Spring in Chicago represents an almost ritualistic awakening from hibernation as the lakeside city is finally freed from the often debilitating grip of Midwestern winter extremes… a drive along Lake Shore Drive on one of these sun bathed, warmer afternoons proves that the locals are more than ready to return to the manicured beaches of Oak Street and North Avenue as they stroll, cycle or Rollerblade down the endless sidewalks separating the concrete from the sand and Lake Michigan …while the beach attire is not full blown bikinis and swim trunks, the short sleeved shirts and windbreakers tied around waists leave little doubt that the new indigenous are more than ready to shed their winter coats …

The Congress Hotel still catches my eye no matter how many times I thread my way through the outlying urban grid and finally arrive in The Emerald City …Capone’s unyielding reign as Chicago’s undisputed crime boss was often dictated from that classic block of architecture and Michigan Avenue was awash with blood as a result … I could still feel the dark countenance of Big Al’s “Thousand Mile Stare” as I explored the old banquet rooms and lobbies a few years back …I still feel intimidated every time I stand his headstone in Mt Carmel …

John Dillinger was a different breed of “gangster” than Capone, while the local and federal law enforcement agencies charged with terminating his career tried demonize him with the pejorative; “Public Enemy Number One”, he seemed to have cultivated a sort of celebrity and popularity that many gangsters of the post Capone, Depression era enjoyed… much the way Bonnie and Clyde were acquiring legendary outlaw status down in Texas almost simultaneously …holding up banks at a time when so many were in foreclosure was not necessarily looked upon with disdain by those teetering on the precipice of destitution and homelessness (sound familiar?) …

An illustrious career of crime comprised Dillinger’s resume … by the time he returned Chicago and was “laying low” he had managed to rob 15 or so banks, successfully executed an elaborate plan to break out of one county jail in Ohio and boldly escaped yet another lockup in Indiana …there was the famous shootout at the Little Bohemia Lodge that seems to have some been the subject of some historic revision to accommodate the Johnny Depp film “Public Enemies” but I suppose I can grant some artistic license to that version of events because it was an such good flick …

John Dillinger had the sort of loquacious personality and effervescent demeanor that made him a media sensation and he did seem to bask in the camera flash when the reporters encircled him in Crown Point Indiana … While his assertive self-confidence was often misconstrued as the defiant braggadocio of a common thief in his early days, the later celebrated infamy of “Public Enemy Number One“ welcomed his colorful colloquialisms and good ‘ol Indiana boy antics … was it the perceived sense of public adoration that served as the impetus for John’s false sense of invincibility?… the Robin Hood-esque “steal from the rich” and brag about to the poor imagery that ingratiated him in the collective depression weary sensibility of the public? … Or was it simply because he really was THAT good at being bad?

Alas, even with his success as a crook and escape artist, all of that gangster swag and brazen bank robbing bravado, he could not conceal that much of a larger than life identity even with a trip to the plastic surgeon…his naive attempt at a low profile blurring into the Chicago landscape while things “cooled down” was in vain … Jim Purvis of the newly founded branch of federal law enforcement; “The Bureau Of Investigation” (which would later become the FBI) knew exactly who he was looking for as he staked out the Biograph Theater that humid June evening in 1934…

Lincoln Park traffic has always been challenging and this unseasonably warm pre-spring weekend afternoon was no exception …getting off of Lake Shore Drive and onto Fullerton Ave brought back memories of circling these blocks looking for a parking space when I worked downtown a few years back and the Lincoln Park Zoo seemed to have spoken for every conceivable parking spot for miles on this particular day …It’s not hard to understand why the Twenty-Somethings want to flock the city as soon as they have the means to move out of their parent’s home in the suburbs …there are a billion things to see and do and an equal number of hedonistic delights to indulge but most usually end up relocating back to the burbs by age 30 or so …or once the novelty wears off, whichever comes first ….

The buildings surrounding The Biograph Theater all have that look and feel about them like they are harboring a dark secret that is shrouded in antiquity and obfuscated by neon …the history of this small section of town alone could surely fill up four volumes of an almanac …The site of the St Valentine’s Day Massacre (2122 N. Clark St.,) is a little over a half mile away and if you listen very carefully you can still hear the ringing staccato of machine gun fire when you pass the buildings that now occupy the property where The Obanion Gang made their headquarters…when conditions are right ….

