August Ritual 2011

Location:Australia

I thought it was time to come back here and share another story with you all. My mother died in August 2009 from cancer and since that time, my mother has been back to see me on a number of occasions.
In August 2010 and some of the months prior, I had some of the most amazing and profound spiritual experiences and most of them are well documented here in my previous stories and some of those memories and interactions are ones I'll cherish until the day I die. Last year as August was approaching, I had one account a little different to most of my other stories and something I believe you may find interesting and hope you enjoy reading.
It was only days before August and I had retired myself to sleep, soon after my wife had joined me and both of us were resting as the night had settled in.
It was around 10pm the first time I was awoken from my sleep to see as what I can only describe as an aura of a person walking around our room. I remember feeling quite content and relaxed about this person who presented themself with an aura of light and from previous experiences, I have learned it's better to fear not. Although I couldn't make out for sure if this aura of light was my mother, my gut instinct was telling me it was and from the first time I'd awoke, until the last time which was around 1am, I had drifted back off to sleep to be woken again perhaps 9 times during this whole three hour visit!.
I do believe my mother was by my side all this time and perhaps in earnest trying to connect with me at a point where subconsciously we could talk like we did in the previous year!. I can't remember what exactly happened each time I awoke over this period of time, nor will I bore you with all the details of every exact thing I can remember. I do remember just kind of surrendering myself to the experience if that makes any sense? I do remember on one of these occasions, I felt my mother hold my hand which was hanging off my bed and lift it up with my arm to rest it on my chest, as I guess you would expect a mother to do for her child who perhaps was sleeping a little uncoordinated. Perhaps this caring gesture was a vindication of her presence?
Here's the part you may find interesting! During this whole experience and unique as it was from the sense I have never had such interactions with a spiritual visitor over the period I did, my wife had been woken up out of her sleep on at least four of these occasions, in almost exact sequence of me being able to see and sense my mother's presence in our room... On each of these occasions, my wife who perhaps was a little panicky about the disturbance asked me, did you hear that? I have to admit, at the time in order to keep her calm, with a reassuring tone I'd replied..." no, no one's there, it's all right go back to sleep". This dual awakening happened at least three times with me basically saying the same thing, "it's OK! Go back to sleep", until the final time! On the last occasion, the soap holder had fallen off our sink in the bathroom ensuite! With no other possibility beyond being bumped off... Or pushed off!
My wife jumped out of our bed and said to me, "you must of heard that!" I remember confessing to my wife, "don't worry about it, they won't hurt you" and at this point of time, my wife who had worked out what was going on basically said to me,"stop calling them Darren... Stop calling them". Understandably frightened by the interactions between my mother and I, it was time to disconnect.
I believe my mother would have not felt comfortable herself knowing my wife was a little upset and that would have prompted her to move on without a doubt and once again, I should apologize to my wife for keeping the truth at a length from her for as long as I did, as I was calm and willing enough on a spiritual level to ride it out for as long as I could.
source:yourghoststories

Tales of a child bride: 'My father sold me for 12 cows'

When she was 12, Grace was abducted and then raped and beaten every day for 11 months.

So common are the practices of abduction, rape and forced marriage of girls in northern Tanzania that a single word is used to encapsulate them all: kupura. It is a word used by people from the Sukuma tribe to describe the snatching of girls in broad daylight as they walk to school; a three-syllabled euphemism that downplays their long-term physical and sexual abuse.

And yet here in the region of Shinyanga, the practice of kupura is validated by the oft-recited motto of Sukuma men: alcohol, meat and vagina.

"This slogan is in their blood and a way of life," says Revocatus Itendelebanya. "These are the three things they feel entitled to as men."

Itendelebanya, the legal and gender officer for the local NGO, Agape, says this sense of entitlement, in what is a perennially patriarchal society, also explains why passers-by don't intervene when they witness an abduction.

"When a Sukuma man is attracted to a girl he will start asking people where she lives, and what her routine is," explains Itendelebanya.

"Once he finds out these details he might wait for her near the borehole - or whatever he thinks is the best place to get that girl - and then grab her."

Kupura is so prevalent in the region that when a girl disappears, her parents will suspect what has happened. But rather than calling the police, they will seek the man out not to rescue their child, but to negotiate the dowry - or bride price - in cattle.

Cash cows

For daughters are sadly seen as a short-term investment for poor, rural households - cash cows that can boost a family's financial position at the expense of a girl's schooling and wellbeing.

Such is the value placed on a girl's head that Itendelebanya says parents will take their daughters to a witch-doctor if they are not attracting any suitors.

The ensuing samba ritual involves cutting cruciform nicks into the girl's chest and hands with a razor to not only help cleanse her of her bad luck, but to make her more attractive to older men.

And if ever there was a poster child to highlight the pernicious effects of child marriage, it's Grace Masanja.

"Bitterness still fills my heart when I look at them," she says, pointing at the cows grazing at the rear of her family's compound. For Grace they are a daily reminder of how she was treated like cattle, a commodity to be bought and sold.

