Rob's Books, Medium Readings, Animal Rescue Fundraisers

BOOKS: Pets and the Afterlife, Pets and the Afterlife 2, Pets and the Afterlife 3, Pets and the Afterlife 4, Lessons Learned from Talking to the Dead, Ghosts of England on a Medium's Vacation, Ghosts of the Bird Cage Theatre on a Medium's Vacation, Kindred Spirits: How a Medium Befriended a Spirit, Case Files of Inspired Ghost Tracking and Ghosts and Spirits Explained BEST SELLERS: All of Rob's books have reached "best-seller" status on AMAZON.com in various paranormal categories. PET SPIRIT READINGS: Now offered via email and done on weekends. Reserve a spot thru Paypal. Email me at Rgutro@gmail.com Send 1 Photo of your pet, their name, and any questions.ANIMAL RESCUE FUNDRAISING LECTURES : Rob is a dog dad, volunteers with Dachshund and Weimaraner rescues and does fundraising lectures for dog and cat rescues.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

What is a Ghost-Sign? It's not Sign from a Ghost!

A Ghost Sign on a Baltimore Building. Credit: Steve C. 
Here's a bit of Trivia that I just learned about from my friend Steve C. in Baltimore. He found out faded signs painted on the walls of old buildings are called "Ghost Signs." Here's an old Coca-Cola sign that Steve photographed on a building in Baltimore. Not a sign from a ghost, but a ghost sign!  

Here's the history of them according to Wikipedia: 
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_sign
    Ghost signs are found across the world with the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada having many surviving examples.[1] Ghost signs are also called fading ads[2] and brickads.[3] In many cases these are advertisements painted on brick that remained over time.[4] Old painted advertisements are occasionally discovered upon demolition of later-built adjoining structures. Throughout rural areas, old barn advertisements continue to promote defunct brands and quaint roadside attractions.
Many ghost signs from the 1890s to 1960s are still visible.[4] Such signs were most commonly used in the decades before the Great Depression.[5]



The painters of the signs were called "wall dogs".[6] As signage advertising formats changed, less durable signs appeared in the later 20th century, and ghost signs from that era are less common.
Ghost signs were originally painted with oil based house paints. The paint that has survived the test of time most likely contains lead which keeps it strongly adhered to the masonry surface. Ghost signs were often preserved through reprinting the entire sign since the colors often fade over time. When ownership changed, a new sign would be painted over the old one.

Conservators today are being asked to preserve the original signs rather than painting over them.

References:
  1. Ghost Signs - A Waymarking.com Category
  2. see Fading Ad Gallery
  3. see Ghost Signs
  4. Ghost signs: Old slogans never die in Butte..., The Montana Standard (Butte, Montana). 9 August 2001. Accessed 6 September 2007.
  5. Joseph Berger. "Fading Memories". New York Times. November 5, 2005. Retrieved on October 5, 2009. Genovese, Peter (March 30, 2012), Ghost signs: Jersey's commercial history is written large in faded paint on city buildings, The Star-Ledger, retrieved 2012-03-30

Friday, November 14, 2014

A Meditation to Connect with your "Spirit Guide"


I was recently asked for a Meditation to Connect witha "Spirit Guide," and decided since I couldn't find one, I'd write one

up for you.
  A spirit guide is a main spirit that watches over you and guides you. It could be a departed friend or relative or pet, or someone we never met in life. After I did a meditation, I learned that I had two spirit guides. One is an elderly man named "Jason" and the other is a dog.
 
TO START:  Find several friends who will do this with you, and have one person read it:
 Put on soft instrumental music and low lighting. Close your eyes.
Picture yourself in your favorite place in nature away from people like a forest.
  You'll have to open your eyes to read this, or have someone read it to you: 

THE MEDITATION:
Walk through the forest and smell the plants, smell the dew on the plants, feel the gravel beneath your feet. Hear a waterfall in the distance. Continue visualizing that you're walking through the woods and the sun is high but obscured by the tree canopy.
 -  Clear your mind of thoughts and enjoy "looking" at the woods in your mind.
 - the path takes you up a hill. You climb the hill seeing the tree line fall behind you and stop mid way up. There's another path that goes around the hill and you take it. It is there that your spirit guide will be waiting for you around the corner.
 - You feel warmth, peace and comfort. You come to the end of the path and your spirit guide is waiting there.
 Is it a man or woman? Is it a dog, cat or other animal?
What is their name?
 Are they holding anything?
Do they have any advice for you?
- You thank them and turn around. You walk back down the hill, and through the woods, smelling the smells of the forest and enjoying the quiet , knowing you have just met your spirit guide or guides.
Open your eyes and breathe deeply.!