As luck would have it; I was able to secure a parking spot a reasonable distance from the old theater … As I exited my vehicle I was able to seamlessly blend into the throngs of young metro-hipsters making their way along the promenade (being the paragon of trendy hipness that I am)… some of them stopped to chat with small groups congregating in front of a pub or dinner ...some simply nodded in acknowledgement of their fellow cosmopolitans before proceeding to their obscure destinations like a coffee house, eclectic boutique or perhaps a music store specializing in reselling vinyl records, black light posters, lava lamps and assorted incense…Ah nostalgia for a past never experienced, such a strange phenomenon that seems so prevalent amongst today’s youth…I reminded myself that I used to wear black pants, a Concho belt and boots as an homage to Jim Morrison in my late teens/early 20’s even though I was barely out of kindergarten when “The Lizard King” turned in his crown … I almost missed the famous Marquis of the Biograph as in my mental absentia …

Posters advertising plays like “The Wale” lined the lobby windows but I could see that there were people milling about inside, likely there to attend a matinee …as I opened the front doors and assertively strolled inside like I owned the place, I was struck by the telltale momentary disorientation that has come to be an indication that something was amiss …

The sparse audience for the afternoon performance hob-knobbing over cocktails in the lounge area took little notice of me meticulously photographing the building’s forefront interior …nobody challenged me when I made my way down the aisle leading to the main theater although a woman standing on the stage studying the set (comprised solely of a couch surrounded by litter) glared at me indignantly as I casually snapped multiple shots of the old theater-turned auditorium …turning to make my way make down the runway leading out and ultimately back to the lobby I turned the corner and was mildly shocked to see (what I assumed to be) and actress smoking a cigarette indoors ...Illinois smoking laws are pretty tough and the fact that she was wearing her stage wardrobe while committing this almost unheard-of violation piqued my interest enough to simply stop and ask :

“You can smoke in here?...

Looking up at me with troubled yet piercing brown eyes she responded with a terse, Slavic sounding accent; “Of course, why not?” …

She immediately averted her eyes away from me and wiped away a tear …the old fashioned orange gown she wore as her costume complimented her buxom features but she seemed extremely uncomfortable in it nonetheless…

”Something wrong?” I inquired sympathetically …

“What would you care?” she shot back, sharply returning her attention in my direction … Wouldn’t you like to see a conniving Gypsy like me deported?” …

Striving to avoid a tendentious topic like immigration, I decided to extricate myself from the potentially volatile conversation and exit the building… I wasn’t keen on being seen cavorting with the indoor smoker either…

”If you’re one of Purvis’s men, tell him he doesn’t need to check up on me! “She called after me in a tone that seemed to be intentionally muffled but clearly rife with enmity...

I turned to ask for a clarification but she evidently had already left the corner and returned to the backstage area … the retrofitted ventilation system must be pretty good in that old structure because I didn’t see any trace of the billowing cloud she was producing by her emotionally charged smoke break …Back outside, I turned left and proceeded to the alley where Dillinger met his demise …

I didn’t see any bullet holes as legend contends are still visible upon close inspection…but I did see the blood …some pushed past me in a jovial frenzy to dip handkerchiefs in the dark ichor liquid that looked so black against the streetlight illuminated darkness …the pop of flashbulbs were like lightning flashes against the night shrouded background features of the city block… as I struggled to regain my equilibrium; it was then that I realized that not only did my reality shift from day to night but from living color to black and white...

Squinting at the sudden flashback to midday brightness as I exited the alley, I began the block or so jaunt back to the car … I was suddenly thrust back into my subjective state of redolence by the squawking sound of a 1930’s era car horn (struggles to phonetically express the sound; “aaaaahhhh-ooooooh-gaaah”)… The Ford DeLuxe Roadster that rumbled up from behind was piloted by a man wearing clothing of and indeterminable era at first assessment but as he rolled past me my hopes were dashed by the Blue Tooth clearly visible in his right ear…

Here are the photos from my visit to the Biograph Theater, some may have been color enhanced or edited for aesthetic optimization ….b
http://s1098.photobucket.com/u.....038;page=1

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If you already have a 12-month digital subscription to the magazine, you can pick out 3 archived issues of your choice! We’ll have 5 winners this month, so e-mail us now!

May 16: Raymond A. Moody is the best-selling author of 11 books and is most famous as an author of books about life after death and near-death experiences, a term he coined in 1975 in his book Life After Life.

Moody is a psychologist and medical doctor and a best-selling author of 12 books including Life After Life—which has sold over 13 million copies world wide—and Reunions, as well as numerous articles in academic and professional literature. Dr. Moody continues to capture enormous public interest and generate controversy with his ground-breaking work on the near-death experience and what happens when we die.

Award-Winning Author. Dr. Moody received the World Humanitarian Award in Denmark in 1988. He was also honored with a bronze medal in the Human Relations category at the New York Film Festival for the movie version of Life After Life.

