Death Brides

     Anyone up for an invite to this wedding---Four men in northwest China have been sentenced to prison for the grisly crime of digging up the corpses of 10 women and selling them for "ghost marriages." The grotesque "brides" were sold for a total of 240,000 RMB, or $38,000, according to court reports. The grave robbers were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two years and four months to two years and eight months in prison. The bodies were sought by families of men who died as bachelors. The buyers were arranging "ghost marriages," a traditional custom in which parents find "spouses" for their unmarried, deceased children so that they can have a family in the afterlife.

      The cadavers were stolen from their graves in Ya'an province beginning in the winter of 2011, according to reports. They were dug up in the middle of the night and hid in the thieves' homes where the corpses were cleaned up. Forged medical records were created in hopes of making it appear the corpses were only recently deceased and coming from reliable sources, allowing them to charge premium prices. Ghost marriages are a 3,000 year-old custom that is especially common in rural parts of north China where young men often die in coal mining accidents. When a young man dies a bachelor, family members may consider it unnatural, and fear that the deceased's spirit may be restless.

     Wan Jian Hong, director of the Institute of Folklore and Cultural Anthropology at Beijing Normal University, said some folks fear that the unquiet ghost would come back to haunt them, causing all sorts of trouble for his family, and searching for a scapegoat replace his death, so that he could be reborn. Parents hope that by arranging a "ghost marriage" they could comfort the deceased son's soul, and save him from a lonely afterlife. Ghost marriages were outlawed decades ago, but have been making a comeback as China's economy has boomed. Rural families are better off and able to afford ghost brides.

     Times have changed since two families would meet and arrange to marry off their deceased children. Now a new market for brokers, known as "ghost matchmakers," has sprung up. The price of corpses on the black market can reach as high as thousands of dollars. The younger, prettier and more recently deceased a female corpse is, the higher the price she commands. A growing demand for fresh female corpses has fueled the trade in bodysnatching. Chinese media have reported cases of brokers murdering women and selling their bodies for ghost marriages. In 2006, a man from northern Hebei province murdered six women and sold them as "ghost brides."

     The Qing Ming Festival, also known as tomb sweeping day, is coming up next month. That is the day when people honor their deceased ancestors. It is also thought to be the most auspicious day for ghost marriages and engagements. So what do you think?

 

 

 

5 Things Happy People do Before Getting out of Bed Each Morning

     You just woke up and are ready to get out of your bed and start your day. But wait! Let’s bring some mindfulness into life from the moment we get lucid. I recently saw a list floating around of five things you should do before getting out of bed, and a chain of events led me to putting them into words to share with others.

     These five things can be looked at as life hacks because they’re so simple and easy to add to our daily routine yet so effective that it begs the question why we weren’t doing them before. You’ll soon discover that they will elevate your state of mind and make you feel like you’re going to be successful at whatever you set out to do. The first step towards accomplishing something is having the intent to accomplish something. These five things will help you do just that.

 1. Express Gratitude

     Every new day leads to a new way to say “thank you” for being alive. Everything we experience and are capable of experiencing on this blue marble in this universal arena is something to be grateful for. Contemplate the fact that something rather than nothing exists and that within that something we exist and experience such an amazing reality. There is always something to be grateful for, we simply need to look around us and within us. Through continued gratitude we cannot help but feel an explosive volcanic eruption of bliss to be so fortunate as to have what we have.

     Don’t get hung up on what you don’t have, because that will lead you to disappointment and suffering. Our life situation may never be ideal in our eyes but at any point on our life paths we can stop and be mindful of what we appreciate about our lives. Feeling like it’s difficult to find something to be grateful for? You can always get down to the basics… “Thank you for this breath that gives me life”.  Say it or feel it, it doesn’t matter how you express gratitude, as long as the conscious intention is there.

2. Set Your Intentions for the Day

     Treat your thoughts as if they were spells of magic, replicating in the real world from the garden of your mind. Our thoughts are what shape the reality we personally experience. If we intend for something to happen, either to our state of mind or our life situation, we usually make it happen. If we want to be happy, we do what we know has brought us happiness before or what we feel will make us happy. If we want to get out of a physically or emotionally toxic environment, we initiate plans to move or relocate somewhere else. Without that initial energy to move things towards a new direction, our situation won’t be moved towards a change.

     Most of us have to get up for work on a regular basis which leads to going through the motions of getting out of bed, getting ready and going to work. Before we do any of that we can affirm, either in the form of saying aloud or writing down, what we intend for the day or wish to get done. This could be something specific like set the intention to go grocery shopping, or something more broad, such as intending to not say anything hurtful to anyone we interact with that day.

