38 replies to this topic

[AbbeyGal]

BellaRose, on May 18 2007, 01:15 PM, said:

WOW!!!!!
That is a FABULOUS story Abbeygal!!!!
I was wondering, how did you come to know that there was *someone* around you? How old were you? Did you buy some sort of antique or memorabilia that he was "attached" to? Did he tell you what kind of relationship you both had?
Thanks for sharing!!!....

If anyone wants to see the photo and a comparison shot of me at the same age, PM me. Unfortunately, I would have to have the historical society's permission to legally post it here.

I only found the photos just within the past few weeks, although I've been communicating with him since just after Halloween The soldier came from an abolitionist family whose house was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The house is now a museum and is well known to be haunted by a handful of prankster ghosts. I worked there as a docent for a year and had all kinds of experiences - my clothing being tugged, hearing footsteps and voices when no one was around, etc. After I got locked in the restroom at Halloween, I knew it had to be the young Civil War soldier who was responsible, as who else but a college age guy would think that was funny? So I made an effort to communicate with him.

Finding his picture alone was an experience. Once I started communicating with him, I started bugging him for a picture of him. 2 weeks after my first request, a watercolor of him was featured in the museum newsletter. It had a big crease though the image, so I asked for a better picture. A month or so later, they started selling notecards of that watercolor in the gift shop. Of course I bought one. I suspected that neither the watercolor nor the oil painting of him in the parlor were a good likeness, though, so I pestered him again for an actual photograph of him.

The next weekend, I was watching a documentary on the Civil War put out by the state historical society. Whose picture should show up in it but my soldier's? That was maybe 3 days after I had asked him for an actual photograph of himself. It was definitely him, as it was pretty obviously the photograph that both the watercolor and the oil painting were based off of. What are the chances of that? Even the museum house itself does not have a copy of this photo. I grabbed a screen capture so I'd have a copy of my own. A few months later, I started working at the historical society that put out the documentary. I managed to track down his photo in a file of 70 unidentified Civil War soldiers. They only have maybe 100 pictures of Civil War soldiers altogether, so the odds of them having one of him at all are pretty darn low.

[BellaRose]

Hi AbbeyGal,
Sounds like you 2 had a VERY STRONG connection in a past life!!! It's all very interesting...it gave me a little chill...
~Bellarose

[BellaRose]

AbbeyG~
1 WORD: UNCANNY
The pictures just blew my mind!!!
~Bellarose

[canuck]

AbbeyGal, on May 18 2007, 07:03 PM, said:

BellaRose, on May 18 2007, 01:15 PM, said:

WOW!!!!!
That is a FABULOUS story Abbeygal!!!!
I was wondering, how did you come to know that there was *someone* around you? How old were you? Did you buy some sort of antique or memorabilia that he was "attached" to? Did he tell you what kind of relationship you both had?
Thanks for sharing!!!....

If anyone wants to see the photo and a comparison shot of me at the same age, PM me. Unfortunately, I would have to have the historical society's permission to legally post it here.

I only found the photos just within the past few weeks, although I've been communicating with him since just after Halloween The soldier came from an abolitionist family whose house was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The house is now a museum and is well known to be haunted by a handful of prankster ghosts. I worked there as a docent for a year and had all kinds of experiences - my clothing being tugged, hearing footsteps and voices when no one was around, etc. After I got locked in the restroom at Halloween, I knew it had to be the young Civil War soldier who was responsible, as who else but a college age guy would think that was funny? So I made an effort to communicate with him.

Finding his picture alone was an experience. Once I started communicating with him, I started bugging him for a picture of him. 2 weeks after my first request, a watercolor of him was featured in the museum newsletter. It had a big crease though the image, so I asked for a better picture. A month or so later, they started selling notecards of that watercolor in the gift shop. Of course I bought one. I suspected that neither the watercolor nor the oil painting of him in the parlor were a good likeness, though, so I pestered him again for an actual photograph of him.

