Crossing Over: A Manual for Lost Souls
By: Caleb L. Covington
Copyright (c) 1933
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner.
Table of Contents
Understanding the Afterlife .................1
Ghost communities .............................3
Ghost magic .........................................4
Crossing over .......................................7
Past Lives ..................................9
Spirit Binds ..............................10
Living .......................................11
Vocabulary ..........................................13
UNDERSTANDING THE AFTERLIFE
You're probably wondering why you're a ghost. Well here's the simple explanation. You've died. Some unfortunate accident had befallen your living form and now you're stuck in a limbo between the world of the living and the dead. Now, most people don't become ghosts when they die, so most likely you won't see your Aunt Betty that died of a heart attack three years ago. And, most people become ghosts long after they've died, so check what year it is before you assume it's the moment after you died. It most likely isn't. You have become a ghost because you have unfinished business.
People you most likely won't see in the ghost world:
1. Your dog. Animals do not exist in the spirit world. At all. So don't go looking for your dog that died ten years ago. His spirit is somewhere else
2. People who died of old age/natural causes. They died because of things that were going to come despite what they did to prevent it, and life has considered their goals complete and soul ready to move on
3. People who died of a long-term illness. Please see number 2 for an explanation
4. People who came back to finish their unfinished business. This will be further explained later in the book
Anyone who is living (also knows as lifers, heartbeats, and soulfuls) cannot hear you or see you. You can move through walls and pick up inanimate objects, but you cannot consume food, sleep, use the bathroom, or have true physical intimacy. Any food you attempt to consume will not actually go down your throat and you can't taste it, so don't try to eat or drink anything. Sleep is useless to ghosts, although some take a few hours daily while the world is asleep to meditate or pray, however it is not necessary. You won't get tired. Using the bathroom is the same thing as consuming food, so I don't think I need to explain that any further. True physical intimacy is not achievable due to a number of circumstances that will not be explained in this book.
GHOST COMMUNITIES
For those of you seeking to find other ghosts, here are a list of cities that have large populations of ghosts:
Beijing, China
Cairo, Egypt
Los Angeles, California
New York, New York
Paris, France
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Sydney, Australia
Transylvania, Romania
GHOST MAGIC
As ghosts, we have a large amount of magic at our disposal that we can use. Some ghosts have a natural affinity towards magic, while others have to work at their skills to keep their magical abilities. Please do not be discouraged if you can't get some of these magical tricks on the first go. Some are more difficult than others.
To start, you should practice by grabbing inanimate objects. Focus your energy to your hands and solely on moving the object. The weight does not matter, as ghosts cannot hurt themselves, although they do feel pain. Most likely, this will take more than one attempt, so don't be discouraged if it takes more than one try.
And note: You cannot make anything float in midair. Don't believe anyone who says otherwise.
MANIPULATING MECHANICAL OBJECTS
- Locking and Unlocking Doors: Hold your hand upright and parallel to the door or mechanism which contains a lock. Bend your fingers ninety degrees. Turn your hand ninety degrees to the right to unlock and left to lock. The entire motion takes roughly three seconds to complete.
- Summoning Inanimate Objects: Hold your hand parallel to the surface which the object will be moving over. Curl your fingers starting with the tips of your fingers to create a fist. Let go once it has gotten to you. This will not work with objects more than fifty feet (fifteen and a quarter meters) away.
- Making Inanimate Objects Invisible: DISCLAIMER - this only makes them invisible to everyone else, regardless of whether they are a ghost or living, so if you want to practice this, do it with someone else. Spread out your hand as wide as you can. Clench your fingers into a fist with your thumb inside the other fingers. Move your fist in a complete circle over the object. The size of the circle will depend on how large the object. If you did it correctly, the object will become invisible to everyone else. This will take more than one try to perfect.
GHOST ABILITIES
- Transporting you and another ghost over a long distance: Focus on the destination and ensure that you are holding hands with the other ghost. You will arrive there, and if you were holding hands well, the ghost will be right next to you. Otherwise, the other ghost may end up in another location somewhere around the world. Usually, this is not necessary, since you and the other ghost can think of the same place, however if a ghost has a particular difficulty with transporting themselves, this is useful. This is also known as poofing
- Transporting another ghost: Focus on the destination as much as you would if you were transporting yourself. Move your finger in a circle three times. They should disappear and reappear in the location you sent them to.
There are many more abilities than just these, however it is different for each ghost how they do them, so experiment with different hand movements and eventually you will get it right as long as you practice.
CROSSING OVER
I'm sure you're wondering what crossing over is. It's when a ghost has completed their unfinished business in the afterlife and their soul gets to move on. However, this means that the ghost will move back to the world of the living and participate in the world whenever they finally finish their unfinished business.
