This retrieval happened several years ago and was inadvertent, I would never have done it on purpose.  It just kind of accidentally developed and then ballooned.  It was overwhelming at the time. I'm throwing it out here in case someone can get something useful from it.

Background. I started retrieving years ago, after reading one of Bruce’s first books, with 911 being one of my first attempts.   When young I had developed a personal rule about “ghosts”.  Dead people were fine, I just didn’t want very stuck dead people (ghosts) around, didn’t want to see them, hear them, feel them because I didn’t know how to deal with them, and wasn’t sure I wanted to learn.  Anyway, I didn’t see much reason to change this with retrievals, so I still avoided the “ghost” category, but helped relatives and volunteered for larger disasters.
   
This system worked well for years, except then my daughter who is very sensitive, started bringing dead folks home. I don’t think she consciously knew she was doing it at first, but she started having her own experiences, and later she learned I did retrievals, so when she felt spirits around, she would just invite them home, telling them I would help.  This was not my idea of fun, but I would help who I could, ban those that I couldn’t.  This went on for years (No, she wouldn’t try to help them herself, just would bring them home. She’s in her twenties now and still does this, but luckily, is more selective. Really, she needs to take a class.)  Anyway, by necessity she forced me to deal with and retrieve the ghosts she brought to the house, albeit reluctantly. 

So I went about retrievals somewhat backwards, I didn’t depend on the helpers to bring me to ghosts or stuck folks, I just dealt with what was in front of me.  With disasters, helpers would often find people that needed assistance and bring me to them, but just as often, I’d just go there and let dead people come to me and the helpers would back me up.

Well, things came to a head one weekend after my daughter brought a few back from her cousin’s house or neighborhood, and they had been stuck for a long time.   After a long day, I kind of lost it with these spirits, and mentally yelled to all who wanted to leave, that I would meet them during my mediation, at Confluence Park, or where the rivers come together in Denver, in two days, and in the meantime, to go away and not bother us.  I picked this landmark because I figured that the older era spirits that had been finding her would know where the rivers came together, and the recent era ones would know where Confluence Park was, and mostly it was away from my house.  I was only half kidding.  I figured if anyone showed, and I didn’t expect more than 3-6, I could help them one by one and get it done in a sitting, or no one would show and I would have a nice park and river water meditation.  Regardless, they would not be hanging around my place.

Two days later while meditating that evening, I mentally went to the park and stood by the river.  Surprisingly, that turned out to be a problem, dead folks were in a distance, but they would not come close to me.  By walking around I found it was because of the river.  I moved inland a block or more and this was acceptable.  Why the water phobia, I don’t know because I’ve done other retrievals close to water, and above water on jets.  But once I changed locations, there were at first maybe two dozen, then 50, then 100, then 1000’s of spirits.  It was such a mass of people I was shocked pretty much to paralysis.  Talk about panic mode.  This crowd was a mix of eras, the clothing covered what was probably from the 1800’s, 1900’s, to present, some dressed beautifully, others with clothes that were really worn, some dirty, some uniforms, several Indians but not many, people that had to be immigrants. They were probably 75% male, not that many children or very old people.  The variety was beyond overwhelming and I had no idea how to help them. It was too much and just impossible in every way.
   
I lost time then, and several more times through this.  “Clicking out” was yet another reason I doubted this entire situation.  I’d not experienced losing time and sections of experience prior to this retrieval.  I did come back though, kind of like returning to a bad dream.  Interestingly, I know some of them saw one another and were an aware part of a group, but I don’t think all of them were aware of all of the others.  It was like layers, but all at the same time, and all aware of me, which didn’t make sense either.  I don’t know what I looked like to them.  Again, the situation was impossible.

I know I had decided at some point that I had to go for volume.   The helpers had a speakers’ platform set up and I was on it when I came back, it felt like I was at a rally or a revival.  I have a real fear of public speaking and was not doing well up there - read that as panic attack, at the thought of speaking to a crowd.  Helpers were there, four or five on the platform, and hundreds more on the side of the crowd to my right.  I had no clue what to do, and the pressure of having so many helpers waiting for me to pull a rabbit out of my hat, and all those people needing help was the equivalent to the feeling of drowning.   I looked to the helpers on the platform for ideas and they kind of shrugged and indicated this was my show, which was not helpful. In the past, they always had ideas if I couldn’t think of anything.  I remember feeling /thinking that they were letting me down at the worst possible moment for the first time ever.  I clicked out again.

