Alexandra Gargiulo (Photo by Craig Calzaretta)
Local author takes an interest in the supernatural, By Craig Calzaretta
Chester ? For Alexandra Gargiulo, author and paranormal expert, just because someone has died doesn?t mean she can?t still stay in touch. Soon after her aunt RoseMarie passed on three years ago, she started hearing her voice. ?She told me I had to write,? says Gargiulo, ?and the conversation went from there.? Since then, more voices have come through to Gargiulo, a Chester resident and mother of four. Her husband Chris?s late family members have started talking to her, by way of another deceased aunt. ?She told me things that I could only know if I?d really been talking to her,? says Gargiulo.
One time, she was sent to Chris?s aunt?s house ? a house she?d never before visited ? to get a poem in the top drawer of an upstairs bedroom. The poem had great significance to the aunt?s widower and sent a powerful message to the family. ?Chris?s family started to believe,? Gargiulo says.
Things paranormal have actually been the norm in Gargiulo?s life. She grew up the daughter of Hans Holzer, renowned paranormal expert and author of over 160 books on the subject. Her mother, Catherine Holzer, is a clairvoyant and likes to paint the spirits she meets. The upper-west-side apartment of Gargiulo?s childhood was full of voodoo masks and the like, making it a place her friends were afraid to visit. But, it wasn?t until her aunt came to her from the afterlife that she started looking into her father?s work. ?I think I?m being used to raise paranormal awareness,? says Gargiulo, ?and to awaken the softer side of accepting. [To help] those who have no faith or are looking for something ? to quietly turn to those who are there for them already ? family or friends who have passed, guides that are assigned to our case,? she says.
Because Gargiulo believes that spirits are here to guide us, she took her late-aunt?s advice and began to write. She assumed she should start writing about the spiritual world, and produced, by her own account, ?a horrible book.? Undeterred, Gargiulo refocused her efforts on the fantasy genre, and has written around 20 children?s books, 50 poems, three novels and one novella ? all within a year and a half. The first of a trilogy of science fiction/fantasy books called ?Lady Ambrosia: Secret Past Revealed? is due to be published in July by Publish America. She?s also writing a memoir, and she?s marketing a screenplay that she describes as a ?supernatural horror/thriller.?
Gargiulo considers the screenplay to be a major part of the mission the spirits have for her. ?I think that I?m supposed to meet the people involved in [the production of the movie],? she says. ?We all need entertainment, especially in a time of war. A way to escape. The point is to end up speaking about the supernatural aspect of [the movie]. Teaching people that you have to believe,? she notes. Sometimes Gargiulo finds herself getting more than just a friendly spirit?s voice to prod her along. Once, when she was daydreaming at the computer instead of writing, she heard fluttering like an angel?s wings and felt her dead aunt?s long, piano-player fingers gently pressing against her shoulders, pushing her to the keyboard. ?I?m a vessel for the family to come through,? says Gargiulo.
Gargiulo believes that the ability to experience voices from the afterlife is an individual thing, but that spirits are around each of us. She suggests that someone looking for a paranormal experience should lie down, quiet and relaxed, and talk out loud to those spirits he or she thinks might be nearby.
?If you are open and you believe, it will happen,? she says. ?It might not be as quickly as we want it to, but if we stop talking so much and listen and let go, it will happen.?
?You could hear a pin drop? as students watched the tragedy unfold, said social worker Norma Nunez.
http://www.strausnews.com/articles/2007 ... ews/19.txt
