Do You Believe In Ghosts?

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Exporter said:
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I do not know what a “classic man in black” is. I have never heard if that term.

The man I saw was White (Anglo) with a medium suntan, with white hair, was about 5’ 6" tall, had deep blue eye color, his skin was very smooth, walked slowly and talked in a quiet voice.
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Men in Black in UFO lore are usually white or Asian, vary in height, have very smooth skin, walk funny (yours was walking slow, to compensate for lack of knowledge about how to walk), and they do tend to talk quietly or mumble.

I have a friend who led a shockingly corrupt life of drugs and “wine, women and song,” who overnight abandoned his life of self-indulgent sin and returned to his Catholic faith. Shortly after departing from his sinful lifestyle, one night, around midnight, there was a knock at his door, and when he and his wife opened it they saw a “woman-in-black” (also not dressed in black clothing) standing there. She seemed very, very old, but still had smooth skin. They had the impression that she was being controlled “like a puppet.” She had large, wet eyes, which stared steadily at my friend. She said to him, in a quiet voice, “Are you sure that you want to leave us?”!!! My friend, shocked at this deeply bizarre, terrifying visit, said something like, “I’m not going with you!,” and then she walked away, slowly and clumsily, like she had difficulty operating her own legs.
 
Exporter said:
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I do not know what a “classic man in black” is. I have never heard if that term.

The man I saw was White (Anglo) with a medium suntan, with white hair, was about 5’ 6" tall, had deep blue eye color, his skin was very smooth, walked slowly and talked in a quiet voice.
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That idiotic answer you received to the question, “Where are you from,” namely, “I come from the East. I will go West,” is also a very typical MIB answer.

MIBs appear all over UFOlogy, demonology and the occult.
 
Shin,
Who’s to say something wasn’t behind you or over your shoulder?
 
One of the best explanations/opinions I’ve ever heard about ghosts:
  1. Most of them are probably souls in Purgatory that (for whatever reason) God has allowed to spend a part of their temporal punishment here on Earth. >> This would explain why many of them usually appear looking sad and distant, and why some have even been reported to have asked ask Catholic priests to offer up the Holy Eucharist at a Mass for them… :eek: :cool:
  2. And everything else would probably fall somewhere within the categories of either demonic influence, mental hallucination, optical illusion, or a combination of the items listed above. 🙂
 
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BibleReader:
Do you know the two “MIB” movie comedies? Well, they are poking fun at something real in UFO lore.
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I had no idea those concepts wee aroudn before the comic books. Yeah, I’ve heard of the movies. If this was not a religion site, the first thing I would have thought of when you said “men in black” would be the movies, but as it’s a Catholic site, I thought “priest.”

You seem to do a lot of reading on this topic…
 
Bible Reader,

You wrote,"That idiotic answer you received to the question, “Where are you from,” namely, “I come from the East. I will go West,” is also a very typical MIB answer.

MIBs appear all over UFOlogy, demonology and the occult."
B.R., that answer ,“I come from the East” wasn’t idiotic to me. That phrase can be attributed to the wise men who came to give gifts to baby Jesus. That phrase also is attributed to magicians of Biblical Times. The phrase is one of the coded methods of identification of Masons. With Masons there is a counter password. I didn’t think they were the words of an idiot or retarded being.

I had said I saw him about 9 AM the morning after my mom had died the night before. He answered my question , “Do you know waht happened here last night?” He said “It happens in all families”. How did he know my mom had died?
 
If I’m not mistaken, didn’t Padre Pio have an encounter with a spirit in his chapel? I think the spirit was that of an old monk who died years prior and was the caretaker of the altar.He told Padre Pio that he needed to return because he did a lousy job of it in real life.Padre Pio told him that he would say a mass for him to get him to heaven.Apparently, this spirit was from purgatory.Anyone else ever hear of this?
 
I have personally had some pretty strange/unexplainable experiences and it seems safe to say that there are disembodied human souls wandering among us. I think they can be distinguished from angels and daemons in that they are neither harmful nor helpful. They are probably pretty rare in comparison to the multitude of pure spirits, and unable to directly affect anything physically.
  1. Most of them are probably souls in Purgatory that (for whatever reason) God has allowed to spend a part of their temporal punishment here on Earth. >> This would explain why many of them usually appear looking sad and distant, and why some have even been reported to have asked ask Catholic priests to offer up the Holy Eucharist at a Mass for them… :eek: :cool:
  2. And everything else would probably fall somewhere within the categories of either demonic influence, mental hallucination, optical illusion, or a combination of the items listed above.
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I agree, these seem to be the most likely explanations, and support the fact that some Hauntings and most Apparitions seek help from the living in some way. I think many Hauntings and especially Poltergeists are primarily daemonic though.
 
