Your  Advertisement  Here Buy ad space

Julia Jablonski

Many people have seen or interacted with ghosts or non-physical beings without ever even being aware that this was what was happening. Supernatural experiences don't necessarily come with big neon signs on them; they're best recognized by the telltale feeling that something unusual or important is happening. We often shrug off those experiences that are strange and unexplainable, even really astounding ones, because most of us just don't have a model for incorporating anomalous experiences into our belief systems. What is magical to some is seen as merely coincidental to others.

For example, I've heard many stories of someone appearing in a time of great need and then vanishing into thin air when the emergency was over. One woman I know was walking home late one night when she was a teenager. To get to the house, she had to go down a quiet road in the country. As she was leaving the edge of town, a strange man fell into step behind her. She felt danger, but being all alone, she saw no recourse but to simply step up her pace. As she got further away from town, the man increased his pace also, and it got to the point where she was practically running down the road.

She was terrified, and decided she had to confront him. She stopped, clenched her fists, and prayed as hard as she could for help. At that moment, a large black dog emerged from the bushes at the side of the road. It came up and licked her hand, it's wagging tale beating against her legs. It immediately turned and growled a menacing growl at the stranger. She turned to walk toward home, and the animal stayed beside her. The man followed a little further, but every time he got too close, the dog would turn around and snap and growl at him. She didn't know where this dog had come from, and found it remarkable that it acted just like it was her own dog, protective and friendly toward her, but threatening toward the stranger. She wondered if it were a stray, and if her mother would allow her to keep it if it were.

She finally arrived at her gate and hurried up the walk to the house with the dog right beside her, though the stranger had long since headed back toward town. As she opened the front door, her mother greeted her and seeing her countenance, asked her what was the matter. She explained that a man had followed her, but fortunately the dog had come along and saved her. As she said this, she turned around, but there was no dog to be seen. Her mother asked her what dog, and she was astounded; it had been there beside her just seconds before. She had FELT it lick her hand, it's tail wag against her leg, had heard it threaten the stranger. The stranger had certainly also seen the dog. Yet it had vanished into thin air, and was never seen again.

In this case, my friend recognized the connection between her prayer for help and the emergence of this dog just in the nick of time. Others may simply shrug such an experience off as a coincidence. While no one can "prove" one or the other, I know that many people have had experiences with Spirits or other non-physical entities that they never recognized as such. Sometimes the experiences are dramatic, such as the one above, other times they are very subtle, and the only clues to their magic lie in the feelings one has during the experience. Such experiences may seem to be meaningless on the surface, yet we often remember them for a lifetime.

For example, many years ago I was in downtown Chicago bar-hopping with some girlfriends. It was winter, and the disco we were trying to get into had people lined up down the block. Several homeless people were wandering the streets, some begging for money. As I was standing there in line, joking around with my girlfriends, I suddenly had the strangest chill come over me, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. I turned and looked directly at a homeless man who was standing on the corner a ways away. He was looking right at me. Though he was grubby and dirty and obviously very poor, I knew that he did not belong here, that he was not of this world. As his eyes met mine, I even wondered if I was looking into the eyes of Christ. Such compassion and beauty shone in those eyes.

He walked over to me and asked if I could spare some change. I reached into my bag and pulled out a $20.00 bill, and gave it to him. He quietly said, "Peace to you" and I said, "Thank you...and to you." His eyes gazed at mine a moment more, then he turned to go. For a split second I took my eyes off of him to see what my girlfriends were thinking of this interaction, and when I looked back, he was gone. They hadn't even seen him. I looked at all the people around me, and it was as if this interaction had taken place in a time warp or something...no one seemed to have noticed anything. It was such a strange circumstance in which to have such an experience, but it has stayed with me always.