by Judy Carroll
“Paco, for crying out loud! What’s the matter with you? It’s me! Do I have to ring up and make an appointment to visit my own brother? Out of the kindness of my heart I decided to drop by to say hello and to see how you’re settling in to your new parish, and this is the welcome I get! Look, if you’re that busy I’ll just go away and let you get on with it, no problem!”
“No, no, Ali Cat, it’s not that. Course I’m glad to see you. It’s just that everything’s in a bit of a mess, and…”
“Paco, don’t you remember? You’re my dearly beloved brother, who’s always in a perpetual mess! So what’s the difference? You can’t be any worse than when you were living at home. Now let me in!”
So saying, I pushed him aside none too gently and stepped into the house.
“Hell’s bells!” I gasped, stopping so suddenly at the door of the living room that Paco walked straight into me. “What’s happened?” It looks like there’s been a tornado through the place! What have you been doing, throwing wild parties or something?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s not that bad — you always have to exaggerate! Father Ryan, the priest I took over from, offered the resident housekeeper a position at his new parish. He’s getting on in years and had let things go a bit here, so I’ve been really busy catching up with parish work and haven’t had time to organize somebody else to fill the position, let alone time to do much in the way of house cleaning myself. If I’d known you were coming I would have neatened it up a bit. Here, look, I’ll just pick up these cushions and put those books back on the shelf — there now, that looks better already.”
As he spoke, a brilliantly clever solution to his dilemma began formulating in my mind — a solution that would take care of my ongoing difficulties as well. “Paco,” I interrupted his cleaning-up efforts, “why don’t you call upon the awesome powers of the Guardian Consciousness to solve your little problem?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Me, of course! What other Guardian do you know?”
“Ali, what are you going on about?”
“Look, you need a housekeeper, and I’m sick to death of living all on my own way out of town. I absolutely loathe having to drive such distances to get to my classes, which are all here in the city anyway, and Maris keeps telling me I need to be closer in to be able to reach more people through my work, so, problem solved — I’ll be your housekeeper!”
“Now just hang on, Ali Cat! You’re a hopeless housekeeper and an even worse cook. Remember the time you accidentally put God knows how many tablespoons of cayenne pepper into the stew instead of sweet paprika? And how you almost poisoned the lot of us the other time with that revolting half-cooked chicken? God, I’ve never felt so sick in my whole life! I still feel ill just thinking about it. You know, I was never quite sure which I dreaded the most — the food they served us at the seminary or your cooking when I was home on holidays.”
Oh, Paco, for heaven’s sake, that was years ago. You know I’ve been fending for myself for ages now, ever since Mom and Dad decided to go back to travelling. I am a perfectly competent housekeeper and an excellent cook, even though you always insist on ordering takeout when you come to see me. Anyway, you’ve seen how neat and clean I keep the house now, so don’t be so rude. It’s clean enough to eat off the floor.”
“Well, the way you spill everything when you’re cooking, that’s probably the only way to get a decent feed.
“Anyway,” he went on bravely, holding up a hand to defend himself as I picked up the nearest cushion and threatened to throw it at him, “who ever heard of an ET presbytery housekeeper? What if one day you forget which body you’re occupying and answer the door in your gray form? Can you imagine what it would be like for one of my poor, unsuspecting parishioners to arrive at the presbytery and be greeted by a small, gray-colored alien with huge, black eyes and four long, thin fingers? What an awful thought! It doesn’t even bear thinking about!”
“Stop being so damned racist and prejudiced!” I snapped at him. “There’s as much chance of me doing that as there is of you turning up on the altar to say Mass with a scarf tied around your head and gold earrings dangling from your ears. You think you’re so smart and so wonderful being an Earth human. You don’t know what it’s like to be caught between two species, one human and one ET. Whichever one I’m part of at any given time I feel homesick for the other. Sometimes I feel as if I don’t fit in properly anywhere and I don’t know what I am. Now that you’re a high and mighty priest with your own parish even you don’t want me around in case I embarrass you!”
At this point I managed to squeeze out a couple of tears, knowing that would get him. Sure enough, the next moment he was there beside me, with a protective and brotherly arm around my shoulders. “Oh, come on, Ali Cat, I’m sorry. I was only joking. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You know I wouldn’t do that for the world.”
“Oh, Paco, it’s just that it’s so lonely at home all on my own.” Now sniffling for real. “First you went off to the seminary, then Mara died, then the rest of the family went back on the road. I know I used to grumble about never having any privacy or peace when you were all at home, but now that I’m stuck out there on my own it’s awful, and the place is so far out. I seem to spend half the day driving and you know how I still hate it. I’ve never really gotten over the experience of that awful crash, and the sensation of hurtling forward at high speed is far more tangible in a car than it is in our discs. At least if I lived here I’d be handy to everything. In fact I could even walk to some of my classes.”
