If animal ghosts really exist, would that refute the theory by some Catholics that some ghosts are souls in Purgatory?

[Bohm_Bawerk]

Some Catholics argue that some ghosts are souls from Purgatory who may be doing their purgation on Earth. Of course, there are many other explanations such as demonic spirits, hallucinations, etc. But this is one of the more “benign” explanations.

However, if animal ghosts do exist (and I’m reading a story about one now), wouldn’t that refute the claim that ghosts are simply souls from Purgatory who may be doing their time on Earth? This is because animals do not go to Purgatory, and indeed do not have a soul. One comment on the article I am reading says:

“Very sorry to tell the sceptical writers to these pages, but we still have the ghost of our old cat in this house. He died of kidney failure over 30 years ago but we still see him now. He even comes to my sceptical wife, who see’s him better than me, and stops with her when she makes the beds. He was a good old puss, friendly and loving, and is still the same. Even my daughter, when a baby, stroked him, which astounded all members of our family and friends”

I don’t know too much about ghosts since I don’t read about it or watch programmes based on it. However, I think that there is certainly something scientific about ghosts rather than spiritual. I recall glancing at some “ghost hunter”-like programmes, and I remember that these ghost hunters would bring a machine along with them that could detect the energy emitted. If the energy emitted was very high in a room where most surrounding objects are inanimate objects, that would indicate the presence of a ghost. Because it is possible to detect ghosts via scientific means, that would mean they are a scientific phenomenon rather than a spiritual phenomenon.

But then, that would begs the question of why some reports seem to suggest that Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican priests can “banish” ghosts from households?

What are your thoughts?

 

[Tietjen]

Some Catholics argue that some ghosts are souls from Purgatory who may be doing their purgation on Earth.

Some Catholics think chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla, but individual opinions should be discussed with those individuals who hold them rather than presenting a case to a billion member religion and equating the opinion of a trifle few to the religion as a whole.

Of course, there are many other explanations such as demonic spirits, hallucinations, etc. But this is one of the more “benign” explanations.

However, if animal ghosts do exist…

And IF gravity only applied to left-handed people…

… (and I’m reading a story about one now), wouldn’t that refute the claim that ghosts are simply souls from Purgatory who may be doing their time on Earth? This is because animals do not go to Purgatory, and indeed do not have a soul.

Animals do not have eternal souls. They have material souls which cease to exist upon physical death. So no, they do not go to Purgatory, Heaven or Hell upon death.

One comment on the article I am reading says:

“Very sorry to tell the sceptical writers to these pages, but we still have the ghost of our old cat in this house. He died of kidney failure over 30 years ago but we still see him now. He even comes to my sceptical wife, who see’s him better than me, and stops with her when she makes the beds. He was a good old puss, friendly and loving, and is still the same. Even my daughter, when a baby, stroked him, which astounded all members of our family and friends”

I don’t know too much about ghosts since I don’t read about it or watch programmes based on it. However, I think that there is certainly something scientific about ghosts rather than spiritual. I recall glancing at some “ghost hunter”-like programmes, and I remember that these ghost hunters would bring a machine along with them that could detect the energy emitted. If the energy emitted was very high in a room where most surrounding objects are inanimate objects, that would indicate the presence of a ghost. Because it is possible to detect ghosts via scientific means, that would mean they are a scientific phenomenon rather than a spiritual phenomenon.

The underlined phrase is your opinion. I would be willing to bet that if we gathered together the worlds greatest scientists and put the question to them, they would have a different opinion. Can you supply any better evidence to support your opinion? I mean something other than a TV show?

But then, that would begs the question of why some reports seem to suggest that Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican priests can “banish” ghosts from households?

I’m not sure if I understand the question. Are you suggesting that if something is a scientific phenomenon it cannot also have a spiritual component? If that is the case, why would you limit your understanding of the spiritual by concluding that anything that science recognizes must be at odds with spirituality?

What are your thoughts?

Good question… Many have told me I am incapable of having those.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Some Catholics argue that some ghosts are souls from Purgatory who may be doing their purgation on Earth. Of course, there are many other explanations such as demonic spirits, hallucinations, etc. But this is one of the more “benign” explanations.

