Do You Believe in Ghosts?

[Michie]

Disembodied spirits exist, but do they have the power to manifest themselves in an ephemeral way to living human beings?



My sister must have been eight or nine years old when she reported the strange sighting. We lived among the rolling hills of Southeastern Pennsylvania. The area was steeped in history, and the local lore was that years ago there was a resort in the hills above our home, and during colonial times wealthy people from Philadelphia would take refuge from the summer heat in the lodges among the lakes in these hills.

This gave some context to my sister’s experience. She claimed to have seen a young boy in colonial garb— breeches with knee socks, a white shirt with full sleeves and long-ish hair with a three cornered dark blue hat. He was running merrily along the back of our house with a small dog trotting beside him. She watched the boy out of her bedroom window as he ran up into the woods and disappeared. It was daylight. She had not been dreaming, and like Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, she was a truthful child—not given to dreams or fantastic stories.

She was curious about her vision, but not afraid. She concluded that she had seen a ghost. Was it a ghost? Do ghosts exist?

Continued below.
Do You Believe in Ghosts? ~ The Imaginative Conservative

 

[IceJad]

Depends on what entities are categorized as ghost. Purely human souls or divine/demonic spirits or the mix of both.

I personally don't believe in human souls roaming the earth as ghosts after death. Whether one would believe theologically that all souls go to be judge immediately or only during the Final Judgement makes no difference.

I would however believe that divine or demonic spirits do roam around as the commonly understood ghosts. I have never seen one personally and hope never to.

I have however witness demonic possessions. Not a pretty sight. But still no white semi transparent spirits manifest.

 

[Wolseley]

I'm kind of on the fence with this one. It's easy enough to blithely say, "There are no such things as ghosts," but I had an experience once, which I have related before, but I'll relate it again.

After my Dad passed away in 1988, weird stuff started happening at my parent's house. My mother would find windows open...doors unlocked...beds turned down...radio dials messed with. I found a few windows and doors open or unlocked, too, but just put it down to Mom's absent-mindedness.

My sister swears she woke up in the night to hear the TV playing old "Barney Miller" reruns when there was nobody in the house but her; she pulled the covers up over her head and stayed in bed until she fell back to sleep, and when she woke up later in the night, the TV was off. (My sister, however, has always had a bit of a strange bent---I love her dearly, but she's had odd dreams from time to time in which she's seen men walking through walls at night, and so forth, so I wonder about her reporting accuracy.)

However. I was there one weekend, and had just retired for the night (probably about 1 AM, maybe 2), and I heard some footsteps come through the breezeway, across the living room floor, and then I heard the chain pulled on a fluorescent bar light over the couch against the south wall. I heard the little metal tab on the end of the pull cord fly up and go "plink!" when it hit the tube, and the light went "blonk-blonk-blonk buzzzzz" the way they do. The light shone down the hallway and into my bedroom.

Thinking it must have been my mother, I called out---and got no answer. I called again---no answer. I got up and walked out into the living room, and there was the light, blazing away, but not a soul in sight. I thought to myself, "Oooooh-kay...." and I went through the breezeway, across the dining room, and down the other hallway to Mom's room.

She was in bed, fast asleep. The dog was lying next to the bed, and woke up long enough to give me one of those canine looks that says "What do you want?"

So: Mom didn't turn on the light. I didn't turn on the light. I'm fairly certain that the dog didn't turn on the light. So who did?

I then proceeded to check every room in the house. Nothing. All the doors were closed and locked; all the windows were closed and locked. All the closets were clear. All the showers were clear. Nobody under any of the beds. Nobody behind the furnace. Nobody was hiding anywhere in that house. And yet I had heard those footsteps come across the floor, and I had seen that light come on.

I went back to the living room and stood there, looking at the light. I wasn't scared, but I was puzzled---it just didn't make any sense. There was a light switch on the inside of the doorway when you went into the living room; you flipped that switch and had light. That switch was off. The only way you could turn the fluorescent bar light on was to physically pull the cord down, because it was connected to a different circuit. Why would anybody walk into a completely dark room and across the floor in the dark, to turn on a light on the opposite wall, when all they had to do was reach around the doorjamb and flip a switch? I couldn't figure it out.

