Mang's letters from the afterlife

[Mangrove]

Hi everyone,

I'm Mangrove and I'm dead now. Hah! I always wanted to say that. Seeing as I'm on 'the other side' now, I thought I should write and let you all know what was going on.

At first, I was kind of surprised to be dead but, when I realized that there would be no more seasonal allergies I was pretty pleased. Especially when you take into account my legendary polystyrene proboscis. I was similarly glad to not have tension headaches from sitting at the computer for too long. And get this - I'm not scared of dying! That's a plus.

I'm settling in to my new environment. Got to see Mang-dog. She's doing fine now that she doesn't have cancer anymore. I don't have to take her out to pee a thousand times a day which is a bonus. The steroids did strange things to her bladder.

So, get this - there's an astral plane! Now it's really a lot more ordinary than it sounds. All those new age types really played this shit up for the last 120 years or so. Basically, it's just like closing your eyes and you notice all the colours or shapes bumbling around. No biggie.

What I can tell you with certainty, is that there's no fucking 'Astral Pillars'. The idea that a metaphysical concept needed some type of physical architecture is totally retarded and it would make my head explode if I still had one. The thing is though, there's no pillars, unless you want them to be there. Same goes for God, the Devil, angels or 72 virigins.

This plane of consciousness is tricky, sticky & elastic. It takes on whatever you impress upon it. Not only that, it has a tendency to reproduce your thoughts so you keep having them over and over. Worse still, is that it will multiply them in various ways, so that you get 10,000 different varieties of the same thought. You gotta be really careful about what you plant here because it's a fertile ground that gives back everything you put into it with interest. And it's a law of nature, so it really doesn't care whether you think it's fair or not because it works from the assumption that you always want more of the same. I'm learning to be a lot more selective about what I'll let form there.

The Jesus freaks are funny because they keep crashing into 38 different species of Jesus. Black Jesus, white Jesus, Jesus in pain, Jesus happy, Jesus naked, Jesus with clothes, Jesus who's celebate, Jesus that's banging Magadelene. We got 'em all and a lot more beside! Jesus! Jesus! Get your fresh hot Jesus! There's going to be hell to pay when all the Jesus' start bumping into all the Mohammeds.....it's only a matter of time.

Ok, I gotta go. Turns out I can totally spy on people in the shower. If I leave now I might be able to catch J-Lo....

Mangrove

[LMNO]

Moar, oh ghostly one!

[Cramulus]

 
g-g-g-g-ghosts?? in my PD?
IT'S WAY SCARIER THAN YOU THINK!!

dear ghostgrove,

now that you're tripping the astral, I've got a question for you ---

this morning I was stuck in traffic,
          wiggling my moustache at some poor bored fogey who caught a glimpse of me in stop-and-go passing,

and I got this weird sensation, this
                    distinct impression that there was no me,
                                                            no him,
                                                            just one big ocean with lots of swirling crap and all
                                                      the water particles pushing on each other going OM

so I had to wonder if this kind of revelation, this universality, was a
                                                                   subjective
                                                                   kind of epiphany
          -- like seeing god in a waffle or something

and what do you think?

[Richter]

Dear Mang,

Glad to hear it's such a trip out there!  Sounds like fun, but you'll excuse me if I don't rush to join you. 

[Telarus]

[Mangrove]

Hey Everyone,


Whoooo oooooooo!!!! [chain rattle sound effects]

Just kidding. I think Charles Dickens made all that stuff up because I've not seen or heard any chains around here.

So, I've been thinking and this is what I've figured out. Love your body. Enjoy it, appreciate it & look after it the  best you possibly can and here's why:

People spend inordinate amounts of time hating their bodies. They're too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, too white, not white enough. Too much ass, not enough ass, big boobs, small boobs, straight hair, curly hair. Nose is the wrong shape, wrong size, in the wrong place (!?).

Well, guess what? When you don't have a body any more you will think about nothing else and you would give everything to have one again.Suddenly, all those complaints and 'imperfections' you obsessed about for years will be for nought. Some of the residents here want their old bodies back like you wouldn't believe. Ever driven through the crack neighbourhood of your nearest urban centre? Yeah, kind of like that.

See, what you have to understand is that your body is not 'a work in progress'. You don't really ever get 'finished' where you can say 'hey, I'm all done, I'm  happy!' Don't believe me? Go ask Joan Rivers. Swing by Melanie Griffith's place while you're at it.

Actually, your body is a work in progress. But it's not a progress or a process that you have any permanent or lasting control over. It's dissipating and it'll keep on doing so until it's all reabsorbed back to nature and you're over here hanging out with me. So for chrissakes, don't waste so much time bitching about it! Your body is a deep sea diving suit for your consciousness to experience the plane of matter. Get out there and fucking explore something already because either way, you go back to the ship or run out of air - so make it count.

Ok, gotta go. They're shooting a new show for John Edward. I wanna go see if I can pass myself off as someone's 'grampy'.....

I'm ghost baby,

Mangrove.



   

[Mangrove]

P.S.

Life imitates art.

Yesterday, Mrs Mang' picked me up from work. She had a print out of an e-mail. It was typed by my late Grandmother (to Mrs Mang) on my dad's computer in Nov 2005 and was never sent. In it, she's 91 years old and getting ready for Xmas.