World-Renowned Scholar and Researcher. Dr. Moody is the leading authority on the ‘near-death experience’—a phrase he coined in the late seventies. Dr. Moody’s research into the phenomenon of near-death experience had its start in the 1960′s. The New York Times calls him “the father of the near-death experience.”

A Dynamic Lecturer. Dr. Moody has enlightened and entertained audiences all over the world for over three decades. He offers many different lecture/workshop presentations on the topics of: Near Death Experiences, Death With Dignity, Life After Loss, Surviving Grief & Finding Hope, Reunions: Visionary Encounters With Departed Loved Ones, The Healing Power of Humor, The Loss of Children, The Logic of Nonsense, and Catastrophic Tragedies & Events causing collective grief response.

Expert Trainer & Instructor. Dr. Moody trains hospice workers, clergy, psychologists, nurses, doctors, and other medical professionals on matters of grief recovery and dying.

Featured Expert In the Media. Dr Moody has appeared three times on Oprah, as well as on hundreds of other local and nationally syndicated programs such as MSNBC: Grief Recovery, NBC Today, ABC’s Turning Point, Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael Show, Geraldo, and The Joan Rivers Show.

Private Counselor. Dr. Moody works as a practitioner of philosophic counseling, consulting on a private, individual basis—in person, by phone, or at the bedside of the dying.

Upcoming Shows

May 23: Darren Thompson is the president and co-founder of Washington State Paranormal Investigations and Research.

May 30: Thomas Fusco is the author of the book Behind The Cosmic Veil: A New Vision of Reality Merging Science, the Spiritual and the Supernatural.

Coming up next on Paranormal Underground Radio:

May 9: William Becker, psychic medium and tour guide for the Downtown Oregon City Walk with the Spirits Tour.

William is a psychic medium and paranormal investigator and researcher. He has been a tour guide for the Downtown Oregon City Walk with the Spirits Tour for three years. William’s interest in the paranormal goes back to his early childhood when he saw his first full apparition. With this interest in the paranormal along with a degree in history, it was only natural that he would jump at the chance to combine the two by giving tours.

William offers classes and remote readings. He is in the process of helping Northwest Ghost Tours design some new specialty ghost tours for people interested in getting involved in paranormal investigation and/or interested in finding their psychic voice.

For more information about William and his work, visit nwghosttours.com and http://www.paranormalinsights.net.

Here's the lineup for this month:

Publisher’s Letter
–The Crop Circle Debate?
By Chad Wilson

Investigator Spotlight
–The Weird & Wonderful World of the Holzer Family
By Rick E. Hale

Special Report
–The Colors of Life: A Study in Auras
By Jackie Chin

Haunted Sites
–Redemption: The Ohio State Reformatory
By Shannon Lusk

Cryptids & Mythological Creatures
–Irish Cryptid: Lough Ree Water Monster
By Jill Stefko, Ph.D.

Are We Alone?
–Psychological Effects of Alien Abduction
By Jill Stefko, Ph.D.

Haunted History
–The Amazing Daniel Dunglas Home
By Rick E. Hale

Demonology — The Dark Files
–Ouija Boards, Spirit Boxes, and Paranormal Ghost Hunting
By Bishop and Demonologist Jerry Williams

Spiritual Connections
–What Are Shadow People?
By Dustin Baker

Inside the Psychic Mind
–Nighttime in the Realm of the Dead
By William Becker

Haunted Hospitality
–The Country House — Clarendon Hills, Illinois
By Rick E. Hale

Crystals & Herbology
–More About Crystals and Gemstones
By Silvermoon Medicyn

Magic & Lore
–Bringing Dark Workers Out of the Shadows
By Silvermoon Medicyn

Katie’s Conspiracy Corner
–Crop Circles
By Katie Christopher

Ghost Hunter Case Files
–The House That Freedom Built … And Haunts: Part 3
By Rick E. Hale

Personal Experiences
–Tales From the Haunted Heathman
By Rob St.Helen

Reader Encounters
–Who Is Tickling My Feet?
By Paulette Ballard

Religion and the Paranormal
–Reconciling the Paranormal with Hinduism and Buddhism
By Melinda Stum

Author Profile
–Mhairi Simpson: “The Scent of Freedom”
By Michelle M. Pillow

Also
–Equipment Update: Thermal Imaging Cameras (by Jack Kenna)
–The Paranormal Top 10 List: Top 10 Books That Influenced My Afterlife Research (by Karen Frazier)
–Ghost Hunter Comic — Entities-R-Us (by Terri J. Garofalo)

Coming up next on Paranormal Underground Radio:

May 2: Michaela Rand, Symbiotic Medicyn Woman, will talk about Real-Life Vampires.

