Thread: Purgatory: Ghosts Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :
 
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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Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :
 
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.
 

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Posted by Macrina (# 8807) on :
 
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.
 

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Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 
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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Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
I haven't seen a ghost, but I've seen an angel.
 

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Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
I haven't seen a ghost, but I've seen an angel.

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
I haven't seen a ghost, but I've seen an angel.

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Did you ask it for its ID?

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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.
 

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Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :
 
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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Posted by Spiffy (# 5267) on :
 
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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Posted by art dunce (# 9258) on :
 
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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Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 

quote:

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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.

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Way cool!!!!
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
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 ]
 

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Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :
 
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!
 

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Posted by WhyNotSmile (# 14126) on :
 
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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Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :
 
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.
 

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Posted by Mili (# 3254) on :
 
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.
 

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Posted by Aggie (# 4385) on :
 
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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Posted by Alaric the Goth (# 511) on :
 
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…
 

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Posted by Ceannaideach (# 12007) on :
 
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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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Nope. And I never will. There again I didn't believe in Irritable Bowel Syndrome either ...
 

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Posted by Arminian (# 16607) on :
 
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.
 

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Posted by Anyuta (# 14692) on :
 
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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Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :
 
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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Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
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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Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :
 
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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Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 

quote:

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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…

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quote:

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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.

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quote:

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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?

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And don't forget the story of Saul visiting the medium at Endor and conjuring up Samuel's ghost.
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
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!


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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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
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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Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 
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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Posted by LucyP (# 10476) on :
 

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).

---

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.

---

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?
 

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Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 
"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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Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :
 
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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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
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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Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :
 

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?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
But you need to wear black in order to be assured of being haunted.

You are no fun.

---

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?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by churchgeek:
Even asking someone if they've had a paranormal experience already imposes a layer of interpretation on the phenomena.

---

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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trin:
If 5% of people had had credible experience of the supernatural, such phenomena would now be well documented fact.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:
eta - I'd love a rational explanation!

---

The most rational explanation may be that you did see a ghost.
 

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Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
I think it's not just be good science, but good theology to say that there is just one world, and that there isn't another world alongside it, no spirit dimension, no supernatural realm. Everything that happens, that is real, happens in this one world.

It's not a purely material world. There are ideas, culture, language and more and these things have an effect on each other. A message from one person to another can have a physical effect. A joke told out there may make my keyboard wet with coffee.

Ghosts, though, inhabit an in-between world. They are supposed to have direct physical effects - temperature drop, say. People believe they are actual entities and try to investigate them, buying equipment and dedicating many years to try and film them or detect them electronically.

There are never any definite positive results to convince an open-minded sceptic, but often some ambiguous, vague shadowy shape or possible recording, or maybe it was a bit of interference or a trick of the light. Meanwhile millions of security cameras record hundreds of thousands of locations around the world and pick up nothing.

But still people believe in ghosts, and still report experiences of the paranormal.

It could be that the paranormal exists but deliberately stays out of clear view. That gives you a seriously weird world to live in, a Trueman show version of reality.

It could be that the whole paranormal including ghosts is better understood as a human and cultural phenomenon. That is, that some people will sometimes see things, and that what they see will depend on where they live, what ideas they've grown up with, what stories they heard as a child, and what they expect. We would expect that the experiences people report will be shaped by their culture. They will be experiencing a cultural phenomenon, but as if it were an external event.

If that's the case, then we would expect ghosts to be different in China from Mexico, in Ancient Egypt from modern Russia, and so on. There would be similarities, of course, because there is much that is common to being human in any time and place, but much that is specific to a time and place, and clearly reflects the culture there, and not any underlying natural reality.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Armin:

...The two main possibilities, as far as I'm concerned, are: a) these friends have some innate sensitivity that I lack b) they have made an honest mistake about what they saw, or what they remember (I don't think they were trying to deceive me).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Armin:
The two main possibilities, as far as I'm concerned, are: a) these friends have some innate sensitivity that I lack b) they have made an honest mistake about what they saw, or what they remember (I don't think they were trying to deceive me).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hatless:
I think it's not just be good science, but good theology to say that there is just one world, and that there isn't another world alongside it, no spirit dimension, no supernatural realm.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:

---

Just taking the eyewitnesses 13/300 = 4.3%

You'd think ghosts would be a widely acknowledged fact of life.

