It is important that you learn to distinguish between moral judgments about your beliefs and practical insight.  The former further complicated matters by evoking feelings of guilt or unworthiness.  The latter helps you choose beliefs wisely, as a master craftsman chooses highly specific tools that serve the refined skills she has acquired.
Beliefs are not merely tools, but particular or unique shapes that mold energy, or express consciousness.  We, of course, speak of beliefs you actually hold “in your heart,” not those to which many of you give lip service.  Living beliefs are organic forms, encoded even in your body and its systems.  That is why they may – and do constantly – affect those systems.
Each of you has your own unique version of any beliefs, so their manifestation will differ somewhat from one person to another, even though their beliefs appear quite similar.  Beliefs are like any other living forms: no two are precisely alike or identical.
Beliefs cannot be separated from values, for they express values.  That is, the actual beliefs you hold in the living patterns of your consciousness express your values.  At the depths of your being, each of you is not only aware of prime values, but is an expression of them.  Prime values are not precepts such as the Ten Commandments, but the deepest inclinations of Consciousness, or Being Itself.  Prime values inhere in the disposition of Consciousness from which all creation and transformation flow.  They are the propelling instinct of all authentic evolution, that is, the evolution of consciousness.  You can say that prime values spring from the heart of All That Is.  They are the fountainhead of all love or compassion.  They lead to justice, but not necessarily justice as your conventions dictate, but rather an exquisite justice that is enlightenment, transformation, compassion and cosmic harmony, balance and unfolding.  We are speaking here of the entire cosmos of consciousness, a cosmos that is multidimensional and lies behind and is expressed in every manifest world or reality.
Prime values, then, remain the touchstone of all beliefs.  Without a single word or definition you live out your beliefs.  When you are attuned to prime values, they, too, take shape in the living fabric of your consciousness and experience.  Do not get lost in an intellectual morass with your beliefs, my friends, but let them take shape from the deepest instincts of your being.  You do have a deeper intellect – the expansive intellect – that never contradicts the knowledge of the heart.  There is no excuse, then, for being intellectually lazy, for the expansive intellect serves both an enlightened mind and heart, and the two are in fact one.  The ego must learn to defer to – and listen to – the inner self in this regard, crafting beliefs from inner, living knowledge.  You continue to evolve throughout every aspect of your soul’s activities, so there is no point of arrival in this dimension or in any other where you become a smug or pretentious “celestial master.”

Solnia-2003

©2011, Harry C. Stafford

Director of Haunted St. Augustine Ghost Tour

(This is part of a section on the Birth of Consciousness dealing with the Shadow)
The shadow is not evil.  In one sense it is all that you neglect consciously, and therefore at times may be allied with creativity and even a deeper spirituality.  The shadow is hardly static, and its contents and character are always shifting.  Neglected, the negative side of the shadow can erupt unexpectedly, irrationally, angrily, or even violently.  When the positive side of the shadow is too much neglected, depression can ensue.  Whatever its contents, the shadow seeks recognition, acknowledgment, understanding and integration.  This is why you cannot fully evolve without some awareness of your dreams.
       Now clearly, especially in the world you know, many of you do not have time to engage your dreams at length.  Many of you seldom remember dreams.  We have several points here: 1) Not all dreams necessitate, or are designed for, conscious recognition. 2) Even a very brief time – say five minutes in the morning – devoted to dream awareness can open windows in the psyche and help integrate its contents. 3) A shorthand for recording dreams – a few descriptive words, images or phrases – may be expanded later when you do have time. 4) Asking yourself “what does this mean?” may yield later insights when you return to the dream.
       You must understand that the psyche has its own design, and that is not to fit many of your conventions.  Your conventions will be far more satisfying and will serve you more when they are designed to reflect the needs and nature of the psyche.  Dream work is part of the psyche’s agenda.  To understand the psyche, you must be willing somewhat to meet it on its own terms.  If you reach out, it will respond in kind.  This is part of the integration of the whole self.  Many of you would not dream (forgive us) of missing your favorite TV show, but you easily neglect the far greater treasures of your own dreams and psyche.  Also, though you may find invaluable help from knowledgeable others, your own psyche is your best analyst.  You must learn to accept this function, however, and that includes some attention to your dreams.  Being playful with your dreams, even the dark ones, can yield greater insights than an oppressive or obsessive gravity.  Some of your dreams are “Academy Award” winning dramas.  Others are B-grade melodramas or horror films.  Some are potpourris of detached symbols or episodes.  Even a sense of wonder at the psyche’s diversity and creativity will yield insights, and will contribute to your wholeness.  The psyche will respond to your requests, though often in its own way and timing.

