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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Ghosts
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sebby
Shipmate
# 15147
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Posted
I am not sure whether this has been discussed before, but do any shipmates have any experiences that they might refer to as 'seeing a ghost' in the popular understanding of that term, or even accounts of a 'ghost' having been seen by a 'friend of a friend'?
What might the theological views of shipmates be on the possibility of the manifestation of someone's spirit after death?
[ 05. January 2015, 21:10: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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sebhyatt
Posts: 1340 | From: yorks | Registered: Sep 2009
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Good question, I have had a couple of psychology instructors that actually believed there is something out there. One of them pointed out while we normally perceive things in three dimensions, there are actually many more dimensions that are out there and from time to time people will experience one of the other dimensions. He said the reason why we do not perceive them normally is because we have not trained out brains to experience these other dimensions.
The other professor who grew up in a pre modern culture in a remote part of the Philippines pointed out that as our culture became more modern we lost the ability to experience other dimensions. If we cannot touch it, it must not be there. He would talk about the fire spirits that would dance on the hills where he grew up. He also would tell stories of how if a person would have a vendetta against some one in the next valley, they could cast a spell on the other person and that person would get sick until the spell is lifted.
While I myself never experienced a ghost, I had a parishioner once told me when I was preaching once she saw a ghost enter my body and remained with me until after I finished the sermon and then it left the sanctuary. I remember that the sermon I preached that day was a very powerful experience, even for me.
She was pretty disturbed by the experience, but I asked her if the ghost was threatening or friendly. As she thought about the experience she said the ghost seemed friendly. As she talked about this more she seemed more settled.
Another experience I had indirectly was a neighbor who felt her house was haunted. While she was not a member of my church, I offered to do a blessing of the home for her. She agreed to do it. There is a blessing of the home in the Occasional Services which I used. After we had the blessing, she said the ghosts seemed to have disappeared.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
I previously was a complete sceptic; then one night shift my workmates and I all saw the same huge black three dimensional shadow drift down the centre corridor of our care home. I feel lucky that, living in the society I do, I have rarely felt such visceral fear as that thing inspired in me. I don't know what it was and I slept with the lights on for weeks afterwards.
I also occasionally wake up to find people standing in my doorway or over my bed. They disappear once I wake up properly and remember they shouldn't be there. I usually put this down to hypnopompic hallucinations but the reading that I've done suggests to me that seeing actual people and animals isn't what you're supposed to experience so I'm not sure what to make of that.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
First and foremost, I think with any unusual phenomena it's best not to name it too quickly (although I appreciate what the OP is describing).
From what I understand, one explanation has to do with somehow sensing really deep vibrations that occur in nature (& are too low to hear) that our brain interprets as something we should be wary about, and so we see or feel things we can't explain (or even describe sometimes).
Theologically, if it could be proven that people are seeing ghosts in the way that phrase is usually interpreted, it's not too far off from a belief in the Communion of Saints, I should think. After all, whatever "heaven" is, it could easily be an added dimension to our reality.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I haven't seen a ghost, but I've seen an angel. ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
Did you ask it for its ID?
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
I have several friends who saw their parent in the yard (at a bit of a distance) after the parent's death; the effect was a sense of being reassured that the parent was well and happy. "Touched by an angel" TV show sort of seeing -- watch the figure a minute or two, glance away briefly from some reason, look again, no one is there, it's a large private space, there never is a gardener or other such person in that yard.
I volunteer at a community theater. One day I was going to be the one to stay late and do the final cleanup and lockup, so the head box office gal told me about the theater's ghost, in case I ran into him. She described a time couple years ago when she was there late, trying to figure out where she had lost a dollar in the accounts for the evening, when a man walked past her door down the hall, he was short, about 5 foot 4, dressed as if a century ago. (She described him in more detail than this.) She was startled -- the building was empty and locked, who was he what was he doing there? She turned on all the lights but saw no one.
She called the theater manager who asked for a description and then said "don't worry about him."
About two weeks after she told me I was chatting with the theater manager and said "you didn't tell me about the ghost." He made a face and said "He messes with the lights." Old theater, 130 years old (hey, this is USA, that's old), takes a ladder to get to the lights and get them aimed right or bulbs replaced.
Later the light man said the ghost can be a real nuisance, he seems to resent the stage and spot lights.
And that's all I know, just brief story, no personal encounter with the theater ghost.
[ 03. September 2012, 00:29: Message edited by: Belle Ringer ]
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
One time I was in a restaurant that used to be a hotel. This was in a town where my mother spent much time as a girl. I thought I saw out of the corner of my eye a small dog sitting by the table, but when I turned to look at it it wasn't there. It was such a vivid impression that I mentioned it after dinner. My mother told me that when she was a girl there was a dog of that description that sat on the front porch a lot.
A couple of years later at the same restaurant my parents got into a discussion with the waitress, and it came up that the restaurant was supposedly haunted by the ghost of a small white dog.
Not definitive proof of anything, but that's my experience.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I haven't seen a ghost, but I've seen an angel.
Did you ask it for its ID?
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I tagged it as an angel by virtue of the fact that it stood by my bed (while my maid and I furiously pretended to be asleep) and recited prayers over us.
It could well have been just a friendly ghost tho.
An Indonesian version of course - it didn't look anything like Caspar. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
I was and still am a skeptic, so I hesitate to label this experience. However:
Years ago, my family would periodically visit a great-uncle who lived alone in a house with no central heat, no indoor bathroom, only cold running water (he was an old Yankee who'd have no truck with new-fangledness). There was electricity, as he'd had to give in to some conveniences after developing a bum ticker.