"But given what I went through, I sometimes wish I had been born a cow," she whispers.

Her father had bartered a dozen cattle for his daughter but, despite daily beatings with sticks and her father's belt, she still refused to marry the older man.

But a deal had been made; a dowry had been paid.

And so it was that Grace was abducted on motorbike by her betrothed early one morning - all with the complicity of her father.

That night, and every day for the next 11 months, she was raped and beaten.

She was only 12.

"That day felt like the end of everything," Grace recalls, glancing again at the cattle.

A country of contradictions

When it comes to child marriage, Tanzania was until very recently a country of contradictions.

The 1971 Marriage Act set the minimum age of marriage for girls at 15 with parental consent - but a girl of 14 could wed where judicial approval was given.

And while the 2009 Child Act did not expressly outlaw child marriage, it did define a child as a person under the age of 18, stating that a parent should "protect the child from neglect, discrimination, violence, abuse, exposure to physical and moral hazards and oppression".

Aljazeera

LUTH gives condition to release Mayowa

Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, has said it would only release Mayowa Ahmed, an ovarian cancer patient, if her family signed a consent form.

Public Relations Officer of LUTH, Mr. Kenneth Otuneme, yesterday confirmed that the family had yet to sign a consent form for Mayowa’s release.

“Mayowa is still with us. If the family needs a referral letter, the managing consultant would decide on that,” he told Punch.

“If the managing consultant wants to issue a referral letter, he will. It is up to the family. I don’t know if the hospital plans to release Mayowa.

“As of Friday, I have not seen Mayowa Ahmed’s family. However, we won’t stop any family who wants to take their patient away; all they need to do is to sign a consent form.

“If a patient’s condition is critical and the family members decide to sign the consent form, stating that they no longer require her to be treated at LUTH, we will release the patient. This is the normal practice anywhere in the world.”

Source:Dailytrust

Turkey dismisses almost 1,400 military personnel

Turkey has dismissed 1,389 personnel from the army for suspected links to Fethullah Gulen, a US-based businessman it blames for a failed coup attempt, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

The announcement on Sunday came hours after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he planned to introduce several changes to the military, including shutting training academies.

"We are going to introduce a small constitutional package [to parliament] which, if approved, will bring the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) and chief of staff under the control of the presidency," the AFP news agency quoted Erdogan as saying.

Erdogan added that "military schools will be closed ... and a national military university will be founded" as part of a wide-ranging shake-up of the military.

He also said that in future the heads of the land, sea and air forces would have to report directly to the defence minister, Fikri Isik.

Erdogan: Will do everything for stability of Turkey

The president has blamed intelligence failures for the failed coup and said he was unhappy with information he received from the MIT and its chief Hakan Fidan on the night of the coup, complaining that valuable time had been lost. 

Erdogan also said a three-month state of emergency declared in the wake of the coup could be extended.

"If things do not return to normal in the state of emergency then like France we could extend it," Erdogan said, referring to a similar move in France after a string of attacks there. 

The president said that until now 18,699 people had been detained since the coup, with 10,137 of them placed under arrest.

Love & Hip Hop's Althea Eaton Just got out of Jail

"Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta" star Althea Eaton is a free woman again after spending just over a week behind bars.

Althea cruised out of an ATL jail Friday ... already rocking her heels and looking like she's ready for the weekend. 

Althea was reportedly jailed after a restraining order hearing -- her estranged fiance, Benzino, was getting one against her, and she allegedly made contact with him after court. Major no-no ... and the judge locked her up for it.

Did the crime, did the time -- now turn up, girl!

The People I See

Location:Montana United States

Ever since I was ten I have noticed weird things that a normal 10 year old would not notice or see. I was ten when I saw my first spirit. I was visiting my grandmother for the summer, my first summer away from my family.
It was a couple weeks, and one night something weird happened. It was about 10:30 when I went to bed, my grandmother went to go to bed and she always closes my door. I went to sleep in the guest room, around 11 she went to sleep. About at midnight I was sleeping and I got a sense I was being watched. I open my eyes and there was a older gentleman about his late 70's and, he was wearing a suit like 1800's clothing nothing like what people were wearing, now this was in 2005 in Astoria, Oregon. I looked at for few seconds. He was standing in my doorway looking down the hall at my grandmothers room. He told me to watch my grandmother she was in danger. I got scared, knew it wasn't a evil spirit it had a calm sense like he knew her, but I got scared, what 10 year old wouldn't be scared.
I hid under my covers for 5 or 10 seconds and I looked up again he was gone and, the door was closed and, the presence of someone was gone. I told my grandmother the next morning and she said that was her grandfather he always watched out for her and he was just wondering who was in her house (this was the first time I was visiting her). A couple days later we were driving to the the beach and she took her medicine right before we left. I was looking out the window when I saw him, the man who visited me a couple nights before and he pointed down the road. I saw my grandmother sleeping at the wheel and a huge truck roaring down the highway I quickly grabbed the wheel and drove away from the truck I pulled the emergency brake and we stopped 6 miles from Seaside, Oregon. I woke her up and told her everything. It was so scary.
Then in 2006 in Chinook, Montana I was walking home from school and I saw this girl hiding behind a tree. I was asking her why she was so shy she came out and, she had a scar on her face and scratches on her arms she said her name was Elizabeth, I invited her to my house. Not knowing the difference of a ghost and a real person, I asked my mother if I could have a friend over, she said sure where is she. I said right here. She told me no one is here. I argued with her and I went to my room. Elizabeth followed. We were at dinner the same night and my father came home from an accident. He was a police officer and I told him about my new friend Elizabeth. He started to cry and told me that a 14 year old died in the accident named Elizabeth that afternoon about when I walked home.
Now I am 17 and spirits keep following me and watching me begging me to help them even though I don't know what they want. Even a demonic spirit named John and he keeps messing everything up and he won't leave me alone. I need help. I am terrified of him and he tells me scary things that are evil and horrifying things that a 17 year old girl should not hear, he even tells me I am going to die young. It makes me paranoid to even go out of the house. I have done research but I need help getting rid of the other spirits and him. I also can sense auras and feel what other people feel in their souls and I always know what is wrong with people because I feel their pain!
I also have a women named Kate. She claims to be my mother in a past life and tells me what to do or she will punish me for being a bad daughter, she also has a little girl following her around named Haley she is 5 years old and she always plays little tricks around me or makes things fall. This my ghost story that no one knows.