I must have had a microphone or at least they could hear me when I spoke.  I remember I started bluntly and badly by telling them that it was time to move on, that they were dead.  Surprisingly, that moved a few because here and there some disappeared.  (Of course they could have just left back to where they usually hung out.)  I remember being heckled by some at the idea that they were dead, they found this absurd. It was suggested I had mental issues (but not that politely).  Rowdy is probably the right term for a portion of this crowd.    But I was warming up and doing better with speaking.

Topic wise, I dropped the being dead thought, and went strongly into the idea that their families and friends  missed them, had come to Denver to see them, and that family/friends were waiting at the west side of the crowd, so they should begin to head over to meet with their families and friends.  I told them that their families truly forgave them, loved them, missed them so much that they were tired of the delay and came to see them instead of waiting for them to come home. That they had made the trip all the way from the east, or from home, to bring them back home, to visit, etc.   I told them the main reason for this gathering was to let them know that their relatives, their family and their friends had arrived from out of town and were waiting.  This actually worked really well.

I’m going to digress a bit because this is another reason I dis-believed this whole experience.  Even while I was speaking to this crowd, other “me’s” were over with the helpers, then the family/friends on the side of the crowd, and I would be connecting individuals to their family (I don’t know if they really were family or just helpers that looked like family.) I would introduce them, or point them out, or bring them over and ask them to say hello to their grandma, father, mother, brother, etc. who was so happy to see them again, came all this distance, etc.    I would get them to shake hands, or in some way acknowledge or see, or touch the helper or family member.  Once they were locked in, it was pretty much done.  But locking in wasn’t always all that easy, sometimes it was like they were blind and they had to be helped to shake hands or make them look very exactly at a family member’s face for them to see them or connect, even if they were standing right in front of them.  There were dozens of me doing this.  This was pretty impossible but at the time it felt normal.

Back on the speaker’s platform, after the family and friends’ concept, I tried the revival idea, pulling on a preacher persona.  As I went along, I got better and more comfortable with the public speaking bit.   Being a preacher doing typical preaching,  was unsuccessful, but by this time the “crowd” was smaller.  This doesn’t mean they moved on, just that they weren’t at this event any longer.  Regardless, I thought I was doing pretty well, all things considered, and if I got this far, I could push things further – I got cocky I guess.  I decided that if the preacher approach wasn’t working, that I would bring out the big guns, I would invite Jesus, Abraham, Buddha, etc. to the speaker’s platform.  I figured if these icons didn’t want to come, that helpers would fill in for them, and that the crowd would just move on in-mass just from seeing or being in the presence of such spiritual figures.  Complete mistake.   I asked for Jesus to come first, figuring on mostly a Christian background crowd.  Jesus promptly appeared on the platform, and I would guess that ninety-nine percent of the remaining crowd promptly disappeared, and not in a good way, they just didn’t want anything to do with Jesus.  I was flabbergasted and beyond disappointed.   I had been so sure that this would work.  It pushed me right out of the meditation.   

This “retrieval” experience threw me pretty badly.  It was so unexpected, unlikely, surreal, also unfinished.  I couldn’t leave it like that, but I was played out.  I decided to go back into meditation for just a minute, and tell anyone left to pass the word that the revival would continue the next evening.  I was finding that there was a feel to when I was getting my “voice” out there.  It would go out like on an internal radio broadcast.   Afterwards I figured this is why there was such a massive crowd to start with, that I had accidentally thrown my “voice” in a major way without realizing it when I told the ghosts at my house that I would help whoever wanted to leave, to leave.

I mentally refortified, and went back the next evening.  I found a crowd, not as big as the first time, but a lot of people, maybe twice what I had had remaining at the end of the previous evening before I screwed things up. Word gets around.   I wasn’t quite sure how to handle them, but at least I knew some of what not to do.
 
I figured that this group knew they were dead, had lead lives that they felt would send them straight to hell and there was no way they were leaving this side if they were landing in hell on the other side.  But they really did want to at least leave Denver.  I figured that if they wanted to leave, I would just help them to leave Denver. They didn’t need to know they were going to the other side.  I had visited my grandparents-in-law on the other side (Truly wonderful people that I missed.), and for awhile they had recreated their old house, right down to the kitchen table.  If the grandparents could recreate their house on the other side, then these people could create their ideal home, their California job, their homestead, their gold field strike, or whatever and wherever, on the other side.  The helpers could handle the details, and what the spirits didn't know wouldn't hurt them.

