Why is it so hard to talk about the paranormal?

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Angel_Moon

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I have asked many Catholic churches, priests and Christian pastors, but no one seems to be willing to answer my questions regarding hauntings. I prefer for a qualified individual to answer them (since this debate requires deep studying into the bible and possibly arguing and countering other philosophies). Many do not reply, avoid answering and overlook this topic. Many say they do not believe it exists. However, having been living with hundreds of spirits everyday for years, I am certain the paranormal, ghosts, spirits exist. It is a fact, that no one likes talking about it and whether not preach on the matter. What about for those like us who seek for answers? I am left forced to asks paranormal investigators who do not avoid answering, for that’s what they do. Also I am forced to turn to the paranormal teams for help. Even I have had problems with teams as well. However, I prefer to study things through a biblical aspect whether than from a medium (psychic).

There is a heated debate whether or not ghosts are those who have died, or demons pretending to be these individuals. This blog is useful and regards the many different philosophies on this matter: mnproudland.blogspot.com/2014/02/what-are-ghostsspirits.html

Many would probably believe we were the cause of this. Not this story. We never played with a Ouija board, dabbled into dark magic, or no one is known for mental impairment. The family are 100% Christian. No sort of cleansing, blessing or anything has worked to get rid of them. It does not work. Because of this I probably will be disallowed to post again or account disabled, but all I am trying to do is seek for answers through a biblical aspect. For a general idea, here are a few more links of our experience: mnproudland.blogspot.com/2014/04/prologue-to-proud-land-story-part-1.html Also tikaanimoon1.deviantart.com/journal/Current-Project-An-Untold-Ghost-Story-Real-476594782

Many from a biblical aspect say they are not spirits of the dead, but demons in disguise. Not really has been proven yet. Also, the dividing wall between the living and the dead. Also, wall between heaven and hell. I have also read how no one is in hell nor in heaven, but in a holding place. So could they actually roam an old house? The incident with the psychic summoning Samuel. The bible says it was him, but some saw it actually was an angel or a demon in disguise. However, that is not read in the bible it was a demon or an angel. I think it probably would be in the bible if that was the case, not sure.
 
I don’t think it’s hard at all to talk about paranormal activity. But it becomes a matter of faith. Since you can’t prove or see a “spirit or ghost”, most people don’t believe they exist and then will think you’re a bit crazy if you continue to talk about the paranormal much like UFOs, etc.
 
SquallLeonheart said:
I don’t think it’s hard at all to talk about paranormal activity. But it becomes a matter of faith. Since you can’t prove or see a “spirit or ghost”, most people don’t believe they exist and then will think you’re a bit crazy if you continue to talk about the paranormal much like UFOs, etc.
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This brings us back to the paranormal teams again.
 
Paranormal is simply another term for “supernatural” and many non-Catholics do not focus on that word, that realm, or even the concept. Yes, spirits may “haunt” physical locations and may oppress or, in a few extreme cases, actually possess individuals. 2/3 of created spirits are aligned perfectly with God, while 1/3 opposed Him and were cast down to earth, and here is where they have influence.

The Church has power over all such evil spirits, yet tests each situation thoroughly to eliminate all natural (i.e. medical) causes. Here are some articles that will help enlighten as to the supernatural:

regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?id=14318&se=364&ca=118&te=782

holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/guests/tomhoopes/darkbackward.asp

This last incident is apparently being made into a movie:

ncregister.com/daily-news/parish-priest-aids-family-in-fight-against-demons/
 
po18guy said:
Paranormal is simply another term for “supernatural” and many non-Catholics do not focus on that word, that realm, or even the concept. Yes, spirits may “haunt” physical locations and may oppress or, in a few extreme cases, actually possess individuals. 2/3 of created spirits are aligned perfectly with God, while 1/3 opposed Him and were cast down to earth, and here is where they have influence.

The Church has power over all such evil spirits, yet tests each situation thoroughly to eliminate all natural (i.e. medical) causes. Here are some articles that will help enlighten as to the supernatural:

regnumchristi.org/english/articulos/articulo.phtml?id=14318&se=364&ca=118&te=782

holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/guests/tomhoopes/darkbackward.asp

This last incident is apparently being made into a movie:

ncregister.com/daily-news/parish-priest-aids-family-in-fight-against-demons/
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That actually makes more logical sense than anyone has said or any research I have done. I will look at the links too.
 
Are you serious in saying that you want to get ride of them? They are pretty cute.
 