HERE ARE 2 CAN  PLAY ON YOUTUBE WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED: 
 http://youtu.be/ThWh9QIcgdA 

 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqVh5ICEKk8


Tuesday, November 11, 2014

A Veterans' Day Salute and a Time to Watch for Signs

It's Veterans Day - For all of the Veterans who served and didn't come back in physical form, remember that their spirit is with you today and from time to time. They can hear you. Sound and thoughts are energy.
  Especially today, be vigilant from signs that veterans who passed may try to give you, whether it be a coin with the year of their birth, passing, or an anniversary, to a bird that just seems to linger. They may even bring you to a doppleganger, someone that looked like them, to let you know that they're still around you.

*************************************************************


You can find more information about the signs spirits can give in my book "Lessons Learned from Talking to the Dead":    SUMMARY: Follow Rob on a treasure-hunt-style journey in Virginia as he and others try to explain what appear to be random and obscure words, signs and symbols from a spirit, that all wind up being intensely personal to the spirit.Explore the science behind how they communicate. Learn how to receive their messages, where they appear, and important messages in how to live your life. Rob takes you into cemeteries, battlefields, and historic places. You’ll see what happens to victims of suicide and murders, and how infants and animals pass messages to the living. Featuring: Inspired Ghost Tracking and mediums Barb Mallon, Troy Cline and Ruth Larkin.


Monday, November 10, 2014

Coins Left on Tombstones

I found this article about the tradition of coins or other things left on tombstones. This is from snopes.com, and explains how the tradition of leaving things on graves progressed over time.  SOURCE: http://www.snopes.com/military/coins.asp
 

COINS LEFT ON TOMBSTONES

While visiting some cemeteries you may notice that headstones marking certain graves have coins on them, left by previous visitors to the grave. These coins have distinct meanings when left on the headstones of those who gave their life while serving in America's military, and these meanings vary depending on the denomination of coin.

A coin left on a headstone or at the grave site is meant as a message to the deceased soldier's family that someone else has visited the grave to pay respect. Leaving a penny at the grave means simply that you visited. A nickel indicates that you and the deceased trained at boot camp together, while a dime means you served with him in some capacity. By leaving a quarter at the grave, you are telling the family that you were with the soldier when he was killed.
 
 According to tradition, the money left at graves in national cemeteries and state veterans cemeteries is eventually collected, and the funds are put toward maintaining the cemetery or paying burial costs for indigent veterans.  In the US, this practice became common during the Vietnam war, due to the political divide in the country over the war; leaving a coin was seen as a more practical way to communicate that you had visited the grave than contacting the soldier's family, which could devolve into an uncomfortable argument over politics relating to the war.

Some Vietnam veterans would leave coins as a "down payment" to buy their fallen comrades a beer or play a hand of cards when they would finally be reunited.

The tradition of leaving coins on the headstones of military men and women can be traced to as far back as the Roman Empire.

Origins:   Humans have been leaving mementos on and within the final resting places of loved ones almost from the beginning of the species. Excavations of even the earliest graves uncover goods meant to serve the deceased in the next world, such as pottery, weapons and beads.

The earliest known coins date to the late seventh century B.C. As societies began embracing monetary systems, coins began being left in the graves of its citizens merely as yet another way of equipping the dear departed in the afterlife.

Mythologies within certain cultures added specific purpose for coins being left with the dead. In Greek mythology, Charon, the ferryman of Hades, required payment for his services. A coin was therefore placed in the mouth of the dear departed to ensure he would ferry the deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron and into the world of the dead rather than leave him to wander the shore for a hundred years. In England and the U.S., pennies were routinely placed on the closed eyes of the dead, yet the purpose for that practice was not clear — some say it was to keep the eyes of the corpse from flying open,
yet the eyes, once shut by the person laying out the body, do not reopen.

In these more modern days, coins and other small items are sometimes discovered on grave markers, be they plaques resting atop the sod or tombstones erected at the head of the burial plot. These small tokens are left by visitors for no greater purpose than to indicate that someone has visited that particular grave. It has long been a tradition among Jews, for example, to leave a small stone or pebble atop a headstone just to show that someone who cared had stopped by. Coins (especially pennies) are favored by others who wish to demonstrate that the deceased has not been forgotten and that instead his loved ones still visit him.