Once, when we had a fuller house than usual, I ended up sleeping in a bedroom that usually went unoccupied. It was a very hot, very still, very humid summer night. I had been sleeping, and suddenly awoke with a pounding heart, filled with fear. In the dim moonlight, I could see the window curtains moving and the rocking chair in the corner rocking, despite the air being so still. I sat up in alarm, and the feeling of fear -- as though there were something in the room that hated my guts and wanted me dead -- grew. I was all-but-paralyzed with terror. I couldn't even cry out.
Finally I mustered the wherewithall to flee the room and awoke my sister sleeping next door. She came back into the room with me and told me I must have had a nightmare; there was nothing. But the dog, who usually slept where she did, had followed us, but crouched and whined and growled at the threshhold and wouldn't enter the room. I ended up sharing a bed with Sis the rest of the night.
Several months later, another full house sent my sister's then-boyfriend to that room to sleep (none of us said a word to him about my "turn."). He came down to breakfast in the morning looking like death on toast. It took some time to drag it out of him, but he had a similar experience to mine.
Great-Uncle finally let on he believed there was a ghost -- that of a cousin who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances just before WWII.
A couple of years later, great-uncle died and the house was auctioned off. The place had been cleared out; not a stick of furniture was left except the giant woodstove in the kitchen. We were standing around this, waiting for the auctioneers to settle up and clear out, when there came a horrendous crash from upstairs that shook the whole house, followed by a long rattling sound as though someone had poured a thousand marbles across the upstairs floor from a great height.
There was nothing upstairs (and never had been) that could cause such a racket. The place was empty.
Much as I loved great-uncle, I was glad we didn't try to keep his home in the family.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
I worked as a weekend cleaner in college. One of my spots was an old Victorian that was all law offices. It had a lot of articles framed on the entryway hall about how the place was haunted. There was an alarm system that I had to disarm to get into the building.
The basement door was padlocked from the outside, with a wide crack underneath. Frequently, the lights in the basement would turn on or off as I walked by.
I asked about motion detecting lights, the building owners said it was the ghost.
Other than that, haven't seen any dead relatives, or malevolent spirits. Sometimes I think I feel their presence, but most days theologically I lean heavily towards the Celtic-influenced "many-colored lands all around us" theory of afterlife as described by Fr. Andrew Greely in his novels.
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Looking for a simple solution to all life's problems? We are proud to present obstinate denial. Accept no substitute. Accept nothing.
--Night Vale Radio Twitter Account
Posts: 10281 | From: Beervana | Registered: Dec 2003
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
I was raised by people who believed in ghosts but had zero belief in them. Then, one day as we were sitting at dinner in my grandmother's ancient house and chatting a silver fork, long missing, fell from the ceiling and landed in the middle of the table. We were all shocked.
As for Angels, I have heard one but never seen one. I was hospicing my mother and was sound asleep when I was awoken by a strange noise that I cannot describe like a high pitched buzzing sound not voice-like at all and before I even knew what I was doing in a stupor I was running down the hall towards my mother's room but not knowing why and when I got there she had a smoldering cigarette on her chest and she was passed out from the morphine. I stood there and she was peacefully sleeping and I knew that my old house would have certainly burned down.
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by art dunce:
As for Angels, I have heard one but never seen one. I was hospicing my mother and was sound asleep when I was awoken by a strange noise that I cannot describe like a high pitched buzzing sound not voice-like at all and before I even knew what I was doing in a stupor I was running down the hall towards my mother's room but not knowing why and when I got there she had a smoldering cigarette on her chest and she was passed out from the morphine. I stood there and she was peacefully sleeping and I knew that my old house would have certainly burned down.
Way cool!!!! ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif) ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
My church is surrounded by a historic graveyard (new cemetery outside the village opened in the early 1950s) and walled, with a single gated entrance.
I was walking home at 5pm, along the road past the church, and saw a solidly-built dark haired woman in a short-sleeved blue dress kneeling on a grave, arranging a large bunch of white flowers. I'd walked a few steps beyond where I could see her, when it struck me that no local would be dressed so lightly. So I thought she must be a visitor, and turned round to go back and ask if she'd like me to get the key and show her the inside of the church.
Once I'd turned round, I couldn't see her. However, I could see the entrance gate. She hadn't had time to leave, so I thought she was wandering round the rest of the graveyard. I went in, and she was nowhere to be seen. I walked round for a bit, increasingly puzzled as to where she could have gone, then I thought I'd go to see which name was on the grave which had a new bunch of white flowers. I knew exactly where I'd seen her, but there were no flowers on any of the graves.
I've no idea what happened. All I know is that at the point I turned to go to speak to her, I had no doubt as to the reality of the woman.
eta - I'd love a rational explanation!
[ 03. September 2012, 04:12: Message edited by: North East Quine ]
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
Riding home on my motorbike in the Uk in the hot summer of August 1976 a strange thing happened.
Clear moonlit night, very warm at about 11 pm
I went a more rural route home to appreciate the bright moonlight more (cast realy strong shadows). Rounding a bend I went through a dense belt of mist that had come up in the middle of nowhere - it was a hot night guaranteed to burn any mist off (more than 75 degrees F or 25 C). It was an isolated road, open to the fields around.
The immediate impression - that remains to this day - was one of malevolence and anger, almost of hands around my throat. I gunned the bike and sped down the open country road. I kept looking over my shoulder as I felt "it" was following me. [Even writing this now brings the shivers 30 + years later].