---

17 people have responded to this thread but as with any thread on this forum, there are many more people who read than post, who may be perfectly capable of contributing relevant experiences but haven't.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
So, what kind of documentation are you thinking should exist?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thyme:
Many millions of people testify to experiences of an encounter with/seeing/meeting Jesus, but it has never been captured on film.

Like answers to prayer and miracles the supernatural can never be conclusively proved or disproved by films or photo or other tangible things.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thyme:
Many millions of people testify to experiences of an encounter with/seeing/meeting Jesus, but it has never been captured on film.

Like answers to prayer and miracles the supernatural can never be conclusively proved or disproved by films or photo or other tangible things.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

quote:

---

Originally posted by hatless:
I think it's not just be good science, but good theology to say that there is just one world, and that there isn't another world alongside it, no spirit dimension, no supernatural realm.

---

Where did the resurrected Jesus ascend to, where is Jesus right now? Where did Gideon's angel go? Who did Moses talk to at the bush or on the mountain?

I have no problem with your concept that there is one world, but a world broader in the whole than the part we see and measure.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thyme:
Like answers to prayer and miracles the supernatural can never be conclusively proved or disproved by films or photo or other tangible things.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by egg:
I think it's largely a matter of terminology, whether you say that there are a material world and a non-material world co-existing, or a single world only part of which is susceptible to scientific investigation. The whole was created by God. That is your opinion. You are entitled to say that it is your opinion. You may even be right but unless you can produce irrefutable evidence to support your belief you really shouldn’t suggest that you have certain knowledge which you don’t have/can’t demonstrate.

Professor Wiebe, who subjects accounts of this kind to critical examination and does not simply treat accounts given by apparently truthful percipients as genuine, says that there are so many recorded "Christic visions", i.e. visions of Jesus, that, although at one time the truth of them was doubted, it is now widely accepted in the academic world that they genuinely occur. Professor who? which bit of the academic world would that be then? links? arguments from possible authority are not evidence – do you have any?

The situation is similar to that of Near Death Experiences (NDEs). Until quite recently accounts of NDEs were commonly dismissed as fantasy; but with the great increase of modern methods of resuscitation, the accounts of NDEs have become so common that it is accepted that most of them are genuine accounts of objective events. by whom? From Wikipedia Many NDE reports, however, originate from events that are not life-threatening. With recent developments in cardiac resuscitation techniques, the number of reported NDEs has increased. The experiences have been described in medical journals as having the characteristics of hallucinations, while parapsychologists, religious believers and some mainstream scientists have pointed to them as evidence of an afterlife and mind-body dualism.

If and I trust you realise it is a pair of very big ifs it is accepted that the accounts of Jesus's Resurrection appearances are largely true, and that accounts of Christic visions in the 20th and 21st centuries are also largely true, Belle Ringer's questions demand an answer. My answer is that Jesus (like many others who have departed from mortal life) is alive in a non-material sphere which exists at the same time as, or alongside, the material world which scientists can investigate. Belle Ringer's answer that it is all one world, only part of which is susceptible to scientific investigation, is just as good. As I say, it is a matter of terminology, and the whole of whatever exists was in my belief created by God, whose existence is itself not susceptible to scientific investigation. "God, whose existence is itself not susceptible to scientific investigation" thus placing God (all of them?) on the same indefensible plane as homeopathy, chi, feng-shui, dowsing, applied kinesiology and his blessed noodliness the Flying Spaghetti Monster et al .

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hatless:
some people will sometimes see things (...) what they see will depend on where they live, what ideas they've grown up with, what stories they heard as a child, and what they expect. We would expect that the experiences people report will be shaped by their culture. They will be experiencing a cultural phenomenon, but as if it were an external event (...) and not any underlying natural reality.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by egg:
May I take up some of HughWillridme’s comments:

1. “unless you can produce irrefutable evidence to support your belief you really shouldn’t suggest that you have certain knowledge which you don’t have/can’t demonstrate”. That is the difficulty with all non-material occurrences. no it’s not – the problem with non-material occurrences is that they cannot be shown to occur, and therefore the rational conclusion is that they either don’t occur (they are better called material non-occurrances) or that their occurrence is irrelevant to matter (including human beings).
Do you consider it morally acceptable to present belief as fact?
Some with a scientific bias are so unwilling to accept any evidence that is not measurable by a scientist or is not repeatable to order that they refuse to accept that the non-material world exists would you try to defeat a life-threatening disease by the use of drugs whose effectiveness cannot be measured or repeated despite the existence of proven alternatives? " That is why Keith Ward entitles his book “Why there almost certainly is a God – Doubting Dawkins”. The evidence for the existence of telepathy, acquired using scientific methods, is very strong, but because it is not repeatable to order some sceptics still refuse to accept it – because if it is accepted it means that the materialist explanation of the world does not give the full picture. what evidence re telepathy? If you make such an assertion you should provide something to support it. A book does not, of itself, justify anything, otherwise you would expect me to believe in the Bermuda Triangle, Robin Hood and a talking snake.