Finally, after I didn't come up with any answers, I shut the light off and went back to bed. I had no explanation for it then, and I have no explanation for it now. It was just one of those weird, uncanny things. The house has since been sold to a friend of the family, who moved in, and they report no unusual activity at all. (shrug) Go figure.

So, was it a ghost, or not? I don't know. But I do know it was certainly weird.

 

[QvQ]

I read a very old book by a Jamaican, an elderly man who was cataloguing his life, documenting the history of his times.
I barely remember what the book was about but I do remember he talked about "haunts" and ghosts.
The one sentence that stuck in my mind and I believe it to this day is that "Every man has seen something he can't explain."
I saw a ghost in an old house I lived in that had been a railroad station back in the 1880's. Was it real? It was to me. I can't explain it and I do remember the old Jamaicans words.

 

[Blade]

MICHIE! haha had a thought so will say it.. GREAT WOMAN OF GOD! Yeah true. How you doing! So blessed ..

Ghosts? No well short true story we were living with my mom since she asked for help so we moved to where she lived. And Bob husband (My dad died so she got remarried)had cancer and dying. So as I got up to go to the bathroom and now coming back I was going through the living room and from my right comes this dark figure yet see through walks past me looks at me and in that moment I new what it was thinking "your nothing" then walked through the left wall. HAHA I know I am a man of faith and all power authority over the enemy as Christ said...ooh but that whole next week? Yeah I left the light on every night.

So yeah they are very real.

 

[Wolseley]

I read a very old book by a Jamaican, an elderly man who was cataloguing his life, documenting the history of his times.
I barely remember what the book was about but I do remember he talked about "haunts" and ghosts.
The one sentence that stuck in my mind and I believe it to this day is that "Every man has seen something he can't explain."
I saw a ghost in an old house I lived in that had been a railroad station back in the 1880's. Was it real? It was to me. I can't explain it and I do remember the old Jamaicans words.

I'd say that he was right.

Of course, I also remember a story my Dad told, from back when he was a kid....we're talking the 1920s, here.

He said there was a certain house in the district on a side road that had been abandoned for years; it was pretty decrepit, and it had gotten the reputation that some old houses do---specifically, you didn't want to go anywhere near the place on certain nights of the month when the moon was full or nearly full.

If you did, you would see eerie lights flashing in the upstairs windows, and it was definitely hair-raising. This was back in the days when a lot of rural folks were still using horses in northern Michigan, and when the lights would shimmer, the horses would shy---they didn't like it one bit.

So, every month around the time of the full moon, if the weather was clear, you tried to stay away from this house, because something was definitely not right in there.

My great-grandad was a freight teamster---again, horses; this was long before semi trucks---and he was a pretty sizeable man. He and another fellow, equally large, decided they were going to go out to this house and solve the mystery once and for all. So, one good clear night at the full of the moon, they headed out.

They got there, and sure enough, as you passed the house on the road, the cold white lights would flicker and shimmer in the upstairs rooms. The horses whickered and laid their ears back, so Great-Grandad and his friend tied them to a tree, grabbed a couple of kerosene lanterns, a couple of crowbars, and into the house they went.

They found nothing on the ground floor. They found nothing in the rooms on the second floor that faced away from the road. But when they got to the rooms facing the road, they found a huge, cracked mirror hanging on the back wall. The mirror was nearly six feet long and had apparently been hanging there ever since the place was abandoned. For years, curtains had hung in the windows, but after the neighborhood kids had smashed the window panes by throwing rocks at them from the road, as kids are wont to do, the curtains gradually rotted away, and the mirror faced the empty windows, which faced the road.

When the conditions were just right---i.e., the night was clear and the full moon was on the rise---the moon would shine through the empty windows and hit the mirror on the back wall. The mirror would reflect the moonlight back out towards the road, and because it was cracked, it would make the light shimmer and flicker as you moved past the house.

Great-Granddad and his pal lifted the mirror off the wall, and placed it on the floor, face-down, and departed. That ended the "ghost". Whether that took away the reputation the house had among the small fry in the township, I don't know. But it was a pretty cool story.