The next weekend, I was watching a documentary on the Civil War put out by the state historical society. Whose picture should show up in it but my soldier's? That was maybe 3 days after I had asked him for an actual photograph of himself. It was definitely him, as it was pretty obviously the photograph that both the watercolor and the oil painting were based off of. What are the chances of that? Even the museum house itself does not have a copy of this photo. I grabbed a screen capture so I'd have a copy of my own. A few months later, I started working at the historical society that put out the documentary. I managed to track down his photo in a file of 70 unidentified Civil War soldiers. They only have maybe 100 pictures of Civil War soldiers altogether, so the odds of them having one of him at all are pretty darn low.

Hi AbbeyGal:

I am curious as to exactly how you communicate with this entity.

Ie: how do you make the connection, and how do you get a reply?

I am not asking you this to give you a hard time, but I am very interested in finding out if there is a specific process by which to establish communication with these kinds of entities. (Check previous posts on this topic in other threads to get the context)

[AbbeyGal]

canuck, on May 19 2007, 02:27 AM, said:

I am curious as to exactly how you communicate with this entity.

Ie: how do you make the connection, and how do you get a reply?

The first time I tried to seriously communicate with him, as I was laying in bed one night, I sent myself mentally over to his house. I guess that counts as astral projection(?) Instead of finding myself in the current time, I was shocked to find myself with him in a different season and me in 1860's clothing. After that, I'd be thinking about the situation, mentally asking questions, and short answers would pop into my mind that aren't the kind of thing I would have come up with myself. I tried verbally asking him questions but figured that I might as well just do it mentally since he can obviously hear me, anyway. The communication I get from him has developed over the past 6 months from single words to entire sentences. Doing meditation seems to have helped a lot.

I joined a group to develop my psychic abilities shortly after the astral travel encounter. Another woman in the group was picking up on him well and occasionally relays messages for him. This past week, the flow of information broke through, and a lot of what she was telling me was verifiable.

Among other things, I had made a momento mori necklace of him to help me tune into his energy. I wear it all the time. It is a gold silk ribbon sewn on to a patch that has his image printed on one side and a image of a letter he'd written on the other. One day it disappeared from around my neck. I definitely remember putting it on about 15 minutes earlier because I had specifically just washed and ironed it so I could wear it. It is all one piece, so it's not like there was any clasp that could have broken. I looked all over for it and could not find it. A few months later, it reappeared beisde my bed, where I'd looked before, with the ribbon neatly wrapped around it. One of the things he asked through my friend was whether I ever found "the locket with the gold chain that I wear in thinking of him?" It has a ribbon, not a chain, but that's pretty darn close. I had not mentioned losing the necklace to anyone. He also told her that there was a stone sewn inside the locket. After I lost the first necklace, I made a second one and did sew a quartz crystal into it.

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I am not asking you this to give you a hard time, but I am very interested in finding out if there is a specific process by which to establish communication with these kinds of entities. (Check previous posts on this topic in other threads to get the context)

Don't worry about giving me a hard time, considering that this is in the skeptics forum. I don't expect what I've said to count as scientific evidence of past lives as all. It's not unheard of to find old photographs that resemble onself, but the circumstances associated with this are intriguing. The only thing my story proves is that I am coincidence prone. =)

[canuck]

AbbeyGal, on May 19 2007, 08:51 AM, said:

canuck, on May 19 2007, 02:27 AM, said:

I am curious as to exactly how you communicate with this entity.

Ie: how do you make the connection, and how do you get a reply?

The first time I tried to seriously communicate with him, as I was laying in bed one night, I sent myself mentally over to his house. I guess that counts as astral projection(?) Instead of finding myself in the current time, I was shocked to find myself with him in a different season and me in 1860's clothing. After that, I'd be thinking about the situation, mentally asking questions, and short answers would pop into my mind that aren't the kind of thing I would have come up with myself. I tried verbally asking him questions but figured that I might as well just do it mentally since he can obviously hear me, anyway. The communication I get from him has developed over the past 6 months from single words to entire sentences. Doing meditation seems to have helped a lot.

I joined a group to develop my psychic abilities shortly after the astral travel encounter. Another woman in the group was picking up on him well and occasionally relays messages for him. This past week, the flow of information broke through, and a lot of what she was telling me was verifiable.