What was it? Dunno. No idea - but my impression was of something other worldly and definately wrong. There was no reason for any mist to be there - and I'd seen no other mist on the ride home, even in the expected places. Besides which the temperature was so hot that any mist would burn off anyway.
Some years later I discovered when studying local history, that where I encountered the mist there was once a crossroads. The "cross" road had been closed in the 1930's when the airfield was built. There's no logical explanation but I can assure you it did happen: I was wide awake, biking and I lknow what I felt like!
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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WhyNotSmile
Shipmate
# 14126
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Posted
My dad seems to attract odd phenomena. My 2 favourite of his stories:
The first happened about 25 years ago, when he was decorating the house of his dad's cousin. The cousin and her husband were away for the week, so my dad was in the house on his own.
On the first evening, at just after 8pm, the room he was in suddenly went extremely cold. He was surprised, as it was a warm summer evening, but he decided to go home and continue the painting the next evening. The second evening, the same thing happened. Again, he went home.
The third and final evening (not sure if it was meant to be the final evening, or if he just never went back after what happened next!), the room went cold, and he got really creeped out. He went out to the car, and headed for home (a couple of miles away, along country roads). Suddenly he got a feeling of extreme dread, and as he glanced in the rear view mirror, saw a face in the back seat of the car. The face was blackened, with charred streaks. He says he started reciting the Lord's Prayer and singing "The Lord's My Shepherd", and the face went away.
He was always reluctant to speak to the relatives who lived in the house about it, as the husband was a retired minister who always seemed quite conservative, and he didn't want to offend them. Eventually, years later, he did mention it to the wife, expecting she'd laugh it off. She said she had often felt a 'presence' in the house, and had done some research which revealed that, during the 2nd World War, a young soldier on a motorbike had crashed into the garden wall there, and died when his bike went on fire. This was long before she'd lived there, but it accounted for the charred face my dad had seen.
The second of my favourite stories happened about 2 years ago, when my parents went to Scotland with a couple of friends. They visited Greyfriar's graveyard, which subsequent Googling revealed is considered one of the most haunted places in the UK. One of their friends was some distance away, looking at a grave; my mum looked over at him, and saw someone standing right next to him. It looked like they were talking about the grave - she assumed it was another tourist, and they were having a chat about the city or something.
Just after this, the friend rejoined the group, and my mum asked who he'd been talking to. He replied that there hadn't been anyone there. When mum said what she'd seen, they looked around to see where the 'tourist' was, and of course he was nowhere to be seen. There hadn't been time for him to leave the graveyard, and in any case he'd have had to pass by them to get out. There was nowhere he could have been hidden. Very odd.
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Come visit:
http://why-not-smile.blogspot.com
- you're always glad you came
Posts: 528 | From: Belfast | Registered: Sep 2008
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
Only secondhand experiences for me.
When we moved into the house my parents still live in, >30 years ago, we were told that a former owner 100 years previously had kept a monkey in a cage in the hallway. The marks left by it are still there on the tiled floor. Previous owners had said they had seen the monkey's ghost. We thought no more of this and never had any apparitions. My sister and I grew up and moved out. She married and had kids. By now the monkey had not been mentioned for decades.
Until a couple of years ago her 3-year-old reported seeing it. It was frightening him but not attacking, so she suggested he wave at it to reassure it. He did, and apparently it hasn't been seen since.
Meanwhile, across the way from my parents the old lady who used to live in a flat seems reluctant to move out. The current owner hasn't seen her but his daughter and a friend have. The friend was in bed in the spare room when an old woman popped her head round the door, said "oh, sorry" and left. He assumed she was another guest until he talked to the new owner at breakfast the next day.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Mili
Shipmate
# 3254
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Posted
I had/have a cousin who died tragically at age 25 when I was 20. It's an awful story actually. He and a mate were trying out his new Harley Davidson motorbike and stopped at a petrol station. While there they got into some sort of argument with a group of young men and teens. They then left on the bike but the men and teens pursued them in a car, driven by a 16 year old. They swerved at the motorbike -the police later concluded just to try to scare my cousin and his friend- however it led to the bike swerving off the road hitting a power pole and instantly killing my cousin and friend. My cousin had a partner and a two year old and the friend was supposed to get married that weekend.
The first strange coincidence occurred after my cousin's funeral (and it's probably just a coincidence). The funeral itself was at a funeral parlour, but we had afternoon tea at my Grandma's church. Afterwards we were standing outside chatting and for some reason watching the traffic pass. Suddenly a car stopped unexpectedly causing four or five cars to bump into each other - thankfully no serious damage was done, just some dents. However we all automatically started laughing as my cousin was a panel beater and we joked he must have caused it.
The really weird incident happened a few years later. I was at a small prayer meeting at church. We were all sitting in plastic bucket chairs in a circle, eyes closed praying silently. I don't remember why but I started thinking about and praying about my cousin who had died so tragically. At the end of the meeting I reached under my chair to grab my handbag, but it was gone. I looked around and found it a couple of metres away, leant up against the closed double doors that led out of the room, right where the doors met. I definitely did not put it there and people had come in late to the meeting while we were praying and opened those doors to get in. It was too far away to be accidentally bumped there. The only other explanation is that someone else put it there but it was a serious prayer meeting so I can't imagine anyone playing a practical joke. No-one else noticed and I didn't mention it to anyone. No-one acted funny either so I really don't think it was moved by any living person there.