©Harry C. Stafford

Lori Reber was recently a guest on our Haunted St. Augustine Paranormal Tour and took this interesting photo at the Heugunot Cemetery. It shows the image of a young woman on Nellie Porter’s grave which is believed to be here. Beuatiful photo on one of GhoSt Augustine’s many ghost tours! You never know what might show up in your photos on one of our tours, especially with Dr. Harry Stafford PhD in Parapsychology.

GhoSt Augustine recently launched it’s newest tour, The Dead Walk! Fabulous ghost tour that takes you through the dark and narrow streets on St. Augustine’s south side of the plaza. Here the ghostly tales alot of other tours don’t know about.

Hope you will join us soon on one of our haunted adventures.

A Solnia Session:

Physical consciousness is only one stage, albeit an important one, of your birth into consciousness.  You do not denigrate the cocoon because the butterfly emerges.  In a real sense, physical embodiment and existence are a cocoon from which you will emerge as a conscious being.  The body of consciousness you need is formed in your physical lifetimes.  From the standpoint of your soul, physical reincarnations and probabilities are simultaneous.  You can and do have more than one dream simultaneously at times. Likewise, your physically focused lives and activities are simultaneous.  They constitute the cocoon or womb from which the fully conscious self emerges.  You may use various metaphors as you prefer, but in greater terms you are not fully born, nor are you truly free, until you emerge into lucid consciousness.
Your soul – your source – is awakened, and gives birth to the progeny of consciousness.  You grow into your soul and its freedom which is your own, even as your soul continues its expansion into infinity.  This expansion is not spatial as such, for space implies meaningful measurement relative to your physical position.  Infinity brackets not merely the limitations of physical space as you understand it, but all terms of physical measurement.  Infinity requires no space, and thus certainly is not limited by it.  Its “measure” is a qualitative one, signifying boundless creativity, freedom and diverse orders of being, encompassing, however, experiences that in your present understanding would seem to be non-being.
As you emerge into lucidness these conundrums will disappear, even as your species outgrew the paradoxes of a flat earth.  You now inhabit a round earth, and your growing awareness of it makes it more intimate to you.  Just so, though the emergence of lucid consciousness will expand your framework in truly infinite ways, your experience will become more intimate than anything you presently imagine.  That is because the more your consciousness expands, the more immediate and pervasive the presence of grace and prime values, and the more at home you are in your divine nature.  The field becomes more and more personal as you evolve, even as the personal becomes transpersonal in the field itself.  In a quite valid sense, your conception of separate, detached egos is not yet personal, for “personal” requires an intimate awareness of – and identity with – the living field.  To put it in simpler terms, “personal” means love – knowing the interdependent, sacred, living whole, present in every one of its expressions.  This is also grace.

