What does spiritual science tell us about the phenomenon of capturing ghosts in a bottle? Is it possible?

Recently the news of two ghosts captured in glass vials with stoppers and soaked in holy water captured the curiosity of world media. The ghosts were reported to have been not only captured, but also sold at an auction in New Zealand for almost $2000. There has been subsequent debate on whether the captured ghosts were for real.

This is not the first time that sale of ghosts in a bottle has caused a bit of a stir. A few years ago a mill-worker from North Ireland set up a similar sale on eBay, and one man in Florida has even set up a business of selling ghosts in bottles which are captured by professional ‘ghost catchers’ around the US.

Have you ever wondered why psychiatrists themselves suffer from depression or some form of mental illness?

While seeking guidance from His Holiness Dr. Athavale on a spiritual research topic, He mentioned something which would be of value to psychiatrists. His Holiness Dr. Athavale was Himself practicing as a clinical hypnotherapist until He came fully into spiritual practice. He mentioned that as many as 70% of all psychiatrists suffer from some mental illness themselves especially after years of practice.

The main reason for this is that they deal with mentally ill patients who …

How to recognize whether tears are due to spiritual emotion or emotion? In cases when a person is possessed, is it the person who is crying or the possessing entity who is acting?

1. Crying due to spiritual emotion (bhāv)
A. Tears are due to spiritual emotion (bhāv) if they occur while chanting and while thinking sāttvik thoughts.
B. Sometimes one cries even when no thoughts are there, but the mind is happy. This is due to unmanifest bhāv.
C. If the tears are due to bhāv, then the body feels light, the eyes …

In 2004, when I was living in Melbourne, I heard that His Holiness Dadaji Vaishampayan (a Saint from India) fondly known as Dadaji had come to Sydney in Australia. While I was really keen on travelling to Sydney to get His darshan (holy view), due to unavoidable circumstances, I couldn’t make the trip.

The next time I heard of this trip of Dadaji’s was a month ago, when he had come to the SSRF research centre at Goa. It was announced that the predictions that He made while He was in Australia would be made public.

When in Sydney, Dadaji who was close to 90 years old had performed severe austerities. At that time Dadaji wrote down 22 predictions…

Spiritual research by SSRF has revealed that 100% of the world’s population is affected by ancestral problems at some time or the other in their lives. In most cases this effect is adverse and creates problems in their descendant’s lives. Hence we have devoted an entire section of our website to ancestral problems. With a view of educating society of the ubiquitous nature of this spiritual problem in their lives, as well as the means of overcoming it, we recently ran a Google Adwords campaign on ancestors.
To begin with, …