and lowered to cover its face which changed back and forth several times from humanoid, to bird, to lion to other unknown creature constantly. The wings rose over its shoulders to cover its face and seemed to help hide it back into the mirror and to hide its face when it appeared to notice me watch it. The wings seemed alive in themselves and reflexive rather than controlled (sort of like a blinking eyelid).

This "creature" could be a number of different things. However, the first thing you should do is spend some time looking at the mirror, studying it from different vantage points in the entry hall, and so forth. You want to be absolutely sure this is not some kind of optical effect that has nothing to do with anything spiritual. If it is some sort of trick of the light, you should be able to see it again if you observe it under the exact same conditions.

Also note that lack of sleep can induce hallucinations. I know of several professors from astronomy classes that I took when I was younger who swore up and down that they saw all sorts of bizarre things when they had stayed up for a few nights in a row watching the stars. If you only see it when you're running seriously short on sleep, something like that is probably the real answer.

One more thing to watch out for is old, unshielded electrical wiring, like the knob and tube wiring in some older homes. Some experts have suggested that older electrical wiring could create electromagnetic fields that affect the human brain. I've heard of a number of cases where people were troubled by a haunting but then upgraded all of the electrical wiring in the troubled part of the house. With the new wiring in place and properly grounded, the unusual phenomena disappeared.

Finally, if there is a window anywhere in the entry hall, watch out for cars on the street and see if moving your hand in front of the window affects the image when you see it again. I had a friend of mine once tell me that he thought a certain cemetary was haunted because when walking along the sidewalk nearby at night you could see random flashes of light from around the headstones. I checked it out, and sure enough, the flashes appeared. However, after careful investigation I realized that the flashes were actually just a property of the very long, straight road that ran along the cemetary. Right when a car turned onto the road more than half a mile away, there would be a brief flash when light from the headlights caught the granite on some of the headstones. The granite shifted the color of the light and the cars were too far away to be heard until well after the flash.

I felt no fear watching it move back and forth from within the wall or mirror. It seemed to be guarding something. There were small fairy-looking or miniature elf like creatures seeming to be "allowed to pass" by i the "mirror" creature". Some of the fairies watched me oblivious also. The "winged creature" appeared to "communicate" with the fairy creatures in a friendly way but it ignored me watching the entire scene.

I pass the mirror and wall several times a day on the way in or out my door or up the stairs. I have tries to acknowledge it being there but I have not tried to observe it deliberately again.

What is this creature?

Once you've eliminated the likely mundane explanations, there are a number of paranormal things that this could be - however, I want to stress that a mundane explanation is the culprit at least nine times out of ten. Make sure that before you decide this is something paranormal you rule out everything else. I can't stress this enough, because genuine paranormal haunting-type cases are very rare.

Here are some questions that would help me out. Go ahead and answer them in the comments to this post. First off, how old is the mirror? Did it come with the house? Is it an antique? Or is it just a fairly normal mirror that you bought at a department store or something? Second of all, how old is your house? Have you experienced any other haunting-like phenomena in any are of the house besides the mirror? Knowing all of those things will give me a lot more information about this phenomenon.

If I was told that this was definitely a paranormal entity, my best guess would either be a ghost of some sort that died in the vicinity of the mirror or in your house, or possibly some kind of telesma or artificial spirit constructed by a magician and linked into the mirror. In the former case it might be guarding the entry hall, and in the latter case it might be guarding the mirror itself. If you link a telesma into an object, when the object breaks the telesma usually "dies" unless it is linked to some specific portion of the object that remains unbroken.

I hope this helps. I'll look forward to your answers.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whatever the underlying cause of the experience, the description of the physical attributes of the perceived phenomenon seems congruent with those of the Kerubic order of angels in the mythos of the Abrahamic religions. (cite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_angelic_hierarchy#Cherubim ). The congruency begins to fail, however, in the emotional tenor of the encounter. Usually when a Kerub shows up, it's a brain-meltingly terrifying experience. Although the lack of terror in this could be a matter of the fact that it wasn't doing anything in particular, and it's attention seems not to have been on the observer of the phenomenon.

The smaller creatures could be nearly anything, and the Kerubim aren't generally associated with companions, barring some of the more recent fictional uses of the term.

This is not to encourage credulity in the author of the comment- there are a lot more reasonable explanations for the experience than an angelic encounter per se.

SoapFan said...

Thanks for the reference, Ismft23.

I also felt the creature was angelic, specifically one of the "four living creatures" that attend and behold the face of the Lord at all times. And which is also described with the "vehicle" or God's throne Ezekiel saw in a vision. The movement of it's wings and feathers is what made me consider this.

I was thrilled to "think" that I was perceiving "one" and was not frightened at all since it seemed to ignore me. I was so fascinated by the independent movement of the feathers of the wings.

My credulity? Well, I perceived something and it has forever changed me whatever it was. I am a bit more spiritual since witnessing the "creature" and more inclined to believe that the "four living creatures" exist...which verifies many spiritual things for me.

My background is scientific...chemistry, math, biochemistry, education...through graduate school at Vanderbilt. BTW, I minored in religious studies in undergrad and studied the philosophy of religion abroad.