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Neithan:
I have personally had some pretty strange/unexplainable experiences and it seems safe to say that there are disembodied human souls wandering among us. I think they can be distinguished from angels and daemons in that they are neither harmful nor helpful. They are probably pretty rare in comparison to the multitude of pure spirits, and unable to directly affect anything physically.
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Have you ever heard about Msgr Muldoon in his old rectory?
Someone has now written a book about him.

suntimes.com/output/religion/cst-nws-muld11.html
 
I always find it odd that all of the paranormal investigations never come up with a video recording of an apparition. Photographs of apparitions are always indistinct. Something like a point of light or a whisp of smoke. Never a “dead nun” or a “confederate soldier” on video. As soon as the video is turned off, though, people see apparitions everywhere.

Sorry. No such thing as ghosts. Go to sleep now and don’t be afraid because Jesus is watching over you. 🙂

Scott
 
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Steven87:
Do you guys believe in ghosts/spirits on earth. What do you make of them to be, or why they are here?
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I don’t know if I actually believe in ghosts or not. I do believe in evil spirits however. I’m 39 now but I will never forget one night when I was 13. I was sleeping in my room. It must have been pretty late because the house was quiet indicating that my parents were already asleep. I awoke terrified (hair standing on end) to the point that I was unable to move or even yell. I was completely paralyzed. I had the distinct feeling that something had been chasing me in a dream though I couldn’t remember what it was only that I COULD NOT let it catch me. As I laid there on my back scared out of my wits with sweat pulling off me for about 2 or 3 minutes, my closet door suddenly swung open violently. At that instant, I regained my ability to yell and proceeded to do just that, unable still to move. This awoke my parents who came rushing into my room. They turned on the light and all I could do was yell about the closet. They went over to the closet and found that my sleeping bag had fallen from the upper shelf causing the door to slam open. I eventually calmed down and my parents went back to bed. Try as I might, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I know this sounds like the typical little boy afraid of the “boogie man” in the closet. However, there are two things that puzzle me about this incident even today. First, why did I wake up 2-3 minutes BEFORE the bag fell, scared to the point of being paralyzed and feeling that someone or something was after me? I had never had that happen to me before or since. I have never been so afraid of anything before of since either. Secondly, sleeping bags are cylindrically shaped. That is, they are similar to a soda can when rolled and put into their storage bag. My closet shelf was crowded with books and various other objects. My sleeping bag could ONLY fit on the shelf long ways. In other words, if it were to simply roll off the shelf, it would have to go end over end because that is how it was stored. My self was level and was secure (I know, I checked it out myself the following morning AFTER the sun came up). Miami, Florida has no earthquakes and that is where I was living at the time. No train tracks in our suburban community that might suggest a passing train vibrated the house. The shelf was deep enough and the sleeping bag pushed far back so that no part of the bag protruded off the shelf. Was it a ghost? I still don’t know and I’m content not to know. Whatever it was though, I KNOW that it was not good. It meant me harm and I am very happy to add that I never encountered it again.
 
Originally posted by Isburk
As soon as the video is turned off, though, people see apparitions everywhere.
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Genuine apparitions are rare.
I always find it odd that all of the paranormal investigations never come up with a video recording of an apparition. Photographs of apparitions are always indistinct. Something like a point of light or a whisp of smoke. Never a “dead nun” or a “confederate soldier” on video.
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This is probably because the image doesn’t actually exist in space, objectively. The spirit manifests itself to you, but probably within your mind. Since a soul doesn’t physically exist, this makes sense, and any kind of video capture couldn’t possible record an objective image of it. Does it make it less real? Well, not to the person who sees it. How does one distinguish it from a hallucination? That’s pretty tricky.
 
I definitely do believe in ghosts, or the spirits of those who have died, even though I have never encountered one.

My mother saw people who she knew were dead numerous times. I will tell you of one -

The first child in our family was a girl - Kathleen. When she was 3 years old she met our maternal grandfather, while on vacation on his farm. Kathleen and Grandad loved each other very much. That winter Grandad died. Early the next year Kathleen got pneumonia. This was before the days of penecillin. The pneumonia was in both of her lungs. Kathleen spent some time in hospital. In those days, also, it was not permitted for parents to stay with their children while in hospital. They had to visit at the usual visiting times. One day Kathleen told my mother that her Grandad had slept with her the previous night.

Shortly after this, it became obvious that Kathleen would die, so my mother decided that her daughter was not going to die in a hospital, and took her home to care for her.