Sometimes these small remembrances convey meaning specific to the person buried in that plot. For more than twenty years, every month someone has been leaving one Campbell's tomato soup can and a pocketful of change on the plain black granite tombstone that marks the grave of Andy Warhol. The soup can is easy to explain, given Warhol's iconic use of that commodity in his art, but the handful of change remains a bit of a mystery. In similar vein, visitors often leave pebbles, coins and maple leaf pins at the grave of Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, the man who replaced Canada's Red Ensign with the Maple Leaf flag.

Regarding the 'tradition' of soldiers leaving on the headstones of fallen comrades varying denominations of coins to denote their relationship with the deceased, the earliest reference to this practice we've found so far dates only to June 2009, when it appeared as a web site post. The version now commonly circulated in e-mail appears to have been drawn from it, albeit some changes have slipped in, such as "A buddy who served in the same outfit, or was with the deceased when he died, might leave a quarter" becoming "By leaving a quarter at the grave, you are telling the family that you were with the soldier when he was killed."

Despite the claim of this tradition's dating back to the days of the Roman Empire, there's no reason to suppose that it does. A coin might be placed in the mouth of a fallen Roman soldier (to get him across the River Styx), but his comrades wouldn't be leaving their money on his grave, but rather expending it on a funeral banquet in his honor.

Given the lack of evidence that anyone anywhere is following this 'tradition,' it is perhaps best regarded not as an actual practice, but instead as someone's idea of what should be.

Yet military folk do sometimes leave very special remembrances at the graves of deceased servicemen: challenge coins. These tokens identify their bearers as members of particular units and are prized and cherished by those to whom they have been given; thus any challenge coins found at gravesites were almost certainly left there by comrades-in-arms of the deceased.

It needs be mentioned that not only coins, medallions, and stones have been found on military headstones. In July 2013, a wife of a deceased serviceman discovered another woman's name on her husband's marker in place of her own. Edna Fielden, widow of Air Force Master Sergeant Billy Fielden (buried at Fort Logan Cemetery in Denver 25 years earlier) was shocked to discover the headstone bore the inscription "Dolores" over the legend "His Wife" when she brought her grandchildren to visit the grave.

Barbara "grave mistake" Mikkelson

Last updated:   18 May 2014

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2014 by snopes.com.
This material may not be reproduced without permission.
snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.

Sources:

    Buchan, Rebecca.   "Toy Cars and Coins Taken from Toddler's Graveside."
    Aberdeen Press and Journal.   6 October 2011   (p. 3).
    Caswell, Emily.   "Ask Us: Pennies on Gravestones Reflect Greek Mythology."
    The Union Leader [Manchester, NH].   13 July 2011   (p. D36).
    Hamill, Sean.   "An Homage in Coins and Soup Cans."
    The International Herald Tribune.   27 February 2007   (p. 9).
    Hogan, Jim.   "Tokens of Remembrance."
    Los Angeles Times.   27 May 2013   (p. A15).
    Lang, Sarah.   "Coins Gone from Strong's Grave."
    The Lebanon Reporter [Indiana].   11 May 2011.
    McArthur, Douglas.   "A Historical Stroll Through Canada's Prime Ministerial Grave Sites."
    The Globe and Mail.   7 October 2000   (p. T4).
    NBC News.   "Military Widow Finds Another Woman's Name Engraved on Her Husband's Tombstone."
    18 June 2013.
    San Jose Mercury News.   "Fans Still Pay Tribute to Allison."
    The Globe and Mail.   14 July 1994   (p. F2).

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/military/coins.asp#IzcPOg7rCB2iYBPG.99

Friday, November 7, 2014

Podcast of my 2 Hour Interview on the U.K.'s PSH Radio!

Did you miss my United Kingdom radio show interview on Oct. 18th? 
You can hear it here! 
I was interviewed by Samantha, the host of the P.S.H. Radio Show/The Haunted Radio Show.
  Samantha had me join her for 2 hours and we really got in-depth with questions and answers about ghosts and spirits, human and animal. I also took a LOT of questions from the great listeners she has! 
You can listen to the podcast - listen while you're at work. :) 
   CLICK to Listen to Rob's Interview with the U.K. PSH Radio Show!
 

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Check out the Haunting Pics from Germany's Lostplace Gallery

I received a message from Marco Stadler in Germany, who shared his  website of abandoned places in the country that

look haunted. He calls it the "Lostplace Gallery."
Thought you'd enjoy seeing them, too.
 
Marco said: i love abandoned places to make photos look its an abandoned church here in germany it was so haunting there

To visit the website:  http://lostplace-fan.npage.de/galerie424662.html
NOTE: The website is entirely in German, and includes some really beautiful videos (also in German).