Ghosts or Hoaxes?, open to all

[Narcissa]

The truth is out there...

[Adawong]

I doubt ghosts exist, but only for my own comfort level. Who here wants to believe that when we die, at least some of us have to remain on earth and enjoy the monotomy of death in this place? And for that matter, who wants to believe good ol' grandma Betty is now watching your every move now that she's passed on? That would more than creep me out.

The soul- which I would presume would become a ghost, is unproven and intangible. If you're atheist, you do not believe such a thing exists. You have a conscience- which is social norms of right and wrong drilled thoroughly into your head- but no spiritual second-being different from your physical body. If you're religious and believe in a soul, then you think it is something created by god or a superior being. Either which way, it would not make too much sense for ghosts to exist. With atheists, there is nothing to become a ghost. With religion, it's hard to comprehend a higher power setting us back on earth in an intangible and invisible form. It seems cruel to me.

Ghosts are just one of those things that science can never prove and you need to act on faith, because those "mediums" on TV probably don't actually talk to the dead despite what you might think. So its mostly a judgment call based on belief. For me, it's more comforting to believe that when someone leaves this world, they don't stick around to spy on the rest of us or are locked in this plane of existence once more. Whether you stayed buried in the earth or go on to another existence, I just hope you don't wander the world for the rest of your days.

And hence, I do not believe ghosts exist.

[lilmissmalfoy]

I do believe in the suprnatural. In ghosts and poltergeists. I believe in psychic abilities and clairvoyance as well. I DO NOT believe in those shonky telephone psychics... but have been to see psychics and religiously watch television shows like Most Haunted.

I dont claim for one second that the tv shows are factual - goodness knows that it can be fabricated so easily, but I do believe that there is something after life.

I am not religious, but I do believe in an afterlife. I believe that souls who are torn from their bodies violently or in tragic circumstances stay where they feel is familiar.

I cannot explain WHY I believe it. Although I have had my own experiences that cannot be explained..... I guess its just a personal belief that I wish I had more proof of.

[Sandy Phoenix]

It is certainly no secret that my point of view is a religious one. I think most of you around here know my background. So, this question becomes mulitfaceted, really.

Do ghosts, in the traditional sense of the word with the groaning and moving furntirure and chasing people down hallways like in old black and white horror flicks, exist? Nah. That's just silly. Makes no sense. There is no logic to the behavior and I think Adawong already expressed that very well.

But that isn't really all of the question, is it?

Many faiths believe that loved ones are looking over us after they've passed on. In the Catholic faith (which is the only one I can address with any sense of accuracy so I'll limit myself to it), those who have gone before us are watching over us in an intercessory capacity. This is the concept of directing requests to saints. "Saint Isidore of Whosiwhatsis, please pray for my internet connection which has been seriously on the blink..."* So, in that sense, it isn't such a stretch for me to picture that a person could sense the presence of someone who had passed on.

We can't discount the power of suggestion in the mind, though. I have talked with older folks who have recently lost their spouse of many years. More than one has mentioned seeing, feeling, otherwise noting the presence of that spouse even though they know that person is dead. They seem to see their lost loved one for awhile and, about the same time they seem to get back into their own routine and get their feet under them again (which is NOT to say they are finished grieving or anything), they suddenly realize they haven't been seeing/sensing/whatever their spouse anymore. Now what is the whyfore of that?

My personal opinion is that a person in that situation sees the loved one they lost for as long as they need to see them. For as long as it provides comfort and solace, that person is still there with them. Is it real? Is that a ghost or is it the power of suggestion because they just really want to see them? I don't know.

Further, there are tthose who would say that these apparitions aren't actually ghosts at all, but angels. Angels wandering about, actively looking out for the welfare of a person, group of people or a place would, I suppose, look a lot like the blurry, indistinct figures said to be seen by so many. It is impossible, I suppose, to say definitely what it is.

