Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Guest Post: Rhiannon Paille

Curling Up By The Fire would like to welcome Rhiannon Paille, author of Flame of Surrender, the first book in her new The Ferryman and the Flame series, due to be released November 1st, 2011.  With a PhD in Metaphysical Science, a PhD in Parapsychology, as well as several years studying Druidism and becoming a Reiki Grand Master, Rhiannon has many experiences with which to share with her readers.  With a passion for the paranormal, she has turned her interest into writing and now shares that passion with the world.  She is here with us today to discuss ghosts, one of my absolute favourite topics, and the truth behind them.  Before we get to her post, here is a synopsis of her soon-to-be-released novel:

The boy who follows death meets the girl who could cause the apocalypse.


Krishani thinks he’s doomed until he meets Kaliel, the one girl on the island of Avristar who isn’t afraid of him. She’s unlike the other girls, she swims with merfolk, talks to trees and blooms flowers with her touch. What he doesn’t know is that she’s a flame, one of nine individually hand crafted weapons, hidden in the body of a seemingly harmless girl.

Nobody has fallen in love with a flame until now. She becomes Krishani’s refuge from the dreams of death and the weather abilities he can’t control. Striking down thousand year old trees with lightning isn’t something he tries to do, it just happens. When the Ferryman dies, Krishani knows that he’s the next and that a lifetime of following death is his destiny.

And Kaliel can’t come with him. The Valtanyana are hunting the flames, the safest place for her is Avristar. Krishani can’t bear to leave her, and one innocent mistake grants the Valtanyana access to their mystical island. They’re coming for Kaliel, and they won’t stop until every last living creature on Avristar is dead. She has to choose, hide, face them, or awaken the flame and potentially destroy herself.

The Truth About Ghosts
by Rhiannon Paille


This is amusing since I just finished reading Shade and Shift by Jeri Smith-Ready (loved them btw) and so talking about ghosts is interesting.

There are a lot of theories surrounding ghosts, and we all watch the ghost hunter shows and paranormal shows thinking we’re going to prove those theories.

Jeri got it right, well except for the stuff she added to make it cool.

When someone dies unexpectedly, as in, not through natural causes, their spirit, soul, or ghost, emerges from their body. It’s a lot like an Out of Body Experience (OBE) to begin with. Most people who are in comas have these OBE’s. When the body actually passes, it becomes permanent.

People who have passed unexpectedly are stuck in limbo. They’re in this overlapping dimension where they can’t sense anyone else, they can only go where they’ve been when they were alive, and they need to be absolved before they can pass on.

The idea of the light is the right idea. Once a ghost has gone into the light they’re really “gone” In Flame of Surrender I called that place “The Great Hall” but other authors have called it Heaven, or elsewhere. Needless to say, it’s all the same place, the place where the soul waits for the next life.

Why reincarnation? Well Einstein said energy can only be created, not destroyed. That means, if the soul is energy, it could never be destroyed, only recycled. And then if you look at the way even water is recycled naturally, the seasons, trees, it’s all recyclable, the whole universe is like that, everything keeps getting reused.

Same thing with people, people are recycled. We’re just kind enough to call it reincarnation.

As far as the notion of ghosts sticking around forever, sometimes, if they can’t be absolved. It’s rare that they would stay forever, usually it’s a year and then they’re forced to go. Otherwise they become more like a poltergeist or a “shade” as Jeri explained in her books and then they’re scary. They end up being able to throw things, flick switches, make footsteps, white noise, the whole deal. Poltergeists aren’t nice.

There are other phenomenon when it comes to ghosts too such as possessions and walk ins where a ghost will share space inside a living body. That’s always interesting. My stance on it is that in the case of a possession, the original host is no longer in control of the body, the ghost is. In the case of a walk in, they ghost and the original host work symbiotically. In cases where the ghost is dormant, the original host is in control until the ghost awakens inside the body. And then sometimes it can be a constant battle of who’s in charge and who isn’t.

And this is where we get multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia. Well at least sometimes.

The only thing that’s untrue when it comes to ghosts is that they can be contacted all the time, and they’re just a stone’s throw away even if they’re on the other side. This is a belief common held by mediums who um, make money off of people who want to hear from their dead loved ones. Most mediums read imprints of the deceased, and an imprint only records from the time of birth to the time of going into the light (approx 1 year after death) All other information, things the person wouldn’t have known, or new births or marriages that happened after death, the imprint wouldn’t know. You can tell a fraud really quickly if you know what to look for.

Thankfully mediumship is actually one of the things I don’t do. It’s too emotional when I DO bring someone in and I often break the freak out scale. So I try not to go there because the energy is also volatile and harder to control. It’s a personal preference.

In my books I write a lot about the soul passing on, reincarnation, possession, walk ins and such. I even include the atheist opinion that the soul ceases to exist after death. It does if it gets taken by a Vulture in my books. ;)

And there's a bio around here somewhere . . .
Rhi was never a normal girl. She tried, but she couldn’t get rid of the visions, the voices in her head, and the hallucinations. When she was on the edge of crazy someone pulled her back and explained it all. She wasn’t insane. She was psychic, really psychic, too psychic. Her life was an urban fantasy wrapped in a paranormal romance and served with a side of horror. To escape her everyday weirdness she began writing fantasy. She frequents twitter and facebook, but if you really want to get to know her you should visit her site: http://www.rhiannonpaille.com


Her book FLAME OF SURRENDER (The Ferryman and The Flame #1) Comes out November 1st, 2011. Check it out here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11841693-flame-of-surrender

1 comments: