Since its halloween....ghosts?

[mamamayi]

I have questions about ghosts.

everyoone knows of ghost stories. But, say, its a ghost of a little girl or baby etc… its hard for me to believe the child wouldn’t be in heaven. If the ghost is in heaven wouldn’t it be impossible for the ghost to contact people? Do you think ghosts could be people in purgatory and are just people who passed on who need our prayers to get to heaven ? Could a ghost be in hell? if so…it makes more sense that its not the person anymore but a demon?

how do spirits get trapped in certain places? Such as I have heard of one room being haunted…well if they are spirits they should be able to go anywhere. How can they be trapped in one place on earth?

 

[louisak]

Have you ever heard of a ghost of a little girl or boy? All the ghosts I’ve ever heard of were of adults.

I suspect that ghosts are manifestations of souls in purgatory, and that they appear to people on Earth because they need prayers. This is not to be confused with apparations, which are appearances of souls in Heaven to people living on Earth. Apparitions are easy to distinguish, the soul in question manifests great joy and often will appear as surrounded by light. Very different from a ghost.

I suppose though it is possible that some ghosts are caused by damned souls (souls in Hell) who have somehow left behind spiritual traces of themselves on Earth, in places where they spent a lot of time during their lifetimes. This is just a guess though.

 

[HillbillyHermit]

Here’s a good one from the Ask an Apologist forum:
What’s the Catholic theory behind such phenomena as ghosts?

And one from EWTN’s Q&A section:
ewtn.com/vexperts/showmessage.asp?number=449509

 

[Julia_Mae]

I have questions about ghosts.

everyoone knows of ghost stories. But, say, its a ghost of a little girl or baby etc… its hard for me to believe the child wouldn’t be in heaven. If the ghost is in heaven wouldn’t it be impossible for the ghost to contact people?

Mary is in Heaven and she has no trouble contacting people, I’d think it would be easier having all that Divine energy.

(Not all ghosts that have been reported ore of adults, for whoever said that.)

Your soul can’t get “trapped” anywhere. Free will is inviolable. “Ghost Whisperer” is just a TV show.

 

[louisak]

(Not all ghosts that have been reported ore of adults, for whoever said that.)

That was me. Do you know the specifics of any such ghost/haunting? It just would surprise me because children are usually relatively innocent (I guess there are exceptions) and so there would be no reason for them to “haunt” after they are dead.

 

[gxensen]

…After death, a soul is judged and is either saved or damned. A damned soul is in hell; a saved soul is either in heaven or in purgatory.

That said, it may be that purgatory might in some way involve the life one lived here on earth. It is not incompatible with a belief in purgatory to believe that our purgation might include “revisiting” places that were significant during our earthly lives. It may be that occasionally God allows people to see such souls in order to inspire prayers for them or in some way to teach a lesson to the people who see them.

In any case, what you can tell your kids is this: Although Church teaching does not rule out the possibility of ghosts, and although it also does not rule out the possibility that God might allow us to see ghosts on occasion…

By Michelle Arnold, a response to Do ghosts exist?​

I think it is important to clarify what the Church would define as a “ghost” or *spirit *versus the common, modern understanding of a “ghost”.

Is is *possible *that a person may be given a vision or be visited by a Saint or Angel? Yes. There are many documented cases of apparitions of the Blessed Virgin, Jesus, or other Saints and Angels and we see examples in the Bible.

Is it *possible *that a person may be visited by Satan or a demon? Yes. We also see examples of this.

A person who receives a vision from God of a Saint or Blessed is receiving a special message for God’s holy purpose for that person.

It is possible for demons to manifest, those are fallen angels. But they are not ghosts.

However, in modern usage, “ghosts” are people who have departed this world who roam the earth and haunt houses and buildings and such. The Church teaches that when we die, we are judged and we go to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. We are not left “roaming” the earth, doing “unfinished business” or “haunting” people/things, or “trying to get our wings”. All that is Hollywood, not Church teaching.