Posts: 1015 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
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Aggie
Ship's cat
# 4385
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Posted
I believe I have seen ghosts, and I have certainly experienced some strange events, which i would describe as being "supernatural", or which I am convinced were "supernatural".
When I was 4 or 5 years old, my grandmother suffered a fatal brain haemorrhage from which she never regained consciousness, and I remember seeing her the day after she died (before my parents had told me that she had passed away.) Many years later, in around 1998 a few months before my father was diagnosed with terminal colon and liver cancer, I had a very vivid dream in which my grandmother appeared to warn me that Dad was terminally ill, and it would be "his time to pass over" soon - (he died in 2001). I usually forget dreams as soon as I wake up, but this was so vivid, I can remember every detail of it even now, and the conversation I had with my grandmother. At the time, Dad was showing no symptoms at all of cancer, so I was very upset and puzzled at my grandmother's warning, and I asked her to explain what she meant. She told me "I cannot tell you that. I am not even supposed to be here now." In the dream I begged her to tell me what she meant, and she kept saying "sorry I cannot tell you, but it is very serious", and then she walked out of the front door and disappeared down the street.
I lived in Spain for some of my childhood and teenage years with my parents in an old villa that had been built many years before by an English builder and his wife. We didn't know much about the history of the place, other thanthat the man had died in an air crash travelling between the UK and Spain during the 1960's, and his widow had never got over his sudden, tragic death, and had become somewhat of a recluse in the house, spending her days drinking heavily until she died of liver disease. After her death, her son had sold the house complete with most of the original fixtures and fittings to my father.
I remember hearing foot steps and sounds in the inner courtyard/patio outside my room when there was no one around, and doors and windows slamming shut when there was no breeze. My father who was a sceptic, always maintained that these noises happened because it was an old house. However, he was soon to change his mind, when a big heavy picture (painted by the original owner) suddenly came off the wall (as though it were lifted up and off its hook by an invisible hand) and flew across the lounge narrowly missing Dad.
There were lots of strange occurrences such as this, and I hated being alone at my parents' villa, as I always thought I could hear footsteps and voices, or had the sensation of being watched. I remember that quite often visitors to the house used to comment on the "strange atmosphere" the place had, and one school-friend I had to stay over once even asked if our dog could stay with her in her bedroom as she felt there was someone "creeping around outside"!!!
After my Dad died, and my mother sold it, the new owner - who was said she was a psychic - confirmed that there was ghostly activity in the villa, and that she had had the place blessed by a shaman. On my last trip to Spain, I went round to see her and had tea with her, and I noticed that the "strange atmosphere" had gone.
All of these experiences have convinced me personally that ghosts exist, but thinking objectively about it, and having studied psychology and philosophy, I wonder could it be auto-suggestion, whereby we believe that a certain place is haunted, and therefore we interpret sounds and shadows as being ghosts or other phenomena? Or, I wonder whether it is part of our (Anglo-Saxon) cultural heritage that we believe that there are haunted places, and "things that go bump in the night"? I notice that Spanish people don't share our love of "ghost stories", and to my knowledge there are no organised "ghost tours" of ancient castles, cathedrals or battle-sites in Spain. Although many cultures believe so strongly in the supernatural, and thus take it for granted that ghosts and spirits of the dead exist and interact with the living.
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“I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.”
(Joseph Mary Plunkett 1887-1917)
Posts: 581 | From: A crazy, crazy world | Registered: Apr 2003
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Alaric the Goth
Shipmate
# 511
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Posted
My uncle used to live in a part of North London, in quite a large house. He used to take in lodgers, each for a couple of months at a time, for extra income (he was a teacher and had four children to feed, etc.). One of them died, I think it was suicide after finding out about his wife cheating on him, and, rather than tell the kids which might cause upset, it wasn’t mentioned and they would just assume that he had come and gone like other lodgers before him
My Nana (my uncle’s and my mother’s mother) went down from the North East to stay with him, I think this would be the late 1960s. She was of partly Cornish/Breton descent and believed in the supernatural. She came down to breakfast after her first night’s stay and commented on the ‘nice man’ she had spoken to at the top of the stairs. My uncle and aunt asked her what he was like and she described someone like the dead man. My cousin, who up to then hadn’t known he was dead, then said that she had chatted to the man several times, like she used to when he was alive, but definitely since the day he died…
Posts: 3322 | From: West Thriding | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ceannaideach
Shipmate
# 12007
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Posted
See now I count myself a sceptic in these things and will happily try to look for the explanation behind the phenomenon. Drafts, tricks of light or even the sleep circuits in the brain glitching when we're tired.
And yet there are a couple of occasions I can remember that stand out that make me think again.
First one is when I'm about ten or so. Parents are redocorating their bedroom and had moved their mattress into the playroom, wedged up against the sofa where my two younger brothers and I used it as an impromtu indoor slide. My middle brother is autistic and didn't want the lights on while we all got on with the serious business of sliding and playfighting on the mattress. It's at this point when I and my youngest brother (though 17 years later he claims he doesn't remember a thing) see something walk through the playroom wall into the room beyond - my bedroom. Youngest brother and I scream and fight to switch the lights back on by which point there is nothing to be seen. My memory seems to suggest that the thing was female in nature, though whether that's the embellishment of imagination or not is another matter. I refused to go in to my room until Dad came and inspected it. Our house was new, built on farmland with no known previous buildings there, so why would a presence float around up at first floor level?
