Do You Believe In Ghosts?

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Ghosty:
I don’t believe that “ghosts” are actually the souls of the departed, which I believe are either in Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. Rather I believe that they represent something that isn’t properly understood yet. I think they are more a “residual” emotional or spiritual imprint on a place, rather than a rational soul lingering in this world. They are similar to a photograph, or a video, caught in time.
My reason for this is that they rarely seem to exhibit any kind of rational behavior, and instead seem to simply be a repetition of image or emotion. They don’t interact with us as a soul might, with an intellectual back-and-forth, nor do they seem to respond to our concious actions.
I believe in ghosts, they are mentioned in Scripture, but I think they are very, very different from souls. I also believe in demonic and angelic activity, but I don’t think most “ghosts” represent true demonic occurances or angelic apparitions.
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I think that this is probably the explanation for most eerie experiences like those people have mentioned…
 
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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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Jesus believed in ghosts.

I think their existance has something to do with purgatory. Demons could also appear as ghosts, and some hostile cases are attributed to demons rather than ghosts. Which is why scripture says to never fool around with the occult. You can never be sure which one will answer the invitation.

Andy
 
I believe people see strange things.

Ghosts - yes!

UFO’s - absolutely - there can be no doubt!

Do I have an explantion - no!

Do I believe in Aliens - probably not.

Do I believe it has something to do with a spiritual battle - probably yes.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. "
 
Oops… I read the qualifier “on earth” only after I voted.

But I still wouldn’t change my vote.
 
There was a man from England on TV recently. He was in America, conducting a spirit-reading with people who were quite sceptical about ghosts. During his reading contacted the dead relative of a women who was there. He told the woman what the relative’s name was, how she had died and many other facts that the woman claimed only she could know. He also knew what that woman had in her pocket at the time. This man was so accurate that one of the top mediums in America was amazed.
Now, it just so happens that this man is quite well known in the UK. His name is Derren Brown and he is not a spirit medium or a psychic or anything like that. He is a simple stage magician. He describes his craft as a mixture of magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship. He conducted the spirit reading in order to expose those who made a living from falsly claiming to contact their dead relatives.

Now, I don’t know how convincing this post is, but I urge anyone who believes in seances and such to find out more about Derren Brown’s work. Be warned that you will probably be forced to change your opinion.
In short, my answer is no.

🙂
 
Cold reading is very, very different from the experiences most people have with ghosts. I myself can do cold reading like Derren Brown does (though surely not as skillfully). Disproving seances does nothing to disprove “static repeaters”, apparitions that consistantly appear in a location and have a constant set of behaviors. That is the category most ghosts fall under.

What’s very interesting is that most cultures have similar descriptions of ghosts being “obsessive” about certain things or details. It seems to be a common “trait” of ghosts across the world, which leads me to believe that there’s indeed something behind the phenomena, even if it’s a human psychological abberation.
 
Derren Brown is amazing - and a self-admitted fake!

Fantastic TV.

Anyone who can walk up a complete stranger, ask for their wallet and then walk off with it without any hint of violence is a genius.
His “staring” competitions are spooky!
 
I often feel my grandmother’s presence. She and I were very closely. I talk to her often and ask her to pray for our family. I have felt her “guidance” and love and know that she hears me. I have felt her and my father both in my car when I visited a relative.

One time, I also went to her picture and asked her a genealogy question, as I could find no information on the internet. I “heard” her answer in my mind, typed what she had said, and got an immediate hit on Google for what I had been looking for!

Shortly after my father died, he visited me. I heard a rustling in the dining room, went in there and saw no breeze or anything to cause this rustlling. I asked if this presence was “in Christ” and if not, to go away. The presence remained. I knew it was my father and asked him to come sit on the couch with me. I very definitely felt him sitting beside me, comforting me regarding his passing, and letting me know he loved me and thought I had been a good daughter to him.

Edited to add: Also, my mother passed away before the video cameras were on the market for the public. After they were available, my stepfather made a tribute video of my mom with still photographs of her and different family members, with music and also recordings of her voice. One mother’s day when my children and I were watching the video, my mom’s picture fell from the wall. I do believe it was she letting us know she was in heaven, loving us.
 
i don’t know what ghosts really are, or whether or not i believe in them, but i have seen some pretty strange things in the 9 years that we lived in our old home. anything from hearing footsteps and talking when no one was around, to stuff being missed placed. once there was even printer paper that was kept in the dining room with the computer thrown all over my mom’s room on the otherside of the house. my mom says she saw the “ghost” twice in the time we lived there.
as for angels, demons, jesus, mary, etc. my mom saw jesus once when i was younger. i also have also seen an angel once. i have friends that have seen demons, one demon even tried to get my friend to follow him. all that did was get my friend runing in the other direction. my boyfriend also claims that a church near his home has many demons in it. people have seen them running around in the sunday school rooms. i wasn’t aware that demons could go into churches, does anyone know any more about that topic?
 