Among other things, I had made a momento mori necklace of him to help me tune into his energy. I wear it all the time. It is a gold silk ribbon sewn on to a patch that has his image printed on one side and a image of a letter he'd written on the other. One day it disappeared from around my neck. I definitely remember putting it on about 15 minutes earlier because I had specifically just washed and ironed it so I could wear it. It is all one piece, so it's not like there was any clasp that could have broken. I looked all over for it and could not find it. A few months later, it reappeared beisde my bed, where I'd looked before, with the ribbon neatly wrapped around it. One of the things he asked through my friend was whether I ever found "the locket with the gold chain that I wear in thinking of him?" It has a ribbon, not a chain, but that's pretty darn close. I had not mentioned losing the necklace to anyone. He also told her that there was a stone sewn inside the locket. After I lost the first necklace, I made a second one and did sew a quartz crystal into it.

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I am not asking you this to give you a hard time, but I am very interested in finding out if there is a specific process by which to establish communication with these kinds of entities. (Check previous posts on this topic in other threads to get the context)

Don't worry about giving me a hard time, considering that this is in the skeptics forum. I don't expect what I've said to count as scientific evidence of past lives as all. It's not unheard of to find old photographs that resemble onself, but the circumstances associated with this are intriguing. The only thing my story proves is that I am coincidence prone. =)

Thanks for your reply; but your replies raise a couple of questions:

1. In your first contact, how do you know that you didn't fall asleep and were only dreaming?
2. In your current communications, how do you know that the things that are popping up in your mind are not just your own wishful thinking?
3. When you involve your other friend in these communications, have you ever had an instance where all three of you are "online" together and can cross verify communications?
4. Have you ever had any physical communication with this entity, ie: a written note or majbe an instance of movement of objects etc?
5. In your communications, has the entity ever given you a description or information as to his current whereabouts?
6. Has the entity ever suggested alternative means of communication?
7. HAs the entity ever made an attempt to communicate with anyone else?
8. Has he mentioned that he has tried to communicate with others, but failed?

[AbbeyGal]

canuck, on May 20 2007, 02:13 AM, said:

Thanks for your reply; but your replies raise a couple of questions:

1. In your first contact, how do you know that you didn't fall asleep and were only dreaming?

I went into that state almost immediately after lying down. At that point in time I was working a high stress job and it usually took me a long time to fall alseep. I was also still aware of lying there in bed, so I had kind of a dual awareness that doesn't happen in dreams. When I broke out of it, I was fully awake and thinking WTF? I never wake up that soon once I do fall asleep.

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2. In your current communications, how do you know that the things that are popping up in your mind are not just your own wishful thinking?

At the beginning, I thought I had to have been imagining things, because some of the things he communicated to me were pretty out there. But I got a lot of signs confirming it from pulling single tarot cards and randomly opening my 6 inch thick dictionary and seeing what the first word my eyes fell on. Again, I would in no way count this as scientific evidence. But after a point, there only so many things you can blow off as coincidence.

The phraseology he uses is different from my own. He does not use contractions in his speech. I've noticed that the way he speaks through my friend is likewise quite different from her speech patterns. I'm also pretty sure that if what I hear from him is just wishful thinking, I would not be arguing with him as much. LOL!

He also likes to communicate through music. Recently, I woke up with a song from the 80's in my head that reflected somethng I know he feels strongly about. I hadn't heard this song in years. The next day, I turned on the radio in the car and that's what was playing. Yes, that could be just a coincidence, but like I said, I seem to be coincidence prone.

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3. When you involve your other friend in these communications, have you ever had an instance where all three of you are "online" together and can cross verify communications?

I'm not that strong of a psychic, so if you're talking about the 3 of us all communicating at the same time to verify something, that hasn't happened. My friend has picked up on things that only I and the ghost knew about, though.

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4. Have you ever had any physical communication with this entity, ie: a written note or

maybe an instance of movement of objects etc?

I already mentioned the disappearing neacklace. Also, once I was having a terrible week at work, he played a prank on me. I had to add a piece of paper into a sheaf of paperwork that I'd just gotten out of the safe. I took the large paperclip off the sheaf, and laid that on the center of my desk. I put the paper in the middle of the sheaf but when I looked back up, the paperclip was gone. I thought maybe I'd accidentally knocked it on the ground, but after a thorough search, I couldn't find it. I thought that was my last large paperclip, so it was worth searching around for. I did find another large paperclip and used that one instead. It wan't the one that went missing because the first one was plain metal and this second one was plastic coated red. So, I put all the paperwork back into the safe, and when I looked back at my desk, the plain metal paperclip was sitting there right in the middle of my desk where I had originally put it.