My Experiences In Our First Home

Location:Australia

My first experience, as far as I can recall, was in our first home in Adelaide, South Australia. We were renting in the city centre. A lot of the buildings in Australia in those days had been built by English convicts. I don't know if that's relevant or not.
In the old flat there was a small living room, my parents' bedroom and a dining room which we three sisters used as a bedroom. Next to our room was a lean-to made of corrugated iron which housed a tiny kitchen, then a cement trough for washing clothes then a dingy shower cubicle. The toilet was outside.
I used to have a lot of 'nightmares' in that flat. One night, I 'woke up' and felt the bed slowly split in half across the middle and I slipped down through it to... I don't know where. On the floor under the bed? I was never sure where I went. There was no bump or thump, always a soft landing. Once down, I was trapped. I raised my hand over my head and felt a resistance. It was the same when I felt to the sides, in front and behind me. I was boxed in. I slept in a double bed with my older sister and tried calling out for help but couldn't wake her. I could not understand why it was only me who slipped down through the opening in the mattress and not the both of us.
There was a small window in the wall between my parents' room and ours and I always slept next to the wall so I would feel closer to them. Whenever I fell through the bed, I screamed and my parents would flick on their light switch and come running into our room. But, as soon as their light shone through that little window, I found myself back in bed.
The first time this happened, I actually soiled myself, I guess from fear. It was easy for my parents to presume that the 'nightmare' was caused by my need to use the bathroom in my sleep. That presumption scared me more than the experience itself. They cleaned me up and we all went back to bed.
But the next night, I had a similar experience. I felt myself slide down through the middle of the mattress again. I told myself "I'm dreaming. Get up and go back to bed!" To my pleasant surprise... I was able to do just that! The following night, again I found myself slowly going down. I tried to get up but unlike the previous night, I couldn't. I was boxed in again. I screamed out to my parents and the light came on and again I was back in bed by the time they rounded the corner. Naturally, my parents wrote it off as child nightmares because they always found me in bed. However, I'm sure that I was fully conscious and aware.
I got used to the experience and stopped screaming with fear; I just called out and waited until I found myself back in bed. However, apart from that one time, I couldn't free myself from being boxed in until the light went on in my parents' room. Another night, I called out to them but when their light came on, I didn't find myself back in bed! I was still boxed in when they came in. Not finding me in bed, they looked around and couldn't see me anywhere. They called out in panic when they couldn't see me anywhere, and I told them that I thought I was under the bed, but not sure. They told me to come out but I was still boxed in. I told them I couldn't move because I was trapped and they would have to come and get me. As soon as they got down on their knees and looked under the bed, I was "released" from the boxed in feeling and they helped me to crawl out.
The bed was an old second hand brass bed which was a lot higher off the floor than beds are these days. My sister was asked if she felt me crawl over her and pull myself down off the bed each night but she never saw or heard anything at all.
I can't honestly remember how old I was at the time. I'm guessing between 4 and 6 years old. I can tell you that I was too young to know about ghosts or spirits or anything of the like. My parents had never told us any "monster" stories and we had no TV in those days to watch horror movies. I have never believed that I was experiencing nightmares or that I was sleep walking because I was so fully aware.
To this day, I do not believe that I physically crawled over my sister without ever being heard by her or my parents. Even if I was able to, what was going on with the boxed in feeling? The experience was not exactly the same each time. Was there a nasty game being played with me by a presence of some sort?
I was relieved when it finally stopped. But not long after, something else started up. There was one more experience in that flat which I will write about in Part 2. This time, I actually saw a presence. Could the two experiences be related? I don't know!
Source:yourghoststories