Second came a couple of years ago in Edinburgh, during a stop off on a canal holiday with parents. We'd gone on a ghost tour which ended up exploring some previously blocked off underground tunnels/storage rooms which had a serious reputation for being haunted. Sceptical (of ghoulies and ghosties) Astrophysics graduate I might be but decided that praying through Ephesians 6: 14-17 (armour of God) would help calm any nerves that the atmosphere might inspire.
After having had the usual talk about the 'malevolent' spirit which would often follow tour groups around, we found ourselves in 'the safe room'. Alledgedly the one place in the expanse of tunnels where this malevolent presence had never been sensed/seen (it would apparently manifest as a creepy face in the walls). We were told that the safe room had one inhabitant - thought to be a child as childish laughter had been heard and the sound of a ball or a bell or something. And another sign of manifestation of said child ghost was the sudden drop in temperature in its exact location. It was as I was dimissing this as an effect of standing in a draft (Scotland, October, night = chilly) that I felt something cold against my left leg. I looked down, nothing there, I turn around as if to locate the source of the draft. I'm in the midst of the tour group with Dad standing behind me and slightly to the left acting as a wonderful draft excluder. I then notice Mum to my left looking down at her right leg and when we compared notes later she'd been praying and had felt the same thing as I had. As if something short had decided that the best or safest place in the whole group to stand was between two praying Christians.
Our organist at church says that staying late one night to practise, he saw a hooded figure sitting in one of the pews listening to his music. But despite turning up early to choir practise to set up during the dark winter evenings I've never seen him!
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"I dream of the day when I will learn to stop asking questions for which I will regret learning the answers." - Roy Greenhilt OOTS
Posts: 199 | From: Shakespeare's County | Registered: Nov 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Nope. And I never will. There again I didn't believe in Irritable Bowel Syndrome either ...
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Arminian
Shipmate
# 16607
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Posted
Had a friend at work who while staying at a friends saw an old woman at the end of his bed. The room was above a newsagent and regularly objects and magazines were scattered around when they returned to the shop in the morning.
Most cultures believe in spirits. I'm not convinced that dead people are responsible. Demons however I believe are real, and will do anything they can to get access to people. They seem to have played the same tricks through the centuries, and when you study ghost accounts you see the same patterns. Even UFO stories of abduction are similar in many ways.
Posts: 157 | From: London | Registered: Aug 2011
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Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692
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Posted
no, but I lived in a "haunted" house my senior year in college. This is the house: http://hauntedva.blogspot.com/2010/11/case-file-fall-hill-plantation.html
You can read a description of the ghost at the link.
At the time I lived there the house was owned by a decendant of the original owner. She was quite a character, nearly blind, in her 80s I think at the time. We rented out the top floor of the house, while she lived in the lower (main) floor. Sometimes we'd visit with her and she would tell us stories about the house and it's history. Most of the stories had nothing to do with the ghost, but she did also often describe the ghost and the various sightings over the years. What she told us was that the ghost had a thing about covering you up if you were sleeping and had thrown off the covers. She was usually seen in the room that used to be the nursery (or so it is assumed), but which by the time I lived there had been turned into a kitchen for the upper floor. My roommates and I often sat up late in the kitchen hoping to see the ghost, but never did.
I have had other experiences that I would classify as possibly supernatural (certainly I think that they were), but sadly never a ghost. I would like to have seen one, though (at least a benevolent one--not sure I'd like the other kind!)
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
Well, the writer of Luke's gospel believes:
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 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." [Luke 24]
Is this evidence, if Jesus and the disciples accept the existence of ghosts?
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Like the appreciation of music or the ability to perceive the intentions of someone by noting the non-verbal communication, I suspect that some people have the natural tendency to sense things differently than others. Some things escape me completely. So I've never had this experience.
But my wife has, and it was demonstrated very clearly 20 years ago. We were driving home in different cars from a church camp. I was following. She pulled over to the side of the highway and put on the flashers. I pulled up behind her. She had left the car and was standing in the ditch looking very distressed. She told me "something has happened, I know it, I heard gramma's voice". This is pre-cell phone days. At the time we were stopped by the side of the road, her grandmother had died.
As best as I understand it, she had a sense of her grandmother's presence, not a visual experience, and the sound of her voice.
I am a sceptic by nature. This has all the ring of objectivity to me. There are other experiences I've witnessed with her (and some others) that are also persuasive, but not to do with sense of presence of someone (I am uncomfortable with the term 'ghost' in this context, even if it's good shorthand).
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
When my father was a child, an elderly neighbor named Martin used to take his daily constitutional past the family house and say hello to whomever happened to be outside. Martin died. About a month later, while my grandmother was outside in a field near the road, she saw Martin taking his usual walk. She reported that he'd nodded his head and said hello, then disappeared. My grandmother was a pretty stern, no-nonsense lady not given to flights of fancy.
What makes this story even more interesting: When I was a child on the farm I used to wander freely around our acreage -- all except for the hayfield behind our toolshed. There was a spot there, where a ditch traversed the field, that felt creepy to me; it's hard to describe, but it was an almost electrical feeling, like rubbing a woolen rug -- my hair would stand on end, my skin would crawl and I'd get a strong urge to run away. I didn't have anyone to talk to about these odd experiences, so I kept them to myself.
Many years later, listening to my parents reminisce about their childhoods, the subject of Grandma P's ghostly encounter came up. I asked my dad where this incident occurred, and he replied, "Just west of the house, on the road down by the culvert." My eyes grew wide -- because that was same area, in the neighboring field, that had made me so physically uncomfortable as a child. So I shared *my* hair-on-end experiences on the other side of the culvert.