I've actually been kind of bummed, though, for 6 months after I started communicating with him, nothing unusual happened to me at the museum house. Things are starting to pick up again.

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5. In your communications, has the entity ever given you a description or information as to his current whereabouts?

Yes, but it's confusing. I always feel him to my right. A communication from him through my friend said that "You're always to the right of me" He also said something that he sees "only through the light". We're pretty sure he never crossed over.

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6. Has the entity ever suggested alternative means of communication?

We'd tried using dowsing rods as well. That worked well, but of course you're limited to yes/no questions. I've tried doing evps without success. When I ask him why it isn't working, he just says "complicated".

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7. HAs the entity ever made an attempt to communicate with anyone else?

He has tried to relay messages to me through a couple of other sensitive friends as well as the one he has been having success with. If he has tried to communicate with anyone else at the museum house, they haven't mentioned it - probably for fear of being thought nuts!

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8. Has he mentioned that he has tried to communicate with others, but failed?

He hasn't but they have. He apparently has a very strong energy and overwhelms them. Even the friend he communicates well through put a moratorium on communicating through her because he was exhausting her.

[AbbeyGal]

Getting back to question #2, there is another aspect of communication with the ghost that I find very curious. My psychic friend is a notoriously poor speller. When he writes through her, the spelling throughout entire letters is often perfect. When there are errors, they are far fewer than in her normal writing.

[canuck]

AbbeyGal, on May 20 2007, 11:56 AM, said:

Getting back to question #2, there is another aspect of communication with the ghost that I find very curious. My psychic friend is a notoriously poor speller. When he writes through her, the spelling throughout entire letters is often perfect. When there are errors, they are far fewer than in her normal writing.

Hi AbbeyGal:

Your experience is interesting in that it seems to cover more than one aspect of a psychic phenomenon.

To put my interest into context, you may want to check the thread "The Phillip Experiment", which is accessable through the "Sceptics" home page.

In this thread, some of us were/are trying to set up an experiment through which we get some useful scientific information. However, we have come to a dead end because we can't figure out how to seperate and isolate that which is created by the "human" participants and that which is created by the entity.

On the one hand, your experience seems to have the characteristics of a manifestation created by you, and perpetuated by you. (I am not trying to be insulting here, but am trying to be objective)

On the other, the involvement of your friend suggests that there is more to this.

When you/your friend have had communication with this entity, has it always been in the museum, or has it happened elsewhere? Ie: is this entity geographically restricted, or does he have the ability to move around?

Regarding your paper clip incident: did you question him about that, regarding his involvement?

If he was responsible, have you tried to set up an incident in which he performs a specificd task? Ie: you could ask him to take the paperclip and move it to a specified location in another room.

Is he interested in participating in a wider test? Ie: will he talk to me?

If you are interested in pursuing this, please email me.

[AbbeyGal]

canuck, on May 20 2007, 11:15 PM, said:

Hi AbbeyGal:

Your experience is interesting in that it seems to cover more than one aspect of a psychic phenomenon.

To put my interest into context, you may want to check the thread "The Phillip Experiment", which is accessable through the "Sceptics" home page.

In this thread, some of us were/are trying to set up an experiment through which we get some useful scientific information. However, we have come to a dead end because we can't figure out how to seperate and isolate that which is created by the "human" participants and that which is created by the entity.

On the one hand, your experience seems to have the characteristics of a manifestation created by you, and perpetuated by you. (I am not trying to be insulting here, but am trying to be objective)

That's OK. For the first few months I was dealing with this, I thought I was losing my mind. It is all very bizarre. Without hard evidence to prove otherwise, the logical assumption is that it's all in my head.

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On the other, the involvement of your friend suggests that there is more to this.

There's actually even a little more to that. I had asked the ghost to return an object to me that I supposedly had in the past life. A month or so later, I was talking to another psychic friend of mine to see if she could pick up anything about the situation. She's so good that she has been called in by the police to work on cold murder cases. I did not tell her about the object. Without prompting, she told me that I would be getting it back.