Personal experience leads me to lean less toward random hauntings and more toward deliberate presence (as one might attribute to angels or, at any rate, benevolent, alruistic presences). But then, I haven't a clue in the world how I would prove that. I also have no answer at all for those situations in which the soul was said to have been so little at rest in life that it clings to its earthly locale rather than moving on to whatever comes next. I just haven't any idea what to say to that.





*Yes, there is a group out there proposing that a particular St. Isidore be named the patron saint of the internet.

[lilmissmalfoy]

I do think you're right Sandy, when you say that alot of people have a 'need' to feel that their loved ones are there. Same with horoscopes, people twist and squeeze events in their life into these small daily/weekly/monthly predictions just to 'make them true'.

I do believe in a higher being. Im not bound to any religion, by that I mean, I dont actively worship anything, but I do believe that there is something bigger than us all out there.

Ghosts.... I, Like Sandy dont believe that there is the whole "ghosts that chase you, moaning and groaning" type... but rather a build up of energy, that just literally bursts into this atmosphere....

I mean, how do you explain walking into a room (just a normal room, doesnt have to be spooky looking) and having a bad feeling? That something just doesnt feel right? I believe that this is caused by residual energy from events that have happened there over time... and in this sense, when this energy just becomes too much, sensitive people tend to feel this 'history'.....

I dont know if that makes sense....

[Narcissa]

Well... I don't know what to say, personally. I tend not to want to believe in ghosts, but the fact is... I know too many rational people who have had eerie experiences to deny their existance. I'll give a few examples:

My mum's not one to BS me, or exaggerate anything. She never believed in ghosts - until they moved from Wales to England, and their house was on King Henry the VIII's old hunting grounds. One day, she and my father had been playing around, and he was chasing her through the house. She ran up the stairs and went to turn the light on, and an icy cold hand grabbed hers to stop her. She turned around and of course, nobody was there and my father was downstairs. She said it wasn't frightening, she had the impression that whatever it was wanted in on the fun. Another instance; my eldest brother was about 2, and my other brother was 1. My mum was changing the younger one's diaper while the elder played outside in the yard. She looked out the window and saw him waving a long bread knife, so she ran out there and took it from him. A couple years later, he told her about it - saying he had seen a man on a horse with a long sword - he described to her a knight from Henry VIII's time. I know kids tell tall tales, but my brother is not the sort, never has been. He's like... an exaggerated version of Percy, only more so.

My dad has no imagination, no patience for gossip. Saw his father waving to him from the window of the house two weeks after he had died.

Jason and his entire family claim the house they lived in for 15 years was haunted, and they all have had different stories to tell. Jay's sister or dad - I'd think were hallucinating from... well... smokeables and drinkables... but his mother and him - I believe.

I've Never really seen anything supernatural until this summer. It was nothing major but it scared the hell out of me. We were driving to Vancouver through the mountains; a very dangerous stretch of road which every so often you will see flowery memorials. I was just riding along enjoying the scenery, I was alone in the back because I let my mum sit up front with Jay. They have these long, dark tunnels on the sides of some mountains, and we were in one of those. I went to look out the further window and there was a pale but definate trace of a young girl next to me. I jumped and it was gone. Sure enough, there was a huge memorial on the outside of this tunnel.

[Sandy Phoenix]

Yes, I admit that even discounting the power of suggestion or a heightened imagination, there are too many instances of otherwise very rational people describing experiences just like this to just say it is all a lot of rubbish. I maintain that the moaning and groaning and chasing around is pure Hollywood (and it seems we can all agree to that) but I will not dismiss all those other experiences.

