The Ghost Within: My Experience of Paranormal Activity and My Steps to Get Rid of ‘Ghosts’, ‘Hauntings’ and ‘Poltergeists’ By Understanding What They Really Are

By Robert Ensor

Warning: The following blog is not meant for children and those sensitive to mentions of ghosts, demons or poltergeists. In other words, it’s a bit weird.

What is the truth behind so-called ghosts, hauntings, apparitions, poltergeist phenomena and the paranormal?

For the purposes of this blog, by ‘activity’, ‘phenomena’ and ‘paranormal activity’ I mean the strange noises, movements, feelings, sights and smells inexplicable by mainstream science, that are traditionally attributed to ghosts and poltergeists, but are actually unintentionally caused by the mind. So I call it mindmatter activity, because that is a more accurate, descriptive term than ‘poltergeist’, German for noisy ghost, which implies the presence of some malicious spirit external to the affected person. Mindmatter activity can be turned into the acronym MMA, NOT to be confused with mixed martial arts. I’m no cage fighter.

I know there is an afterlife, but souls of the dead don’t hang around here to cause mischief; they have better things to do and go to a different dimension to further their spiritual development. This view was first outlined by the mother of modern esotericism, Madame Blavatsky, who blamed ‘hauntings’ on elementals, an occult term for emotions. My approach can be seen as a modification and clarification of the theory she used to control so-called spirits at seances. 

At least two thirds of Americans have had a paranormal experience, according to various polls,[i] which reveal that the paranormal is actually quite normal, people are just too afraid of ridicule to talk about it in our materialistic society. Indeed, paranormal phenomena are merely ‘weird’ manifestations of the normal law of mind creating matter, for which there is plenty of evidence, not least the tendency to encounter similar scenarios and people repeatedly, in ways that go beyond what is normally considered to be one’s control. There is also verified evidence from near-death experiences[ii] that the soul can exist independently from the body, as well as copious scientific and anecdotal evidence from people who have healed various symptoms and diseases through changing their mindset.[iii] The mind over matter theory explains the observer effect in physics, whereby the mere act of observing changes the outcome of experiments on the quantum level. It also dovetails nicely with stories of reincarnation containing verified historical details from past lives, and the very strong scientific evidence for extra-sensory perception, the ability to perceive what is going on at a distance using the power of the mind alone. [iv] More obviously, we blush when embarrassed, and in the absence of disability, limbs respond to mental commands. Adopting this worldview has been very helpful to me in a number of ways.

I experienced a bit of activity in my old house that went away after a while. I remained untroubled by ‘ghosts’ for many years, largely because my attention was focused on progressively worsening psychosomatic symptoms instead: back pain, gingivitis, chronic fatigue and digestive problems, among other complaints. The paranormal activity did not become really significant until after I recovered from my illness and found God through the gospel and spiritual rebirth.[v]

At that point, I started hearing – and feeling – a strange rattling on and inside my pillow. I checked for spiders or anything else that could be causing it and found nothing. This escalated to hearing ‘ghostly’ scuttling around the walls of my room at night, nightmares, feeling invisible ‘spiders’ crawling over my face, body, and bedsheets, unexplained sulphur smells, sudden ‘chills’, inexplicable indoor puddles of water (no, I did not wet myself) and even a clear paranormal movement of an object: a tissue was pulled out of the box for me when I was lying in bed. Most of these phenomena occurred in my bedroom at night, but increasingly I had minor experiences out and about in daytime, such as some faint crawling and shuffling sensations on my head and face. I tried on all the ‘normal’ explanations – creaking old house, wind, sleep paralysis, hypnogogia, etc. – but none of them fitted with what I experienced. I was left to conclude that I had a poltergeist. Believing that ghosts or unwanted spirits were the cause of the problem and watching ghost-related media made me afraid, and that fear made it much worse. To clarify, I am not blaming the TV shows I watched for causing the activity; it was the false beliefs and fear borne of my interpretation of what I had seen that was the problem, not the programmes themselves. Nightmares about ghosts also exacerbated the issue, because they increased my anxiety level and suggested that unwanted spirits were in my room.

I began to research the paranormal in an effort to understand, once and for all, what is really behind these phenomena, which have baffled investigators for centuries. I looked at many famous cases and encountered the work of parapsychologists and occult experts like Blavatsky, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, Doctor Nandor Fodor, Colin Wilson and Guy Lyon Playfair who covered the famous Enfield poltergeist, which I also studied. Fear, stress and very specific locations believed to be ‘haunted’ seemed to be correlated with worsening activity in the cases I observed. The idea that poltergeists were caused by the unconscious minds of certain disturbed people kept cropping up, but never in a practical way I could actually use to solve the problem. I tried sealing my aura, crystals, putting on clean bedsheets (more frequently than normal), all of which are recommended in certain spiritual circles as anti-poltergeist methods. These measures yielded a temporary placebo effect that worked via the power of belief but didn’t last, because the root cause – the misunderstanding – remained unaddressed.