By 1ke, a response to Am I expected to believe in “ghosts?”​

 

[IzzyD]

When my grandmother was in her twenties she claims to have seen the ghosts of a nurse and injured soldier in world war two clothes while hill walking in the Lake District. I’m not sure if I believe in ghosts but it’s certainly very interesting I like the idea of them being apparitions of people in purgatory.

 

[ChibiViolet]

Ater someone dies, they are judged immediately after death and so there are no human spirits wandering the earth. Sometimes their allowed to come back to earth, but this is very rare; I read that in Fr. Gabriele Amorth’s book “An Exorcist Tells His Story.” When a house is “haunted,” it is usually actually infested by demons.

 

[cornbread_r2]

I lived in a small village for nine years that was, literally, surrounded by the graves of more than 7,000 people, many of whom had died in the most lonely, horrible, heart-wrenching conditions imaginable. As part of my job there, I would have to inspect utility systems that ran through those cemeterys at all hours of the day and night. It’s difficult to imagine better circumstances in which to meet ghosts and yet not once during that nine year period did I ever witness anything even remotely ghost-like. If personal, eye-witness testimony counts as reliable evidence in support of the existence of ghosts (as Peter Kreeft’s article implies), then so should mine against that proposition.

 

[cornbread_r2]

I lived in a small village for nine years that was, literally, surrounded by the graves of more than 7,000 people, many of whom had died in the most lonely, horrible, heart-wrenching conditions imaginable. It’s difficult to imagine better circumstances in which to meet ghosts and yet not once during that nine year period did I ever witness anything even remotely ghost-like. If personal, eye-witness testimony counts as reliable evidence in support of the existence of ghosts (as Peter Kreeft’s article implies), then so should mine against that proposition.

 

[jediliz]

prairieghosts.com/wesleyan.html

My favorite local ghost story.

My brother in law went to Wesleyan and he says one time he was studying in the campus library (basement I think) and he is so sure that he heard someone come up behind him, but when he turned around no one was there.

There used to be a ghost tour on the city bus that they would do a few days before Halloween…but they haven’t done it the past two or thee years.

My mom and I and 2nd oldest niece went on a ghost & history tour of the Stanley Hotel (Estes Park, CO) in 2011…the only thing that turned me off was the “psychic” they had come to the last room on the tour. :whacky:

 

[TheRealJuliane]

That was me. Do you know the specifics of any such ghost/haunting? It just would surprise me because children are usually relatively innocent (I guess there are exceptions) and so there would be no reason for them to “haunt” after they are dead.

I have heard many, many stories of child ghosts. They seem to be children who were killed in some violent or accidental way, or they had deep ties to someone still alive, such as a twin, another sibling, or a parent. They are not “bad” ghosts, but quite benign presences.

The ghost stories I’ve read and heard about seem to center on “unfinished business” here on earth - a violent death, so the spirit returns to the place where they died until some event can be completed and they can go on. Or, they appear for a certain length of time to a person who was important in their lives, and then eventually the appearances stop.

The “Ghost Locator” types of shows, however, are completely BOGUS. Totally and completely BOGUS.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Having a naturally pedantic personality, I used to confidently assert that there are no “ghosts” that haunt this earth. Our souls are immediately judged after death and either go to hell, to purgatory, or (presumably extremely rarely at least for adults) directly to heaven. People in heaven or purgatory, and even in hell, might be revealed to a living person or be allowed to reveal themselves, but this would surely take the form of a “vision”, not anything like what is described in ghost stories.

However, as I’ve grown a bit older I’ve learned to be little a more intellectually humble and slightly less ready to voice my ill-informed opinions. Many Catholic exorcists apparently are convinced of the existence of “ghosts” that haunt houses or other such places and which are definitely not demons. Historically, Catholics have often believed in ghosts while Protestants in the same region have often disbelieved in them.