2. “Professor who? which bit of the academic world would that be then? links? arguments from possible authority are not evidence – do you have any? Professor Phillip Wiebe is, or was in 1997, Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Arts and Religious Studies at Trinity Western University in Canada.. Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_H._Wiebe; and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Western_University. His book “Visions of Jesus” contains the most thorough critical evaluation of accounts of visions or appearances of Jesus, from the New Testament to the late 20th century, with copious references to the works of other philosophers and theologians, that I have read. Obtainable on Amazon: for a fair and not wholly favourable review (***) see http://www.amazon.com/Visions-Jesus-Direct-Encounters-Testament/product-reviews/0195126696/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&s howViewpoints=1
My knowledge of academia is poor but this doesn't seem to me to be a main-stream scientist employed at a typical university.
There is only one review which includes "The author also points out the strange fact that all percipients he interviewed immediately recognized the person in their visions as Jesus, despite nobody knowing how Jesus really looked like" and concludes “Wiebe never reaches a firm conclusion, and as already mentioned, his book became tedious to read after a while. I admit that I didn't read literally every word of it..."
Suggesting that it is “ now widely accepted in the academic world that they (Cristic visions) genuinely occur." based on these links seems to me akin to saying that it is now widely accepted in the academic world that the pyramids were built by aliens because someone published a website saying that it could be so.

3. NDEs: “The experiences have been described in medical journals as having the characteristics of hallucinations,..." Perhaps my use of the word “objective” was going a little too far. Hallucinations may be self-induced, or (in Bishop Hugh Montefiore’s term) veridical hallucinations, i.e. induced by an outside agent. As you say, NDEs are accepted by many as falling into the latter category and as “evidence of an afterlife and mind-body dualism”. actually it’s the Wikipedia writer who says so, but many people have accepted that lightning was the gods hurling thunderbolts, that the earth was the centre of the universe and that wisdom comes with age.

4. "God, whose existence is itself not susceptible to scientific investigation" thus placing God (all of them?) on the same indefensible plane as homeopathy, chi, feng-shui, dowsing, applied kinesiology and his blessed noodliness the Flying Spaghetti Monster et al .” I don’t think this is acceptable language on this ship, coming from someone who obviously has not read my earlier posting with an open mind. I don’t have an open mind, my brain hasn’t fallen out. The common basis for all these concepts is that not one of them is "susceptible to scientific investigation". Most shipmates accept the possibility of the existence of God. If you do not, perhaps you should blog elsewhere. Not exactly a rational response is it?
Actually I accept the possibility of the existence of some sort of supernatural being(s) which might equate to god(s). Just as I accept the possibility of unicorns, the Loch Ness Monster and Bertrand Russell's teapot. However, the absence of any evidence to support a possibility means, to my mind, that belief in that possibility is premature, unnecessary and, frankly, somewhat silly.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by egg:
Most shipmates accept the possibility of the existence of God. If you do not, perhaps you should blog elsewhere.

---

ITTWACW
 

---

Posted by egg (# 3982) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by passer:
ITTWACW [/QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

Actually I accept the possibility of the existence of some sort of supernatural being(s) which might equate to god(s). Just as I accept the possibility of unicorns, the Loch Ness Monster and Bertrand Russell's teapot. However, the absence of any evidence to support a possibility means, to my mind, that belief in that possibility is premature, unnecessary and, frankly, somewhat silly.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by passer:
Apologies - I assumed that as a long-time member you'd have come across the acronym before. It stands for: "I Thought This Was A Christian Website". I was using it sarcastically, which is the normal practice. It's generally levelled at people who post protestations such as the one by you which I quoted. Not accepting the possibility of the existence of God does not disqualify anyone from being a member of SoF and contributing to the discussions on the boards.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

quote:

---

Originally posted by egg:
May I take up some of HughWillridme’s comments:
"[qb]
2. “Professor who? which bit of the academic world would that be then? links? arguments from possible authority are not evidence – do you have any? Professor Phillip Wiebe is, or was in 1997, Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Arts and Religious Studies at Trinity Western University in Canada.. Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_H._Wiebe; and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Western_University. His book “Visions of Jesus” contains the most thorough critical evaluation of accounts of visions or appearances of Jesus, from the New Testament to the late 20th century, with copious references to the works of other philosophers and theologians, that I have read. Obtainable on Amazon: for a fair and not wholly favourable review (***) see http://www.amazon.com/Visions-Jesus-Direct-Encounters-Testament/product-reviews/0195126696/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&s howViewpoints=1
My knowledge of academia is poor but this doesn't seem to me to be a main-stream scientist employed at a typical university..

---

---

Yes, your knowledge of academia is poor. The book is published by
Oxford University Press (US branch). Like any academic work it has stimulated debate. You may not agree with the conclusions, but anything published by OUP should be taken as serious academic research. Where the author works is less of a guide to the seriousness of the content than who has decided to print it.

[ 14. September 2012, 21:35: Message edited by: Truman White ]
 

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Posted by Walsingham Tilde (# 17311) on :
 
Some years ago, when we moved into a brand-new vicarage, we noticed an unpleasant smell around the front door. It grew stronger, so the drains were checked (new drains don’t always flow smoothly) but all was well. As the stench increased, we noticed three sinister things: first, that it was the unmistakeable smell of rotting flesh; secondly, that it was contained within a definite area - roughly a square metre; thirdly, that the area was moving. Over about a week it had moved through the hall – and then it started to come up the stairs.
At this point I did a house blessing and home Eucharist – and the phenomenon ended at once.
No explanation – but I promise this is true.
Have other shipmates experienced supernatural smells?
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
Welcome to the Ship Walsingham Tilde

Did you not consider co-incidence as an explanation?

That the smell would have gone at that moment anyway?

I don't believe that anything is supernatural. Unexplained,yes. Many, many things which were once considered supernatural can now be explained. The same is true for all such phenomena imo.
 

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Posted by angelfish (# 8884) on :
 
It is notable that doubters are often unable to produce any alternative explanation beyond "it was a coincidence". What, in the phantom smell case, do you think caused it Boogie? I am sure that some alleged supernatural phenomena are in fact caused by more mundane events, but I am also sure that there are genuine supernatural occurrences in the world. My parents together witnessed a figure of a man crouching at the foot of their bed. When Dad told it to leave, it crouched lower as if trying to hide, so Dad told it in no uncertain terms to leave and it fled through the window, causing the curtains to waft as it passed through them. Are shared hallucinations or dreams possible? Or is the more likely explanation that they in fact saw what they think they saw?
 

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Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Walsingham Tilde:
Some years ago, when we moved into a brand-new vicarage, we noticed an unpleasant smell around the front door. It grew stronger, so the drains were checked (new drains don’t always flow smoothly) but all was well. As the stench increased, we noticed three sinister things: first, that it was the unmistakeable smell of rotting flesh; secondly, that it was contained within a definite area - roughly a square metre; thirdly, that the area was moving. Over about a week it had moved through the hall – and then it started to come up the stairs.
At this point I did a house blessing and home Eucharist – and the phenomenon ended at once.
No explanation – but I promise this is true.
Have other shipmates experienced supernatural smells?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Walsingham Tilde:
Some years ago, when we moved into a brand-new vicarage, we noticed an unpleasant smell around the front door. It grew stronger, so the drains were checked (new drains don’t always flow smoothly) but all was well. As the stench increased, we noticed three sinister things: first, that it was the unmistakeable smell of rotting flesh; secondly, that it was contained within a definite area - roughly a square metre; thirdly, that the area was moving. Over about a week it had moved through the hall – and then it started to come up the stairs.
At this point I did a house blessing and home Eucharist – and the phenomenon ended at once.
No explanation – but I promise this is true.
Have other shipmates experienced supernatural smells?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by angelfish:
It is notable that doubters are often unable to produce any alternative explanation beyond "it was a coincidence". What, in the phantom smell case, do you think caused it Boogie?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by angelfish:
Are shared hallucinations or dreams possible?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:

---

Originally posted by angelfish:
Are shared hallucinations or dreams possible?