Shortly after praying to Christ for help, and talking to my mum about the problem, I had a revelation: the paranormal activity I was experiencing was essentially the same as the psychosomatic symptoms I had recovered from previously, which explains why the mindmatter activity resumed and intensified after my physical symptoms were cured. The two problems were interchangeable, different effects of the same basic causes. The mindbody techniques I applied to my physical symptoms, derived from the work of Doctor Sarno on TMS (The Mindbody Syndrome),[vi] were also able to resolve the unexplained noises, feelings, smells and movements.

What follows are the steps I took to get rid of my MMA. If you think you have a ghost or poltergeist, it is recommended that you contact a doctor to rule out mental illness. MMA is not a medical diagnosis, just a term – like psychokinesis – I use to describe what I experienced. It is distinct from hallucinations, because the activity actually happens; objects really move, noises are genuinely made and so on, although it is all mentally caused. This blog is not intended to substitute for the services of a doctor or a trained exorcist. It’s mainly about paranormal manifestations outside the body. Like The Ghost Within, the book I have written about my experiences, it’s also not meant for children. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to choose how to resolve the activity, if you are suffering from it.

Paranormal phenomena, like mindbody symptoms, are caused by false beliefs that ghosts and evil spirits create them, and the concomitant fear. I learned this by clearly observing that ‘nocebo’ information – information that led me to believe in troublesome ghosts/spirits – and worrying about the activity were strongly associated with an exacerbation of the phenomena. I believed in an afterlife for some years before the main episode, but the activity really kicked off when I learned, beyond any doubt, that there definitely is an afterlife. You can’t fear something you don’t believe in, otherwise it’s just dismissed as absurd nonsense, like the boogeyman. Therefore, beliefs are primary.

But the cause of the false beliefs and fear is the deceiver. The deceiver is a part of the mind everyone has, that wants to mess us up, and it does so mainly through fear, wrong beliefs, false associations and symptoms. What typically happens in a haunting is, someone will say a house is haunted, or someone died there, or some tragedy occurred in that location, then this is internalised or half-believed by the affected person and that belief creates fear. Added to this is the tendency of people to think that old houses are more likely to be haunted, and to be more afraid at night, due to the uncertainty of darkness. The deceiver takes that as licence to generate some activity (typically after dark), using the belief and the fear as emotional energy for paranormal manifestations. The more activity is experienced, the stronger the belief in and fear of evil spirits becomes, which in turn exacerbates the phenomena, in a vicious feedback loop. An association is thereby forged between a specific time/place and paranormal activity, that is nothing more than a conditioned response inspired by nocebo triggers and cultural representations of ghosts. Sometimes, there is no nocebo trigger, and in the absence of a proper understanding, the deceiver just goes fishing, creating mindmatter activity out of the blue, and hopes that you will take the bait by believing the activity is a poltergeist or ghost and worrying about it, thereby giving it permission to continue. The deceiver cannot do anything if you don’t believe it; it needs that belief as fuel. The key for me was to recognise the deceiver at work, refute its arguments, and then when I understood what was going on, to ignore it. It’s much easier to not believe someone if you are able to ignore them, and they’re not in your face 24/7; it’s the same with the deceiver, which is an archetype, an innate inner personality.

The solution was firstly to understand that the activity was not caused by ghosts or poltergeists but was generated by my mind. Specifically, my fears and beliefs, which came from the deceiver. This was a lot less scary (and more accurate) than thinking the soul of some dead person was in there with me, because one’s mind is perceived as more controllable than an independent soul or entity. So, if you are afflicted by so-called poltergeist shenanigans, did you watch a horror movie or ghost hunting show before the activity started? Does fear make it worse? Was believing in ghosts, malicious spirits or an afterlife correlated with the onset or exacerbation of the issue? Does stress seem to make it worse? When you believe that some ritual will help, does it? When you believe the phenomena will worsen, do they? For me the answer to all of the above was yes. These were all signs that it was mindmatter activity, a kind of TMS manifestation outside the body. I had to compile a list of evidence supporting that theory, in order to prove to myself what was going on. The theory explained not only everything I had experienced, it explained everything I had encountered in the course of my paranormal research. Even mediums who had identified historical facts about haunted areas that were not available to them, and paranormal activity corresponding to those previously unknown events, were explicable via the deceiver’s faculty of extra-sensory perception, which it shares with the mind in general. That new understanding lowered the fear level and demolished the false beliefs that ghosts or poltergeists were behind the activity. Then all I had to do was resolve, and believe, that I was definitely going to get rid of the phenomena. This was easier to do when I knew I had that power; if a problem is started by the mind, the mind can end it.

Praying to Christ was crucial for me. Christ is part of the divine spirit who has power over minds and matter; he’s also omniscient, within and beyond everything in creation. The order of causation is spirit, mind, matter. Therefore, appeal properly to the spirit, and he will change anything on the lower mental and material planes. Christ is one with the spirit of God, as he said in the Gospel of John; ‘God is a Spirit’[vii] and ‘I and my Father are one’.[viii] As the Logos, Christ is divine wisdom, meaning and the Word of God, by whose power the world was created. Christ proved he has the power to intervene by healing people and casting out demons in the Bible, demons being base emotions. He healed a woman possessed by seven devils, cast demons from two men into a herd of pigs that ran off a cliff, among other miracles.

