Become a Ghost

Ghosts appear across cultures and mythologies, as ectoplasmic echoes of the living. While there's no sure way to become a ghost, understanding more about the way consciousness works, and learning different theories regarding the soul's transformation from life to death, can help you to lay the groundwork. You can also learn more about what you can do in the living world to communicate with spirits and move among them.

Check out other wikiHow articles if you're interested in ghost costumes or in changing your identity.

Steps

Laying the Groundwork

  1. Live a full and enthusiastic life. Ghosts and ghost stories seem to have one thing in common: the people who become ghosts made a big impression on the world before they died. With your time on earth, it's important to live a big life. Have big appetites and desires. Get your heart broken and heal it. Make mistakes and get over it. Make sure the world will remember your name.
    • No one knows for sure how to become a ghost, and the very existence of ghosts cannot be verified conclusively. You might have your own powerful experiences with the paranormal, but try to be realistic about your goals. Becoming a ghost has nothing to do with dying under tragic circumstances or doing something terrible.
    • If you're struggling with thoughts of suicide, seek help immediately. Dying early isn't a fast-track to becoming a ghost.
  2. Learn to differentiate the states of living consciousness. According to the Bardo Thodol, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead, consciousness is split into six categories, three of which are experienced at the moment of death. The way that a person negotiates these states of consciousness relates specifically to what will happen to their essence following death. How a person transforms into a ghost, then, is affected by their negotiation of consciousness while alive, and while dying.
    • The living states of consciousness are life, or ordinary waking consciousness, the consciousness of meditation, and the consciousness of dream-sleep. To experience the full range of life and better understand the transition into death, be fully present in the different states of living consciousness.
    • Make a practice of keeping a dream diary to help explore your dreams and better understand your different states of conscious and unconscious life. Practice meditation on a regular basis.
  3. Learn what to anticipate at the moment of death. In the Book of the Dead, the dead experience a long journey, during which an elaborate ceremony is performed to ease the transition. The dying states of consciousness are “the clear light of reality,” “the experience of reality,” which features an intense series of hallucinations, and “rebirth,” in which the soul transmigrates to another form. Some people think that during this transition, some people become lost, and end up as ghosts.
    • The Clear Light of Ultimate Reality is the first stage, occurring at the moment of death, in which the dying person is said to experience bright light and god-consciousness.
    • The Second Bardo is more complicated. It lasts for up to two weeks, and according to some, [1] souls that become “lost” at this second dying state of consciousness are the souls that become ghosts.[2]
    • In the third bardo, the soul will be reborn into a new vessel, or ascend into the afterlife. If a person is to become a ghost, it must happen before the third bardo.
  4. Develop your “subtle body.” According to the Spiritual Science Research Foundation (SSRF), the consciousness left after a physical body dies is referred to as the “subtle body,” which is made up of the stuff that cannot be connected to your physical self. This is the part of some people that sticks around and becomes a specter or ghost. Whatever you believe about the afterlife, it’s a good idea to develop your subtle body in positive (or negative) ways, if you want to stick around. The subtle body consists of:
    • Ego. The bigger your ego, the more you desire power and recognition, the more tainted and present your subtle body will be. If you want to ascend into the afterlife, be ego-free. If you want to stick around as a ghost, be ego-mad.
    • Desire and anger are also powerfully connected to the subtle body. People who have difficulty controlling their tempers and difficulty controlling their desires are often said to become ghosts.
    • Fear can be a powerful component of the subtle body, as well. Mortal terror, the fear of death, is often said to be connected to transitioning the consciousness energy into ghostdom.
  5. Leave unfinished business. For many paranormal enthusiasts, ghosts are thought to remain in the mortal sphere because they have some task, or unfinished business that they seek to finish before finally being laid to rest. How much of this is actually true and how much of this is good for ghost stories is difficult to verify, but it's a common theory regarding ghosts.[3]
    • Consider moving around a lot. Uproot yourself frequently, and leave hanging threads of your life scattered about. Make it so that lots of people remember you, and seek closure of some kind.