This is the only "paranormal" experience I've ever had except for seeing small metal balls floating in an elevator after an "all-nighter" of studying and dissecting human bodies in the anatomy laboratory for an exam (while eating nearly day old pizza!). I wasn't alone then though and my classmate also witnessed the "balls" rise from the floor and swirl around us.

But once again, I was in an "altered state" of lack of sleep. I don't think my "state" negates my experiences though.

Again, thanks for the response.

SoapFan said...

Thank you for the post/response Ananael!

I post on blogger and elsewhere as Ozwizard and SoapFan. You were so gracious to answer my off-topic question... but I just had to know what was going on and after happening across your blog, I felt secure that your answer would be the complete best. Again, thanks so much!

The mirror is relatively new about 12 years old, as far as I know. I did personally purchase it at a department store. It is oval,about 3 feet long and 2 wide, beveled mirror, cherry or mahogany wood trim and cost a bit over $200. It's very heavy and has hung in the entry way since 2005. I brought it with me to this residence from Nashville, Tennessee, where I purchased it and where it hung in my bedroom in a very old house there.

The house was then converted into apartments and I rented the attic apartment while I was in university in Nashville. I enjoyed the apartment and was sad to leave. I lived there for nearly 9 years. I recently learned that the house has since been demolished. The house was in an older neighborhood of Nashville, that a historian/mail carrier informed me used to be called "Jew Town." That wasn't considered derogatory since I asked several of my Jewish friends about it and there were two Jewish synagogues directly across the street from the house. Very close. I could see both the newer synagogue and the older orthodox Jewish synagogue from my windows. The house was in a trust with a bank, so I never knew the family owners but was very fond of the two very old Jewish men who were realtors/landlords.

You are very perceptive, Ananael. I was very tired during the holidays and did lose a lot of sleep. Perhaps I was hallucinating. But it was so real!

I stared at the creature for more than ten minutes and was aware of my surroundings. There was a news broadcast on the television that wasn't distorted by my state. I was observing the creature from the second floor, looking down the stairs at the entry hall.

It never looked up the stairs at me. The smaller creatures did though. But they didn't seem to mind me watching them. The winged creature seemed "attached" to the mirror or positioned near the mirror. I did get the feeling of it "guarding" something.

I pass the mirror several times a day and am just now able to stare into it as I used to before seeing the creature. I don't know if it's still there but I try to "sense" something from the mirror when I pass. However, I have not taken up the similar position above the stairs to look for it again. I'm not afraid to. It's just that I feel that "it" doesn't want me to, if that makes any sense.

This creature was the most fascinating thing I've ever seen and I'm very glad that I saw it. I know that it was alive. It was more "bird" than anything else and I can't get over the way it moved out from the mirror and receded back in as if positioned or stationed there. And the feathered wings were extraordinary! They seemed to move independently and covered its face. I could even perceive the muscles in its shoulders that moved the wings around to cover its face.

Finally, it did seem to communicate with the smaller creatures. One of the creatures sat on the rail of the stairway and was dangling its leg as if enjoying a chat with the creature!

I hope this additional info helps and any further ideas you might have are welcome. Thank you for taking time from your work to consider this incident.

BTW, I am also wondering if this "creature" could be some aspect of me? I have a strange feeling that I know the creature. Does that seem too weird?

Thank you so very much and I really enjoy your blog. I am trying to read all your references and archives as well. Your work here is terrific and inspirational.

Scott Stenwick said...

The mirror is relatively new about 12 years old, as far as I know. I did personally purchase it at a department store.

That probably rules out some kind of telesma or haunting linked to the mirror itself, then. It's not that old and you've owned it the whole time. You've also never seen any other haunting-type manifestations in your current house, either, so it's probably not a conventional ghost. They rarely follow items from house to house, and they usually do more than just appear once in a mirror if they are present.

I'm starting to wonder if you might have scryed the entity. People who have a high level of scrying talent can sit down and see all sorts of images of spirits and so forth in a dark mirror, and it could have been that the light conditions in the entry hall were just right to produce the same effect with a regular mirror. The lack of sleep actually supports that explanation. See, I'm not that talented a scryer, but I can do it if I sit down for 15-20 minutes with a sound/light brain machine running an alpha/theta brainwave program. The lack of sleep may have increased your level of waking theta waves and put you into a similar state.

If that's the case, the entity you saw could be just about anything. It does sound like some sort of Kerubic angel from the description, and in my experience they don't produce any fear when they show up in a scrying session, though they certainly might if they materialized in the temple. The trouble with analyzing a scrying vision is that the content is often personal and the entities that you see will usually present things to you based on your own thoughts and ideas because they in effect use the contents of your mind to construct their message.

I guess what I would recommend is to sit down and mull over what you think the images you saw might mean, and go with whatever appeals to you on an intuitive level. Then see if that meaning can be applied to some aspect of your life in a way that allows you to be happier or more successful. And don't worry if what you come up with seems "weird" - a message that is intended for you doesn't need to make sense to anyone else.

Your work here is terrific and inspirational.

Thanks much, and I'm glad you are enjoying my work.

SoapFan said...

Ananael Qua,

Thanks again so much for your insight and it rings so true!