However, if animal ghosts do exist (and I’m reading a story about one now), wouldn’t that refute the claim that ghosts are simply souls from Purgatory who may be doing their time on Earth? This is because animals do not go to Purgatory, and indeed do not have a soul. One comment on the article I am reading says:

“Very sorry to tell the sceptical writers to these pages, but we still have the ghost of our old cat in this house. He died of kidney failure over 30 years ago but we still see him now. He even comes to my sceptical wife, who see’s him better than me, and stops with her when she makes the beds. He was a good old puss, friendly and loving, and is still the same. Even my daughter, when a baby, stroked him, which astounded all members of our family and friends”

I don’t know too much about ghosts since I don’t read about it or watch programmes based on it. However, I think that there is certainly something scientific about ghosts rather than spiritual. I recall glancing at some “ghost hunter”-like programmes, and I remember that these ghost hunters would bring a machine along with them that could detect the energy emitted. If the energy emitted was very high in a room where most surrounding objects are inanimate objects, that would indicate the presence of a ghost. Because it is possible to detect ghosts via scientific means, that would mean they are a scientific phenomenon rather than a spiritual phenomenon.

But then, that would begs the question of why some reports seem to suggest that Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican priests can “banish” ghosts from households?

What are your thoughts?

Even if animal ghosts exist (I’ve never read an account of one, although obviously you have), this doesn’t discount Purgatory, which is for humans. Animals don’t have moral responsibilities, whereas humans do. They do not need moral refinement since they cannot fall (although some dogs could do with a bit of character refinement, but they often pick that up from their owner).

I like to think that my 2 dogs I’ve had to put down have eternal souls, but I’m also biased. I’m not sure I feel so generous towards snakes or crocodiles, and what about the billions of wild animals and fish who live and die without our knowledge or acquaintance?

That animals have spirits I have no doubt - I think all life has a spiritual component, even a virus or bacteria.

I also think that ghosts can be souls in Purgatory. I’ve related a story here (and to you) about the prediction my old pastor made, probably sometime in 1991, the year before he died, when he said, “I think you’ll be doing a cleaning job for a while. You won’t be doing it for long, and you won’t like it much, but I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost.” At the time he said it, I thought his prediction was ridiculous, even though I knew how accurate his predictions / prophecies were.

Yet in 2006, I did a cleaning job for a short time (about 4 months), didn’t like it much, and “heard about a ghost” - a former store manager who committed suicide in the 1960’s. I believe his boring tenure in the store where he killed himself was his Purgatory, or part of it anyway. To make it even more odd, I actually chanced upon an associate priest on this very forum who happened to be based no more than a kilometre from the said store.

I sent him an email and asked him to have a mass said for the “ghost / suicide”, and he assured me he would. How’s that for coincidence? Yet how many Australian priests do you suppose even contribute to this forum? I’ll bet it’s very few.

So I for one think some ghosts may be doing their Purgatory or part of it as “ghosts”. But cats and dogs don’t need to atone or refine their characters, so they wouldn’t be in Purgatory, even if they had “ghosts”.

 

[Bohm_Bawerk]

Thanks for answering my question Bob Crowley. It was really helpful.

This is the link in case you are interested: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056353/Dambusters-dog-ghost-Picture-shows-long-dead-labrador-WWII-memorial.html

Some people have also recounted their own experiences with animal ghosts as well.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

Bohm_Bawerk:
If animal ghosts exist probaly would exist plant ghosts for the animal ghosts to eat and then field ghosts for the plants to survive and ghost rain and snow and a ghost sun and … I am falling asleep…and dreaming of all human really living a really ghosts…

 

[Ahimsa]

The same features reported by adult NDErs have been reported also by child NDErs. However, by comparison to adults’ NDEs, children’s NDEs:

• tend to include fewer features
• tend to be more concrete and less complex than those of adults. However, children can have complex experiences, including features such as otherworldly scenery and a life review
• more often include visitation by a deceased pet or other animal, relatives unknown to the child, and occasionally people who are alive.

I view purgatory as a state of being that is not experienced by every ‘person’ in the same way. Some experiences of purgatory will be more pleasant or less pleasant than others. Animals may not have ‘immortal souls’, but I think there is good evidence that the spirits of animals survive after death (for how long, who knows?), and that these spirits may be in a purgatory state which isn’t not overwhelmingly painful and allows them to appear to their previous owners and friends still alive on earth.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Thanks for answering my question Bob Crowley. It was really helpful.

This is the link in case you are interested: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056353/Dambusters-dog-ghost-Picture-shows-long-dead-labrador-WWII-memorial.html

Some people have also recounted their own experiences with animal ghosts as well.

I had a look at the article, with the intriguing photograph of the Labrador between the choristers.