I have, frankly, no explanation for what happened; although it brings to mind the term "thin places."
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alaric the Goth:
My Nana (my uncle’s and my mother’s mother) went down from the North East to stay with him, I think this would be the late 1960s. She was of partly Cornish/Breton descent and believed in the supernatural. She came down to breakfast after her first night’s stay and commented on the ‘nice man’ she had spoken to at the top of the stairs. My uncle and aunt asked her what he was like and she described someone like the dead man. My cousin, who up to then hadn’t known he was dead, then said that she had chatted to the man several times, like she used to when he was alive, but definitely since the day he died…
I would love to know what they talked about! It could give some indication, should this be the "ghost" of the man, whether he knew he was dead. How strange that someone should despair of life, kill himself, and then hang around chatting with people! Theologically, I suppose, you could speculate that since "you're healed when you die," his despair was gone. Or that he didn't realize he'd died (which I gather would be a Swedenborgian take on it, at least) and was simply in a better mood (as often happens after a good night's sleep).
ISTM what he chatted about could give an indication!
quote:
Originally posted by Arminian:
Most cultures believe in spirits. I'm not convinced that dead people are responsible. Demons however I believe are real, and will do anything they can to get access to people. They seem to have played the same tricks through the centuries, and when you study ghost accounts you see the same patterns. Even UFO stories of abduction are similar in many ways.
The similarities might also suggest that our brains behave in certain ways when stimulated by some kind of experience we haven't quite figured out yet. Our brains are really good at interpreting data, and are so interested in making sense of things, that we see faces in random shapes/patterns, e.g. It could very well be that our brains impose certain interpretive templates over our sensing/experiencing certain phenomena - subconscious, even, such as sound waves outside our range of hearing, e.g.
quote:
Originally posted by Pine Marten:
Well, the writer of Luke's gospel believes:
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 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." [Luke 24]
Is this evidence, if Jesus and the disciples accept the existence of ghosts?
And don't forget the story of Saul visiting the medium at Endor and conjuring up Samuel's ghost.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I think people have experiences, but I don't necessarily chalk them up to dead spirits.
I think energy and events can become imprinted on a place--kind of like a place of worship or historical place can have a feel to it from long use. Or maybe there's some kind of time slip. Or there are other dimensions/realities, and our world sometimes meets up with them. I think UK folks call those "thin places"? (And then there's the matter of what it is that cats watch that we can't see...)
My main problem with the idea of dead human spirits hanging around (other than a visceral "eeek!") is the kind of afterlife belief that usually goes with it: a person may "have" to stay here to accomplish something, or because they were bad, or there was a glitch, or they don't realize they're dead, etc. Not exactly comforting!
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
No personal experiences, nor do I want any. But Denise Linn, who works in clearing and blessing spaces, has a book called "Sacred Space". IIRC one chapter is on ghosts.
FWIW.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Tangent alert] I don't think we can get much one way or the other out of the Bible passages just mentioned. In the one case we have simple reportage--the disciples thought they saw a ghost--but that says nothing about whether such things exist. Jesus' answer could be taken to indicate that possibly such things exist, except that under the circs (newly resurrected!) he had more important things to do than to correct their worldview. And as for the witch of Endor, well, she seemed just as startled as Saul (if not more so) at what turned up--which may or may not have been the actual Samuel... [tangent OFF]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
As for what cats "see", their sense of hearing is so much stronger than ours, they're just hearing something far away that we can't hear, or maybe something too low or high for our hearing range (I can't recall off-hand how their range compares to ours). They may not be looking at anything so much as concentrating on the sound(s).
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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LucyP
Shipmate
# 10476
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Like the appreciation of music or the ability to perceive the intentions of someone by noting the non-verbal communication, I suspect that some people have the natural tendency to sense things differently than others. Some things escape me completely. So I've never had this experience.
But my wife has, and it was demonstrated very clearly 20 years ago. We were driving home in different cars from a church camp. I was following. She pulled over to the side of the highway and put on the flashers. I pulled up behind her. She had left the car and was standing in the ditch looking very distressed. She told me "something has happened, I know it, I heard gramma's voice". This is pre-cell phone days. At the time we were stopped by the side of the road, her grandmother had died.
As best as I understand it, she had a sense of her grandmother's presence, not a visual experience, and the sound of her voice.
I am a sceptic by nature. This has all the ring of objectivity to me. There are other experiences I've witnessed with her (and some others) that are also persuasive, but not to do with sense of presence of someone (I am uncomfortable with the term 'ghost' in this context, even if it's good shorthand).
I don't think this is incompatible with orthodox Christian belief. We have very little information about what happens to the "soul" immediately after death, so it seems possible to me that somehow a departing soul may still be able to make contact, briefly, with people who are important to it. And as you say, some people are probably more "receptive" than others. I am happy to heed Biblical warnings that these experiences are not something we ought to seek out, under any circumstances. If they come unbidden, and are soon confirmed by more natural methods of communication, then we take them as we find them.