 3. Take Five Long Deep Breaths In & Out

     Breathing is what keeps us alive. If we stopped breathing, our hearts would stop beating and we wouldn’t live to see a new day. Breath is incredibly powerful and can take us into transcendental states of consciousness where we become masters of our inner fire. All too often we baseline to shallow breathing which may sustain our lives but will not optimize them. Get up to the next level. Breathe in and breathe out deeply for as long as is comfortable… s l o w l y. You should feel your stress and tension melt away like butter on a hot day. If you want to enhance your breathing, get some essential oils like eucalyptus to keep beside your bed and take deep whiffs. Start your day off feeling refreshed.

4. Smile for no Reason — Just Flex the Muscle

     Smiling is one of the best free life hacks we have. You know how difficult it is to stay angry or not feel better when smiling. All that serotonin and all those endorphins flooding your brain chemically cure melancholia. The pronoia sets in and you get off to a great start for the new day. Smiling has been shown to reduce stress, reduce blood pressure and boost the immune system which is all the more reason to do it after leaving Dreamland. Smile and get elevated.

5. Forgive Yourself for Yesterday’s Mistakes 

     Can anybody say they lead a “perfect” life? Hardly. We all make mistakes… actions or reactions we come to later regret because we feel it would have been better if we didn’t do them. Forgiveness benefits you more than anyone else. Through forgiveness we stop holding on to the cause of our suffering and let it go. Acknowledge that you made a mistake and while you can’t change the past, you can create a new present. 

     Everything is in a constant state of change… it’s the only constant in existence. We change all the time whether we realize it or not. We are not the same person we were yesterday, a year ago, or a decade ago. We shouldn’t forevermore hold something against ourselves since that will only create more suffering. We have all suffered enough for one reason or another. Let’s not add any unnecessary suffering to our lives. Look at your shadows, acknowledge their transient nature and let them go.

 

Understanding the spirit realm

     Every one of us has our own sets of problems that are related to fear. In fact, we face our spiritual journey according to our perceptions and beliefs. However, let me point out that most often our fears are related to the future. That is, I think we fear to fail or we are scared we can’t bear things in the future due to no confidence, especially when things go wrong.

     Furthermore, not only do our fears regarding the future make us feel uncomfortable at present but also the lack of understanding the existence of the spiritual realm worsens our focus of our immediate existence. Therefore, in order for us to exist in the future dimension we need to master our fears. Unfortunately, not every one of us has the ability to overcome our fears, especially when it comes to understanding the spirit realm. In fact, most of us see the spiritual realm as something scary due to beliefs of demonic existence which actually is not something to fear.

     Then again, when I look back at my own spiritual journey, I realize that once upon a time I was scared of the darkness and had no understanding of the existence of the spirit realm, thus bringing about negative views of them. Therefore, I believe there are people out there who need help in understanding the spirit realm correctly and such a responsibility should be taken by those who have the understanding about the existence of the spirit realm.

     Therefore, I feel that education on having a correct understanding of the spirit realm which I have learned and am continuing to learn from all the courses that I have taken over the last couple of years, has given me the chance to see the existence of the spiritual realm from a different point of view, to see the truth that exists beyond death. In fact, there's a lot of negativity that was in my own spirituality, which have changed to positivity in my opinion should be shared with others.

     I believe it is not the qualifications that I have learned from all the books and research that I've done that make me feel the need to share with others what I have learned from these courses, but rather, those courses have made me realize that truth, positive attitude, respect for others and positive visualization have all given me the chance to see and link between them with the actual concept of human love. As for me, true love should come naturally from the bottom of our hearts that includes mind-body-soul.

     Therefore, the fruits of all the research I've done to educate myself on the spiritual realm have taken away the fear and negativity of the darkness and the unknown of the future. The education of my mind has put me at ease with life and death. I encourage all of you to take on your own spiritual growth and see how it brings clarity and peace to your own lives.

 

 

 

Living in a Haunted House

     This article is for those whose homes are haunted. If you are looking for someone to come and exorcise your home, you have come to the wrong place. It has been our experience that there is no sure fire method for removing spirits from a home. No blessing, no rituals, no icons, no religious words will "force" the spirits to depart. Now that I have your attention, I will discuss some of the aspects of having a ghost in your attic, basement or living room.