Of course that begs the question as to whether she got that information from the ghost or if she pulled it from my mind. I figure that if she's good enough to pick up on information like that at all, she could also probably tell if I was delusional.

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When you/your friend have had communication with this entity, has it always been in the museum, or has it happened elsewhere? Ie: is this entity geographically restricted, or does he have the ability to move around?

He's decided that he needs to be my protector (testosterone apparently transcends death), so he's around me most of the time. The psychic that he has communicated the most through lives in another state.

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Regarding your paper clip incident: did you question him about that, regarding his involvement?

Yes, he said it was his doing. I'd been complaining that I missed having him and his family play tricks on me, and he thought it would cheer me up.

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If he was responsible, have you tried to set up an incident in which he performs a specificd task? Ie: you could ask him to take the paperclip and move it to a specified location in another room.

Over the months, I have given him a set of things he has to do for me to help me verify that I'm not crazy. The deal with me bugging him for a decent picture of him was part of that, and I'd say he did pretty well. However, he has become increasingly singleminded in his determination to communicate with me. Anything that draws his focus away from that is just not something he's interested in at this point.

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Is he interested in participating in a wider test? Ie: will he talk to me?

If you are interested in pursuing this, please email me.

We have an experiment going on now to see if we can improve the communication between us, the set up for which oddly enough was his idea. He has made it very clear that any other endeavor would be a distraction and does not want to deal with it. I will see how he feels if/when this experiment comes to a successful conclusion. This could be problematic, as he seems to think that I should be able to learn how to see and hear him the same as if he were still in the flesh. <sigh> This is what I get for letting him watch tv.

[Kira]

AbbeyGal,

I love your sense of humor! What a fascinating experience you are having. Too cool.

The only past life/reincarnation story I have is that when I was 5, my mom saw a medium in Cleveland, OH (we lived there at the time) She told my mom that I was her mother in our last life together. To tell you the truth, at 5 I "knew" that was true. There are many times I felt more like the mother growing up than the child. For my own feelings, not from a medium---I just know my dad and I have had some life/lives together. We haven't gotten it right yet, so we keep coming back together. He of course has no belief in this. He thinks once you die, you die, the lights go out, the end. Sad. Now I know this will sound super creepy, but I think I was his wife somewhere along the line, because he treats me as such in this life. No there was never any abuse, but I have always felt he thought of me as his wife and not his daughter.

Kira

[canuck]

AbbeyGal, on May 20 2007, 11:56 AM, said:

Getting back to question #2, there is another aspect of communication with the ghost that I find very curious. My psychic friend is a notoriously poor speller. When he writes through her, the spelling throughout entire letters is often perfect. When there are errors, they are far fewer than in her normal writing.

Hi AbbeyGal:

Hmmmm, curiouser and curiouser!

The thing about you and your friend being able to communicate with this entity over large geographical distances is very interesting, particularly in context of our attempts to set up a "Phillip" type experiment.

I will be watching your progress with fascination.

In the meantime, I forgot to ask you yesterday:

You mention you friend is a poor speller. Exactly how does this fit into the picture? Is the entity writing her notes? How is this spelling issue manifest?

[AbbeyGal]

canuck, on May 21 2007, 09:40 PM, said:

I will be watching your progress with fascination.

Oh, it just got a heck of a lot more interesting. When my friend had the big breakthrough in communication with him a week ago, I gave the ghost a code word to fit into the communications so I'd know it was for real. I purposely chose a word that does not come up in everyday conversation and told it to another member of the group so there'd be outside verification. The psychic broke off communications with him after a couple of days because he was being so overwhelming, but it bothered her that she had never gotten the code word. Yesterday she made a concerted effort to get the code word from him, and made a couple of attempts throughout the day. This morning, I got an e-mail from her asking if the code word was "WIG". The code word I had chosen was "wiggly". Sticklers will argue that it's not quite the same word, but I sure am impressed!

After talking with you here, I have set up another task for him where he is to remove a photograph from my research notebook and leave it on my desk. I'll definitely let you know if anything comes of that.

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In the meantime, I forgot to ask you yesterday:

You mention you friend is a poor speller. Exactly how does this fit into the picture? Is the entity writing her notes? How is this spelling issue manifest?