In this episode of Paranormal Underground Radio, we’ll talk with Michaela “Mica” Rand about Real-Life Vampires.Mica is a Symbiotic Medicyn Woman. During this show, she will talk about real-life vampires and what a symbiotic psychic vampire is. She will also talk about the differences of dark and light workers.

Mica is a writer for Paranormal Underground magazine, and she writes the Crystals & Herbology and Magic & Lore columns. She is a Dark Worker who awoke spiritually when she was very young.

Visit http://www.silvermoonmedicyn.com for more information about Michaela and her work.

Upcoming Shows

May 9: William Becker, psychic medium and tour guide for the Downtown Oregon City Walk with the Spirits Tour.

May 16: Raymond A. Moody is the best-selling author of 11 books and is most famous as an author of books about life after death and near-death experiences, a term he coined in 1975 in his book Life After Life.

May 23: Darren Thompson is the president and co-founder of Washington State Paranormal Investigations and Research.

May 30: Thomas Fusco is the author of the book Behind The Cosmic Veil: A New Vision of Reality Merging Science, the Spiritual and the Supernatural.

Canada to Expose Alien Collaboration With U.S.

4-27-13 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

WASHINGTON — Why is Lester Pearson’s 89-year-old former minister of defense coming to Washington next week to testify as to the existence — and multiple visits to Earth — of little green men (not to mention tall white dudes) from outer space?

“Because this is the third most important issue facing humankind after global warming and changing the monetary system,” Paul Hellyer says.

It is the eve of what is being billed as “the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure of an Extraterrestrial Presence Engaging the Human Race.”

Hellyer, the former Liberal, Tory and independent MP who first sat in Parliament in 1949, will be arguing — hardly for the first time — that, as he tells me by phone from his home in Toronto, not only has ET been here, “there are more than one species, in fact there are several species.

“There has been collaboration between one or more of them with the U.S. government and the U.S. defense department. They’ve been sharing technology, some of which they wouldn’t want the public to know about. Not only anti-gravity machines, but also diabolical weapons — so many things that will affect the future of humankind.”

Why didn’t you ask them about this when you were minister of national defense? I ask.

“I’d never heard about this at that time,” he answers.

Alien intelligence, Hellyer says, “is like a scroll that opens up in both directions; it has no end, it goes on and on. There are people from other dimensions, too, and a lot of them have visited Earth and they still do. Some of them look very much like us. The species we call the Tall Whites have been seen shopping in Las Vegas.”

Hellyer is not alone in his certainty that we are not alone. Last month, a polling firm in North Carolina sampled 1,000 Americans and discovered 21 per cent agree a UFO crash at Roswell, N.M., in 1947 was covered up by the U. S. government, and 29 per cent concur with the proposition that “aliens exist.”

(When asked, “Do you believe that shape-shifting reptilian people control our world by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate our societies, or not?” only 88 per cent said they do not.)

The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure etc., is going to occupy five full days at the National Press Club.

Hellyer and dozens of other witnesses will present their opinions and their evidence to five former members of the House of Representatives plus ex-senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, the iconoclast Democrat who made a bid for the White House in 2008 but whose support never exceeded what the experts call “statistical zero.”

Gravel, who is 83 and the son of emigrant Quebecers — “I have more relatives in Canada than in the United States, but they’re dying”– promises his role in the hearing will be that of an impartial auditor.

“From my point of view,” he reasons from his home in California, “the number of UFO sightings would indicate that, even if the numbers are exaggerated, they should be examined and reported to the public. France, Canada and a few of the others have revealed all the information that they have — the exception to this rule is the U.S. government. This canard that the American public would panic if there was anything proven is ridiculous. The people are mature, they understand that there are many facets of life that are explainable.”

“Are there little green men? We’ll see what the testimony is.”

What would change in our lives if they really do exist? I ask Gravel.

“Nothing,” he replies. “Nothing. People would be satisfied that there are unexplained events, but that’s not unusual. The whole belief in God is empirically unproven, yet we accept that.”

To read the entire story, visit http://globalparanormal.com/ca.....-with-u-s/.

4-13-13 PICAYUNE MISSISSIPPI – UFO

At approximately 1530 CDT on April 13, 2013, I was piloting my airplane at 2,500 while approaching the Picayune, MS VOR, heading North. Nearing the VOR, I glanced out of my right window and saw a small (approx. 10-12″ wide), shiny metallic object just off the right wing.