---

Yes they are. The power of suggestion is incredibly strong.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:
I was sleeping in a church hall, and woke up during the first night. I felt what I can only describe as a heavy presence in the room - so heavy I was finding it difficult to breathe. I prayed until I fell asleep but it was an uncomfortable experience. The team prayed in the room the next day and I slept better for the rest of the week.

---

quote:

---

Folk belief in Newfoundland, South Carolina and Georgia describe the negative figure of the hag who leaves her physical body at night, and sits on the chest of her victim. The victim usually wakes with a feeling of terror, has difficulty breathing because of a perceived heavy invisible weight on his or her chest, and is unable to move

---

quote:

---

During the week a couple of local young ladies started to come to our meeting. They were pleasant and engaging, but always wore black. During the week they came to faith. Explaining their spritiual journey they related how they had held seances in the church hall.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Walsingham Tilde:
Some years ago, when we moved into a brand-new vicarage, we noticed an unpleasant smell around the front door. It grew stronger, so the drains were checked (new drains don’t always flow smoothly) but all was well. As the stench increased, we noticed three sinister things: first, that it was the unmistakeable smell of rotting flesh; secondly, that it was contained within a definite area - roughly a square metre; thirdly, that the area was moving. Over about a week it had moved through the hall – and then it started to come up the stairs.
At this point I did a house blessing and home Eucharist – and the phenomenon ended at once.
No explanation – but I promise this is true.
Have other shipmates experienced supernatural smells?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by egg:

quote:

---

Originally posted by passer:
Apologies - I assumed that as a long-time member you'd have come across the acronym before. It stands for: "I Thought This Was A Christian Website". I was using it sarcastically, which is the normal practice. It's generally levelled at people who post protestations such as the one by you which I quoted. Not accepting the possibility of the existence of God does not disqualify anyone from being a member of SoF and contributing to the discussions on the boards.

---

Thank you. At least I would have thought that most contributors would have an open mind on most subjects of this kind that have not been scientifically proved. HughWillRidMe claims not to have.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by egg:
[Continued] Actually there is a great deal of evidence for the existence of a supernatural being, stretching back at least 4000 years. such as?

It just doesn't happen to have been tested in a laboratory. It doesn’t have to be – The Templeton Foundation carried out a well organised and well funded trial relating to prayer without needing to go into a laboratory. The STEP Project

However most of those who do not believe would hesitate to call it silly, any more than they would call a belief that a rose smells sweeter than a dandelion, or that a sunset can be beautiful, or that love can exist between husband and wife, silly. You know the minds of most who do not believe? Even at 51% that's a heck of a lot of minds.

I have excellent evidence for the existence of roses and dandelions (though many modern roses have little or no scent) and can evaluate my preference without recourse to the supernatural. Similarly I can appreciate beauty without invoking some unknown agency and there is (in addition to my personal experiences) good experimental evidence for changes within the brain when people experience “love” click

You offer Bem and Honorton, Does psi exist? (http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/psy1.html). (Published 1994) – a more up-to-date comment is found here and includes

"Skepticism and controversy
Although not a recognized scientific discipline, people who study certain types of paranormal phenomena such as telepathy refer to the field as parapsychology. Parapsychologists claim that some instances of telepathy are real. Skeptics say that instances of apparent telepathy are explained as the result of fraud, self-delusion and/or self-deception and that telepathy does not exist as a paranormal power.

Parapsychologists and skeptics agree that many of the instances of more popular psychic phenomena, such as mediums, can be attributed to non-paranormal techniques such as cold reading. Magicians such as Ian Rowland and Derren Brown have demonstrated techniques and results similar to those of popular psychics, without paranormal means. They have identified, described, and developed psychological techniques of cold reading and hot reading.

A technique which shows statistically significant evidence of telepathy on every occasion has yet to be discovered. This lack of reliable reproducibility has led skeptics to argue that there is no credible scientific evidence for the existence of telepathy at all. Skeptics also point to historical cases in which flaws in experimental design and occasional cases of fraud were uncovered."

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Originally posted by hatless:
What is 'a figure of a man'? Why not a man? If you see a man, you see a man. If you see a figure of a man, it strikes me that you may be talking about indistinct shapes, about light and shadow. Who knows.