I suspect it is because it exposes a certain awkwardness in religious people’s beliefs. They mostly think that ghosts, alien abductions, other paranormal phenomenon are the domain of wackos. They want to distance themselves from fans of paranormal theories but their hands are tied to a certain extend because their religion requires them to believe in invisible spiritual phenomena and beings. They end up finding out that they don’t really have any grounds for rejecting paranormal ideas, and in some cases their religion might actually advocate for the believably of some phenomena (e.g. Catholicism with demonic possession.)
 
Ive had the opposite when Ive tried talking to the senior priest at my parish about these kinds of things…recently I asked him about the Nephilim, when it seems everyone else does not want to discuss them or even admit their artifacts and remains exist, even the Smithsonian will not show any of this for some reason, thankfully there are a handful of museums that do display these items.

It was nice, for once to have a PHD priest telling me the truth, they were actually giants and not just regular men, like alot of people mistakenly think. I think it just depends on the particular priest you ask about this sort of thing, some are more willing to open up about it, some are not.

This priest was more than happy to talk with me about this topic, he gave me a great explanation and it made sense to me too, so Id say he did his job, but when I asked him why I had never heard one mention of this all thru catholic school, he did not have an answer for that and just laughed, so not sure what that means, but its all good now!
 
The spiritual world exists. For Christians that should be a given. Christ Himself referred to angels, the devil, demons and at one point mentioned that He was not a ghost, implying that ghosts exist. He indicated we ourselves would not marry after death, but would be like the angels in heaven.

He indicated God Himself was spirit.

However we’re expected to live in this world while we are still physically alive, and not muck around with spiritual beings. The main gifts God has given to the human race are intelligence, and a physical design that may not be as powerful as that of some animals, who may well easily defeat us in a particular action, but is incredibly versatile. Watch a surfer riding the waves, a gymnast on parallel beams, a violinist playing in an orchestra, a watch maker doing fine work with a watch, a footballer weaving the ball past opposing teams, an artist, or an ice skating duet gliding in harmonic perfection on the rink.

Sometimes the spiritual world will intrude into our lives. I’ve had quite a few spiritual experiences, but I don’t go seeking them. And frankly I regard the majority of so called “psychics” as con merchants, whether they’re sincerely devious or sincerely deluded. Every so often a bunch of them will set up a stall in our local shopping centre, and as I walk past, I see people sitting down and talking to them. Exactly what they think they’re going to get I don’t know, but I believe they’re wasting both their time and their money.

The spiritual world exists. So do super novae and black holes. But neither of them has huge significance to me as I go about my daily life.

It’s a fact of life, like the sky being blue. And that’s about it.
 
It is interesting to know, that even back then, people were seeing Ghosts, really makes me wonder what these things are, Ive heard they are likely people in purgatory, but I dont think we can be 100% sure on this…I guess its just one of those things that God did not see fit to explain to us at this time.
 
mikekle said:
It is interesting to know, that even back then, people were seeing Ghosts, really makes me wonder what these things are, Ive heard they are likely people in purgatory, but I dont think we can be 100% sure on this…I guess its just one of those things that God did not see fit to explain to us at this time.
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Check the catechism. Don’t have one? I’ll send you one.

Or, it’s free here.
 
mikekle said:
It is interesting to know, that even back then, people were seeing Ghosts, really makes me wonder what these things are, Ive heard they are likely people in purgatory, but I dont think we can be 100% sure on this…I guess its just one of those things that God did not see fit to explain to us at this time.
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Actually, this also makes sense. Really, I do not believe anyone can prove their theories on what ghosts are, but yet the religious and the paranormal teams like to confirm a theory as correct. No one knows for certain about ghosts. It actually does not say in the bible itself that ghosts are demons nor people who have died, not plainly as other things in the bible are said plainly or can be interpreted as so.
 
I said earlier that I’d had a number of spiritual experiences, and I’ve also told this story before. It’s the only time I think I’ve had anything to do with a “ghost”, and in this particular case I think it was the “ghost” of a suicide, doing part of his purgatory by being bound up in a boring old store.

I had a very wise and somewhat prophetic Presbyterian pastor when I first became Christian. I even had a vision early on after I met him, in which someone appeared and said “I want you to stick close to Mr. Missenden. He’ll discourage you, but you’ll learn a lot from him.”

Anyway sometime before he died in January 1992, he said to me in his office, “I think you might be doing some cleaning work. 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.”

Then he added, “I think you’ve seen this ghost before”. Now I knew, well and truly, by this time just how accurate he was. But I still thought it was silly, and over the top. So I pretty much dismissed this one.

But in 2006, 15 years later, I did a cleaning job for a short time, didn’t like it much, and heard about a ghost. I was being shown around an old store in Ipswich, west of Brisbane (Australia), when the young bloke showing me the cleaning round suddenly remarked, “This place is haunted.” I said “What?”