The extract comments - “They are convinced that the wraiths of both Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his chocolate–coloured Labrador haunt the remote airfield from which the audacious raid was launched.”

I’m curious as to why Wing Commander Guy Gibson also appears to haunt the airfield. Maybe that’s his Purgatory until someone does something about it. I say that because of my own experience with the “ghost” in the prediction my old pastor made. Incidentally it took the better part of 15 years for the prediction to happen in my case. And probably another four before I chanced on the associate priest on Catholic forums who was based at Ipswich, west of Brisbane in Queensland, which is where the “haunted” store is located.

I remember reading a peculiar story by a local Australian author about an Australian pilot whose fighter plain landed at his British airfield during World War II, and then it just sat there ticking over, and the pilot didn’t get out. When they investigated, he was dead.

The odd thing was that he’d been dead for half an hour at least before he landed. The other odd thing was that his own mother had also died on the same day, almost at the same time, in Melbourne on the other side of the world.

As far as I know the author based his story on historical research, and his stories had a war theme. But I wouldn’t like to be quoted on that one as being fact. I don’t know.

Peculiar things happen. As for animals having “ghosts”, if the photograph in the referred article is genuine, and the dog really is the shade of the mascot, and not just another dog, then there’s room for that possibility.

 

[GEddie]

Dear BB:

1. Animals do have a soul; an “animal” is literally a being with an “anima” or soul (Latin).

It simply is not a rational soul; it does not generate a cognitive mind; but like ours, it keeps its body alive.

The Church has kept the issue of animal afterlife open. It has not pronounced either way.

1. If ghosts can be perceived scientifically, why does science not accept their existence?

God Bless and ICXC NIKA

 

[Ohana]

Well I kid around that Blazer, our beloved Cocker, coming around every time I open a package of hamburger, but I really think that hamburger just triggers my memories of him. He was immediately at my feet at that time and often got a handout. Dog been dead 30 years and I still miss him! I don’t think he is a ghost however.

 

[inocente]

Ghosts, like dragons and fairies, don’t exist, and most of the ghost believers I’ve known are atheists.

 

[LuisaLD]

I was reading your post and I thought about something I have been wandering for a long time. I have heard that animals do not have a soul and therefore cannot go to heaven.
I thought about one of St Pauls letters (Sorry, I dont have good memory and I do not remember exactly which one it is) He says that all creation is waiting to be free. In my opinion, Creation includes everything God has created, including animals. God is perfect and does not destroy what he creates.
I saw the other day a blind girl with her dog. I am sure she will never find such a good and loyal friend even among humans. Do you think God will not be sesitive about him?
I do not think animals would go to Purgatory as they do not have free will, though.

 

[tonyrey]

I was reading your post and I thought about something I have been wandering for a long time. I have heard that animals do not have a soul and therefore cannot go to heaven.
I thought about one of St Pauls letters (Sorry, I dont have good memory and I do not remember exactly which one it is) He says that all creation is waiting to be free. In my opinion, Creation includes everything God has created, including animals. God is perfect and does not destroy what he creates.
I saw the other day a blind girl with her dog. I am sure she will never find such a good and loyal friend even among humans. Do you think God will not be sensitive about him?
I do not think animals would go to Purgatory as they do not have free will, though.

A warm welcome to the forum, Luisa!

Animals don’t go to Purgatory or Hell, as you point out, but there is no reason why they should be excluded from heaven. They are not biological machines!

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Ghosts, like dragons and fairies, don’t exist, and most of the ghost believers I’ve known are atheists.

I beg to differ. I’m a Catholic and I believe they exist. There was a time when I didn’t believe they existed, and that was when I was an atheist. At that time of course I had no belief in any spiritual reality.

I also note that the disciples thought Christ walking on the water was a “Ghost”, but He reassured them He wasn’t. However He did not then say “Ghosts do not exist.” In fact, in Luke 24:38-40, Christ said to Thomas, “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

In saying this, Christ was implying ghosts exist. If you think you know better, you take it up with Him.

Anyway, for most of my subsequent Christian life, I hardly gave the issue of ghosts a thought, and if someone asked me if I thought they existed, I’d have said I don’t know.

However not long before he died, my prophetic old pastor said to me, “I think you’ll be doing a cleaning job for a short time. You won’t like it much, but I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost.” Now at the time I knew just how accurate he was, but I still thought it was a ridiculous prophecy.

