Anna DeStefano's Blog

The easiest way to remember you way around spirit guides is to think of them like camp counselors, only you’re choosing the camp and the counselors of your next life (told you we’d get around to past life theory), not your parents. And the counselors (spirit guides) have to be dead before you’re born, and are typically from your family line or the immediate acquaintance of someone in your family, so they’ll understand your world.

Okay, dipping my toes into past life theory for just a paragraph. Let’s say for the same of argument that after we die, our spirits are still very much active and aware of our past life history, and some of us do in fact return to learn what we haven’t yet or explore something we’ve missed or make a difference only we can make. Except we won’t remember (explicitly) everything we’ve fought so hard to learn in past lives, or our purpose for returning, at least not at first. Enter Spirit Guides: spirits from that realm we stay in, in between lives, who knew us before we came back and advise, support, and guide us on our newest path.

Whether you believe the above or not, many of us would have a hard time arguing that there are times when we know for sure that we’re not alone. That there’s someone with us, someone who seems to know us better than we do ourselves, helping us sort through alternatives and find our way. Almost as if that’s their job.

Not to be confused with guardian angels (we’ll do a Psychic Realm post on angels soon, promise), spirit guides aren’t our protectors as much as their our, well, counselors.They don’t intervene or interfere. The theory goes that we start a new life with predetermined purpose and goals that we don’t explicitly remember. Our spirit guide’s job is to, somehow, communicate our purpose to us when we need most to remember the path we chose to take.

It’s a fun concept to play with, and I use it extensively in my next Legacy novel. Call spirit “knowledge” instinct, hunches, or problem-solving dreams, but don’t you wonder sometimes where these amazing clues come from? Is it really our subconscious working out our problems for us, or is someone, some spiritual influence, nudging us along in the right direction? (more…)

Imprints were the stepchild of last Tuesday’s ghosts vs. spirits smackdown: because they’re neither. Now they’re having their day. Imprints are pure energy that we’ve all experienced. Admit it. Ever walked into a room or a building or even an open area, shivered, and known something or someone had been there before you? What you’re likely experiencing isn’t a haunting or a visit from some other dimension–it’s the residual energy from the past.

Imprints happen to a specific place, where a very dramatic event or series of events has occurred.  The theory goes that the emotional impact and sometimes even the imagery from the event(s) literally imprint on the physical space and atmosphere. Future persons who visit the imprint and react to it (many are deeply affected, others find themselves merely uncomfortable in an odd way, but almost everyone has some kind of reaction to these places) then feed even more energy into the powerful phenomenon.

Think of them as energy vortexes. Human like images can be part of them, only adding tot he disturbing, dramatic illusion you experience when you find one. Shadows. Something there out of the corner of your eye, while emotions that aren’t yours flow. But these images aren’t earthbound or alive. They’re echoes. My research tells me that the actual participants in the events that cause imprints are long gone and of no threat to you. Imagine if you will a three-dimensional hologram trapped in a never-ending, never-changing movie scene. One final affirmation that you’re not actually interacting with a ghost or spirit–an imprint’s image never interacts with or even notices the humans that have stumbled across its space.

Examples of how I’m contemplating using imprints in my next Legacy series (dealing with ghosts and hauntings and harnessing the spirit world)?  I read an account of a devestating fire centuries ago in a now historic house that was rebuilt on the site of the event. (more…)

Pouring through my parapsychology notes for the next three “Legacy” fantasy novels, the difference between spirits and ghosts comes up a lot. For this Psychic Realm blog series, it’s a classification that most who like but don’t study parapsychological phenomenon can easily miss. These become key distinctions in my next books, because how all this works beneath the plot is just as important as the way the exciting characters play their spooky, exciting stories out on page.

Some basics (that you many not have gotten from watching things like Ghosts Whisperer):

• Ghosts are trapped here on earth before passing on to where they’re meant to be next.
• Spirits have already ascended.
• Ghosts retain the injuries and scars from their lives and earth.
• Spirits have healed.
• Ghosts tend to be confused and befuddled about where they are and why they’re there.
• Spirits are calm and clear thinking.

What does all this mean?

First of all, no conversation of the spirit world would be complete without a healthy dose of past life theory thrown in up front as a disclaimer. But I’m not gonna go there, at least not in this post. Because I’m difficult, and also because the debate muddles the definitions I want to focus on for now. If enough interest grows either in the comments or my emails, we’ll do past life one day. Promise.

Second, if you think you’re experiencing energy that isn’t your own (or the man/woman sleeping next to you, heh), the simple classifications above can be instantly helpful in determining what might be going on. In my novels, they become road signs/clues to help my protagonists sort out their own messy denial about what is or isn’t happening to their worlds/ minds.

For example, if the “being” you think you’re encountering appears to you as physically impaired in any way–ghost. (more…)