He replied that he thought a former manager hanged himself upstairs in the 1890’s. The staff who worked there however thought he was a former manager who hanged himself downstairs in the1960’s which I suspect was more likely. He must have measured it pretty carefully - the basement had a very low ceiling.

Anyway the young bloke was a bit scared of him. He said he didn’t like being there after 7pm. He claimed that one night when he was there, all the stock on one complete set of shelves just jumped on and landed on the floor. At other times he could push a very heavy two wheeled buffer with his little finger, as something was pushing it with him. And it was heavy - one of the things I disliked about the job was having to manhandle this thing up a plywood ramp into the back of the van when I’d finished. I could have done with a bit of supernatural, weight lifting help then, I can assure you! ("Hey Ghost! Give us a hand, will yer?).

However I got quite positive vibes about being there. One night after all the doors were shut, a bloke I hadn’t seen before walked out from behind the last row, smiled at me, and then walked back. I didn’t see him again, and all the customers were gone, with only a couple of younger managers still around.

That was in 2006. Anyway I was wondering what to do about this, when I finally got around to phoning the resident priest in the local area a good two years later, circa 2008. I explained the story to him, and asked him to say a mass for the suicide. Unfortunately I couldn’t give him much in the way of details - no one seemed to know the suicide’s name.

But I had this uneasy sense as to whether he did or not. After all I was just a strange voice on the end of the phone, with a strange story to tell.

I was left wondering about the fate of the ghost.

The next bit is the bit that gets me. I was on this forum, when I noticed an Australian priest as one of the correspondents. This was circa 2010. I looked up his biography, and guess which church, out of all the Catholic Churches in Australia, this new priest was based at? You’re right - the very same church where I’d rung the main priest two years earlier! Not only that - for the whole time I’ve been on this forum, he’s the only Australian priest I think I’ve seen on the forum, which is obviously US based.

So via the email exchange system the forum offers, I emailed him with the story. After a brief exchange he agreed that he really would say a mass for the deceased suicide, and I lift it at that.

So not only did the old pastor’s prediction come true, but it even involved Catholic Answers Forums. He was uncanny, I can tell you.

As for seeing this ghost before, I think around 1970 my father and I went camping at a locality called Legume, just outside Killarney via Warwick and over the NSW border. Back then there was no bypass to Warwick and we usually travellled through Ipswich. I remember coming back on one trip, and as we went along Brisbane Street, I noticed this bloke carrying a briefcase, and looking somewhat frustrated and resigned.

As we drove past, we looked at each other. Then he turned, and walked towards the door behind him and went through. Only trouble was the door was shut.

I got the heebie geebies, and did my best to forget it. But that fulfilled the old pastor’s comment, “I think you’ve seen this ghost before”.

Now that’s the only time I’ve had anything to do with a “ghost”. In this particular case, I think he was doing his purgatory, or some of it, by being bound to the store in which he committed suicide. I’ve also read somewhere the average “time” in Purgatory is supposed to be of the vicinity of about 40 earth years.

So if the mass was said in 2010, then he’d been there since the 1960’s, somewhere between 40 and 50 years. Maybe that’s why he looked so resigned circa 1970 - he knew he was going to be there for while yet.

And that is my single solitary story about a “ghost”. I am not going to get into a debate about what they are, other than I accept that they exist. I can hardly deny otherwise. After all, Christ reassured his disciples as he walked across the water, “I am not a ghost”.
 
In relation to my post above, I might point out that I think God was behind the events above.

For a start, there was the pastor’s phrasing “**I think the Lord **might just want you to hear about a ghost”.

Then there was the peculiar precursor 40 years before I actually got the mass said, when I saw the “ghost” as we were driving before Ipswich. And there was the reference by the pastor approximately 20 years later to this same event.

Then there was the interim development of the internet, and Catholic Answers Forums in particular.

Then there was the new priest who was on the forum, but who also “happened” to be posted at the very same church where I’d phoned the main priest 2 years earlier.

Incidentally this required two more conditions before it could occur, both of which were predictred by the pastor. The first is that I had to become Catholic so that I’d even think about getting a mass said. The second is that I had to lose my then government job, which he also predicted, or I wouldn’t have been doing cleaning.

On the business of becoming Catholic, the conversation went something like this. To understand the background to this, the only reason I was “Presbyterian” was that my father lost his Catholic faith, and had me baptised Presbyterian as an act of rebellion. So it wasn’t as though I had a strong family Reformed background, or even a religious family.

Rev. Missenden “I think you might become Catholic. I think you might be happier there.”

I replied, “It seems to me the Lord’s taken me out of the Catholic Church via my father.”

Rev. Missenden “I think the Lord might want you to go back there. I think He might use you to get the churches together somehow… But it will probably destroy you … There’s still a lot of tension between the Protestant and Catholic Churches”.