The pastor died in January 1992. But in 2006 I did a clearning job for a short time. I didn’t like it much as it involved split shifts, driving 600 kms a week, and a couple of the businesses expected a lot in a short time. And I don’t much like cleaning anyway. But I was being shown around an old store in a town called Ipswich west of Brisbane, Queensland, when the young bloke showing it to me suddenly remarked, “This place is haunted”.

He believed a former store manager had hanged himself upstairs sometimes in the 1890’s. The staff there thought it was downstairs and sometime in the 1960’s. I think they were more accurate. And he really must have worked at it, as the under store area had quite a low ceiling height.

The young fellow told me that one night when he was there, all the stock on one complete set of shelves just jumped up and landed on the floor. At other times he could push a very heavy two wheeled buffer along the bumpy old floor with his little finger. Something was pushing it along with him. I tried a couple of times to see if I could push the buffer with my little finger, and I could hardly push it with one hand, let alone one finger.

The young bloke didn’t like being there at night. That’s what he said.

So the prophetic pastor was right again - I did a cleaning job for a short time, didn’t like it much, and heard about a ghost. And I sure didn’t plan it that way.

I think I could claim to be reasonably spiritually sensitive. When I was there, I had quite positive vibes, if you could call it that. By this time I was Catholic, with some faith in the value of the mass. A couple of years later I rang up the local priest, as my conscience was getting to me. He assured me he would say a mass, and said “Leave it to me”. So I did.

But I had my doubts. I could understand it if he didn’t, since I was just a voice on the phone, with a rather strange story. I prayed about it, but I couldn’t see the point in contacting him again.

However about a year ago, I just happened to chance upon a priest on this very forum, who was domiciled as an associate priest in the very same church as the first priest I spoke to on the phone. So I got in contact with him by the email facility the forum offers, gave him the full background, and he said he’d make sure a mass was said. And I haven’t worried about it since. I live about 40 kilometres away, so I haven’t been back there to check, although I play a sport in the winter months in Ipswich, but at night most of the time when most stores are closed.

Now the odds of my just happening to see an Australian priest on this forum, who just happens to live in the very near neighbourhood of this particular store, and **based at that time in the very same church **where I had contacted the first priest, just when i wanted to make sure a mass had been said, are pretty remote. And I haven’t seen more of his posts since, if indeed he is still posting. On the other hand, I haven’t gone looking for his posts either. It’s a bit like some of the peculiare “coincidences” that seem to occur in relation to the fact my father died and appeared in my room.

Ghosts exist. If you think they don’t, then take it up with Christ who Himself said, “Ghosts don’t have flesh and blood, as you see I do”. I take it that as a good Baptist, you believe the Scriptures?

 

[Bob_Crowley]

To support my assertion about the priest, I went looking for him to see if I could see his ID. I found it, and while I have deleted his name in the interests of his privacy, I have left the rest of the relevant public profile in place -

About Fr Xxxxxxx Xxxx
Biography
I am a Priest of the Roman Catholic Church
Location
Ipswich, qld, Australia

 

[inocente]

Ghosts exist. If you think they don’t, then take it up with Christ who Himself said, “Ghosts don’t have flesh and blood, as you see I do”. I take it that as a good Baptist, you believe the Scriptures?

Bob

Goes to show we read the Bible differently. To me, as Christ always gets straight to the point, I’ve always taken Him as just not wanting to get into an off-topic debate, in effect saying “a ghost (if you really have to believe in such things) does not have flesh and bones”.

My first pastor taught dust to dust, ashes to ashes, that when you’re dead you’re dead until judgment day, and accordingly ghosts are impossible. This is a normal “biblical” concept in some branches of Protestantism and probably has a name which I don’t know.

It presumably wouldn’t go down at all well with Catholics, since it means you can’t imagine your loved ones or the Saints in Heaven as they no longer exist until judgment day, while I like the simplicity of it, having also been an atheist. When we know ghosts don’t exist, kids aren’t frightened of things that go bump in the night and people aren’t parted from their money by mediums, and in turn it makes a lot of other gothic stuff less believable – demons, witches, zombies, UFO abductions, etc.

It really is the case that I’ve known more atheists who believe in ghosts than Christians, because in my branch ghosts are just superstition – it’s pretty great to turn the tables on atheists for once and tell them to be less naïve!