My sister in law deals in antiques, part time. She spends weekends going around to estate sales and so on and maintaining her merchandise in a booth in an antique mall. Her house is full of dress forms wearing antique dresses and hats and the walls are covered with portraits 100+ years old. She insists she has had some experiences with some of her antiques. There was one portrait that only stayed in the house a couple of weeks. Both she and my nephew said they got a bad feeling whenever they were around the portrait and, after a few days, they were sure they'd seen the woman in the picture standing in the hallway. They each saw her at different times. *shrugs* Dunno. The presence they felt was so unpleasant, my sister in law ended up taking the portrait to a psychic (which, admittedly made me raise my eyebrow more than a little) who said that it was certainly possessed by an unrestful spirit. She sold the portrait ASAP and that was the end of it. Other experiences have been benign so she didn't worry about them.

I've never been a big believer in diret contact with the spirit world but, like Nar, I can't ignore the experiences of people who just don't give me the impression of being nutso or lying.

[Jess]

Though I can understand why there are many skeptics regarding the spirit world and ours intertwining, I am not one of them. Even psycologists have been researching the ghost phenomenon and many believe that ghosts are a form of psychic energy left behind when one passes away. This energy is referred to as ectoplasm, no not like the green slime from ghostbusters.
Year after year people flock to Charlotte North Carolina to go on guided tours and hope to see ghosts of the revolution. New Orleans Frech Quarter was also a popular spectre sighting spot.
Millions of people claim to either see, or feel spirits among us. Even people who don't subscribe to the ghost theory can't deny that they may have had an eerie feeling at one point or another. Whether we block out spirits consciously or some are just more able to see them than others, I do no t know, But I knwo they are there.
I've been having paranormal encounters since I was a child. I told my mother repeatedly that a man in a hat stood outside in the hallway at night when I was little. We later found out he was the father of th eman we bought the house from. I've had messages in my dreams from those who have past, including one on 9/11 with fire that was so vivid I made my father late for work and he missed teh first train.....His wouldhave been the one stuck under the city when all hell broke loose. I've had encounters with family members as well. While many discount ghosts and spirits, Ive had to many encounters to do this myself. I think if people were more open to it, spirits would be more open with them.

[-CJ-]

I believe fully in the supernatural, as many of you here already know. I've had a lot of my own experiences with it, as well as several stories that I've heard from others about their own experiences, one of which was never a believer of anything supernatural until she lived in a haunted house with her sons when they were younger.

My grandmother is very good at picking up on things that require a good sixth sense to notice, and I believe that some of that was passed on to me. When I was younger I would always get this feeling in my dad's house that I was being watched, especially when I was home alone at night. It wasn't just a being watched feeling though, like many people talk about getting, I knew where whatever watching me was, and it was always the same two locations every time; either at the end of the hallway, or at the very top of the steps going down into the basement if the door was open. Many times I'd freak out and go shut myself in my room for the rest of the night, whereas other times just opening the front door would make me feel more comfortable for some reason.

It is because of things like that that make me a strong believer. Some people say that I was just letting my imagination get the better of me, but I don't think so. The feeling of being watched, and knowing where I was being watched from, was so real to me that I dismiss any other explanation. I've always believed that I'm pretty good at telling the difference between knowing when it's just my imagination and when it's real. I can't explain it, but it's just something that you know, that you can feel.

I never felt threatend in any way by my invisible stalker, but it sure as hell did creep me out to no end, and to this day, at age 22 now, I can still sense some sort of presense when I'm at my dad's house, though it doesn't always bother me as much as it used to when I was younger.

I have an endless ammount of stories, some of which are scattered about on this board several pages back. I believe that this one fits the thread best, though, just because it's more than just "I saw" or "I heard." This is a story of "I felt," and feeling a presense first hand in such a strong way is, IMHO, more believeable than merely seeing or hearing something.

[Sandy Phoenix]

Yeah. Just more to bolster up my thinking that you can't just dismiss the experiences of others. There are too many people with stories that, while unusual and difficult to understand, are credible enough in their origin to keep them from being written off as loons.

I think I am comfortable saying that there is something to this and that there are, undoubtedly, all sorts of beings/energies/souls/presences beyond our own plane, but I am not comfortable saying exactly what. In fact, I don't think I would have a lot of faith in anyone who claimed to understand it all perfectly.