What immediately caught my attention is that this object momentarily remained stationary with my aircraft, which was traveling at approximately 140-150 MPH. The object remained stationary long enough for me to clearly see its shape which resembled a circular or oval shaped object with what appeared to be a small, triangular shaped dorsal winglet in the center of structure.

After a short (2-3 seconds)time, the object slowly drifted away to the south. It is not unusual to have close encounters with birds when flying and these, by comparison, are very fast, brief events where the bird is not much more than a flash as your plane passes. On one flight years ago, I had a shiny metallic object shoot by my airplane.

It took a few seconds for my brain to recognize that this was a small mylar balloon. When I first saw this object off my wing, I immediately thought that this was another mylar balloon. But when the object did not move and remained in a stationary position relative to my wing so that I was able to make out some detail of the object, I realized that this was not some object drifting through the atmosphere.

After briefly staying off the wing, the object drifted away as opposed to rapidly disappearing from view. After the object was no longer in view, I was puzzled as to what I had just seen. Since then, I have tried to understand how any object other than another aircraft could keep pace with my airplane and then drift out of view rather than appear as a flash of something near the aircraft.

To read the rest of the article, visit http://globalparanormal.com/pi.....ssissippi/.

I know a guy who has some pretty impressive abilities. He’s used them for years on investigations without the need to label or categorize them. Instead, he follows his instincts, and it helps him be a thorough and careful paranormal investigator. Once the label of psychic is applied to him, however, something changes. Suddenly those instincts, which have always flowed so naturally for him, seem to disappear.

I understand completely. I’ve used my own instincts on investigations for years, and doing so has yielded a ton of fascinating evidence. When people began suggesting to me I was psychic, I resisted the label. At most, I was willing to admit I had “spidey sense” where I could notice if something unseen might be nearby and thus turn on my recording equipment to ask a few well considered questions.

The label, “psychic” comes with all kinds of connotations ranging from incredible nutbag or delusionally self-important to wise, mystical, and all-seeing. I am not now, nor have I ever been, any of those things. I’m just someone who receives a little information here and there that I use to help me in my afterlife research.

Labels are powerful because we often buy into them completely. Humans naturally seek to understand the world in which we live, and applying labels is a way of categorizing people, places, things, and events into recognizable patterns. Unfortunately, complete acceptance of such labels also can be ultimately limiting to both the labeler and the labelee.

Quite often, you hear this concept discussed in the realm of child psychology. When you quickly label a child – whether it is with a “condition” such as ADHD or with a personality trait such as “shy,” the child frequently internalizes that label. It becomes a permanent part of his or her identity. Accepting such labels willingly, however, limits a child’s choices, behaviors, and self-perception as he or she tries to fit into the narrow scope such labels imply. Behaviors and choices also take on new significance when a the child views it through the filter of whatever labels others have applied. Ascribing labels to children can alter the course of a child’s life, both because of the child’s self-perception and because of the expectations of others who buy into such labels.

I think the same thing happens when we are adults. While we may be more likely to resist labels, once we accept them for ourselves we may feel an ego-driven need to behave consistently within the constraints of that version of self-identity. Thus the label psychic messed me up for a while. With it came a pressure to perform – a sense that if I actually allowed myself to be identified as a “psychic medium,” then I must meet a certain standard of performance in order to live up to that label.

The full spectrum of abilities lies in each human being on the planet. Each of us has inside of us the capacity to perform tremendous feats. We are far more powerful than anyone can imagine. However, we are quick to supply labels in our drive to understand and explain ourselves. Labeling is part of developing a sense of self-identity. Unfortunately, even the most positive of labels ultimately can become self-limiting or even destructive as we seek to confirm what we already know of who we are.

In a quirk of human ego, everyone wants to feel special. We use labels to confer a sense of specialness onto ourselves and others. We use them as a way to communicate how unique and different we are from the crowd around us. It backfires, though. Those labels don’t make us unique or interesting. They serve as a boundary to self-identity and self-achievement.

Part of the dichotomy of being human is this: everyone is special and no one is special. One particular example of this springs vividly to mind. My husband and I were explaining to my then five-year-old stepson that he needed to treat others the way he wanted to be treated.

“No, I don’t,” he told us. “People need to treat me better, and I can treat everyone else the way I want.”

Needless to say, Jim and I were both a bit surprised at this revelation.

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

“Because my mom told me I’m a very special boy.”

Imagine his shock when we explained to him that everyone was special in some way. That’s a lot of cognitive dissonance for a very literal five-year-old boy to process.

To read the rest of the blog, visit http://www.sspri.org/blog/on-b.....ng-psychic.