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 good friend of mine Teeta Moss is the owner of the Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, LA. It is America’s most haunted bed and breakfast and is a great place to spend the night. It has it all, history and ghosts all in one spot.
The Myrtles was built in 1796 by General David Bradford and was called Laurel Grove. His daughter Sara married Judge Clark Woodruff and they managed the plantation after the General’s death in 1808 for her mother Elizabeth. Sara and Clark had 3 children: Cornelia Gale, James, and Mary Octavia.
One of the slaves owned by the Woodruffs was named Chloe. The Judge took a strong liking to her and forced her into being his mistress. One day Clark caught Chloe ease dropping and he had one of her ears cut off as punishment. From then on Chloe wore a turban to cover her scar. She was forced out of the house to live in the slave shacks again and she was not happy with that arrangement. So, on Sara’s birthday she decided to bake a cake and use the extract of oleander leaves. She thought she used just enough to make them sick, that way she would know what was wrong and could come to the rescue, nurse them back to health, and move back into the house. Well, her plan back fired! She had used too much oleander and it killed Sara, Cornelia, and James. The baby Mary Octavia had already been put to bed so she was ok, and the Judge wasn’t home. When the other slaves had found out what Chloe had done, they along with others went after Chloe and hung her then through her into the Mississippi River.
Stories go that since the mirror in the downstairs entryway was not covered after their deaths, the children’s spirits are trapped in the mirror. Also, it is said that Sara is still in the house as well keeping an eye on her home. I know for a fact that Chloe is still there because of more than one personal experience. Chloe and the children both have been captured in photos as well.
The night I did my investigation I stayed in Judge Woodruff’ Suite. I purposefully put the blankets at the end of the bed because I have heard several accounts of Chloe pulling the covers up over people on chilly nights. Three times in the night I woke up to the blankets up over my shoulders, and I do not sleep like that! Each time I woke up I thanked Chloe for covering me and immediately through the covers back down to the foot of the bed.
I had K2 EMF meters set up in the room and at one point one of the children was communicating with me through the meters. She seemed to have fun lighting them up, but only after the batteries in the camera died. As I was replacing the batteries she would start playing with the meters, then I would get the camera up and running again and the meters would stop lighting up.
Another ghost here at the Myrtles is William Winter. He is also a former owner and was shot in the front porch in 1871. He came in side and staggered up the steps and died in his wife Sara’s arms on the 17th step. At one point in the night I was woke up by someone heavily coming up the steps then suddenly stopping, then silence!
Unsolved Mysteries filmed at the Myrtles in 2001 or 2002 and has technical difficulties while trying to film. Spirits are known to drain batteries to gain energy.
It was a night I won’t forget and I can’t wait to go back. Thank you so much to Teeta and Ms. Hester for a wonderful stay at the Myrtles!!
~Jamie Roush General Manager GhoSt Augustine

We deal with real haunted buildings everyday on our ghost tours. We often get questions about the Amityville Horror, Exorcist, and since we are so close to Orlando we even get questions on Walt Disney’s Worlds Haunted Mansion. Well, with my connections I decided I would look into this a little more closely to answer that question when I hear it.
Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion opened October 1st, 1971. It is styled after an 18th century colonial mansion.  It looks down upon the eastern banks of the Rivers of America in the north east corner of Liberty Square.
As the story goes you board one of the Doom Buggies for a frightful ride through the Haunted Mansion and hopefully will encounter some of the 999 happy haunts that haunts those halls.
Over the years, cast members have created their own stories about each of the so called haunts that you encounter throughout the ride….but there are a few happy or not so happy “real” haunts still lingering this location.
Some cast members who work at the haunted mansion swear they have seen a man in a white suite, but only after hours, long after the guests have gone and the park is closed.  Cast members have jokingly said it is Master Gracey, but honestly they are pretty sure it is an old maintenance man that worked on the mansion possibly during construction of the attraction.  Another story is, years before the attraction was built a plane crashed in the same location where the mansion is built now. The pilot was killed in the crash and he was wearing a white jump suit. Maybe this ghost is actually him?! He doesn’t seem to be an intelligent haunt because he doesn’t interact with anyone, at least no reports of it.
Another possible haunt in the mansion is of a little boy. Legend goes the boy died at a young age and the mother had him cremated and without permission spread his ashes in the mansion because she thought her son loved the ride so much. Don’t know how true this “legend” is but sounds pretty freaky to me.
Possibly another ghost in the Haunted Mansion is in the Séance Room. One day when the ride stopped some young teenagers boys were stuck in the séance room and one of them decided he was going to try and figure out how the crystal ball gig worked. Story goes when he went to step out of his Doom Buggy his foot caught and he fell and broke his neck.  How true this story is who knows, but it sounds good. Seems as though cast members don’t even know what is real or unreal at the mansion.