He said a bit more, but there came a time when I started getting a sort of spiritual push towards the Catholic Church. I resisted for a while, but eventually I had an argument with a Protestant pastor, so I went. Push became shove.

So in 1996 I did RCIA and joined the Church. So far there hasn’t been much about getting the churches togethere, but that’s up to God. If He can pull off the peculiar sleight of hand regarding the “ghost”, then He’s probably capable of doing anything else He wants.

Interestingly I was just starting to get interested in the Catholic Church when I lost my job. I think the devil saw what was happening and decided to throw a spanner in the works. But if I hadn’t lost my job, I wouldn’t have been doing the cleaning. And the old pastor predictred that as well, saying “I think there’ll be a bit of a conspiracy against you and you’ll lose your job… I think bug-a-lug (bug-a-lug being a certain Presbyterian pastor I’ve got no time for) will be involved … you’ll make a silly mistake and they’ll use that to get rid of you … I think your boss will kick himself later, but it will be too late.”

Anyway it all happened just as he said.

So there’s more to the story than the fate of one suicidal “ghost”. To be honest, I wonder where it will finally end up, since the priest formerly based at the Ipswich church is now int the Cathedral office I believe, and probably on first name terms with our new Archbishop (who also has a Ph. D. in Luke, so he’s pretty well versed with the Bible).

But we’ll see. Incidentally I think the old pastor’s youngest son is going to be involved somehow in whatever transpires regarding church ecumenicism, since Rev. Missenden mentioned him as well.

God’s the Boss I suppose.🤷
 
Angel_Moon said:
I have asked many Catholic churches, priests and Christian pastors, but no one seems to be willing to answer my questions regarding hauntings. I prefer for a qualified individual to answer them (since this debate requires deep studying into the bible and possibly arguing and countering other philosophies). Many do not reply, avoid answering and overlook this topic. Many say they do not believe it exists. However, having been living with hundreds of spirits everyday for years, I am certain the paranormal, ghosts, spirits exist. It is a fact, that no one likes talking about it and whether not preach on the matter. What about for those like us who seek for answers? I am left forced to asks paranormal investigators who do not avoid answering, for that’s what they do. Also I am forced to turn to the paranormal teams for help. Even I have had problems with teams as well. However, I prefer to study things through a biblical aspect whether than from a medium (psychic).

There is a heated debate whether or not ghosts are those who have died, or demons pretending to be these individuals. This blog is useful and regards the many different philosophies on this matter: mnproudland.blogspot.com/2014/02/what-are-ghostsspirits.html

Many would probably believe we were the cause of this. Not this story. We never played with a Ouija board, dabbled into dark magic, or no one is known for mental impairment. The family are 100% Christian. No sort of cleansing, blessing or anything has worked to get rid of them. It does not work. Because of this I probably will be disallowed to post again or account disabled, but all I am trying to do is seek for answers through a biblical aspect. For a general idea, here are a few more links of our experience: mnproudland.blogspot.com/2014/04/prologue-to-proud-land-story-part-1.html Also tikaanimoon1.deviantart.com/journal/Current-Project-An-Untold-Ghost-Story-Real-476594782

Many from a biblical aspect say they are not spirits of the dead, but demons in disguise. Not really has been proven yet. Also, the dividing wall between the living and the dead. Also, wall between heaven and hell. I have also read how no one is in hell nor in heaven, but in a holding place. So could they actually roam an old house? The incident with the psychic summoning Samuel. The bible says it was him, but some saw it actually was an angel or a demon in disguise. However, that is not read in the bible it was a demon or an angel. I think it probably would be in the bible if that was the case, not sure.
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I believe some ghostly manifestations are evidence of purgatory,yet others are most likely demonic in nature. Fallen angels are very deceptive though so it is unwise to engage any of these entities.
 
It is strange to think people who killed themselves MAY end up being kind of stuck in the house or room they actually died in!!!

Imagine how frightening that would be…if you suddenly woke up in a room and were unable to leave, no matter how hard you tried?!

I dont think we know enough about ghosts to make any guesses, Sometimes i think they may be people in purgatory, but other times, Im not so sure, so its anyones guess what they really are.

Maybe when we see ghosts, we are only seeing a small piece of a much larger picture…kind of like the veil being pushed aside just a bit, either onto other ‘plane’ of existence or even another dimension, and for whatever reasons, we are not able to see the whole ‘picture’ in the earthy realm we live in? This is the same explanation as some think explains UFOs too, since most of the time, UFOs are grainy, blurry, out of focus, like a ghost is…maybe these too are just glimpses from another plane? Maybe people living on that plane see us as ghosts and other strange things?
 
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