Derivative Images

One night after Thanksgiving, I was watching TV and the movie “A Christmas Carol” came on and I half watched it and half daydreamed about my own situation. I read the book by Charles Dickens in my youth and have always enjoyed the old black and white movie. The first ghost in the story was Jacob Marley and his first appearance was as Ebenezer’s familiar door knocker. This is when the light bulb went off in my mind for my article. This story has the ghost of Christmas past, the ghost of Christmas present and the ghost of Christmas future. Of course, I would not want to forget Jacob Marley’s ghost for he is a big player in many different ways. In no way do I intend to retell “A Christmas Carol” but would like to talk about some types of ghost and entities that often times are mistaken for ghosts.

Jacob Marley was the first ghost that visited Ebenezer Scrooge in the story so let us first look at his appearance as a door knocker. How many of us have seen a face in a cloud, in the mist or in the smoke of a camp fire? In many ways, this is similar to the way the first ghost appears in the story. There are many different views on this phenomena and one is that our eyes are playing tricks on us. This is to say that we are letting our imagination put a face in the smoke because of a trauma or some other subconscious reason. Another view could be that there is a ghost trying to contact us and they only have the energy to manifest in this way. Knowing the way Jacob manifested next would lead me to believe that the ghost was priming the witness to be able to see him. It seems that a lot of times before you see a full apparition you will get glimpses of the ghost… this is to get your attention without using up a lot of energy. It is like clearing your throat so that what you’re going to say is heard but on a visual level. If you question, “did I just see that?” you are giving your subconscious more control over your conscious mind and in doing this you are opening yourself up for the experience. This is not the same thing as having a séance and asking spirits to manifest. It is akin to being open to trying a new food that you have never eaten before with out any predisposition of how it will taste. You could have only this type of experience but in the story, this was just the first unworldly encounter.

The next ghost was Jacob Marley again but this time as a full body apparition with the ability to communicate with Ebenezer. This is rare for a ghost to been seen and be heard at the same time because the energy level to do this would be off the scale unless the witness was a spirit medium. If you were an investigator and were told this story with all the visitations, you would want to question Ebenezer to see if he had any similar experiences when he was younger to see if he was a medium. Oops, once an investigator always an investigator. Let’s get back to the story…

The story then describes the reason for the ghost of Jacob Marley coming to Ebenezer as a warning and to let him know of the visitation of another ghost that night. Considering Jacob Marley was seen and heard would lead me to consider that he was not a ghost but one of these other types of entities:  Spirit Guide, Angel, Demon, or even an Elemental. From my research, I have found that many times one of these four has been mistaken for a ghost in some instances that were thought to be hauntings. A ghost involved in a haunting for the most part is not there to help - they are just there because of the history of a person, place, or thing. This is not to say that a spirit of a family member will not be around you in your hour of need to console you and guide you in your life. In an alleged haunting, you would consider the account of the witness and if you could not question him or her, the account statements would have to be the only evidence. The statements made in the story lead me to believe that Jacob Marley was not a ghost but a Spirit Guide that was sent to aid Ebenezer to change his direction in life. He was sent to let Ebenezer know the errors of his ways and to pave the way for the “others” that were to follow.

The next two ghosts were the ghosts of Christmas Past and Present and in their own ways they were more guides that ghosts. The ghost of Christmas Past showed Ebenezer how he was happy and loved early in his life. It showed him a time before he had let his greed for money ruin his life. This opened the door for the next ghost. The ghost of Christmas Present then showed him the struggles of the people around him and how he did not notice this or help. Both of these ghosts were guides because of the fact that they took Ebenezer out of his room and out of his body to his past then to the present to other locations where he could not interact with his surroundings. I have spoken to several people that have had an out of body experience and they had a guide there to help them to understand or to reach a turning point. In the story, Ebenezer did not have any control of his out of body experience which leads me to believe it was a guided experience and he had no recourse but to get the message. Part of the message was that he had some control in his life to help others like he used to do when he was younger. The presence of these two ghosts or guides led up to the last visitation in this “night of ghosts.”

The last ghost in the story was ghost of Christmas Future. This ghost is depicted as Death or the Grim Reaper and it did not have any conversation with Ebenezer at all. In the story, the ghost of Christmas Future is the strongest contributor in making Ebenezer change his ways. The ghost that takes on the appearance of death has a sense of finality about him and brings the visitation of all the ghosts to an end. If the story was an actual event and if you considered each visitation separately, this one would be the most significant due to the fact that Christmas Future provided a possible destiny that would come to pass if Ebenezer did not change his ways. He did not provide him with anything to work for but something to fight against. This is a classic Spirit Guide or Angel encounter where they don’t show you how to avoid a problem that you are headed for, rather, that there is a problem that you are heading for if you don’t change or take action. Sometimes they will show you things to work on for your own spiritual growth or to prepare you for an event without showing you the outcome. For the most part, you will not get the whole picture of the event and what you will need to do to make it happen.

We do have free will and as the name implies these entities are guides and their job is to guide you or to point you in the right direction. If you look at the progression of the visitations that Ebenezer experienced, it is possible that it was just one entity that visited him taking on a different guise for each part of the lesson that he needed to learn. When dealing with the paranormal events you must look from many different points of views to discern what is really happening. If an event like the one depicted in the story “A Christmas Carol” happened today and I was asked if this was a haunting I would say no. Looking at what was stated in the story it is more likely that there was a spiritual intervention happening to help rather than a haunting. From my own personal experience dealing with my Spirit Guide, its appearance is part of the message as with this story. I hope that in this article you become aware that all the things that are labeled as ghosts might not be ghosts. Also - when we look at things from many different points of view and not just jump to one conclusion there are lessons we can learn. This article is my point of view on a story that is fictitious and is not meant as a critical look at the great author Charles Dickens. I hope that you have spiritual holiday season.