One night Kathleen was restless, and my mother was soothing her, and trying to get her to sleep. Suddenly there was a noise - my mother thought my father had dropped something, so she turned round to tell him to be more quiet. What she saw was not my father, but her father - who had died the previous winter, remember. He was dressed in a long garment and approached the foot of the bed, where he knelt down, with his hands joined in prayer. My mother turned back to Kathleen, and at that moment, Kathleen died. It was my mother’s conviction that her father had come to bring his little granddaughter home to heaven.

I have always found the story comforting, and never tired of hearing it. I sometimes think about it, even now, more than 40 years after my mother’s death.
 
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Exporter:
Bible Reader,

You wrote,"That idiotic answer you received to the question, “Where are you from,” namely, “I come from the East. I will go West,” is also a very typical MIB answer.

MIBs appear all over UFOlogy, demonology and the occult."
B.R., that answer ,“I come from the East” wasn’t idiotic to me. That phrase can be attributed to the wise men who came to give gifts to baby Jesus. That phrase also is attributed to magicians of Biblical Times. The phrase is one of the coded methods of identification of Masons. With Masons there is a counter password. I didn’t think they were the words of an idiot or retarded being.

I had said I saw him about 9 AM the morning after my mom had died the night before. He answered my question , “Do you know waht happened here last night?” He said “It happens in all families”. How did he know my mom had died?
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In UFO lore, MIBs, which, again, I believe to be demonic, always know about events in the lives of the people they are haunting, because they are being “watched” by demonic spirits.

By the way, this thing may have been your MIB, *not *your mother’s. In other words, you may have been the person being haunted.

Re “talk like an idiot,” I was referring to literalism and ignorance of colloquial meaning, not stupidity. Note that in my example of idiotic talk…

**(For example, asked “What is your name?,” they will answer something like, “It is the word associated with me identifying me to others,” instead of just giving their name!) **

…the answer is quite sophisticated, intellectually, but is characterized by a moronic level of understanding about the commonly accepted (colloquial) meaning of “What is your name?”

This is not the sort of thing which you should get oppositional over. Whether you like it or not, aside from the obvious fact that the being you encountered was not wearing black, it really does resemble a “Man-in-Black” in other ways.

And, “Men-in-Black” may actually be mentioned in the Bible, not under that name, of course, but perhaps under the ancient Hebrew name of 'owb, or “familiar spirit,” or perhaps under Paul’s title for the demon which haunted him, “Thorn in the Flesh.”
 
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SCTA-1:
If I’m not mistaken, didn’t Padre Pio have an encounter with a spirit in his chapel? I think the spirit was that of an old monk who died years prior and was the caretaker of the altar.He told Padre Pio that he needed to return because he did a lousy job of it in real life.Padre Pio told him that he would say a mass for him to get him to heaven.Apparently, this spirit was from purgatory.Anyone else ever hear of this?
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Yes, in the book The Amazing Secret of the Souls in Purgatory: An Interview with Maria Simma
by Sister Emmanuel of Medjugorje …very interesting read…
 
Catholic apologist, Peter Kreeft, speculates that there are 3 kinds of ghosts: 1) sad ghosts, which may be souls in the purgatorial process, 2) malicious and evil ghosts, which are demons, and 3) bright spirits, who are spirits of friends or loved ones and who, for whatever reason, are allowed by God to provide a brief visitation of encouragement. It is extremely important not to actively seek contact with spirits–even bright spirits. We are too vulnerable to deception. But if a bright encounter occurs without initiation, I would just take it at face value. Any information that is conveyed, I would definitely put it to a scriptural test.

I voted “yes” I believe in ghosts, but have not encountered one. But actually, when I voted, I mainly had the spirits of people in mind. I believe I have had encounters with both demons and an angel, however.

A number of years ago, I was involved in a prison ministry. I believe a demon followed me home after a particular ministry retreat. I woke up in the middle of the night and felt icy hands covering every inch of my body. Then I felt as though I was being pulled through the mattress toward the floor. I quickly bound the spirits in Jesus’ name, and the sensation stopped.

On another occasion, when I was married to my ex-husband, we purchased a new house that had been sitting vacant for a year after construction. After we moved in, we both felt a creepy feeling in the 4th bedroom. This feeling persisted for months. As we walked down the hall toward the room (which we mainly used for storage) the air got colder and the hair on our neck would stand up (the room was fully heated like the other rooms). We also noticed large things in the house being moved to different locations. And one night a lamp fell off the nightstand closest to my ex-husband. He said he hadn’t knocked it over. We felt certain there was a demon. So we decided we need to annoint the house with oil and pray to have the spirit removed (we were Protestants at the time). As we approached the room in prayer, the coldness and the creepy feeling instensified to a much greater extent than previously. But afterward, the room felt normal. Some months later, my ex-husband rented some horror movies (which I objected to). The spirit came back and we had to go throught the same process to remove it.