The breakthrough came when she was attempting to do automatic writing. She isn't sure if her communication with him truly counts as automatic writing, though, as she can also hear him in her head as the writing is occuring and can communicate with him mentally without writing. The writing looks like a more cramped version of her own, and not like his. Some letters he wrote during the war are available online, which we used for comparison.

[canuck]

AbbeyGal, on May 22 2007, 07:01 AM, said:

canuck, on May 21 2007, 09:40 PM, said:

I will be watching your progress with fascination.

Oh, it just got a heck of a lot more interesting. When my friend had the big breakthrough in communication with him a week ago, I gave the ghost a code word to fit into the communications so I'd know it was for real. I purposely chose a word that does not come up in everyday conversation and told it to another member of the group so there'd be outside verification. The psychic broke off communications with him after a couple of days because he was being so overwhelming, but it bothered her that she had never gotten the code word. Yesterday she made a concerted effort to get the code word from him, and made a couple of attempts throughout the day. This morning, I got an e-mail from her asking if the code word was "WIG". The code word I had chosen was "wiggly". Sticklers will argue that it's not quite the same word, but I sure am impressed!

After talking with you here, I have set up another task for him where he is to remove a photograph from my research notebook and leave it on my desk. I'll definitely let you know if anything comes of that.

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In the meantime, I forgot to ask you yesterday:

You mention you friend is a poor speller. Exactly how does this fit into the picture? Is the entity writing her notes? How is this spelling issue manifest?

The breakthrough came when she was attempting to do automatic writing. She isn't sure if her communication with him truly counts as automatic writing, though, as she can also hear him in her head as the writing is occuring and can communicate with him mentally without writing. The writing looks like a more cramped version of her own, and not like his. Some letters he wrote during the war are available online, which we used for comparison.

Hi:

With your experience with the code word, you seem to have hit on the issues that we have been trying to resolve with regard to what manifestations and phenomena are being created by the "human" observers, and which are being created by the entity; and the issue of whether the entity is independent of the observer.

If you told the entity that: "the codeword for today is "YogiBear", and you should tell this word to my friend in Chicago when she logs on", then that is what should have happened. No muss, no fuss.

Since it didn't, it raises a number of questions: why didn't he immediately give her the word? Why did she have to go to a special effort to get it? Why didn't she get the right word; after all, it is just as easy to say "YogiBear" as it is to say "Yogi". Is she dealing with the same entity as you are?

One explanation for this is that the entity is a creation of your own mind, and the difficulty in extracting the codeword was really due to your friend attempting to retrieve the word from you at a distance.

Of course, I recognise that if this is the case then that is pretty impressive in itself.

What response did you get from the entity when you asked him for an explanation?

[AbbeyGal]

canuck, on May 23 2007, 02:34 AM, said:

Since it didn't, it raises a number of questions: why didn't he immediately give her the word?

He had more important things on his mind that he wanted to communicate to me through her and kept forgetting. He also only had 2 chances before she cut off communications with him.

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Why did she have to go to a special effort to get it? Why didn't she get the right word; after all, it is just as easy to say "YogiBear" as it is to say "Yogi". Is she dealing with the same entity as you are?

You are oversimplifying the communication issues there. Actually, it isn't as easy to communicate with ghosts at all, whether you are doing it mentally, through evps, or whatever. It's more like trying to hold a phone conversation on a staticy cell phone. You may get some of the message, but not necessarily the whole thing. And that's assuming that the person on the other end feels like talking to begin with. My friend, while pretty good, is still fairly new at this herself, so she might not be the best receptor. The other messages did come through clearer, but the ghost had more of an emotional investment in getting those messages across and probably put more effort into it on his end as well.

During the first go around, the psychic got something illegible that seemed to be more than 3 letters long. She determined that she had been holding the pen too tightly, so she loosen her grip. After the first 3 letters, she looked down, saw the word "wig" and thought she was finished.

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One explanation for this is that the entity is a creation of your own mind, and the difficulty in extracting the codeword was really due to your friend attempting to retrieve the word from you at a distance.

Likewise, it could be due to the difficulty of communicating with a spirit at all.

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Of course, I recognise that if this is the case then that is pretty impressive in itself.

What response did you get from the entity when you asked him for an explanation?

He got cut off.