by Karen Frazier, Managing Editor
Paranormal Underground Magazine

I recently came across something in a shout box on a paranormal group’s website. The group is one that has a regular haunted hangout, and they’ve become somewhat associated with the place even though many other groups investigate the location as well. The message in the shout box was along these lines:

“You’re wasting your time there. The souls there have been released.”

And yet – the groups who go there, psychics who visit there and even visitors to the location not seeking out paranormal activity all continue to have experiences that suggest that the spirits haven’t gone anywhere.

It’s actually an experience I’ve had firsthand. I was once following several paranormal groups all involved in a large group investigation of a location. My job was the same one I’ve had many times before – follow people around and ask questions like a perennial three-year-old. It’s my calling in life, really.

Many of the teams had psychics with them, but one psychic in particular was very theatrical. Derek Acorah theatrical, if you know what I’m saying. She swept through the rooms of the location one after the other telling all of the spirits that as soon as she was done talking with them, she would release them. Then she would proceed to have a one-sided conversation (or at least it sounded one-sided to us) before dramatically sweeping her hands out in front of her in a whooshing motion, when she would dramatically declare that the spirits had been RELEASED!

Taa daa!!!!!

Last I checked, that location has just as much haunting activity as it ever did. Either it’s a fresh new batch of spirits, or there may be a glitch in the whole releasing of spirits system.

Do we humans even have the “power” to release spirits? And if we do, is it our job to do so? I’ve mentioned this before, and it is always a controversial subject. There are many who will tell you that it is absolutely, 100% the responsibility of someone who comes across a spirit to try to help that spirit get to the other side because that spirit is trapped. Others take on a more Prime Directive type of approach – observe, report, don’t interfere.

It’s something I struggled with myself when I first started to encounter what I thought were the souls of the dead. What was my responsibility? Did their communication with me mean that they needed me to do something? Was it my responsibility to help them find the Light and get to it like Jennifer Love Hewitt on that ghost show?

I arrived at my own philosophy in this regard, which I am comfortable with, but which I have been told many times is a cop out. For the record, I don’t feel it is. Want to hear about it? Here’s how it goes….

1. When we encounter something paranormal, we’re not entirely certain what it is that we are dealing with. We have theories, certainly. It definitely could be a human soul. It could be residual energy. It could be a piece of residual energy. Bottom line – while we think we have a definition of “ghost,” it is a working definition at best. I’ve yet to see an infallible scientific explanation that proves that what we experience as ghosts are indeed human souls.

2. Let’s pretend for the sake of argument that ghosts are, indeed, human souls. The entire soul – every piece of the human consciousness that once existed in a body is now floating around in soul form as a ghost. Even if we knew that 100%, would we have a responsibility to “release” that soul? I believe that it is the height of arrogance to say that I know what is best for any soul – ever. I believe that each soul has a path that is unique to that soul. I also believe that I can’t know what another soul’s path is. Hell – I barely know what my soul’s path is. I stumble and thrash around in the dark daily trying to figure that out. So how can I say what the path of another soul is? And if I can’t know another’s path, then how do I know what is best for that soul? How do I know that the soul should be released? I can’t insert my beliefs and will on another soul. To do so is a brashly arrogant way of asserting my belief system onto another.

3. Say that, in spite of the above, I still decide to “release” a soul because I’m feeling an insouciant touch of brash arrogance one day. How do I know how to release the spirit? How do I know that if I do a little soul releasing magic, I won’t actually inadvertently send the soul somewhere else (or send it anywhere for that matter?)

4. This one isn’t mine. My friend, Bert Coates of NWPIA talks about it, and it makes sense to me. How do we even know that the Light is good? It could be a trick! We. Have. No. Clue.

And so – clueless as I am, I’m not comfortable in attempting to try and release a soul or even suggesting that a soul needs to find a way to release itself.

Before those of you who regularly assist souls to the Light get your dander up, please understand this. I know that you do what you do with the best of intentions. If you feel that what you are doing is clearly the right thing for you to do, then by all means get to it. We each have to develop our own personal belief systems and philosophies, and you are just as entitled to yours as I am to mine. I’m merely explaining mine, and I feel that FOR ME to attempt to release a soul, it would be irresponsible and ultimately selfish and arrogant. That doesn’t mean that if you do it you are those things. It means you’ve developed your own way of doing things that works for you.

I was having a conversation with a gentleman just this past weekend. He has some psychic intuition, and I asked him about his philosophy of sending spirits to the Light.

“I would never presume to do something like that,” he told me. “Maybe if a spirit asked me to help them in that way, I would try to see what I could do. But in all my years of doing this, I’ve never had one ask.”

If you enjoy Karen’s blogs, then check out her new book, Avalanche of Spirits: The Ghosts of Wellington, which is now available from Amazon.com.