I’ve looked for evidence of ghosts but never found anything beyond anecdotes. When my wife’s grandfather Walter died, my mother-in-law saw a big W on the living room ceiling, a message from beyond the grave. Well, shadows in the paint that had always been there but she’d just never noticed before. We now live way out in the country, quite isolated. Couple of years ago we heard footsteps on the roof which turned out to be three black kid goats (our house is built partly into the hillside, they didn’t need demonic powers to get up there, they were quite cute). A month ago I’m sat outside at midnight and hear satanic snorts gradually approaching. Pair of wild boar eating almonds dropped off the trees. I reckon any city dweller who believes in ghosts would quickly become a nervous wreck out in the country!

So forgive me, but while the thing with the priest is definitely remarkable, I’m going to go with coincidence. We’re all exceptionally good at imagining patterns, seeing faces in clouds and so on, and it’s that ability which seems to be the real explanation for all phenomena such as ghosts.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Bob

Goes to show we read the Bible differently. To me, as Christ always gets straight to the point, I’ve always taken Him as just not wanting to get into an off-topic debate, in effect saying “a ghost (if you really have to believe in such things) does not have flesh and bones”.

My first pastor taught dust to dust, ashes to ashes, that when you’re dead you’re dead until judgment day, and accordingly ghosts are impossible. This is a normal “biblical” concept in some branches of Protestantism and probably has a name which I don’t know.

It presumably wouldn’t go down at all well with Catholics, since it means you can’t imagine your loved ones or the Saints in Heaven as they no longer exist until judgment day, while I like the simplicity of it, having also been an atheist. When we know ghosts don’t exist, kids aren’t frightened of things that go bump in the night and people aren’t parted from their money by mediums, and in turn it makes a lot of other gothic stuff less believable – demons, witches, zombies, UFO abductions, etc.

It really is the case that I’ve known more atheists who believe in ghosts than Christians, because in my branch ghosts are just superstition – it’s pretty great to turn the tables on atheists for once and tell them to be less naïve!

I’ve looked for evidence of ghosts but never found anything beyond anecdotes. When my wife’s grandfather Walter died, my mother-in-law saw a big W on the living room ceiling, a message from beyond the grave. Well, shadows in the paint that had always been there but she’d just never noticed before. We now live way out in the country, quite isolated. Couple of years ago we heard footsteps on the roof which turned out to be three black kid goats (our house is built partly into the hillside, they didn’t need demonic powers to get up there, they were quite cute). A month ago I’m sat outside at midnight and hear satanic snorts gradually approaching. Pair of wild boar eating almonds dropped off the trees. I reckon any city dweller who believes in ghosts would quickly become a nervous wreck out in the country!

So forgive me, but while the thing with the priest is definitely remarkable, I’m going to go with coincidence. We’re all exceptionally good at imagining patterns, seeing faces in clouds and so on, and it’s that ability which seems to be the real explanation for all phenomena such as ghosts.

Your pastor was wrong about being dead till judgement day. I had the peculiar experience of my own father turning up in my bedroom the night he died. He materialised near the door, started with an apology, we argued and talked, and at the end he gave this absolutely horrifying scream, then simply disappeared. I’ve often related this story on other posts. And I mean he screamed. I didn’t see what came for him, but the fear was so contagious I started to scream. Then, as I said, he just disappeared. He’d been very cruel by the way, for a long time, so an apology was well overdue. And I didn’t know he’d died. I didn’t find out for another four days, and it was a mess, as he’d been dead for the four days before being found.

Your pastor is wrong.

The final judgement, as I understand it, is when heaven and hell go their separate ways for ever. But there are a lot of people in heaven and hell right now. And as a Catholic I also believe in Purgatory, but we better not start debating that here, or we’ll never stop.

The Catholic Church’s statement on judgement is that it takes place immediately after death. And my own rather odd experience with myh father tells me that is the case. I’m quite sure my father is in hell. Even his body language on the night indicated that, plus the things he said.

When we know ghosts don’t exist, kids aren’t frightened of things that go bump in the night and people aren’t parted from their money by mediums, and in turn it makes a lot of other gothic stuff less believable – demons, witches, zombies, UFO abductions, etc.

It might be nice for kids to be able to go to sleep, but that’s hardly a good reason to deny truth.

I haven’t got much time for mediums, although I don’t have much doubt some of them tap into the spiritual world. I believe demons exist (the Gospels mention them frequently - talk to an exorcist if you can find one - they’ll tell you - when you’ve got people floating aroud the ceiling as one Catholic exorcist commented, “You know you’ve got more on your hands than a psychological disorder” and a Protestant pastor I spoke to who did exorcisms from time to time said he’d seen people floating around the ceiling), witches exist in the sense that there are men and women who worship the devil, although I doubt if they ride broomsticks, and I draw the line at zombies and UFO’s.

