• Ghosts don’t like to be around the living. Since everybody’s at home, the ghosts will probably go to other places that are unoccupied.
• More people have become intuitively awakened and receptive because their lives have slowed down.
• There’s a global conscious manifestation of fear, anger, and despair. These are the top three energies that are going around.
• Protect yourself from negative energy: Meditate; be mindful of your energy; remember that this pandemic will end.
The pandemic has driven most of the world indoors in a bid to halt the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
During this time, many people have discovered things about themselves, such as realizing that they love to garden or that they are actually good cooks or bakers, as seen on numerous posts on social media.
One discovery that isn’t talked about very much online is that many people have reported supernatural happenings during lockdown. Some wonder if it’s because current events are producing more ghosts, or if it’s because homeowners are now indoors long enough to encounter their houses’ supernatural denizens.
According to Robert Rubin, Philippine tarot authority and founder of Mysterium Philippines, the answer is neither.
Ghosts don’t like to be around the living
“If you’re talking about ghosts, ghosts don’t like to be around the living, believe it or not. They would prefer to be in a place that’s empty. So since everybody’s at home, the ghosts will probably go to other places that are unoccupied. For example, if the office building is shut down, then there’s a chance that they’re going to be in there, not house,” he said.
“Ghosts don’t like being around the living they're very . That’s why you see a lot of ghosts in abandoned houses, abandoned buildings, because they like their peace and quiet. They want to be left alone.”
Intuitive awakening
He does say, however, that more people are discovering that they’re “sensitive.”
“More people have become intuitively awakened and intuitively receptive than I expected because now, a lot of people’s lives are slowed down ... they can listen to themselves more... More people ask me, ‘Rob, I’m hearing things, I’m sensing things, what’s happening?’ and that’s basically what happens when you slow down the pace in your life. You leave it more open to the things around you,” he explained.
Sensitive, in this case, means that a person’s heightened intuition allows them to more intensely feel and respond to energies. They tend to be empathetic, being able to sense what others are feeling, sometimes not even knowing that those feelings aren’t their own! Some “sensitives” can just “know” something without having any concrete evidence, and are often proven right.
Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t just women who have keen intuition. Anyone can develop their sensitivity and use it to positive effect in their daily lives. So if it isn’t ghosts that newly sensitive people are experiencing, then what is it?
‘Global tulpa'
“What people are experiencing is what we call a global tulpa… a global conscious manifestation of the fear, of the anger, and of the despair. These are the top three energies that are going around,” Rubin said.
“So this is one huge collective energy that people around are feeling… and they’re assuming it’s a ghost, it’s not a ghost. Basically, it’s one huge tulpa. A tulpa, or egregore, is an artificially-created energetic being. An egregore is a being created by enough people giving energy to it. So what they’re experiencing right now is one gigantic tulpa.”
Not my circus, not my monkeys
Now that so many people are more susceptible to energy, particularly the reigning global one, it is important that they learn to keep it at bay. Rubin uses the Polish saying –“not my circus, not my monkeys” – to remind his students to stay away from problems that aren’t theirs.
“We need to be able to tell people that this is not yours. This is a global thing in the air. So if you know that it’s not coming from you, you can say ‘yeah, there’s a bad vibe in the air,’ but you need to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
“There’s been so much fear injected into the air... that people are living in terror. They don’t see that this is going to end and that we can have hope. And by having hope, you have something to live for. But if you say, ‘this is it, the world is screwed,’ then naturally the energy we’re going to give out isn’t going to make the world a better place, it’s going to make the world a worse one.
You need to be conscious of the energy you give off. Are you choosing to succumb to the energy of the virus or are you choosing to say ‘no, the end will happen, I want to see it through to the end?’”
Toxic positivity
He clarifies that raising one’s vibration through living with hope is very different from toxic positivity.
“Toxic positivity is when you are forcing people to be positive about things and not showing compassion to them in the process,” he said. “Toxic positivity is a plague because it discounts and dehumanizes the negative experience of a person.”
How to protect yourself from negative energy
Raising one’s vibration by giving off a positive vibe during a time of global crisis is not easy, but it can be done. Here are some tips:
* Meditate
“Practice meditation, but practice meditation in a sanitized environment,” Rubin said. “Practice meditation to know that your thoughts are yours. Do it in a safe place. Don’t do it in a place where there’s negative energy because you’re going to amplify the negative energy you’re feeling.”
* Be mindful of your energy
“Be mindful of your energy. If you feel that you’re being oversaturated by the negativity of the people around you or the negativity in the world, cleanse and keep yourself protected,” he said.
“I’m very careful about who I expose myself to right now. In other words, treat the negativity in the world the same way you would treat somebody who has COVID-19. You wouldn’t really want to get infected by it because it’s just as infectious.”
* Carry charms and cleanse them nightly
“If you really need to go into the world, always have protective things with you like obsidian, hematite, or black tourmaline, those can be very helpful in grounding you,” Rubin said.
“At the same time, always remember that sometimes, the things that you’re feeling are not yours. And if you're not yours, don’t digest them. If the whole world is feeling despair and you just follow that, you are not uplifting the consciousness of the world, you’re only contributing to the despair of the world. You got to be that one person who’s going to light that spark that could bring hope back into the world.”
Rubin recommends cleaning one’s crystals every night for the duration of the pandemic by soaking them in water with rock salt dissolved in it.
* Staying caffeinated to keep grounded
Staying caffeinated is also a good way of keeping grounded. “As long as you’re caffeinated, your susceptivity to intuitive things is kind of lower, and as a result, you can be more logically inclined than intuitive,” he said. “As long as you’re grounded, you’re not really going to be too swayed by the global negative energy that’s going on around.”
* Remember that the pandemic will end
“Whether you like it or not, the will end…. That’s going to take away the fear of the virus,” Rubin said. “Number two, fear of political landscapes… but you have to realize what can we really do about the political landscape globally but vote properly? Be good citizens.... If you come from a point of view that ‘yeah, this is bad, but it’s going to end and I want to be there when it ends, then you’re coming from hope and that energy is needed to change. If you want to be a little bit more proactive about it, then you can be a beacon of hope to others. When everyone is shutting down because of the virus, you tell them, ‘let’s get through this together’,” he said.
* Don’t relax your sanitation routine
A lot of the esoteric has roots in practicality. In this case, keeping negative energy at bay also means taking preventative measures against the virus.
“I would say that when you go out into the world, follow the principles of ‘pagpag’. Basically, if you’ve been to a place that’s toxic, don’t go straight home if you don’t want to bring that with you. And if you did, leave your clothes outside, don’t bring it immediately into your house. The energies latched around you could end up affecting your things as well,” he said.
* Find strength in (socially distanced) numbers
“Do not try to do it alone. Yeah, we can’t go out and drink and hold hands, but that does not mean that we can’t as much as possible be there with one another. Yes, we can’t be in a group of 50, but I can be with a group of 50 people every day individually,” he said.
“Maintain the connection as much as possible. You need to watch out for the person next to you, and have the person next to you watch out for you. That’s the only way we’re going to survive this. Together. Do not isolate yourself right now.”
* Online training
“For those of you who are looking for a community to belong to right now, Mysterium offers online training. It’s not as great as in person but it’s an easy way for you to meet other people and to connect so that you can be part of us together,” he said.
When asked about his predictions on when the pandemic will end, he said: “I don’t want to give dates because I’m personally invested in this. The thing I’m going to ask people is, do you want to make it there alone or do you want to make it there with the people who are important to you? So as early as now, start reaching out to the people around you and start being there, giving them hope, especially if they’re down and out… Be there for them so that we can all celebrate this in the end.”