At the same time I don't set much store by people who claim to have special powers of perception. A Greek friend's mother regularly sends herself into a panic whenever she has a dream or premonition about an absent family member, and will not rest until she can get in contact with them to reassure herself that they are safe, since the dream/premonition has warned her otherwise (her accuracy rate is extremely low!) A Nigerian friend had an unpleasant incident when her sister (with whom she had a difficult relationship) refused to travel with her on a planned journey - it was only after my friend had arrived safely that the sister confessed that her reason for not coming was that she'd had a dream that the plane would crash, and that she'd believed that the dream was going to come true. (My friend is a very forgiving lady! Possibly the sister had only thought the plane was doomed if she was on it, and would be safe if she refused to go, but I didn't get that impression when the story was told to me.)
Posts: 235 | From: my sanctuary | Registered: Sep 2005
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Trin
Shipmate
# 12100
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Posted
Well.. the SOF forums, I believe, play host to something like 300 active members at any one time. Of those who've seen this thread 17 have responded with stories - a total of 13 first hand experiences and 14 second hand.
Just taking the eyewitnesses 13/300 = 4.3%
You'd think ghosts would be a widely acknowledged fact of life.
At dinner parties I tell of the time I was on a plane journey somewhere high above Eastern Europe. I saw a huge serpent far, far away in the sky. It flew in two massive loops and then rose up and vanished into an indistinct blur that hung in the sky for some time. I can remember clearly what it looked like. The part of the story I tend to miss out is that I was suffering from fairly severe lack of sleep, having been awake traversing an unfamiliar foreign country for the previous 36+ hours at the end of an exhausting 4 week project.
Posts: 442 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
Well.. the SOF forums, I believe, play host to something like 300 active members at any one time. Of those who've seen this thread 17 have responded with stories - a total of 13 first hand experiences and 14 second hand.
Just taking the eyewitnesses 13/300 = 4.3%
You'd think ghosts would be a widely acknowledged fact of life.
I used to read quite a bit of Andrew Greely (a Catholic priest(?) cum writer of fiction). He wrote one book on Angels (fiction) but footnoted the book with some research that showed about 5% of the population had had some sort of "supernatural" experience of angels 'n stuff.
And that was the USA.
In places like Indonesia that would be a lot higher of course.
[ 06. September 2012, 12:57: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Trin
Shipmate
# 12100
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Posted
If 5% of people had had credible experience of the supernatural, such phenomena would now be well documented fact.
Posts: 442 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I used to read quite a bit of Andrew Greely (a Catholic priest(?) cum writer of fiction). He wrote one book on Angels (fiction) but footnoted the book with some research that showed about 5% of the population had had some sort of "supernatural" experience of angels 'n stuff.
And that was the USA.
In places like Indonesia that would be a lot higher of course.
Correction -- 25%.
You are remembering the figure for multiple mystical experiences. Greeley researched the question (he was also a sociology professor) and "reports that 35% of the respondents have had mystical experiences at least once, and 5% of the respondents have had mystical experiences 'often.'" book review
Well, I suppose angels fits into mystical? But mostly we're talking dead people, the figure you want for that is different from his mystical category -- "The second type of paranormal experience, contact with the dead, was – like clairvoyance – found in approximately 25% of the respondents. According to Greeley, the elderly, women, widows and widowers, and the conventionally religious report higher incidents of such experiences." [same cite]
Yes as to much higher rate of awarenesses in less Westernized countries. Does our excessively rational culture train our brains to not "see" these things?
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
"Mystical experiences" could include experiences of the divine, without anything anyone would consider particularly paranormal (although some experiences of the divine could include such phenomena). It's a term that leaves room for a lot of interpretation.
Even asking someone if they've had a paranormal experience already imposes a layer of interpretation on the phenomena. You might ask that of someone who's seen shadowy figures out of the corner of their eyes, and if they chalked that up to tiredness, lighting, or their eyes, they'll answer "no." Someone else who experienced the same thing might say "yes" if they hadn't thought of natural explanations.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
I shall shortly be attending the cremation of a spiritualist. The lady instructed that no-one wear black to the crematorium or "I will come back and haunt them".
Out of concern for the family I shall not wear any visible black - I'll let you know if I get haunted.
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
But you need to wear black in order to be assured of being haunted.
You are no fun.
[ 06. September 2012, 22:00: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
I am not sure whether this has been discussed before, but do any shipmates have any experiences that they might refer to as 'seeing a ghost' in the popular understanding of that term, or even accounts of a 'ghost' having been seen by a 'friend of a friend'?
What might the theological views of shipmates be on the possibility of the manifestation of someone's spirit after death?
Yes, I can remember being in the church building alone as a child and seeing something 'flitting' quickly along one of the aisles. Weirdly enough I spoke to another choirboy about seeing 'something' and he described the same phenomenon without being prompted.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
But you need to wear black in order to be assured of being haunted.
You are no fun.
Just because it won't be visible to the family doesn't mean I won't be wearing it.
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pine Marten:
Well, the writer of Luke's gospel believes:
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 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." [Luke 24]
Is this evidence, if Jesus and the disciples accept the existence of ghosts?
I think so.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
Even asking someone if they've had a paranormal experience already imposes a layer of interpretation on the phenomena.
Depends on how you do the research. Ask "have you have a paranormal experience" you don't know what people mean if they say "yes" or "no." Any decent researcher uses much more precise terminology than that.
Greeley was a professor of Sociology in an accredited university, he applied standard sociology research methodology to a topic that intrigued him and was surprised at the high numbers he got.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by Pine Marten:
Well, the writer of Luke's gospel believes:
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 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." [Luke 24]
Is this evidence, if Jesus and the disciples accept the existence of ghosts?
I think so.
Well yes - its evidence.