Unfinished business, as defined in the back of this book, is something you were striving to do, something that would have changed your life, and because of an accident, you weren't able to complete. Sometimes, your unfinished business is very difficult to complete, some things are easy to do, and occasionally, it is impossible.
If it is impossible, you will be stuck as a ghost forever. It is undesirable to stay a ghost forever, however being in one of the many ghost communities makes this easier to deal with.
To figure out what your unfinished business is, take a look at your life. As ghosts, your entire life is stored in your memories, untarnished, to help you complete your unfinished business.
Usually, unfinished business involves one of the following topics:
1. Complete a long-term task or goal
2. Rebuild relationships with family or friends
3. Forgive others for an action they made
4. Forgive yourself
As much as the last topic seems like it does not fit, it does. Many people die having anger towards the lives they led or an action that forced them down a path they never wanted to travel on. Even after being dead, and a ghost, for fifty years, I have yet to figure out what my unfinished business is, so not figuring yours out is not uncommon.
PAST LIVES
Past lives take a large toll on whether you may cross over and live your life out.
For those who have been a ghost before, this is important: Becoming a ghost again after living a second time means that you may not cross over again and you will be permanently stuck as a ghost. You get one second chance to determine how to live your life to the fullest. My deepest condolences to you if you are becoming a ghost again.
For those of you who are a ghost for the first time: Your past life, the entirety of the time you were living, retains in your memory for the rest of time. If you do cross over, none of your past will ever connect back to the new you. As if it didn't exist to anyone. The history is completely erased and any life you create will not tie back to the past.
If you owned anything, you don't own it anymore. If you held a job, you do not hold it anymore. You have a blank slate to do with as you choose.
Relationships, if addressed properly, may not be broken, however if the person did not know you personally, and usually quite well, their memories of you will disappear.
SPIRIT BINDS
Spirit binds can only be performed by the most powerful of ghosts to tie your spirit to their own. To fully cross over there are two things you need to do:
1. Complete your unfinished business as a ghost. See the first part of this section to figure out what your unfinished business is
2. Help another ghost complete their unfinished business. There are multiple ways to go about this.
a) Help them determine their unfinished business
b) Help them do what's required to complete their unfinished business
c) Provide support in another way that leads to the ghost completing their unfinished business
You have the amount of time you spent in the transition period in days over one hundred rounded to the nearest day to complete this, also known as the crossover t-time. For example, if you spent a year in the transition period, you have four days to do this.
LIVING
Some living people, although a very small percentage, do end up dying and crossing over instantaneously due to a connection with a ghost, along with the fact that they have unfinished business. Some lifers are able to see ghosts, although it depends on the relationships you made in your past life that will determine whether they can see you or not. This is not a common occurrence, although still possible.
If this happens, they will have half the crossover t-time of the ghost they had a connection with, despite whether they have their own or not, plus an amount of time to be determined. This time will be less than how long the ghost would have for their crossover t-time.
The amount of time can vary from just over half the crossover t-time the ghost has to almost the entirety of the crossover t-time. It will become apparent when the time is almost up, as however they died will start to show on their body, whether it be from extreme beating--where they show bruises on their body--to drowning--start coughing up water--or any other number of reasons why they died. If they complete their unfinished business or help another ghost complete their unfinished business, they will continue to live, and their body healed as if nothing happened.
If they do not, they will become a ghost, unable to leave the spirit world.
VOCABULARY
CROSSING OVER - when a ghost completes their unfinished business and becomes a living person again
CROSSOVER T-TIME - the amount of time a ghost has to help another ghost complete their unfinished business and is calculated to be the amount of days spent in the transition period over one hundred
GHOST - a person who has died with unfinished business
HEARTBEATS - a term for living people, often used by ghosts in Europe and Australia
LIFERS - a term for living people, usually used by ghosts in North and South America
SOULFULS - a term for living people, usually used by ghosts in Asia and Africa
SPIRIT BINDS - a type of magical ability that binds two souls together
TRANSITION PERIOD - the period of time where a ghost is between death and becoming a ghost
UNFINISHED BUSINESS - a task that is required to be complete to cross over
Author's Note: So, this isn't a real chapter, but I thought it would be fun to actually make the book Willie's been referring to, so I did. I just started rewatching the series (again), and realized this is Alex's quick-start guide lol. I think it's cool, so let me know what you guys think!
By the way, the term Heartbeats as a term for lifers was inspired by the story Love, Dahlia. It is not from my brain, but someone else's, but I definitely recommend that and Dear, Dahlia (which is the first of the two books).
Loves,
mistyrider921
~𝄞~