Christ will solve any problem easily ­so long as it’s not an overly selfish request, what you are praying for is aligned with his will, and you believe in him and ask with faith, as if you have already got what you want. Without that steady faith on behalf of the one who prays, the mind blocks God’s manifestation. It’s easier to believe in Christ the more you know about him (knowledge informs our beliefs), so it helps to read the gospels.

If simple prayer doesn’t work, like me, you can try a divine bargain; a promise to do something good for God when he has got rid of the problem. This can make you feel even more consciously or unconsciously deserving of divine mercy and is a good segue into discipleship. Praying to God isn’t strictly necessary to get rid of MMA, but it certainly helped me a great deal, when I asked with true resolve and faith.

As with TMS (which I have covered in other blogs, books and videos) most people afflicted with mindmatter activity consciously want to get rid of it, but many unconsciously want a paranormal experience for various reasons. The main one is a need to understand the profundity of the mindmatter connection, to progress to the next level of spiritual insight and development. Learning that lesson fulfils the deepest underlying purpose of MMA, which is educative.

To fully resolve the activity, it was necessary for me to show I was no longer afraid of it and did not believe it would continue or that it was caused by evil spirits by ceasing all unnecessary interventions and resuming normal activities. This included ditching all the superstitious rituals like cleanliness aimed at expelling ‘elementals’ (although normal hygiene is good), aura sealing, crystals, avoiding certain rooms or areas and even repeatedly reading through my self-compiled list of evidence for a mindmatter causation, once that information was fully assimilated. All these behaviours had to stop, because they’re all driven by the fear and wrong beliefs that create the problem. Believe you need to do something to keep the activity at bay, and if you don’t do that, it will probably get worse. It all comes down to the beliefs.

The MMA took a slightly different form once I started making progress. After I watched a ritual that invoked demons on a ghost hunting show, it got worse. Part of me thought that maybe the ritual on the show had stirred up some demonic entity in my home, although another part of me knew that idea was nonsensical. Then I prayed to Christ again and fully realised it was all the same thing. The new activity was functioning as a kind of symptom imperative: the phenomenon identified by Doctor Sarno whereby as the original mindbody symptom dissipates, another one can sometimes take its place in a different location or bodily system. So I addressed the fear of ‘demons’ in the same way I tackled the original problem, by realising there was no ‘demon’ in the sense that people normally use that word, just as there was no ghost, that it was all caused by my fear, and it went away. I got rid of the activity completely, which is surely the best evidence for the theory that was revealed to me by God in perfect and swift answer to my prayer. I didn’t need to be 100% free of fear to solve MMA, I just had to believe it would go away, act accordingly, and not let the deceiver change my mind. What makes my paranormal story unusual is that I got rid of the problem and understand exactly how I did it. That’s one reason why it has to be shared. I also promised Christ I would tell the story when the activity went away.

If you’re interested in learning more and want to check it out, my book, The Ghost Within: My Experience of Paranormal Activity and My Steps to Get Rid of ‘Ghosts’, ‘Hauntings’ and ‘Poltergeists’ By Understanding What They Really Are, is available now on amazon at the link below. The book contains more background information, more scientific and anecdotal evidence for a mindmatter connection, an analysis of the leading theories of the paranormal, case studies of some famous hauntings, a more detailed account of my story and the lessons learned from it as well as the exact steps I applied to resolve MMA.

BUY BOOK NOW

https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Within-Experience-Poltergeists-Understanding-ebook/dp/B0F1K8ZD8S

[i] Orth, Taylor. 2022. Two Thirds of Americans Say They’ve Had at Least One Paranormal Encounter. YouGov. https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/44143-americans-describe-paranormal-encounters-poll

[ii] Burke, J. Piper, D. (Foreword). 2015. Imagine Heaven. Baker Books.

[iii] Gordon, A, Ashar, Y et al. 2022. Effect of Pain Reprocessing Therapy vs Placebo and Usual Care for patients with Chronic Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry. Jan 1; 79.

Hsu, M, Schubiner, H, Lumley, S, Stracks, J, Clauw, D, Williams, D 2010. Sustained Pain Reduction Through Affective Self-Awareness in Fibromyalgia: A Randomized controlled trial. J Gen Intern Med. 25 (10).

[iv] Weiss, B. 2023. Many Lives, Many Masters. Piatkus. Targ, Russell. 2012. The Reality of ESP: A Physicist’s Proof of Psychic Abilities. Quest Books.

[v] For more on my recovery, see The Mind Solution: Healing TMS Pain with Doctor Sarno. For more on my spiritual journey and conversion to Christianity, see The Spirit Solution: Lessons Learned From My Spiritual Journey.

[vi] Sarno, J 2001. The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain. Grand Central Publishing.

[vii] John 4:24. World English Bible.

[viii] John 10:30. World English Bible.