©  Harry C.Stafford

Creating dichotomies splits reality where it cannot be split, and establishes conflict of energies where integration of energies is what is needed. Fragmentation happens, and it always creates problems. The problems, however, are not solved by codifying the fragmentation as a permanent condition.
“Evil” is not a cosmic force of permanent standing alongside an equally separate good. This literalizing creates a duality that blinds you to the nature of energy and its proper use. Consciousness, deriving from the Divine always, is good. When you do not understand its true nature, or become forgetful of its source, you fragment that which cannot be permanently, or finally fragmented.
If you believe in a reified, permanent evil you cannot understand the essential goodness of consciousness or energy. What we call the “shadow” side is the unintegrated aspect of your own consciousness. The shadow and its contents are not static, but shift as consciousness shifts. Acknowledging the shadow is not acknowledging Evil with a capital E. Instead, it is acknowledging your need to be aware of, and to integrate, split-off parts of the self that represent energy and insights you need for your own wholeness.
When the shadow goes unacknowledged and is reified as a separate and independent cosmic force, it creates problems for you, for you do not see what you need to see to achieve a necessary phase of wholeness in your evolving. For example, it is easy for you to condemn others who, operating out of ignorance, create disasters in your world. Many of you assume that terrorists, with the beheading of innocent hostages, embody acts of pure, unadulterated evil. What are the terrorists doing? They are using an ideology of good and evil to justify acts that are clearly barbaric. What you may not realize is that if you see the terrorists as agents of Evil with a capital E, you are taking a step in the same direction.
Need we remind you that your bombs in Iraq have killed and maimed numerous innocent people? Are these acts then “good” because they are aimed at annihilating “evil?” Your own unacknowledged shadow is just as dangerous as that of your “enemy,” in fact more so because it lurks behind you, intimately poised in the moment. Now we are talking about energy and its use, so the danger is quite real. Unacknowledged negative energy, especially when it is rationalized as good against a reified evil, can kill and maim. It can also make you sick, directly undermining your own wholeness.
Good and evil, light and dark, right and wrong, body and spirit, being and nonbeing – whenever such dualities are given cosmic status or are considered to be permanent conditions of being, you are asking for trouble. Whenever you label others – any others whatsoever – as Evil with a capital E, you are cultivating fragmentation, conflict, violence or the misuse of energy. Indeed, at such moments it is precisely the time to look at your own shadow, and see what is hiding there. It may be waiting to catch you in a moment of weakness, ready to wreak havoc with energy in need of recognition and integration.
What about the seeming evidence for “evil forces” such as dark spirits, demons, etc.?
My friends, read what we have taught you about the imagination and its use, and about your field nature. Do you wish to empower such forces, hypostatizing* them by your own beliefs? When you do so you project your own shadow outwards, joining energy links with others of similar beliefs, co-creating and energizing the very forces you fear and wish to defeat. To be blunt, not only are Christian, Muslim and Jewish fundamentalists unwittingly in league with each other, any of you are also in league with them whenever you knowingly or not, reify or hypostatize evil, granting it substantial, independent being. In each case the irony is tangible and potent, for such “Evil” exists only by reason of the individual or mass belief in it. The displaced shadow, whether of an individual, a tribe, or a nation, whether of traditional religion, cult or new age sect, is energetic and will affect the one or the many whose shadow it is.
What we are counseling is not an unrealistic denial of the many “evils” you experience and witness. On the contrary, we counsel a tough honesty and lucidness, a willingness to face squarely your own shadow, to see through artificial dualities to the actual use of energy that is obfuscated by such literalized beliefs. It is only by understanding the most basic terms of being, including the creative capacity of consciousness to shape energy in a given field, that you will truly evolve and begin to experience the peace and wholeness you all seek.
(*hypostatize: “to ascribe substantial or distinct existence to; to consider as real.”)

©Harry C. Stafford

Barbara Billiot Stage recently took this photo while on GhoSt Augustine’s Haunted St. Augustine Tour.
Awesome photo and thank you for sending it in!
Make sure you check out one of our ghost tours while in St. Augustine. You never know what might show up in your photos.

Attention all Paranormal fans! Do you have questions about the paranormal and don’t know who to ask? Well, here is your chance. We are going to be taking the best questions and have our experts in the paranormal field review and answer them. Dr. Harry Stafford (PhD  in Human Consciousness  & Masters of Divinity) and Jamie Roush (Manager of GhoSt Augustine Ghost Tours and Founder of Historic Haunts and Graduate of Loyd Auerbach Parapsychological Studies Program) will be answering your questions and will be posting the answers on our news page at www.ghostaugustine.com and on our Facebook page. So please, send in those questions to Jamie@ghostaugustine.com  asap and we will be posting your questions and their answers soon.

GhoSt Augustine was invited to an overnight investigation of Meehan’s Irish Pub. Our results……it is haunted!! But, if you want to hear all the details you will have to check out our Original Haunted Pub Tour. GhoSt Augustine conducted a paranormal investigatation February 16th, 2011. With our experienced team the results were amazing. Dr. Harry Stafford has a PhD in Human Consciousness and has been working in the paranormal field for decades. Jamie Roush, General Manager of GhoSt Augustine and Founder of Historic Haunts has a degree in Parapsychology and has been investigating the paranormal for over 13 years. Many of the GhoSt Augsutine staff has been featured on the Travel Channel, Discovery Channel, Sy-Fy, and on A&E sharing their personal experiences in the paranormal field.