Maybe our guesses are wrong about what Purgatory, for example, is like or in what manner God would allow a departed soul to make contact with this world.

Also maybe a ghost is something other than the soul of the departed- maybe some kind of psychological imprint left in the universe that physical science has yet to be able to understand, for example. I believe Chesterton took a position similar to this, and declared something like “if you are being haunted by your uncle’s ghost, your uncle [referring to his actual soul] probably knows nothing about it.”

Or maybe all these ghost stories are really just folklore: the products of liars and lunatics, and demonic deceptions, and of course fireside tales not meant to be taken seriously.

I for one don’t know, and to my knowledge the Catholic Church has not taken a definitive stance on the subject.

 

[louisak]

Also maybe a ghost is something other than the soul of the departed- maybe some kind of psychological imprint left in the universe that physical science has yet to be able to understand, for example. I believe Chesterton took a position similar to this, and declared something like “if you are being haunted by your uncle’s ghost, your uncle [referring to his actual soul] probably knows nothing about it.”

Interesting idea. C.S. Lewis made essentially the same suggestion in his novel That Hideous Strength. I have heard reports of “hauntings” wherein the ghost makes no attempt to contact living people, or even shows any awareness of being dead; but simply repeats actions that it performed when it was alive. Sort of as if you saw a faded image from some kind of projector, that keeps running the same snippet of film over and over. It could be a psychic imprint, as you say, and the actual soul of the deceased person is not involved at all.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

I have heard many, many stories of child ghosts. They seem to be children who were killed in some violent or accidental way, or they had deep ties to someone still alive, such as a twin, another sibling, or a parent. They are not “bad” ghosts, but quite benign presences.

The ghost stories I’ve read and heard about seem to center on “unfinished business” here on earth - a violent death, so the spirit returns to the place where they died until some event can be completed and they can go on. Or, they appear for a certain length of time to a person who was important in their lives, and then eventually the appearances stop.

The “Ghost Locator” types of shows, however, are completely BOGUS. Totally and completely BOGUS.

My family has a ghost story like this, which I first heard from my great-grandmother. It was told to her by her grandmother, who died when my great-grandmother was a teenager.

Back around the 1880s I think, my great-grandmother’s grandfather, an immigrant from Ireland like his wife, had the job of shoveling the coal into the engine of a passenger train. In the early hours of the morning the train derailed, but miraculously there were few injuries and no deaths- except my ancestor. The burning coal had dumped over him, and his remains were described as appearing hardly human. So much is recorded in a newspaper article of the time which I have read.

The day of the accident, some hours after it had occurred, my great-grandmother’s grandmother was hanging out clothes to dry behind her house. Her husband approached, not from the road but from another direction, said “So long, Mary” (I think that was the name) and walked into the house. She followed him in, perplexed because she thought he was miles away on the train, but couldn’t find him in the house. A few days later men from the railroad company came and told her of the accident. When they told her the date of the accident she recalled that it was the very day of her husband’s mysterious appearance and disappearance. She remained convinced to the end of her days that her husband had come home to say goodbye to her.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

My family has a ghost story like this, which I first heard from my great-grandmother. It was told to her by her grandmother, who died when my great-grandmother was a teenager.

Back around the 1880s I think, my great-grandmother’s grandfather, an immigrant from Ireland like his wife, had the job of shoveling the coal into the engine of a passenger train. In the early hours of the morning the train derailed, but miraculously there were few injuries and no deaths- except my ancestor. The burning coal had dumped over him, and his remains were described as appearing hardly human. So much is recorded in a newspaper article of the time which I have read.

