The first type we call ghosts. These spirits refuse to go home after physical death and often have unpleasant influences on those of us who would like to finish out our own human lives in peace. These displaced souls are sometimes falsely called 'demonic spirits' because they are accused of invading the minds of people with harmful intent. The subject of negative Spirits has produced serious investigations in the field of parapsychology. Unfortunately, this area of spirituality has also attracted a fringe element of the unscrupulous associated with the occult, who prey on the emotions of susceptible people.

The troubled spirit is an immature entity with unfinished business in a past life on Earth. They may have no relation to the living person who is disrupted by them. It is true that some people are convenient and receptive conduits for negative spirits who wish to express their querulous nature. This means that someone who is in a deep meditative state of consciousness might occasionally pick up annoying signal patterns from a discarnated being whose communications can range from the frivolous to provocative. These unsettled entities are not spiritual guides. Real guides are healers and don't intrude with acrimonious messages.

More often than not, these uncommon haunted spirits are tied to a particular geographic location. Researchers who have specialized in the phenomena of ghosts indicate those disturbed entities are caught in a no-man's land between the lower astral planes of Earth and the spirit world. From my own research, I don't believe these souls are lost in space, nor are they demonic. They choose to remain within the Earth plane after physical death for a time by their own volition due to a high level of discontent. In my opinion, they are damaged souls because they evidenceonfusion, despair, and even hostility to such an extent they want their guides to stay away from them. We do know a negative, displaced entity can be reached and handled by various means, such as exorcism, to get them to stop interfering with human beings. Possessing spirits can be persuaded to leave and eventually make a proper transition into the spirit world.

This condition does not excuse souls from doing their utmost to prevent evil involvement on Earth. We see this in human conscience. It is important we distinguish between what is exerting a negative force on our mind and what is not. Hearing an inner voice which may suggest self-destruction to ourselves or someone else is not a demonic spiritual entity, an alien presence, nor a malevolent renegade guide. Negative forces emanate from ourself.

The destructive impulses of emotional disorders, if left untreated, inhibit soul development. Those of us who have experienced unresolved personal trauma in our lives carry the seeds of our own destruction. This anguish affects our soul in such a way that it seems we are not whole. For instance, excessive craving and addictive behavior, which is the outgrowth of personal pain, inhibits the expression of a healthy soul and may even hold a soul in bondage to its host body.

I've been told that in every era of Earth's bloody history there has always been a significant number of souls unable to resist and successfully counter human cruelty. Certain souls, whose hosts have a genetic disposition to abnormal brain chemistry,are particularly at risk in a violent environment. We see how children can be so damaged by physical and emotional family abuse that, as adults, they commit premeditated acts of atrocity without feelings of remorse. Since souls are not created perfect, their nature can be contaminated during the development of such a life form.

If our transgressions are especially serious we call them evil. My subjects say to me no soul is inherently evil, although it may acquire this label in human life. Pathological evil in humans is characterized by feelings of personal impotence and weakness which is stimulated by helpless victims.
Although souls who are involved with truly evil acts should generally be considered at a low level of development, soul immaturity does not automatically invite malevolent behavior from a damaged human personality.

The master of ceremonies is the god Anubis, who carefully weighs the man's heart on one pan of the scale against the ostrich feather of truth on the opposite side. The heart, not the head, represented the embodiment of a person's soul-conscience to the Egyptians. It is a tense moment. A crocodile-headed monster is crouched nearby with his mouth open, ready to devour the heart if the man's wrongs outweigh the good he did in life. Failure at the scales would end the existence of this soul.

I get quite a few comments from my clients about this picture. A metaphysically oriented person would insist no one is denied entrance into the kingdom of afterlife, regardless of how unfavorably balanced the scales might be toward past conduct. Is this belief true? Are all souls given the opportunity to transmute back into the spirit world the same way, irrespective of their association with the bodies they occupied?

To answer this question, I should begin by mentioning that a large segment of society believes all souls do not go to the same place. More moderate theology no longer stresses the idea of hellfire and brimstone for sinners. However, many religious sects indicate a spiritual coexistence of two mental states of good and evil. For the 'bad' soul there are ancient philosophical pronouncements denoting a separation from the God-Essence as a means of punishment after death.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a source of religious belief thousands of years older than the Bible, describes the state of consciousness between lives (the Bardo) as a time when 'the evil we have perpetrated projects us into spiritual separation.' If the peoples of the East believed in a special spiritual location for evil doers, was this idea similar to the concept of purgatory in the Western world?

However, I have learned that certain souls do undergo separation in the spirit world, and this happens at the time of their orientation with guides. They are not activated along the same travel routes as other souls. Those of my subjects who have been impeded by evil report that souls whose influence was too weak to turn aside a human impulse to harm others will go into seclusion upon reentering the spirit world. These souls don't appear to mix with other entities in the conventional manner for quite a while.

By conquering fear and taking risks, our karmic pattern adjusts to the effects of new choices. At the end of every life, rather than having a monster waiting to devour our souls, we serve as our most severe critic in front of teacher-guides. This is why karma is both just and merciful. With the help of our spiritual counselors and peers we decide on the proper mode of justice for our conduct.

Some people who believe in reincarnation also think if negative souls do not learn their lessons within a reasonable span of lives, they will be eliminated and replaced by more willing souls. My subjects deny this premise.

There is no set path of self-discovery designed for all souls. As one subject told me, 'souls are assigned to Earth for the duration of the war.' This means souls are given the time and opportunity to make changes for growth. Souls who continue to display negative attitudes through their human hosts must overcome these difficulties by continually making an effort to change. From what I have seen, no negative karma remains attached to a soul who is willing to work during their many lives on this planet.

It is an open question whether a soul should be held entirely at fault for humanity's irrational, unsocialized, and destructive acts. Souls must learn to cope in different ways with each new human being assigned to them. The permanent identity of a soul stamps the human mind with a distinctive character which is individual to that soul. However, I find there is a strange dual nature between the soul mind and human brain. I will discuss this concept further in later chapters, after the reader learns more about the existence of souls in the spirit world.