Ghosts exist. I once spoke to a pastor who’d done a lot of work with street kids. I was trying to get a couple of issues sorted out myself early in my own Christian walk, but when I mentioned the business of demons etc, he got a bit curt. In his own words, he’d “seen too much of it” and he added, “There’s a very strange psychic world out there”.

It’s not as cut and dried as some literalists would like to think.

 

[You]

Bob, you had another story about someone meeting an aboriginal woman, but I forget the ending. Whatever happened in the end of that, was there a result of any kind?

 

[inocente]

Your pastor is wrong.

Well, I said Catholics might not like the concept (one name for it apparently is soul sleep).

It’s not as cut and dried as some literalists would like to think.

There’s a wide range of views in the world about life after death, from none through to reincarnation and so on. If spirits are believed in, their form appears to depend on the prevailing culture. This indicates, to me at least, that they are imagined and not real, otherwise they would be similar everywhere. Personally I wouldn’t know which kind of ghost to believe in - the ectoplasm in old spirit photographs, the walking dead with bits falling off them, specters with clunking chains, or whatever.

Then how is it possible to see or hear them – how can a ghost without physical lungs, throat and tongue make pressure waves in the air which we could hear as intelligible speech? (You could say they don’t and instead talk telepathically, but by doing so you’d kind of be proving my point that they’re imaginary and it’s all in the mind ).

And with seven billion people on the planet, why aren’t we awash with ghosts, how come we have to rely on anecdotes instead of seeing them every week on late night chat shows? It’s not a matter of being literal so much as never finding a single reason to believe in ghosts and loads of reasons not to. I can understand folk who have a different take, but there are so many (often contradictory) things various people would have us believe, and for me ghosts don’t cut the mustard. Sorry and all.

 

[GEddie]

Inocente:

The term for what you describe is soul-sleep, although that is inaccurate and should really be soul-death, since sleep is a body state of aliveness and alternate consciousness. It has also been rendered in Greek as psychopannychy, although since it appears nowhere in Scripture, the Greek term is rarely used.

The problem with SS is that what happens to “Absent from the body, present with the LORD”? Which is in Scripture?

And if you trust Scripture, you have to believe in demons, since they are there.

UFO abductions are unrelated to a human afterlife, so one could believe in them and in SS.

Walking dead with bits falling off is Hollywood fare, not afterlife belief. The beginning of Afterlife 101 is “That body ain’t breathing or seeing or moving again.”

And belief in ghosts in no way implies that they are the norm, or thst everybody becomes one. There could be ghosts that are nontheless rare.

FWIW, I do not believe in ghosts, nor in SS.

GOD Bless and ICXC NIKA

 

[You]

Well, I said Catholics might not like the concept (one name for it apparently is soul sleep).

There’s a wide range of views in the world about life after death, from none through to reincarnation and so on. If spirits are believed in, their form appears to depend on the prevailing culture. This indicates, to me at least, that they are imagined and not real, otherwise they would be similar everywhere. Personally I wouldn’t know which kind of ghost to believe in - the ectoplasm in old spirit photographs, the walking dead with bits falling off them, specters with clunking chains, or whatever.

Then how is it possible to see or hear them – how can a ghost without physical lungs, throat and tongue make pressure waves in the air which we could hear as intelligible speech? (You could say they don’t and instead talk telepathically, but by doing so you’d kind of be proving my point that they’re imaginary and it’s all in the mind ).

And with seven billion people on the planet, why aren’t we awash with ghosts, how come we have to rely on anecdotes instead of seeing them every week on late night chat shows? It’s not a matter of being literal so much as never finding a single reason to believe in ghosts and loads of reasons not to. I can understand folk who have a different take, but there are so many (often contradictory) things various people would have us believe, and for me ghosts don’t cut the mustard. Sorry and all.

Soul-sleep isn’t a Catholic thing. In St. Peters letter, I think; he said that Christ descended into Hades after His death ‘to preach to the souls waiting there since the days of Noah’. This means the souls there were awake and living and heard Him preaching to them - they were not asleep until the end of time to awake at the final Judgement; also earlier, there appeared unto them [the three Apostles] Moses and Elias talking with him. Moses and Elias - their souls were alive in paradise.