 

[Joined2krist]

If you do not believe Ghosts are real, spend a night in an isolated Hotel with a graveyard beside it

 

[Wolseley]

If you do not believe Ghosts are real, spend a night in an isolated Hotel with a graveyard beside it

LOL. That's sort of like the meme that says if you're lonely, wait until nighttime, make sure you're alone, open the doors and windows, shut off all the lights, and put on the scariest horror movie you can find. After a little while, it won't feel like you're alone any more.

 

[WarriorAngel]

IMHO it depends/varies on the person.
We're all equipped for the gifts, but our own prejudiced thinking, fears etc can make it more difficult for some to comprehend the experiences or care if they even exist.

 

[WarriorAngel]

Lemme just say: we are all souls. We have skin. Yeah ok, but our passed on brother and sisters in the Lord don't have skin but still have their eternal souls.
You'd think our souls would be able to understand intuitively the souls allowed to ask for help.

And then they do, but then you have 'purgatory doesn't exist' or 'wow fascinating tales for Halloween or movies' or 'o no it's evil souls don't haunt...' and of course discernment is necessary. How few people actually believe ghosts exist or purgatory exists [the reason they're around at all... ] and you've got a bunch of souls seeking help and so few praying. The fact fewer go to Church now, vs the number of folks dying and everything seems outnumbered.

 

[Chrystal-J]

My house was infested with what I believe were demons. I would frequently see "the hat man". Sometimes he would be standing in a doorway, sometimes walking toward me or sitting on my bed. Other people saw him too. My TV used to switch channels quickly without me doing anything. But, if you put a bible on the TV, it would stop. Just this past Halloween, my boyfriend passed within 5 inches of me and didn't see me in the living room. When I said "hi" to him, he jumped. He ran to the other room and saw me there. (Like I was in 2 rooms at the same time.)

 

[Wolseley]

I'm quite grateful that the house I live in was built in 1988, with a large addition put on in 1991. It hasn't been around long enough to collect any goblins.

 

[Chrystal-J]

I'm quite grateful that the house I live in was built in 1988, with a large addition put on in 1991. It hasn't been around long enough to collect any goblins.

Mine followed me from my old house where my late husband was into the occult.

 

[Wolseley]

Mine followed me from my old house where my late husband was into the occult.

Ah. Which means that they attached to you, rather than the house....

 

[Chrystal-J]

Ah. Which means that they attached to you, rather than the house....

It's a constant battle, but my prayer life has improved. I do feel like I'm in a war sometimes.

 

[Wolseley]

It's a constant battle, but my prayer life has improved. I do feel like I'm in a war sometimes.

Have you spoken to a priest about this?

 

[Chrystal-J]

Have you spoken to a priest about this?

I actually talked to a bishop once about it and he said "things like this happen more than you'd think." Any other time I tried to talk to a priest about this, they acted afraid and didn't really respond. They just walked away.

 

[Wolseley]

I actually talked to a bishop once about it and he said "things like this happen more than you'd think." Any other time I tried to talk to a priest about this, they acted afraid and didn't really respond. They just walked away.

Yes, unfortunately that happens all too often. A lot of priests don't believe in demonic entities, and if someone mentions they have an issue, the priest tends to think they have a mental problem that they don't want to get involved in.

I remember the passage in Blatty's novel The Exorcist, when Regan's mother talks to the priest from Georgetown, who advises her to take Regan to a psychiatrist, and the mother finally explodes and screams, "I've taken her to every ******* physician and witch doctor in the entire country, and they couldn't do anything! They sent me to you! Now you want to send me back to them! Can't anybody help me?!?!"

Granted, exorcisms are a little more common these days, but in too many cases, you still have to drag the priest kicking and thrashing into getting one done. It shouldn't have to be that way.

 

[Chrystal-J]

I had a priest tell me he doesn't believe in "that sort of thing". I said "You don't believe in demons??" He stormed off into the other room. The people around me were appalled that he didn't believe in demons when they are clearly written about in the bible.

 

[Wolseley]

I had a priest tell me he doesn't believe in "that sort of thing". I said "You don't believe in demons??" He stormed off into the other room. The people around me were appalled that he didn't believe in demons when they are clearly written about in the bible.

(nodding) Well, there you go. Just one more example of the 20th century secular religion where the word of Sigmund Freud holds more sway than the Word of God. Poor Jesus....going around driving all those demons out of people; I guess He didn't realize how deluded He was.