I don’t know if I believe in ghosts, but I do believe, and know that people can come to us after death. I guess that makes them a ghost! The night my grandfather died, I saw him. It was like a dream, but it wasn’t. He was talking and he was just like he used to be, before he became ill. I woke up crying and knew he was dead. This was 13 or so years ago. A couple of years ago, one of my brothers and I were talking about ghosts. He mentioned the “grandpa ghost.” It turns out that same night he and our other brother also saw our grandfather. Very wild!
 
Hello All,

I have always been fascinated by the paranormal. “Coast to Coast AM” w/ Art Bell & George Noory is my favorite radio show. I think a lot of the time we Catholics dismiss certain aspects of the supernatural too easily. UFO’s, in my opinion, don’t conflict with Church teaching. Ghosts are a more difficult subject. From what I’ve seen, there are certain explainations which are inline with Catholic Theology:

A. The “apparition” is a fake.

B. The person seeing the manifestation is schizophrenic.

C. The Witness is using a psychotrophic drug.

D. Ghosts are manifestations of evil spirits.

E. Ghosts are apparitions, i.e. Mary or other Saints.

F. Ghosts may be spirits in Limbo/Pugatory.

G. There is temporal dissplacement occuring so we are seeing the past.

H. A person died in a state of stress which left residual energy on the fabric of time and space.

I know some of these theories may sound a bit nutty, but there are odd things that happen in this world and we should just write them off as “nonsense”. It seems people are skeptics until they witness something for themeselves. So keep an open mind and stay close to the Faith.
 
“ghosts” in the traditional sense is often referred to the spirits of the dead wandering around the earth…often times haunting the living…that particular definition does not exist…the truth of the matter is that spiritual sightings in that fashion even noises are all the works of Satans followers…intending to spread fear,whether you believe it or not satan has a structure of followers…most commonly known as “demons” as you can recall the facts in the the new testament where jesus on many occasions dealt with demons possessing and oppressing people and having authority and dominion over them. now anyone having any basic scripture knowledge would know that ghosts so people call them are not to be tolerated, but we are to act in the authority that christ has empowered the church to have dominion over the works of satan and his followers…often when people give into fear or give into these spirits, it will tend to make the matter worse…you give them a door into your life enabling them to work awful deeds…but we are told to resist the devil and he will flee…don’t allow your mind to fantisize that these are some mystical phenomenon, they are in fact followers of satan, sent to deceive,destroy,break down, all those that live in this world. don’t be afraid but stand firm and rebuke him…don’t let him have a hold in your life or allow such manifestations to occur…

Ceasar
 
Ex Nihilo:
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.
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thank you very much! :blessyou: and sorry for the very late reply:o
 
You know what’s even weird the phenomenon known as poltergeist might be a manifestation of psychokinetic activity of a person under a great deal of stress at least according to the a skeptic in cable I saw in the National Geographic Channel topic called Ghost, Are They Real? I might have changed the title. I watched the show a week ago. I personally think ghosts are real. My dad said he met with a ghost in the Philipines when he used to work as a cab driver when he picked up a woman in white, dropped her off and he turned and she dissappeared.
 
Mentioning poltergeists reminds me that John Wesley’s parents had a poltergeist in the rectory, when the children were still mostly at home. It would go crazy with rappings & scratchings. It also pulled blankets off the beds in the dark.
The family believed that it was of demonic origin, attacking because there was so much prayer, & Bible study going on in the house…Also, there were, of course, several pastors–present & future–under the roof at the time…

Now, I don’t believe in actual “ghosts”(i.e.,spirits of the dead wandering about), but there is something going on…I think that it is very important not to get too fascinated with this subject. Because you can get mixed up in a lot of trouble that way. It is not without good reason that we are warned against trying to contact spirits!!
 
I don’t think God would allow random ghosts to roam around and freak us out because of that Bible verse that says no one has ever come back to talk about it…(until Jesus that is!) This doesn’t include divine messengers sent by God like the Blessed Mother.
 
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