Others have reported cold spots, voices, and being touched….. (I don’t mean while on the ride). Who knows, it is an awesomely creepy place and whether it is truly haunted or not, I guess we won’t really know until we have our own personal experience at Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion.
~Jamie Roush
General Manager GhoSt Augustine

As I was making my way to St. Francisville, Louisiana I decided to stop in Pensacola and check out Fort Barrancas. I checked in through the gift shop and learned I would have the fort to myself. They had just opened for the day and no one was out there. I thought, fantastic! This way I can really feel the history of the fort. A ghostly encounter never even crossed my mind.
Fort Barrancas sits on a bluff overlooking Pensacola Bay and the location inspired engineers of three nations to build forts here through the years. The British built the Royal Navy Redoubt here in 1763, the Spanish built two forts here sometime around 1797 then, American engineers remodeled the battery in 1840.
I was touring every square inch of the fort and found a narrow stair case that descended below ground, and then went through a tunnel, up a set of stairs that open up into this long hallway that went both to the left and the right. It has a very strange feel, the barometric pressure dropped drastically. I felt kind of creeped out which is not normal for me. I went down the steps, through the tunnel, then back up the steps and out of the fort.  As I stood outside to ground myself I started thinking, if it’s haunted, it can’t hurt me. Besides, I have been a paranormal investigator for over 12 years so what the heck am I scared of?  On that note I headed back in to that creepy hallway. As I made it to the top of the steps that eerie was back. I was looking to my right down the hall when all of a sudden I felt something behind me so I turned around to see what was there and at the end of the hall was a Confederate Soldier looking at me from around the corner at the end of the hall. I looked right into his eyes; he tipped his head at me and as he started back around the corner he vanished.  I wanted to make sure I saw what I thought I saw so I headed down the hall way and around the corner and there was no one there! I had seen an apparition of a Confederate soldier!   I started talking to him and telling him about my 4th great uncles who were in the war and talking about things from that period. I only saw him the one time but felt him as I walked throughout the fort.
When I got back to the gift shop I asked the Park Rangers if they were allowed to talk about ghosts and the man said tell me your story then I will tell you mine. I proceeded to tell them how at one point I was casting two shadows and the one was about 6 ft. 2 inches tall. Then the footsteps I heard behind me then the apparition. They said many people report hearing things and seeing shadows but very few actually see him. The park ranger also went on to tell me that the soldier was one of two who were executed on the grounds. (Story goes he was hung because he fell asleep while he was on guard duty).
I hope to get back to the fort and see if my soldier ghost comes out to visit again. Next time I will be prepared knowing in advance the place is haunted.     ~Jamie Roush