The day of the accident, some hours after it had occurred, my great-grandmother’s grandmother was hanging out clothes to dry behind her house. Her husband approached, not from the road but from another direction, said “So long, Mary” (I think that was the name) and walked into the house. She followed him in, perplexed because she thought he was miles away on the train, but couldn’t find him in the house. A few days later men from the railroad company came and told her of the accident. When they told her the date of the accident she recalled that it was the very day of her husband’s mysterious appearance and disappearance. She remained convinced to the end of her days that her husband had come home to say goodbye to her.

Wow, that’s a cool story!!! What other explanation could there be???

 

[Julia_Mae]

That was me. Do you know the specifics of any such ghost/haunting? It just would surprise me because children are usually relatively innocent (I guess there are exceptions) and so there would be no reason for them to “haunt” after they are dead.

I found some refs here, paranormal.about.com/od/Ghost-Children-Pets/tp/Ghosts-Of-Children.htm but I’ve read a lot of accounts. I don’t believe too much in “haunting” or that seeing an apparition means the person isn’t in Heaven.

Mikey DiSabato was one of John Edward’s most famous spirits who once showed up to play with his puppy. Doesn’t mean he isn’t in Heaven, after all, the Kingdom of God is among us.

They are right here.

 

[Julia_Mae]

I lived in a small village for nine years that was, literally, surrounded by the graves of more than 7,000 people, many of whom had died in the most lonely, horrible, heart-wrenching conditions imaginable. It’s difficult to imagine better circumstances in which to meet ghosts and yet not once during that nine year period did I ever witness anything even remotely ghost-like. If personal, eye-witness testimony counts as reliable evidence in support of the existence of ghosts (as Peter Kreeft’s article implies), then so should mine against that proposition.

But the only testimony you have is that you, personally, had no experience. I bet you can live in Australia for years and never see a platypus, either.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Having a naturally pedantic personality, I used to confidently assert that there are no “ghosts” that haunt this earth. Our souls are immediately judged after death and either go to hell, to purgatory, or (presumably extremely rarely at least for adults) directly to heaven. People in heaven or purgatory, and even in hell, might be revealed to a living person or be allowed to reveal themselves, but this would surely take the form of a “vision”, not anything like what is described in ghost stories.

However, as I’ve grown a bit older I’ve learned to be little a more intellectually humble and slightly less ready to voice my ill-informed opinions. Many Catholic exorcists apparently are convinced of the existence of “ghosts” that haunt houses or other such places and which are definitely not demons. Historically, Catholics have often believed in ghosts while Protestants in the same region have often disbelieved in them.

Maybe our guesses are wrong about what Purgatory, for example, is like or in what manner God would allow a departed soul to make contact with this world.

Also maybe a ghost is something other than the soul of the departed- maybe some kind of psychological imprint left in the universe that physical science has yet to be able to understand, for example. I believe Chesterton took a position similar to this, and declared something like “if you are being haunted by your uncle’s ghost, your uncle [referring to his actual soul] probably knows nothing about it.”

Or maybe all these ghost stories are really just folklore: the products of liars and lunatics, and demonic deceptions, and of course fireside tales not meant to be taken seriously.

I for one don’t know, and to my knowledge the Catholic Church has not taken a definitive stance on the subject.

This is a nice post and I like the responses.

I don’t think all the Ghost Hunter shows are bogus, maybe because one of the more famous ones is from my home state. But I also think they are doing it wrong. Still, a fun marathon on a Halloween night.

 

[louisak]

I don’t believe too much in “haunting” or that seeing an apparition means the person isn’t in Heaven.

An apparition is not the same thing as a ghost. It is specifically ghosts that we are discussing on this thread, although some people seem to have gotten the two things confused. Yes, I can believe that the soul of a deceased child, who is now in Heaven, could appear to people who are still living. But that would not be a ghost.

When the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Bernadette, or the three children at Fatima, would you have described her as a ghost? I should hope not.

And I am aware that the word “ghost” in English originally had a different meaning (Catholics used to say Holy Ghost instead of Holy Spirit). But the OP clearly had the modern meaning in mind, with the reference to Halloween and so forth.