Weird.

[Mangrove]

Hey everyone,

I would've contacted you before now, but I got snagged into this really terrible seance. I was talking to what I can only describe as a 'clump' of ex-people and somehow got stuck to them. We were dragged down into the material world by a grieving relative who crossed some hack's palm with silver.

So there I am in a dingy apartment in Long Island. I thought perhaps the place was partially obscured from my sight owing to the opacity The Veil tm, but then I realized it was just dirt. I knew next to nothing about this family and the psychic kept insisting that I was Cousin Louie. Naturally, none of my answers panned out as being accurate. I was just making stuff up to pass the time.

Still, that's not what I wanted to talk about. The big news here on the Astral is I bumped into a Buddha. I can't be sure if it was THE Buddha. All I can say is that he was Asian, bald & rotund. He had some interesting thoughts about Karma which, it turns out is real also.

When he finally cut out all the Sanskrit crap and laid it on the line, he said:

   "Karma? Well, that's real easy. If you keep doing what you're doing, you keep getting what you're getting."

He also threw in a few 'no man's an island's too. He got that from one of the Shakespeares.

Gotta go. Sometimes I pretend I'm called 'Francine'. I like to make up dumb shit and tell it to Sylvia Browne.

Later,

Ghostgrove

[Doktor Howl]

Hey everyone,

I would've contacted you before now, but I got snagged into this really terrible seance. I was talking to what I can only describe as a 'clump' of ex-people and somehow got stuck to them. We were dragged down into the material world by a grieving relative who crossed some hack's palm with silver.

So there I am in a dingy apartment in Long Island. I thought perhaps the place was partially obscured from my sight owing to the opacity The Veil tm, but then I realized it was just dirt. I knew next to nothing about this family and the psychic kept insisting that I was Cousin Louie. Naturally, none of my answers panned out as being accurate. I was just making stuff up to pass the time.

Still, that's not what I wanted to talk about. The big news here on the Astral is I bumped into a Buddha. I can't be sure if it was THE Buddha. All I can say is that he was Asian, bald & rotund. He had some interesting thoughts about Karma which, it turns out is real also.

When he finally cut out all the Sanskrit crap and laid it on the line, he said:

   "Karma? Well, that's real easy. If you keep doing what you're doing, you keep getting what you're getting."

He also threw in a few 'no man's an island's too. He got that from one of the Shakespeares.

Gotta go. Sometimes I pretend I'm called 'Francine'. I like to make up dumb shit and tell it to Sylvia Browne.

Later,

Ghostgrove

I sharted.

[Mangrove]

Hey everyone,

I would've contacted you before now, but I got snagged into this really terrible seance. I was talking to what I can only describe as a 'clump' of ex-people and somehow got stuck to them. We were dragged down into the material world by a grieving relative who crossed some hack's palm with silver.

So there I am in a dingy apartment in Long Island. I thought perhaps the place was partially obscured from my sight owing to the opacity The Veil tm, but then I realized it was just dirt. I knew next to nothing about this family and the psychic kept insisting that I was Cousin Louie. Naturally, none of my answers panned out as being accurate. I was just making stuff up to pass the time.

Still, that's not what I wanted to talk about. The big news here on the Astral is I bumped into a Buddha. I can't be sure if it was THE Buddha. All I can say is that he was Asian, bald & rotund. He had some interesting thoughts about Karma which, it turns out is real also.

When he finally cut out all the Sanskrit crap and laid it on the line, he said:

   "Karma? Well, that's real easy. If you keep doing what you're doing, you keep getting what you're getting."

He also threw in a few 'no man's an island's too. He got that from one of the Shakespeares.

Gotta go. Sometimes I pretend I'm called 'Francine'. I like to make up dumb shit and tell it to Sylvia Browne.

Later,

Ghostgrove

I sharted.

More to come. Your RIP Mangrove thread set off a whole series of ideas. I think in the next letter I will tackle Catholicism....

[LMNO]

If you keep doing what you're doing, you keep getting what you're getting.

I need to translate this to cuniform or something and have it tatooed on my forearm.

[Mangrove]

If you keep doing what you're doing, you keep getting what you're getting.

I need to translate this to cuniform or something and have it tatooed on my forearm.

http://www.calligraphylearn.com/cuneiform-alphabet.html

Thread delivers!

[Iason Ouabache]

Loving this so far. I hope you keep going.

[Mangrove]

Loving this so far. I hope you keep going.

I've got more ideas in the works. Next two will be Purgatory & Reincarnation (I think).

[Bu🤠ns]

Whoa, I just picked up on this the first time, RIGHT HERE!!! In the bathroom.  And I have to say I've never had so much enlightment going in as I did coming out.  Please, I wholeheartedly urge you to keep going. 

synchronicites continue--last night the wife and I had a sort of long drawn out discussion about the body and how it's falling apart while we were watching Joan Rivers hang out in some multi-millionaire's house who made it rich by selling little doggie "Wee Wee"  pads on which dogs may urinate.  Something, in rather dismal retrospect, may have helped you out with Mang-Dog.

So please keep going, This morning, it seems, I'm quite awake.