Hans Holzer (January 26, 1920 – April 26, 2009) was an Austrian-born, American pioneering paranormal researcher and author. He wrote well over 100 books on supernatural and occult subjects for the popular market as well as several plays, musicals, films, and documentaries, and hosted a television show, “Ghost Hunter”.
Holzer was born in Vienna, Austria. His interest in the supernatural was sparked, at a young age, by stories told to him by his uncle Henry. He went on to study archaeology and ancient history at the University of Vienna but sensing that war was imminent, his family decided it was unsafe to stay in Austria and left the country for New York City in 1938. He studied Japanese at Columbia University and, after studying comparative religion and parapsychology, claimed to have obtained a Ph.D. at a school called the London College of Applied Science. He went on to teach parapsychology at the New York Institute of Technology.
His extensive involvement in researching the supernatural included investigating The Amityville Horror and some of the most prominent haunted locations around the world. He also worked with well-known trance mediums such as Ethel Johnson-Meyers, Sybil Leek, and Marisa Anderson. Holzer has been credited with creating the term “The Other Side” (already in use, however, in nineteenth century spiritualism) or in full “The Other Side of Life”. He is also sometimes credited with having coined the term ghost hunter, which was the title of his first book on the paranormal published in 1963. However, an earlier book by Harry Price published in 1936 was titled Confessions of a Ghost Hunter.
Holzer believed in life after death, and the existence of ghosts, spirits, and “stay behinds”: Ghosts were, according to him, imprints left in the environment which could be “picked up” by sensitive people; Spirits were intelligent beings who could interact with the living; while “stay behinds” were those who found themselves earth-bound after death. He also believed in reincarnation and the existence of “levels of consciousness”. He was a vegetarian, then a vegan for most of his life.
Holzer’s most famous investigation was into The Amityville Horror case. In January 1977, Holzer and spiritual medium Ethel Meyers entered 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. Meyers claimed that the house had been built over an ancient Native American burial ground and the angry spirit of a Shinnecock Indian Chief – “Rolling Thunder” – had possessed the previous occupant, Ronald Defeo Jr., driving him to murder his family. Photographs taken at the scene revealed curious anomalies – such as the halos which appeared in the supposed images of bullet marks made in the original 1974 murders. Holzer’s claim that the house was built on Indian sacred land was, however, denied by the local Amityville Historical Society and it was pointed out that it was the Montaukett Indians, and not the Shinnecocks, who had been the original settlers in the area. However, Indian burial sites have been found all over Long Island, including Amityville, so no one has been able to confirm or deny the burial of an Indian chief on or near the 112 Ocean Avenue property. Holzer went on to write several books about the subject, both fiction and non-fiction.

Sunday, December 5th we at GhoSt Augustine had a special guest on our Haunted St. Augustine Tour. Santa Claus!! Apparently even Santa is into the paranormal and joined us for our scientific ghost tour. Mr. and Mrs. Claus had a wonderful experience on the tour and even experienced a little paranormal activity while on the tour. Some major cold spots were recorded at the fort while getting readings on the K2 EMF Meter.  You never know what you may experience while on the tour or who you will run into!

Happy Hauntings!

 I have had many things happen on my Haunted St Augustine tour. One night there were 8 of us on my tour including myself and as we were standing around discussing what had happened at the location we were at, all of the sudden everyone of our KII meters started flashing one after another as if someone were running around us in a circle. I had never experienced this before and so I asked everyone to check their cell phones just to be sure this wasn’t an electronic interruption. No one had missed a call. On another occassion, everyone on my tour including the tour manager who happened to be going along with me this night, watched as the blinds of one very empty and very haunted house opened and closed themselves for about 20 minutes! There have been many other experiences on my tour but I think one of my favorites came from a complete skeptic. I had a gentlemen on my tour once who let me know right away that he didn’t believe in ghost and was
only on my tour to support his wife who was a firm believer. I applauded him for supporting his wife and told him I understood, even though I was secretly hoping he would have an experience for his wifes’ sake. Boy did he! Not even 5 minutes into investigating the very first location, he grabs his right cheek and his jaw hung wide open. I asked if he was ok and he said, “something just slapped me across my face.” As he was telling me this, he suddenly grabs his left cheek and says, “something slapped me again.” His wife was laughing when I asked him if he was a believer now and then added, “if not, maybe you should just say you are so you don’t get slapped again!”

My first encounter with a haunted building was when I was 15. I was partying in
an extravagant four story mansion in a mountainous resort in Asia. The mansion
had been converted to a nightclub called “Spirits”. The first floor was a
gigantic dance floor. The second and third floors were restaurants and
bars with a panoramic view of the dance floor below. The fourth floor was
reserved for children, who were playing video games and being taken care of by
their nannies while their parents danced and drank on the lower floors. It was
very fun, ethereal, and eerie moment…listening and dancing to trance music in
what was once a haunted mansion.

Now, I find myself going to haunted locations almost every day as a tour guide
for Ghost Augustine. Sometimes, I’m surrounded by people, who want to have
“spirits” with the spirits, on the Haunted Pub Tour, a very jovial tour in some
of the most haunted taverns and pubs in St. Augustine. On other
occasions, I find myself giving a tour with people, who want to investigate and
have that serious ghostly encounter, on the Paranormal Investigative Tour.
To be honest, I never saw myself as a tour guide. I just enjoyed taking out
family and friends to all the fun and historical places in St. Augustine for
free. Falling into this job was very serendipitous and so easy, yet I realized
later on that it requires a certain person, who can provide entertainment and
knowledge with tenacity, fortitude, and a sense of humor.