In your story, Angelfish, your father orders 'it' to leave, and it 'flees' through the window. This is already the description of a phantom. A real person at the foot of the bed could, conceivably leap through a window, but it wouldn't be described as fleeing. The curtains wouldn't waft, they would tangle and flap. Most people would be scared by a person in the bedroom, but would probably try to talk to them, rather than commanding .
... And the desire to believe in a parallel reality is, I think, theologically and spiritually suspect

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
"Folk belief in Newfoundland, South Carolina and Georgia describe the negative figure of the hag who leaves her physical body at night, and sits on the chest of her victim. The victim usually wakes with a feeling of terror, has difficulty breathing because of a perceived heavy invisible weight on his or her chest, and is unable to move."

One cause of this can be anxiety - quite understandable at the start of a mission and sleeping in a strange location, especially a church hall (yes I could tell some stories. I remember the one in Paris where the chap in the next sleeping bag along turned in saying "I suppose this is where we get to play 'meet the rodent'").

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You assume there is no paranormal, and therefore assume that people witnessing such things are layering meaning onto physical events but maybe it is you who are offering a post facto explaining-away of strange happenings.

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Originally posted by hatless:
I think it's not just be good science, but good theology to say that there is just one world, and that there isn't another world alongside it, no spirit dimension, no supernatural realm. Everything that happens, that is real, happens in this one world.

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Originally posted by hatless:
It's not a purely material world. There are ideas, culture, language and more and these things have an effect on each other. A message from one person to another can have a physical effect. A joke told out there may make my keyboard wet with coffee. Ghosts, though, inhabit an in-between world. They are supposed to have direct physical effects - temperature drop, say.

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Originally posted by hatless:
It could be that the paranormal exists but deliberately stays out of clear view. That gives you a seriously weird world to live in, a Trueman show version of reality.

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Originally posted by hatless:
It could be that the whole paranormal including ghosts is better understood as a human and cultural phenomenon. That is, that some people will sometimes see things, and that what they see will depend on where they live, what ideas they've grown up with, what stories they heard as a child, and what they expect. We would expect that the experiences people report will be shaped by their culture. They will be experiencing a cultural phenomenon, but as if it were an external event.

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Originally posted by hatless:
I remember a friend, a scientist and a sceptic, telling a group of us about a haunted house he had lived in, and the many people who went there and were so scared they couldn't stay for the whole night. It was very impressive and credible evidence. On another occasion he talked about it again, and admitted that he had never seen or heard a single suspicious thing, and that those who had stayed, all university students, had probably all been well aware of the house's reputation, and in many cases quite deliberately primed with a few good creepy ghost stories. He said he was sure it could all be explained by suggestion, expectation and the atmosphere of a very remote and old house.

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Originally posted by hatless:
I've never seen a ghost or experienced anything paranormal. Nor have any of the CCTV cameras around, or people making YouTube videos. One of our shipmates once said he worked in a concentration camp and spent the night there on occasion and never saw a thing. The stories we do get are almost always very 'soft' in terms of facts, and often told in ways that show the person telling them has a propensity to believe in the supernatural, that is they describe things that I wouldn't assume to be paranormal, but which they do. The evidence just isn't there, for me.

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Originally posted by hatless:
Similarly I think, though I lack the knowledge and evidence to prove it, that the ghosts people see are really examples of what their culture believes a ghost to be, and that the ghosts people in other cultures see are therefore different. Which means that there is no natural phenomenon behind it.

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
The oddest experience I know of is that of my aunt, who woke (or perhaps was still asleep and dreaming, but felt at the time like she woke) one night in October 1942 to see her grandfather sitting beside her bed. He didn't say anything and she reported later a feeling of unease rather than the sense of comfort she normally had in her grandfather's presence. When she really woke in the morning and mentioned this to her family (she was 12 at the time) they reminded her that it was impossible for her grandfather to be there as they all knew he was on a ship at sea at the time.

Only a couple of days later, wartime communications being what they were, did they find out that on the same night she claimed to have seen her grandfather, his ship was torpedoed and sunk, and her grandfather was among those killed.

What strikes me as very odd about this story is that the belief that the dead "check in" with living family members as they're dying someplace far away is very common here in Newfoundland and many families would have stories similar to my aunt's....