Practicing Astral Projection

  1. Learn about astral projection. Astral projection is the belief that people can dissociate their "souls" or their subtle bodies from their vital bodies while living, then return to the body at will. Supposedly, W.B. Yeats, famed Irish poet and occultist, appeared in shadowy form at a social gathering hundreds of miles away while in the midst of deep meditation at his home.[4] It is a skill that anyone can practice with deep concentration, though few if any may be able to achieve.
    • While this may not help you become a ghost, the skills involved in negotiating the difference between your subtle body and your living body is at the heart of transitioning into the afterlife. Think of it as practice.
  2. Start from a relaxed and meditative state. It's common to practice projection first thing in the morning, during the liminal state between wakefulness and sleepiness, when the mind is at its most receptive.
  3. Enter into a hypnotic state and attempt to "vibrate" each part of your body. Most astral projection starts with slowly entering into a trance by breathing slowly, stilling the mind, and focusing on a single part of your body.
    • Focus on your breath. Feel the air moving into your lungs and nourishing your body, relaxing you and warming you. Feel yourself go still. Feel yourself begin to melt.
    • Start with your foot and imagine in vibrating in consort with the cosmos. Vibrate your leg. Let each part of your body slowly numb to the here and now and become one with the outer world. The idea is that you slowly blur the line between "you" and "not you."
  4. Slowly move your soul from your body and explore. When successful, astral projectionists feel their soul leaving their body, taking their consciousness with it. You should feel as if you're moving away from yourself, leaving your body behind. Try to explore an adjacent room, picking a book up off the shelf and reading it. See if you remember what you read when you came to.
  5. Return to your body, or don't. Some people believe that spending too much time outside of the body can make it more and more difficult, or more and more traumatic, to return to it. When you go out exploring the world outside your body, take it slowly. Don't start by flying away to Paris, start by exploring the room you're in, letting your soul do small things. Strengthen your astral muscles. Then return.
    • It's a common urban legend, reported in the Jimi Hendrix documentary Hendrix, that Hendrix practiced astral projection and died because he lost his way back to the real world. Acid casualty hokum or real-life ghost story? It's hard to say.

Communicating with Ghosts

  1. Learn consciousness and spirit channeling. Channeling is a similar process to astral projection, though somewhat more meditative. Channeling is the process of communicating with the spirit world, and learning more abut your own consciousness in the process. Different traditions treat the concept of "channeling" in different ways, but the process is essential the same, regardless of what you believe. How you choose to assign meaning to the symbols and concepts you encounter in your journey may differ, but the basic steps are the same if you're willing to commit to the process.
  2. Start by entering a trance. Enter a trance state, focusing on warming and relaxing each part of your body. Go slowly. Practice meditation and trance-inducement several times before you attempt to channel.
    • It's common to picture climbing up a long ladder in pitch blackness, or defending in an elevator into an endless cavern, to visualize transitioning into the subconscious, or into the spirit world (depending on what you believe). For some, picturing a sudden fall helps to allow the subconscious to take over, and the feeling mind overwhelm the thinking mind.
    • Making contact with the subconscious as a projection, or other entities in the spirit world is the goal of channeling. If you encounter other beings during your deep hypnotic meditations, keep a journal of your interactions and analyze the symbols you encounter. This might prove essential in your transition out of this life.
  3. Learn to use a Ouija board. The most classic method of communicating with the spirit world is by using the Ouija board, a mat covered with letters, numbers, and short words, used to allow spirits a vessel to communicate with the living. Living participants meditate over the Ouija board, then put their hands on a planchette, which is a small maneuverable pointing tool, that's used to move independently and point to the different letters, spelling out words. Getting some experience connecting via the Ouija board might help you in your ghostly ambitions.
  4. Explore EVP and other electronic phenomena. With the rise in ghost-hunter themed television shows, digital methods of recording ghosts gained lots of popularity in the public. It's an interesting and sometimes spooky way of communicating with the dead, and can be an instructive way of getting started. To try it for yourself, the method is easy: record, at very high volume, a silent room. Ask questions periodically, of any spirits that may be present currently. Later, turn the volume up very loud an listen back.
  5. Practice communicated with spirits via an experienced medium. To learn more about getting in touch with the world of the dead, contact an experienced medium, someone with well-developed psychic abilities and experience in communicating, to help guide you and show you the ropes. It can be dangerous, psychologically and spiritually, to attempt to get in touch yourself. It's best to consult with a professional.

Asking a spirit

  1. Find a way to communicate with ghosts. To do this, take a recorder and put it somewhere quiet (ghosts hate noise). Say something like "Spirit, can you turn me into your kind? If yes, then when I say "thank you", turn me into your kind strait away. If not, then don't bother turning me into your kind" then the spirit will answer.

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Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://www.spiritualtravel.org/OBE/afterdeath.html
  2. ↑ http://www.near-death.com/experiences/buddhism01.html
  3. ↑ http://www.ourcuriousworld.com/GhostlyPsyches.htm
  4. ↑ http://www.yeatsvision.com/Robaherne.html

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