“Well, I must admit,” he grinned, “it would be fun having you around. Lately we never seem to have the opportunity to really talk. I always enjoyed the challenge of our theological discussions, and hearing your people’s side of things. I know at some level we’re having discussions upstairs, because more and more things are just dawning on me, but now I can pick your brain down here, too. Believe it or not, our discussions give me many good themes for sermons. The only thing is what are we going to do about the family home if you move in here? It’d be too much for you to look after both places, but we can’t just sell it without consulting the family first.”
We both considered this problem for several minutes, before Paco snapped his fingers in triumph. “I have it! There’s some people I know who are looking for rental accommodation. They’re a Romany family who’ve been living in a couple of old wagons parked on council land, just like Granny and I used to, and the local authorities have been putting pressure on them to move on but they don’t have anywhere to go. God, that brings back horrible memories! We could rent the place out to them. It’d be ideal, because there’s plenty of room for their wagons, and they are really good people who I know will look after the place properly.”
“Paco, that is brilliant! There’s just one problem though. What happens when our own family takes a break from their travels? Where can they stay?”
Paco’s face lit up with a wicked grin. “Why can’t they park their wagons out back here? There’s plenty of room. That’d give the neighborhood gossips something to get their teeth into — a couple of genuine Romany vardos parked out back of the presbytery! I can just hear them now: “You let one into the place, and before you know it the whole tribe is there! Damned Gypos, they breed like rabbits!”
“Paco,” I said, shaking him by the hand, “you are truly a devil!”
“Well,” he answered with a pleased grin, “I do try!”
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Chapter 25 Vibrations
“Hey, Ali Cat!” said Paco, blissfully stretching himself out on the couch and almost pushing me off in the process. “How about explaining that electromagnetic thingummy to me — you know, whatever has to do with vibrational frequencies or whatever it is that I was supposed to have studied in physics at school.”
“Instead of looking out the window or reading comic books?” I added, giving him a good shove to remove his feet from my lap.
“Well,” h
e blithely replied, “why bother studying these things when you have an ET in the family, that’s what I say! After all, isn’t that why you’re here? To fill me in on it all?”
“I wouldn’t have to if you’d listened at school, would I?”
I’d been resident at the presbytery for a couple of weeks now, settled very comfortably into the private housekeeper’s quarters, which suited me admirably, providing the peace and quiet I needed to get on with my work. Paco had offered me a bedroom in the main house, but I knew very well that, being a priest, he would sometimes be called out during the night, so there’d be the phone ringing and him moving about, and I really needed to be left completely undisturbed to carry out my work up on the disc. However, when he was home, as he was this evening, I took the opportunity to get on with the job of teaching him what he needed to know.
“Okay, then, if you really want to learn about the electromagnetic ‘thingummy’ as you so eloquently put it, then please turn off the TV so I can concentrate. Everything around us including our own physical body,” I went on once he was seated and paying attention, “is composed of atoms grouped together to form molecules. These molecules are in a continual state of vibration. It is this vibration at the molecular level that the brain, via the sensory organs such as our eyes, ears, nose, fingers and tongue perceives as sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. For example, if the molecules that form my physical body suddenly decided to stop vibrating, or changed their rate of vibration or frequency to a significant extent, then my body would cease to register upon your sense of sight. You would not be able to see me, and as far as you were concerned, I would be invisible. Just think what havoc I could create then at Sunday Mass!”
“Heaven help us all!” he gave a mock shudder. “That doesn’t bear thinking about. Go on, this is getting really spooky.”
“Each color of the spectrum,” I continued, “vibrates at a different rate, as does every musical note. The color violet, for example, vibrates at a much higher frequency than red — a whole octave higher to be precise. Ultraviolet has a higher frequency still, placing it beyond the human range of perception, so it’s invisible. However, just because it’s invisible doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Anyone who’s had a dose of sunburn should know that! Infrared, at the lower end of the color spectrum, is also below our human range of perception.”
“So what you’re saying,” Paco queried, “is that this ‘frequency’ you refer to is actually the rate of molecular vibration?”
“Yes, exactly,” I answered, “and everything has its own particular frequency. The vibrational frequency of every living creature is unique, and that of course includes humans. The sound of a person’s name carries its own unique and individual frequency, hence our Romany tradition of keeping one’s true name a secret, so that harm cannot be done through interference with the person’s personal frequency on an energy level. One can send healing to another by tapping into their personal frequency, but unfortunately, harm can also be sent.”
“And what about the electromagnetic scale?” Paco asked. “That has to do with vibrational frequencies too, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” I replied, “it certainly does. Everything that can be perceived by our eyes as sight, by our fingers as touch, by our tongue as taste, by our nose as smell and by our ears as sound has its place upon a scale of measurement, which is referred to in physics as the electromagnetic scale.
“This scale covers a vast range of energy frequencies from very low to very high, and that part of it perceptible by humans is extremely small, even taking into account those normally imperceptible wavelengths such as radio and TV, which need specialized receivers to enable them to be translated into the very limited range of human perception. Other frequencies such as alpha, beta, delta and theta brain waves, microwaves and X-rays also need specialized equipment if they are to be monitored or measured in physical terms.