But only that the author of that bit of what is now the Bible decided to write down that Jesus claimed that he wasn't a ghost. The rest is supposition and extrapolation.
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Yes as to much higher rate of awarenesses in less Westernized countries. Does our excessively rational culture train our brains to not "see" these things?
I think so. Particularly men; I know a couple of brothers who could see ghosts when they were little but can't any more (although one of them still senses when one is around). I've also had the experience of seeing and talking to ghosts that other people in the room with me couldn't see (although they did agree that the room suddenly got much colder).
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
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Posted
We lived in a house where I would often feel a presence in the dinning room or hall. I would turn and get a quick glimpse at something small and grayish. It always seemed benign. I never said anything to anyone. About a year after we moved from the house, one evening my husband asked me if I had ever felt some presence in the house? He said he thought he had gotten a glimpse of something in the dinning room fairly often. He said, " I was never bothered by it, it seemed harmless." Who knows? In any case once we moved neither of us encountered it again. I would think as beings of energy we would give off something that might remain in a place after we leave. I know I have in homes that felt good and in others that seemed to have an unhappy feel about them.
Posts: 2641 | From: Third planet from the sun. USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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Sighthound
Shipmate
# 15185
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Posted
I don't remember this, but my mother told me that when I was very young I saw a little girl at the bottom of my bed. She thought it might have been my sister, who died in infancy.
One night I was walking the greyhound along the boundary fence of a local playing field. (We were outside the field itself.) Suddenly I saw a moving light. It was low down, and the best way to describe it is that it was rather as if a dog was running about with a torch in its mouth. We watched it for some minutes, until it vanished at the far end of the field. However, I hasten to add it moved so quickly that no animal (not even a greyhound!) could have been responsible for its evolutions. I am still baffled by this.
I often feel presences in my house. It tends to be worse at night, especially if I am alone. It could be pure imagination, but at its worst they do set my nerves on edge. Occasionally we get the smell of tobacco smoke, even though neither of us smokes. And stuff vanishes - that is it goes away for a time, and then suddenly appears, often in a place where one has looked the day before. One of my books did this a bit ago - it turned up within a foot of where I work, although I'd been hunting it all over the house for weeks.
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Supporter of Tia Greyhound and Lurcher Rescue.http://tiagreyhounds.org/
Posts: 168 | From: England | Registered: Sep 2009
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beachcomber
Shipmate
# 17294
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Posted
This is the most affecting thread I read in my short time here. Very much so.
I am torn between wanting scientific evidence and integrity myself (not others); and a spiritual side / leaning and hope for richness and layered life.
When age young, maybe 7 or 8 - I stumbled and fell. I saw the Mother of God on coal truck. (I was by railway siding in the village near station). Looking back some year later, I saw a RC holy picture of the Immaculate Conception, and realised that the one I seen looked, in my memory, like that.
Is it auto-suggestion and stuff ? Did I knock my self out ? Yet, I had never seen this image at all, until years later. looking very Different from Theotikos icons.
What to make of this ?
[ 08. September 2012, 16:00: Message edited by: beachcomber ]
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Helen-Eva:'This is all really interesting and intensely confusing stuff and I am now bewildered in a much more informed way than I was before.'
Posts: 144 | From: bagdad cafe | Registered: Aug 2012
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egg
Shipmate
# 3982
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
Well.. the SOF forums, I believe, play host to something like 300 active members at any one time. Of those who've seen this thread 17 have responded with stories - a total of 13 first hand experiences and 14 second hand.
Just taking the eyewitnesses 13/300 = 4.3%
You'd think ghosts would be a widely acknowledged fact of life.
It should not be assumed that all 300 active members have read this thread. The percentage of the general population who have experienced a paranormal event - apparition or voice or just a feeling of apprehension - must be a good deal larger than 4.3%. There are innumerable accounts of such events on the internet, and I would think that a high proportion of them are from normal truthful people.
My view, formed after quite a lot of reading and thought on the subject, is that, alongside our material world which the scientists can weigh and measure and theorise about, there is a non-material world. If, as the distinguished majority of the Archbishops' Commission on Spiritualism concluded, communications can be received from the departed, where are the departed? Plainly not in the material world. Similarly, where was Jesus between his post-death appearances? Where is he now, between his many appearances in different parts of the world (Professor Philip Wiebe, in his book "Visions of Jesus", tells of interviewing 28 people personally to whom Jesus had appeared, and there are many more whom he did not interview(. Where is God his Father, if (as I do and Jesus plainly did) you believe in a theistic God? There are clearly no atoms or molecules in their makeup, as this would fix their location in the material world.
I am firmly of the opinion that there does exist a non-material world in which can be found the answers to many of the problems discussed above - the dwelling place of God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, and of those who have died and obtained the eternal life which Jesus promised to them on several occasions, and possibly evil spirits too, though all the accounts Professor Wiebe gives are of appearances of Jesus which exuded love and left those to whom he appeared confirmed in their beliefs. Bishop Hugh Montefiore, mentioned by Professor Wiebe but not one of the 28, wrote at some length about his own experience of seeing and hearing Jesus which converted him almost instantaneously from a practising Jew, thinking at one time of becoming a rabbi, to a Christian.
I have not myself seen a vision of this kind, but I have met a poltergeist and such creaturea may well inhabit the non-material world too. A good deal of research has been done in this whole area; and I find it difficult to believe that there are many people who have given any time to studying it who would say that they do not believe in ghosts, or in life after death.
[ 08. September 2012, 16:44: Message edited by: egg ]
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egg
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