So back on the speaker’s platform, I told the crowd that we were offering free trips out west, to gold fields in Alaska, to free land in California, to Hollywood, back east, free horses … you name it.  Helpers were again lined up on one side of the field, this time with transportation right there.  Trains, covered wagons, mules, horses, autos, buses, carriages.  Again, they were all jumbled together but not,  more like they were in layers.  I figured that people only saw what they needed to see.  This approach was a partial mistake too, part right and mostly wrong.   There were a few takers, but very few, along with some very interesting language, I was told that nothing was for free, that I was a con artist, criminal, etc., etc..  The loudest seemed to be what I would guess had been businessmen in the late 1800’s, earlier 1900’s. Snazzy suits, hats, gold watch chains, etc. but this was a real consensus covering many classes, what had to be laborers, to what probably were prostitutes, to some very well dressed people, and covering multiple time eras.   All agreed that nothing is for free.  I don’t remember much else, just the opinions and opposition. I think I know what it would feel like if I was threatened with being tarred and feathered, or run out of town, it was very negative. Again this result pushed me out of the mediation, it was such a blast of resistance.  I again went back in and passed the word that the “revival” would continue the next day, then stopped for the evening.

The next day I went back.  This time I was selling land in California, promising jobs back east, selling passages to Alaska gold fields, elsewhere – pretty much providing transport or a method to wherever or whatever they had interest in, provided it was outside of Denver. To the side of the field were land agent helpers, money collector helpers, train conductor helpers, trains, wagon trains, nice autos, horses, etc.  The freebies were gone, but installment plans were available.  I especially remember as a condition, they had to come up with five cents in cash before we would even talk to them.  I recall I made sure that there was dropped pennies here and there on the field. Often just handing over the money was all it took. They would just disappear with helpers.  Again, there were dozens of me and the helpers came through with whatever was needed at that moment.  It was kind of funny because, depending on the deal, there were contracts, titles, mortgages, with a certain number of years to pay back their passage, certain conditions - they would receive food stakes, farm equipment, animals, big land or business deals that were not cheap, smaller deals, jobs, whatever, but they had to x or sign on the bottom line, and pay, or promise to pay. Whatever deal was wanted, I negotiated. I guess there can be unending paperwork even in the afterlife, and in this case I made sure of it.   Once each  interacted with helpers, they were almost always gone.  I can’t say they all made it over, since I have no way to tell, but I think that most did. The layers of it, all at once but separate, so many copies of me, so much going on, was beyond nuts.   At the time it was matter of fact business and getting it done, maybe not normal, but doable, but in retrospect, completely crazy. 

I did this retrieval over three evenings, four actually, since I went back on the fourth to see if there was anyone hanging around and there wasn’t.   Also I’m not remembering everything, and “clicked out” several times during the three days, these are the high points.
 
Of course I started doubting the whole experience immediately.    I had never lost time or information before, so I thought I could be falling in and out of sleep and dreaming it all in a weird four evening dream.  I didn’t see how there could be so many me’s, all the layers, all the failures, the water phobia.  Also there was more “speaking” than I was used to, both me and them, I was more used to pantomime interactions, simple concepts, maybe a few sentences.  I figured it had to be a bizarre dream.  I hadn’t checked for specific names or birth or death dates, or any verification – rarely do, and there was no way with the volume of the situation.
 
I put the whole experience away, trying to convince myself it was all a dream, but the Ft. Collins workshop brought it all back.   The parts I had thought were proof that I was dreaming; “clicking out”, the possibility of several versions of “self” at once; the unexpectedness of what happened, the screw-ups, the things I thought put it in the imagination category turned out not to be so unlikely.  And I couldn’t make this stuff up, just not that creative.    Also, I guess I didn’t want to believe there were so many stuck dead people out there, that thought is still mind-boggling. 

I wouldn’t have attempted this if it didn’t unwittingly happen.  First, I think it could be dangerous – I don’t consider most ghosts as friendly or harmless, and they are easy to bring home.  But I think the helpers also provide protection. I was extremely lucky in that I, quite accidently, invited only those who wanted to leave to attend, and that is who showed up.  There are a lot of places that need major help (battlefields, old sections of cities) that are too overwhelming, at least for me, to even consider doing ghost retrievals individually, but maybe group retrievals inviting only those ghosts that are ready to leave, could be a way to go.
   

Hello, Mary Jo,

I was thinking about this and what you had done.  I think you did great.  If this ever happens to you again, maybe you might think of starting a parade.  Almost everyone likes a parade, and you can lead them to a staging area where there are those who can help.

I don't know if I could have done as well as you...probably not, but you make me proud of being part of this retrieving group.

Warm wishes for you,
T'ressa