Imagine you ended up on the other side. You might be dead in the normal world. But you still can see the living. They cannot see you. You can’t make them aware that you still exist. You see their sorrow, you see them getting into danger. You want to warn them, but you can’t. They deny that you still exist. You have become invisible. What if you could change that?
The idea of an intermediate realm is an idea, which exists in many cultures. In this realm the soul often doesn’t know what happened. The idea was used in famous Hollywood movies like “Ghost” or “Always”. In the intermediate realm of Hollywood a guide usually appears then who leads the person on his individual journey towards heaven. However in many reports and stories people are caught for a long time in the intermediate realm and help never comes. Almost every ghost story depends on the concept of an intermediate realm. I was always intrigued of the idea that there might be some people who are able to come back from this other realm of existence. It has been often discussed if this is possible. Accounts of near death experiences suggest that people returned from the intermediate realm. Some cultures believe that shamans could enter the intermediate realm and come back after they “did their job” on the other side. In ancient time this was obviously a common idea. Think of “Orpheus”. Eastern traditions offer even more distinct ideas about an intermediate realm. The Tibetan Book Of The Dead (Bardo Thodol) gives advise for appropriate preparation before entering the intermediate realm. The intermediate realm is seen as an interval between death and rebirth. The name for the realm is bardo and it is a state of consciousness.
What we also know is that some cultures had rituals and ceremonies to prevent the person who died to get caught in the intermediate realm. Sacrifices were made, if the person was a king or leader of a tribe monumental megalithic tombs were built and a set of rules was set up. There were different reasons for these traditions. Empathy for the deceased was one reason; they don’t want to live with the idea of a person caught in the intermediate realm suffering for an eternity. However there are also records of huge fears that the person would return somehow and haunt the living. This fear has become an important idea in many ghost stories. You shouldn’t wish that the person does really come back from the other realm of existence. If somebody was already too long in the other world and comes back there is imminent danger for the living – this is the lesson usually told in ghost stories – think of “Pet Sematary”.
I don’t think this is necessarily the truth.
The intermediate realm seem to represent the celtic idea of the Otherworld in a certain sense, even this kind of Otherworld is only one of many realms of existence and the Otherworld is much deeper. It’s impossible to understand what travellers who are able to return from the intermediate realm of existence have gone through. They have seen things beyond our imagination. I am dealing with that idea in my movie project from the very beginning and also that there might be souls who are special, who are more prone to travel between the worlds. These souls or people might have already developed another level of conscious and have special skills.
They aren’t helpless any longer as the person in the introduction of this post, they are powerful, but to become such a person they must master the treacherous reality both of our world and of the Otherworld. Some may fail. Traps are everywhere. The dark side will always try to stop any development. There is dangerous ground everywhere.
People with special skills who have made a journey through several states of consciousness might exist, even the ideas of super-heroes in movies are fantasy. However any fiction has some background in reality.
For example it’s remarkable that in the reports of alien-abductees or fairies in former times the victims seem sometimes to develop special skills and are more prone to telepathy and other paranormal abilities as other people after their experience. Vice versa we could speculate that these people already are born “special” and visits in the the intermediate realm or abduction episodes are part of their development.