Another experience I had I believe might have been an angel. The leader of the prison ministry that I was involved with lost his wife to Lupus. One of his daughters was about ready to start Junior High and needed school clothes. He didn’t know the first thing about getting clothes for girls, so I took her down to LA to go shopping. It was a fun day and we talked about the Lord. On our way back home (a 3 hour drive) my car broke down in the middle of the desert. We were about 45 minutes from a phone (this was before cell phones). It was 10pm at night. At the same time, my aunt was alerted by the Holy Spirit to pray for us. In a vision, she saw that we were parked by the side of the highway and I was behind the vehicle with the trunk open. The car had overheated and after waiting for the car to cool off a bit, I got a jug of water out of the trunk to put in the radiator. My aunt prayed that God would send us an angel. While I was still behind the car (we were pointing north), a car coming south on the highway slowed down as it passed us and then turned around. I quickly got in the car and locked the door! A guy came over to my window to ask if we were okay and needed any help. He was a little scary looking, with long hair, a sleeveless T-shirt, and tattoos. I didn’t roll my window down at all, but indicated we were fine and I said the car overheated, but we should be able to get to a phone. He asked if I was sure. I said yes. So then he left and drove off. But the really weird thing about it was he didn’t turn around to continue south. He drove north. We didn’t see him come back past us to go south. It was like we were his destination. I didn’t notice the other person in his car, but the girl said he was with an eldery woman. Weird! I guess I’ll know for sure when I get to heaven! We did manage to get to a phone finally and I called my dad, and he came and got us.
 
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antiaphrodite:
would you happen know any similar articles online?
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Greetings,

The following essay was written by a non-ordained religious brother involved in spiritual warfare and deliverence counceling. It’s a very interesting read.

saint-mike.org/library/brojp/7ghosts.asp.

Be sure to check out the rest of his website, there is a Q&A forum devoted specifically to this kind of subject matter.

Pax Christi.
 
To those who have recounted your experiences, I wanted you to know that I have goose-bumps over my entire body. I thought I had some pretty interesting sightings, but what can I say.

Although I know of one or two such sightings, I must share one that is especially memorable. Several months after my Mother had passed away, I saw her sitting in a chair in my bedroom. These sightings occurred when I would have to get up at night to use the bathroom. She never looked up at me and seemed be to praying which she did quite often during her later years. Her presence was not scary in any way, but was actually comforting. My wife really did not like the idea of my Mother invading the privacy of our bedroom and afterwards, I never saw her again.

Blessings,

John
 
I’d be curious to hear if anyone experienced anything like what I’ve experienced:

When I was very young … probably four or so my mother and I attended a very small Catholic church called St Mary of the Assumption. It was the first Catholic church in the area and was built in the late 1890’s. Even now I remember the wonderful feeling of peace that small church evoked in me. I can remember looking forward to attending mass there every Sunday. This was basically a one room building with a very small alcove directly to the left of the alter where the priest would get ready for mass.

Anyway … the first row of pews had been created in minature so that children could sit there during mass, (I remember feeling special that I got to sit so close to the priest.) One morning during mass, (and I still remember it vividly to this day) I started to see on the wall above the crucifx what I could only describe as a shadow picture show of Joseph leading Mary on a donkey to a small building. The building was small and shack like in appearance and there were also 2 or three palm trees around it. Everything was in sillouhette, but it played out just like a picture show. I can remeber just being enthralled with it. After mass I told everyone I knew about it, thinking everyone else had seen it too. No one had. I can remember people, (including my mother) trying to convince me that it was probably just shadows playing on the wall, but I watched like a hawk every mass after that until our parish built a new larger church and never saw the same thing again. To this day, (and I am now 29) I still believe that what I saw was real! How could I, a four year old possible know they had palm trees in the middle east, (and trust me there are no palm trees anywhere near that old church.)

To this day, even though the building no longer belongs to our parish, I drive by or walk by it whenever I need a little boost in faith. I dearly wish they still offered masses there, once the new building was completed, the mass experience was never quite the same for me.
 
Well there certainly are demons that roam the earth which can posess people, fallen angels, even guardian angels which people may perscribe as being ‘ghosts.’

It is even believed that UFO sightings might be the activity of angels coming down to earth, or most possibly demons manifesting themselves.

Also I believe it was Mary in one of the alleged apparitions that said that sometimes the souls in Purgatory can (or are allowed to) manifest themselves in certain ways on earth to their loved ones or others in an attempt to have them pray for them.
 
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