Do You believe In Ghosts/Spirits ?

I've recounted this heaps of times but my father turned up in my bedroom the night he died. We argued and talked, and at the end he gave this almighty scream and disappeared. Something was coming for him.

But I wouldn't call him a "ghost". To my mind I wa allowed to see his spirit, while I have this conception of "ghosts" that they hang around and haunt specific locations.

When the disciples saw Christ walking on the water, they were terrified and thought He was a ghost. Christ did nothing to dispel the possibility of ghosts existing, but merely affirmed he was 'not a ghost'.

In my last job in community driving, one of the fares said she had a similar experience. Her husband was in hospital being kept alive by machines as he'd had a brain embolism. The staff had already told her that the next day they were going to turn off the machines and if he couldn't breathe, he'd die.

So she knew that. But that night she said something white sat on the bed. She said she was freaking out, and wondered what the hell was going on. Then this white thing spoke.

It was her husband. He apologised to her for his abusive treatment. What else might have been said I don't know as I didn't have time to pursue the story. But she told me her eldest daughter had the same experience.

She said he was easily most abusive to the eldest daughter out of all the children, and sat on the foot of the bed and apologised to her as well on the night he died.

I was seeing a psychiatrist for a few years. It started due to depression but that was fixed by Prozac. I kept going though as we shared some similar spiritual experiences. Now I'd only see him once every fhree to five months as it wasn't urgent, but one session he said "Something strange happened last weekend!"

I asked him what it was.

He said he was in a Catholic Church when they announced a parishioner had died that morning. However she had also been one of his patients.

He said "She was in the church!" He could see her and said she seemed to be trying to get his attention. She gave up after a while (it's not exacatly a good idea to talk to a spirit in church if you're the only one who is allowed to see her), and moved to the other side of the church.

He thought she might have had family on that side of the church.

Now I'd often told him about my father turning up, along with some other spiritual shenanigans, but he had his "ghostly" experince the very weekend before I was due to come in for my next appointment ie. "last weekend".

I suppose you might say the memory would have been very fresh in his mind at the time.

I've got no doubt we all have spirits, and there are "ghosts" who for one reason or another might be doing their purgatory in a certain place, so they're stuck there.

Spirits exist - every single one of us has a spirit, and there are ghosts. As Christ said walking on the water, he was "not a ghost" implying ghosts exist.

In an account I read some years ago, a chap said his grandmother died. He tried to tell his brother as he knew they were very close, but was unable to at the time. Later he told his brother who informed him he already knew.

He asked him how he knew. He said she visited him the night she died, and sat on the foot of the bed.

The only problem was that the brother was on a New Zealand naval vessel at the time somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean.

They exist all right.

Well, the Bible says that God Himself is a Spirit, so I do believe in spirits as far as He goes. There is this world (the natural one) where the Created Order belongs and then there is God's world, which is the eternal, supernatural one. I think you know of it by its popular name of Heaven.

RileyG said:

Yes. I think they’re demons.

Click to expand...

I’ve probably seen both ghosts and demons. The one was my grandfather. Shortly after he died, he came into my room and stopped the clock he gave me as a gift. I wasn’t afraid. The second time, two ladies walked through our bedroom. I saw the ladies, but my wife saw two balls of light that streaked like snakes or sparklers in the dark. We were both very afraid. There was no interaction with us in either case.

I tend to believe in soul sleep, and ghosts might just wake up from time to time and move around. However, the idea that their image is like a negative of a photograph imprinted on space is just as likely. I don’t think they can do harm. However, demons can do harm and can look like people who have died. Whatever the case, they should be avoided as much as possible. All forms of ghost hunting are bad ideas.

Sometimes the dead come to us whether we asked them to or not.

There's a difference between seeking occult experiences and having an experience of what might be called "last goodbyes", which according to a Catholic counsellor I happen to know are "fairly common".

When it is a "last goodby", it usually occurs only once. I've often related that my father turned up in my room the night he died. I still remember what we talked about.

It happpened once only, and it happened on the very night he died, almost certainly at the very time he died.

He hasn't been back since, and that will be 47 years ago this coming Sunday night as it happens.