Supernatural.tv: Inside the legend: Playthings

Inside the Legend: Playthings

Imaginary Friends

An imaginary friend is an invented person, animal or character that is created especially by children. The inventor will act as if the imaginary being is physically present by talking to it, playing with it, or even attempting to feed it. If told that the friend is non-existent, the inventor will often retaliate in a defensive manner by stating that the imaginary friend is invisible.

For parents, an understanding of a child's conversations with their imaginary friends can reveal a lot about the anxieties and fears of that child. It can also give an insight into the child's aspirations and perception of the world. Some children report that their "imaginary friends" manifest themselves physically, and are indistinguishable from "real" people, however it is unknown whether these cases correspond specifically to any condition.

People may invent imaginary friends for companionship, as part of play, or for other reasons. Imaginary friends can serve as an important source of companionship to some children. As an example, young children in boarding schools often develop imaginary friends to cope with extreme stress and separation from their family.

Children often use their imaginary friends as outlets for expressing desires which they would normally be afraid to engage in or for which they would normally be punished. For example, it is not uncommon for a child to engage in mischief or wrong-doing and then to blame the crime on their imaginary friend. Through the imaginary friend, the child is able to act out fantasies that they are otherwise restricted from experiencing due to societal constraints.

It is common for children to give their imaginary friends personality traits that they themselves lack: shy children often describe their imaginary friends as playful and outgoing jokesters who are always making them laugh and who are very popular. In this way, children see their imaginary friends as ideal versions of themselves.

Often children will dismiss the imaginary friend once they find living ones or become aware that it is fictional. Imaginary friends often help a child realize the difference between reality and fantasy, as well as give them some form of self-esteem.

Children Prone to the Supernatural

Dave Oester writes, "It appears that children are thus naturally sensitive to the pineal stimulation and can perceive what we would call the imaginary friends. Between pressure from the parents and other older folks, telling the kids that they are imagining their friends and the natural growing together of the skull bones, the child eventually loses the ability to perceive these other frequencies."

The existence of ghosts has been debated for centuries. It is only in modern times with technology having advanced to its current stage that we may now capture on film and audio what many believe to be images of the supernatural. The questions of why some can and yet others cannot see or sense the presence of these entities has been contested with numerous theories both for and against the subject of spirits. One such cause for speculation is do our children see and sense what many adults either cannot or will not see?

When a child comes into this world they are what we term "close to the grave". This term means that they have just come over from the Other Side. Before they entered the Earth realm and incarnated into this lifetime they were "in spirit" on the Other Side waiting to be born. This means that they may have been there with passed over loved ones before they came here.

It is not unusual for these loved ones to step in from the Other Side and visit with these wee ones. And often their guardian angels will interact with them as well.

Children are born with their third eye wide open. This is the chakra point in the middle of the forehead. This is the chakra (an energy point on the body) which enables one to be open to spirit communication, and the ability to see spirits and talk with them.

Babies and small children have not been exposed to the negative reality that most people have regarding ghosts. Some small children even have "imaginary friends" they talk with and play with. Grownups tend to just shrug their shoulders and think that the child just has an overactive imagination, when in reality, it is most likely that these children are actually interacting with someone in spirit.

One theory is that children have not had years to adjust their thinking and have not had the time to train themselves as to what to accept or not accept as reality like adults have. Adults program their thinking and consequently refuse certain images, noises, and feeling as real simply because in our minds we cannot accept impossible or unproven science.

The innocence of children, being that their minds have not been conditioned not to believe in such things, open mindedness, the "wanting of a playmate or friend," (hence the imaginary friend factor - who may not be so imaginary after all), being curious of things and surroundings, all help and influence children to see ghosts easier than adults do.

As children grow older, teachings of parents, schools, adult figures, religion, being sensitive, belief's of other children, etc., will all influence if the child will continue to see spirits or not, or later on learn to accept or fear them also - or both.