     You become aware of footsteps going up and down the stairs, muffled voices, strange smells, cold spots, the feeling of being watched, appliances turning on and off, hearing your name being called, finding personal items vanishing and suddenly reappearing elsewhere, seeing balls of light and black shadows moving about, taking pictures and getting smoky vapors on film. Perhaps you have a son or daughter who can see and hear the ghosts. Perhaps these ghosts scares them and they are afraid of sleeping in their room at night.

     A home, apartment or building does not require a death to take place for it to be haunted. Many new homes are haunted because the ghost or ghosts like the home and have decided to dwell within. Did you catch the important word -- decide to dwell. Yes, the spirits think and respond just like we do. Sometimes the land is where the spirit is attached and not the house. Most often the spirits move about without restrictions as to where they died or where they lived.

     Most people are frantic when they discover that their homes may be haunted by ghosts, what should they do? It has been my experience that the first reaction is to label the ghosts as demons or some other evil spirits, especially if the people come from one of the fundamental Christian sects. They feel threatened by the presence of these creatures from beyond the grave. They think, "What have I done to merit this kind of ghostly activity?"

     They become frantic because they relate their haunting to television shows about demons and dark monsters. They call in a minister or priest to bless the home and cast out these unwanted spirits. Unfortunately the spirits still remain at large, the blessing did nothing accept peak the activities in the home. Now they are really scared and they start surfing the web for help?

     Sound familiar? Unfortunately this is how most people respond when they discover they have a ghost or ghosts living with them in their home. It is sad that folks immediately jump to the false conclusion that ghosts are evil or demonic simply because they do not understand them. Ghosts are NOT demons. First, take off your religious rose-colored glasses and view the events without religious dogmas and fears. Ghosts are people without bodies. They have intelligences, emotions, personalities and attitudes, just as they did when they were living.

     Do you realize what you just read? Ghosts are people without bodies, complete with their attitudes, personalities and emotions. If they were happy campers in life, they will be happy campers in death. Ghosts are NOT fragmented souls cursed to roam the earth. This is an outdated philosophy by ill-informed ghost researchers who relied upon Ouija boards and séances for their information. Ghosts exist in a "ghost society" of their creation.

     Just as some people are loners so too are some spirits. Most hauntings are by more than one ghost, often several. This does not mean they stay around in our physical realm. They may exist within the spirit realm and only choose to become active in our domain during the full and dark moons because of the much stronger geomagnetic fields or during solar flares.

     The spirit realm and the physical realm exist on this earth, but in different dimensions. The spirit realm may often overlap our physical realm, bringing the two as one. Other times, we hear noises coming from the spirit realm, but heard in the physical realm. This is why a person hears boxes being knocked over in their basement, but no boxes are out of place. The boxes being knocked over existed in the spirit realm, but was manifesting the sounds in the physical realm.

     Ghosts love to be pranksters. They love a good joke. They love humor. If you will examine your ghostly experiences, you will find the pranks were simply harmless pranks that scared the boo-boo out of you because you fear the unknown. Once you come to an understanding of life after death and that ghosts are the evidence of life after death, our fears slowly fade away.

     Why are the ghosts here? Some are here because they want to be, others are anchored here because of unfinished business or unresolved issues. Something as little as not being able to tell someone that they love they may anchor a spirit to this realm. We take with us our emotional baggage, both good and the negative. The negative emotions keep us earthbound, the positive emotions allows us to soar to higher realms beyond the earth plane. We must let go of the negative emotions if we want to soar. Bitterness, anger and resentment are but three of the many negative emotions that we tend to hang onto throughout our life. These same emotions will anchor us, preventing us from becoming all that we can be after death.

     We can learn from those who have gone before us. Ghosts should not be feared, but studied so we can learn more about what happens when we cross beyond the grave. There is life after death and by understanding ghosts, we can understand what we need to do in this life to prepare for this transition. The religious folks who fear ghosts also fear death because they believe they will be going to Heaven or Hell. This fear of not knowing which place they will be sent often brings forth much fear when they discover they have a ghost. They quickly discover that their religion does not deal with the issues of death and the spirits of the dead who return to the earth. Unfortunately, they do not understand that the spirits that left the earth at death can and do come back to this earthly plane.

     Instead of being fearful, be of brave heart and learn to love the spirits as spirits. They are an evolved life form in composition, but they still retain their earth based memories and attitudes. Don't judge or condemn them, treat them as you would someone in your peer group. Speak in a calm, firm voice, show no fear, show love and compassion. If you dislike something they are doing, ask them to stop and explain why. Explain if you need some private space, free of spirits, such as in the bathroom or bedroom. Remember, you can learn to mutually co-exist together in a harmonious way. So what do you think?