The following blog below was written by our newest team addition, James Lemke. Please enjoy, and look forward to more blog entries from him. If you like what you read, please leave a comment!
I believe that anything great, anything long lasting, regardless if it’s a relationship, or even just a story, begins with an introduction. A beginning. A hello. A nice to meet you. That is what this is, it is my introduction to you, the reader, and in it I will share with you my interest in the paranormal. My interest, my curiosity, with the paranormal starts with the first house I ever remember living in as a child. As with all good ghost stories, the house that we lived in was old. While I am not sure of how old the house is, what I am sure of is all the paranormal activity that happened while we lived there. Apparitions taking on the appearance of people we didn’t know or recognize, even taking on the appearance of people that we did know. Footsteps that could be heard walking up and down the stairs. Objects being moved on their own. In fact, on more than one occasion after we had moved out of the house, my mother would often return and ask the owners if anything “strange” was going on. Every single time I can remember my mother doing this, the answer was always the same. Yes. There was. So I know that whatever was there when we lived in this house, was still there several years after we had moved out. While I was far too young to fully understand what was happening to us at the time, these experiences have stayed with me all these years later.
I am a curious person and I am often drawn to the unexplained. I can’t explain why this is, it’s just the way I am and always have been. My mother was the same way. She loved a good ghost story. I can’t even begin to account for all the times I heard her talk with either my Grandma and Grandpa about the stories they had when they were growing up in the hills of Kentucky as children. Or all the times she would talk with one of my many Aunts or Uncles about their experiences with the paranormal. I think other than her curiosity with the unexplained, my mother just enjoyed a good scare. I was sixteen when she died. She had been diagnosed with cancer in September and had succumbed to the disease the following April. The day of her funeral, she came and said goodbye to my brother and I that night when we had gone to bed. The following morning when we woke up, we told our father about what had happened and he shared us with a similar experience. This was my first experience in having known and loved someone in life, and then being visited by them after their death. It wouldn’t be my last experience either. After my brother had passed from the same type of cancer that had killed our mother, he had made his presence known to my ex-wife and I the very next night, and then again, the following night the day before his funeral.
While there are countless assumptions and numerous speculations on what happens after we die, and with each religion sharing their own account of what happens when our soul leaves our physical body, truth be told nobody knows for sure. Whatever does happen, I don’t believe that your soul is instantaneously transported to either a Heaven or Hell. I firmly believe that you have every opportunity to not go into the light, and stay here on earth but in a spiritual form. I also believe that when someone crosses over, that they can come back. I have come to these beliefs based solely on the experiences I have had in life and these conclusions are the ones that I feel make the most sense to me. We live our lives experiencing a wide range of emotions, thoughts, and feelings. Every minute, of every day, from the moment we draw our first breath to the moment we breath our last. Why then, should this be any different when our physical bodies die and we then exist in the spiritual plane? I don’t believe it does. I believe that what is important to us when we are alive, is still important to use after we die. The people we love. The items we cherish. The work we did. How else can you explain our loved ones visiting us after they have died, or items that have a spiritual attachment to them, or even the spirits that haven’t moved on because they have work they still feel they need to do.
I think, and the only way that I can try to explain it, is that it is through my compassion and understanding of the human spirit is why I believe that I am a sensitive. Now, this doesn’t mean that spirits talk to me and I talk with them, so much as what it means I am simply able to tell when I am in the presence of a spirit. I also believe that I do have the abilities and the talents to communicate with a spirit if I was so inclined to. The way I have recently described it, it feels like my phone is ringing, and I can see it’s ringing, but instead of answering it, I turn the phone over and pretend it’s not ringing. I know it’s not because I am afraid of what or who is trying to get my attention, so much as what I am just trying to be cautious. Because while I believe in the spirit realm and while many hauntings are simply spirits who have not moved on yet, I also believe in demons, malevolent energies, and things that wish to do us harm. I certainly don’t think that being a sensitive is something you just start doing and take on without running the risk of hurting yourself or those around you. As much as what it is human nature to be curious about what happens after we die, I think we also need to be both mindful and responsible of what might come through that door when we open it. Even though our intentions might be honest, we still need to be mindful of our actions.
It is also because of my compassion and understanding of the human spirit is why I am drawn to the paranormal stories that are tragic in nature, or tell a story of misfortune and suffering. It’s not because I enjoy seeing people in need or in situations of dire circumstances, but it’s because I see these instances as the greatest opportunity to help. If you think about it, how many times in life have you felt alone? Felt hopeless? Felt lost? How many times have you just wished, hoped, and maybe even prayed, that someone, anyone, would just take a moment and help? I know I have. I have lived a hard life. I have gone through so many hardships throughout my life, and there was not one moment, one time, where all I wanted was for someone to be there for me. So why then, should this be any different when we die? If someone was to die in a state of duress, and if this energy carries over with them into the afterlife, wouldn’t this person still want help with whatever was causing them pain or discomfort in life? I certainly think so. But then how does or how would a spirit communicate this to someone still living? Not easily I would imagine. But what I can imagine would be the frustration this spirit would have though in communicating to us what is still holding them back and preventing them in crossing over and moving to the light. These are the cases, the hauntings, where I feel I could help do the most good.
However, even though I am a lifelong believer in the paranormal, and I am enthusiastic about my membership in Outreach Paranormal Research, I am still very much a skeptic and will never just automatically assume that every bump in the night is because of a ghost. I will always look for the most logical explanation for any suspected activity, it’s just in my nature to do so. There have been times in my own life where I thought something paranormal had happened, but I was able to debunk the event through analytical and logical reasoning. I am a very suspicious person, and I think that lends to the integrity of any observation I might have. You can be rest assured that with the information I might provide, it will be as accurate and as honest as possible. Even when I was serving in the military, I was known for my integrity and always being willing to tell the hard truth, regardless of what the consequences might be. With that said though, I am also a firm believer that if you are in your house alone and you sneeze and you hear someone say, “Bless You” that chances are you have a ghost. As the newest member of Outreach Paranormal Research, I am really looking forward to start doing some investigative work with the team and I am hopeful about the help I will be able to provide our clients. Maybe somewhere along the way I will be able to find answers to my own questions that I have.
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