If a child is taunted or made fun of, or called "evil" for saying he or she sees ghosts, may cause the child to either begin to disbelieve or doubt what they are seeing, think of themselves as different or "weird," make them keep to themselves what they see, (block what they are seeing), or stop seeing/believing all together. It may also later affect them to the point they feel there is something wrong with them or the "I am loosing my mind" feelings of distress.

Some parents unknowingly start to teach and train their children at a very young age to block these images. They do it out of protection and misunderstanding of the situation. How many parents have tucked their little ones back into bed with the words that they thought were reassuring; there are no such things as ghosts, you just had a bad dream, it wasn't real, it was just your imagination? How many parents are guilty of telling their children that their imaginary friend is not real, maybe not realizing that not only is that friend real but a ghost?

When parents tell their children it was just a bad dream they may inadvertently be teaching them to mistrust what they may have actually be seeing. Eventually training themselves to block what they have been taught cannot be real.

There are also certain parents, families, etc., who will nurture the child's gift's or abilities and teach them to accept, not fear, handle the seeing of such spirits.

It all comes down again to the teachings the child receives in life and their belief's, the people around them, being strong or weak minded, which all will influence if they continue to see or not later on into adulthood.

Could this be why some people are able to accept the supernatural with an open mind and yet others cannot? Does the door get shut at childhood or can it remain open? This is just one of the many theories used to explain why children see more of the supernatural world
than adults do.

Children's Encounters With The Unknown

Scary Tales of Imaginary Friends

MY BROTHER’S IMAGINARY FRIEND

I am about 24 years old and I have a three year old little brother named Paul, who lives with my step mother. About 4 months ago he started playing with an imaginary friend (so we thought) he kept calling Baby Michael! We thought it was real cute until weird things started happening. He had a old wooden rocking horse that would rock by it self and we would ask who was rocking it and Paul would say Baby Michael.

One day my step-mother was babysitting a friends little girl around the same age both children had fallen asleep on the couch. When the little girls father came to pick her up he came through the front door and nothing was in the way of the entry. After he picked her up and went to leave the little rocking horse was moved in front of the door. Paul all the sudden woke up and said Baby Michael doesn't want Kate to leave.

I though this was someway to scare me. But a couple of days before Easter We had all the children together to colour Easter eggs. They were all playing in Paul's Bedroom when I heard them talking to Baby Michael. Just curious to see what they were doing I peeped in to the room.

Standing there in the middle of the room was Kate with her hand stretched out as to grab a book. The book was dangling mid-air. The book dropped and I went to pick it up and all the sudden I felt it go flying out of my hand to across the room. I went running into the living room where everyone else was I was in such a state of shock. My step-mother ask Paul what happened, he replied "Baby Michael wanted the book."

We have noticed that the man who lives next door has two hospital beds in an old shed. When the shed is open seems to be the times that Baby Michael appears and when it is closed Paul says he is at home.

- A member of the International Ghost Hunter’s Community

GHOST OF A LITTLE BOY

I was entirely skeptical of ghosts, etc. and I have not told anyone about this except my husband. About 3 years ago in the house we previously lived in, I would hear noises when no one else was home during the day. I would hear a child playing, I could hear him bouncing a ball, etc. Then one afternoon while I was making something to eat in the kitchen (no one home again), I heard a voice right beside me say "mom". I pretended I didn't hear it, I could have passed out right there & then. I was never scared of it till then when it came so close. The final "event" was before we moved. I had put my son to bed and sat down to watch tv. I had clear view of his room where I was sitting. I saw a boy dressed in a plain tan brown top/pants(it appeared to be a boy around 5...around my sons age) run out of my sons room into the hall-into another bedroom. I immediately said outloud, "Get to bed", it didn't register till a second later that it wasn't my son. He replied, from his room "I am in bed". I walked over and there was no one in the other room where the figure ran. I didn't say anything about it to my son, I was afraid people would think I was nuts. It wasn't until later that I told my husband. My son as a child (as most children do) talk to himself when he played alone with trucks & stuff, so it never really dawned on me. A couple years later, I learned from my son that he had 3 imaginary friends...could he have been playing with the ghost(s) all that time?? He had names for them too. It kind of scares me a bit, but the ghost never harmed anyone, and seemed to be playful, so I can be thankful for that.