Please join us on our Haunted Pub Tour to hear the details from our on going investigations. No two tours are ever exactly the same!!

Happy Hauntings!

Jamie Roush GM GhoSt Augustine

THE MIND II

Energy does not cease.  It only changes form. Since the 1920s many physicists have considered energy to be “mind stuff” more than “matter” as we think we know it.  If mind is behind the appearance of matter, then we must look to the qualities of mind to understand the origin and destiny of the physical world.  The mind creates energy forms and patterns through its own projections, and our senses and perceptions specifically tune us in to that projected world.
With this in consideration, “hauntings” are very interesting phenomena.  While we are physically focused creatures our bodies carry the quality of “mind stuff” even at the cellular level, and our health and physical presence depend greatly on the caliber of our thoughts. When we die the physically projected self dis-integrates, but the mental pattern of our being persists.  We learn both the tenuousness of physical life and also the strength and timelessness of the consciousness that we are “before,” “after,” and behind all physical appearance.  From this perspective, the intent of physical manifestation may be to learn how to use energy creatively and responsibly.  This, it would seem, is to prepare us for a plane of pure energy where form appears instantly with the thought of it.  As long as we engage the physical realm as an arena of combat, conflict, separation and power plays we are not ready to deal in the living “vocabulary” of cocreation or pure energy.
As we begin to awaken to our energy bodies we also awaken to our non-local self.
The non-local self exists as part of a greater interdependent, living field of energy through which we expand and evolve. The physical realm seems analogous to the pupa stage preparing for this metamorphosis and the release of the spirit imago.  Hauntings may very well be our perception of remnants of the physical, as spirit strives to emerge through and beyond it into its greater freedom. 

© Harry C. Stafford, 2010

ASSESSING THE PARANORMAL:

by Harry Stafford, Ph.D, Director of Haunted St. Augustine – Nighlty Investigations of
the Paranormal

                                           THE ROLE OF THE MIND I

        There’s a familiar saying “it’s all in the mind.”  All of us have experienced the power of suggestion.  We know how rapidly our attention can be riveted to something of appeal or significance to us – such as someone consuming an icy beverage on a blisteringly hot day.  Parapsychology recognizes how easily the power of suggestion can evoke the paranormal experiences that so many strongly desire. This is evident in many supposed sightings, interpretations of what we hear on EVP, or just the feelings evoked by eerie accounts of paranormal events.  What about a decidedly spooky setting such as a cemetery filled with broken and weather-worn monuments?
        On an even more fundamental level, we are learning the potent role mind can play in the very ways we construct reality.  The Placebo Effect has proven how sugar pills can contribute to healings if we believe these pills to be some powerful drug.  Demonstrations of psychokinesis or telekinesis in the laboratory illustrate how the mind may directly affect material objects apart from any ordinary physical contact.  What is most relevant to the paranormal, however, is the view of many physicists today that mind is at the basis of all reality.  Sir James Jeans once remarked that our understanding of quantum physics makes the world look more and more like a great idea (mind) rather than a great “thing” (matter.)  Most of the founders of quantum physics – such as Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, etc. – held similar views, views that are even more commonplace today.
        All of us — and all “things”– are manifestations of a vast, integral field of energy that is more like “mind” than “matter” as it is traditionally understood.  Our observation and interpretation of what we see and experience cannot be neatly separated from what we think of as a world or events existing objectively apart from us. In a real sense, there is no such separately existing world.
        Consider what this means, for example, for encounters with the paranormal. If we do not exist separately from the ordinary world, how much more true is this of the paranormal?  If we in part construct the ordinary world through our senses and our beliefs and interpretations of events, how much more true may this be for the world(s) of the paranormal?  If we project reality outward onto our everyday world (a well-known fact of modern psychology,) how much more may we do so with the paranormal world(s)?  For example, what is an “intelligent haunting,” really? We shall return to these intriguing and perplexing issues . . . Paranormal riddles are also riddles about the nature of reality itself.

©Harry C. Stafford, 2010