“Just as there are colors such as infrared and ultraviolet which, although beyond the range of human sight, are there nonetheless, there are also sounds extending below and above the human range of hearing. A good example is the special dog whistles which are readily available in any pet shop. Their sound is of a frequency too high for the human ear to detect, but a dog, whose hearing mechanisms have access to a higher range than humans, can hear the sound very clearly.”
“The sonar signals used by bats would be the same, wouldn’t they?” Paco queried. “And I believe whales also communicate ultrasonically, don’t they?”
“Exactly!” I answered. “And the sound that our discs make is the same. This is why animals become so badly agitated when we’re around. We also have equipment that can alter vibrational frequencies to a marked degree, and this is the secret behind much of our technology. For example, when our discs disappear suddenly, becoming instantaneously invisible, we’ve simply changed the frequency of the molecular structure up a few degrees on the electromagnetic scale, thus rendering the craft and all on board completely invisible to the eyes of any human observers.”
Paco shook his head in amazement. “I wish I could do that,” he sighed wistfully. “The possibilities would be endless. And what about ghosts in relationship to all of this?”
“Well,” I replied, “now that you hopefully have a better understanding of the electromagnetic scale, and a fuller appreciation of humankind’s very limited access to the endless range of energy frequencies potentially available, you can begin to comprehend a little more clearly such phenomena as ghosts, clairvoyance, auras, psychic senses, etc. These all operate on wavelengths or frequencies which, like ultraviolet light and ultrasonic sounds, are beyond the perception of most human senses. Dogs, cats and other animals can sense ghosts much more easily than average humans can because they can perceive vibrational frequencies that are beyond the range of human perception.
Many humans are also born with clairvoyant and psychic abilities, but as they progress through childhood, the conditioning they are subjected to gradually causes these natural perceptions to close down. In societies such as tribal cultures where these abilities are understood and recognized rather than being brushed aside as trivial and time wasting, nothing but ‘silly imagination,’ or even downright evil, many more individuals carry these perfectly natural senses through to adulthood, often passing down particular gifts like healing through generational family lines. For example, you’ve inherited psychic abilities from your grandmother.”
“Ali, to tell you the truth, this is something I just don’t know how to handle at times, and it really confuses me.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, sometimes I’ll get a very clear dream or ‘flash’ about a future event and I know it’s an insight on the psychic level, but it doesn’t always come to pass. This can be a blessing, because the insights aren’t always pleasant, so I’m relieved when they don’t happen, but what I can’t understand is, why do I get them in the first place if they’re not right?”
“That’s simple,” I replied. “You see, all psychic ‘flashes’ originate on the astral plane — the plane of emotion — and negative happenings tend to generate stronger emotion than positive happenings. Everything that manifests as a happening or event on the physical plane is born out of infinite possibilities, both negative and positive, but it is the negative possibilities that are the most readily perceived through psychic awareness, because, being negative, they generate stronger emotion.”
“Okay, so I’m more likely to pick up on a negative possibility, but this isn’t necessarily what is going to manifest into physical reality?”
“Right! Psychic ability works by the seer tapping into the infinite possibilities surrounding any given event or situation. All these possibilities are actually occurring simultaneously, because in the greater reality, time as we know it doesn’t exist. In other words, there is no past and future, just an eternal present. The outcome of any given situation depends entirely upon the free will of the person to whom the situation applies, which can ch
ange from moment to moment.
At the time you receive the flash, that negative possibility may very well be the correct one, but at the time of the situation itself, circumstances have changed and another more positive possibility has been brought into play through the free will of the person involved.
This is where psychic readings and ‘fortune telling’ can potentially fall apart at the seams, because by putting a negative idea into a person’s mind in the form of a prediction, it is possible to influence the eventual outcome of the event or happening in a negative way, by overriding the person’s free will. And no one has that right! Even done with the best intentions, it is still a form of control and manipulation of another, so you are better in the long run to keep such information to yourself, thus allowing the person’s free will to choose the correct outcome according to the needs of the higher self.”
Paco still looked puzzled. “But what about when a psychic sees some sort of major disaster occurring, like a public figure being assassinated, or an aircraft crashing and everyone on board being killed? Shouldn’t they try to give some sort of warning?”
“No, not really, because everyone freely chooses the time and circumstances of their own death, and there is no such thing as ‘death’ anyway, because we are all immortal spirits. Sure, the physical body may be destroyed by an assassin’s bullet or a plane crash, but that is not the end by any means. We simply step out of that container, then, when we’re ready, we step back in to a new one. If it’s not our time to step out, the ‘accident’ or ‘disaster’ won’t happen to us — the assassin will be stopped by someone, or we’ll be ‘miraculously’ blocked from getting to the airport or boarding the plane. What I’m trying to say is that if a death is not meant to be then, it won’t occur then, but if it is someone’s ‘time,’ then no psychic has the right to interfere.