- Sarah

GIRL SAYS BONES BELONG TO A GHOST

Investigators unsure how possible human remains got inside insulation

BY MELANIE BENNETT
Staff Writer

A Russell County fifth-grader is convinced bones found in her home last weekend belong to a mysterious friend who told her about being chopped up years ago.

Investigators have few clues about how and when the bones got inside insulation under the living room floor of the mobile home on Jowers Road, near East Alabama Motor Speedway.

The 10-year-old, Stephanie Ogden, and her family have lived in the home since 1998. Her great-grandparents, John and Marion Stewart, own the home.

The bones were found Saturday as the Ogdens, who are renovating the home, pulled up boards in the living room floor. Russell County Sheriff's Lt. Heath Taylor said an initial analysis shows the bones are from the pelvis and leg of a child at least 10 years old, and the child has been dead at least 10 years.

Another bone was found Sunday, Marion Stewart said. The area where the bones were found had duct tape over the insulation, Stewart said.

"There's an odor there that doesn't belong," Stewart said.

The bones probably don't have enough marrow to do DNA tests, Taylor said. Because the trailer has been moved several times between Georgia and Alabama, investigators now are faced with the daunting task of trying to track down missing children from a wide area in two states.

Taylor said gnaw marks on the bones may indicate a rodent placed them inside the insulation. Dirt and plant material on the bones indicate they were outside at one time, Taylor said.

Stephanie said a black girl in a white dress started visiting her room when she was about 5 years old. The girl was friendly, but she told Stephanie a horrible story.

"She told me that somebody put her in the floor," Stephanie said. "She said he had a mask on, and that he chopped her up. She didn't know who the person was, because he had a mask on."

Stephanie, a fifth-grader at Dixie Elementary School, now thinks that the bones that were found in her home belong to her playmate.

"It's possible because that girl was a ghost," Stephanie said Monday. "Nobody knows about them."

Marion Stewart said Stephanie used to tell her family about the visitor, but the adults always dismissed the stories as being an imaginative child's fabrication based partly on horror movies. Stewart said Stephanie used to always ask for two glasses of soda when she would play outside -- one glass for her and one for her friend.

Stewart said the weekend's grisly discoveries have convinced her that her great-granddaughter's playmate is actually a tormented soul seeking peace.

"I'm not a psychic, and I don't believe in some of that stuff," Stewart said. "But I believe this is a soul who has not been put to rest."

Taylor said detectives can't base their work on ghost stories.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to investigate a ghost?" he said Monday.

Investigators are looking through databases of missing children to find any links to the trailer's location, but Taylor doesn't hold out much hope of solving the case.

"It's just one of those cases where there's just not a lot to go on," he said.

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE LEDGER-ENQUIRER

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QUINCUNX

The arrangement of five units in the pattern corresponding to the five-spot on dice, playing cards or dominoes. A Quincunx is often used in Hoodoo as a sort of “artificial crossroad” and can be created inside a room in the house. The quincunx or five-spot is generally used for sealing and fixing spells in place.

POPPETS

A doll used in European witchcraft made to represent a person, for casting healing, fertility, or binding spells on that person. These dolls can be made from carved root, grain, or corn shafts, a fruit paper wax, a potato, clay, branches, or cloth stuffed herbs. Whatever actions are performed upon the poppet are then transferred to the person. These dolls are often mistakenly called “voodoo dolls”, but Voodoo dolls are unheard of in the original Voodoo in Haiti, although some are used in New Orleans Voodoo, mostly to amuse tourists. Apparently, the term Voodoo doll was invented by an American writer who made up a story about Voodoo after hearing that it was witchcraft. The only “dolls” used in Voodoo are ones used on Voodoo altars, which are supposed to represent loa, the spirits of voodoo.

Inside the Legend by Dean5339