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• Hypnompic phenomena (which are commoner in children)
• Sleep paralysis - descriptions of which have been widely linked to being hag-ridden, visited by an incubus or succubus and alien sexual abuse (i.e. written descriptions of said encounters all fall into a similar pattern)
• Abnormal mental perceptions, not just present in people with a diagnosis of mental illness - approximately 1 in 4 people report hearing a voice (auditory hallucination) at some point during their lives & any extreme emotional state or exhaustion, including grief, raises the chance of transitory psychotic symptoms. For example, people who are severely depressed may experience nihilistic hallucinations / delusions such as blood dripping off the walls - that sound exactly like something out of a horror movie and are mood congruent.
• PTSD, historically ghosts were often of people who had died violently - and this or its aftermath had been observed. I imagine flashback could be a lot like hearing or seeing a ghost.
• Environmental effects, there are reasonably well documented impacts of sub-auditory threshold low frequency noise "infrasound"
• Confabulation, human memory is not a documentary record - there are predictable changes over time in what and how people remember. This article contains a good discussion of some of the available evidence - from, for an academic paper, a reasonably sympathetic perspective.
• Flashbulb memory, when you believe yourself to have an immediate vivid memory of an important such as the Kennedy assassination, or an important personal event, is not as accurate as you perceive it to be. The emotional importance makes you think you recall exactly, whereas in fact the memory changes over time. For example, people have reported they know exactly where the were at the moment they heard of JFK's death - listening to such and such a sports match on the radio, and when checked it turns out the fixture was not on the radio at that time.

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Originally posted by hatless:
I think, though I lack the knowledge and evidence to prove it, that the ghosts people see are really examples of what their culture believes a ghost to be, and that the ghosts people in other cultures see are therefore different.

Which means that there is no natural phenomenon behind it. That's not to say that it isn't important or significant, but that it needs to be approached in different terms.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
I was sleeping in a church hall, and woke up during the first night. I felt what I can only describe as a heavy presence in the room - so heavy I was finding it difficult to breathe. I prayed until I fell asleep but it was an uncomfortable experience. The team prayed in the room the next day and I slept better for the rest of the week.

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It sounds to me like you experienced an episode of sleep paralysis:

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Folk belief in Newfoundland, South Carolina and Georgia describe the negative figure of the hag who leaves her physical body at night, and sits on the chest of her victim. The victim usually wakes with a feeling of terror, has difficulty breathing because of a perceived heavy invisible weight on his or her chest, and is unable to move

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One cause of this can be anxiety - quite understandable at the start of a mission and sleeping in a strange location, especially a church hall (yes I could tell some stories. I remember the one in Paris where the chap in the next sleeping bag along turned in saying "I suppose this is where we get to play 'meet the rodent'").

I'm glad this condition went away after prayer - but that's as likely to be because you were reassured as anything else.

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During the week a couple of local young ladies started to come to our meeting. They were pleasant and engaging, but always wore black. During the week they came to faith. Explaining their spritiual journey they related how they had held seances in the church hall.

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I assume you are intending to imply a connection between this and your experience - although you don't specifically say so.

Once again we come back to the problem of reporting. I presume that you heard these ladies' testimony first hand, but even if you did, how can you be sure they were telling the truth? And even if they were telling the truth, what would lead you to believe that their actions somehow explained what you experienced?

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Yes I saw the two incidents as connected, yes I heard the ladies first hand, no I didn't see any reason to disbelieve them. I know what stress related sleeplessness feels like, having a highly stressful job.... Your alternative explanation is interesting, but less convincing to me personally.

Didn't see any hags - or rats. Some friends of mine doing mission in India used to say you really had to get worried when the rats all ran away. Usually an indication that there was a python in the room


 

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Posted by Truman White (# 17290) on :
 

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
[QUOTE]. If one wishes to have an extraordinary claim accepted by another person one should present extraordinary proof.

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Originally posted by Truman White:

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
[QUOTE]. If one wishes to have an extraordinary claim accepted by another person one should present extraordinary proof.

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I think Daffyd answered this argument on a previous thread .

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I don't

Daffyd takes issue with the use of the word extraordinary - the need for proof is not addressed.

Human beings are not born with a belief in a supernatural world – they have to be taught it. Teaching should include evidence that what is being taught is valid or it should be taught as hypothesis. The more unlikely a hypothesis the greater the need for validation. Unlikeliness(?) can be graded with reference to evidence.

Believing it will rain tomorrow (here in Middle England) is currently fairly rational based upon weather records/forecasts.

Believing that there is an unknowable dimension to our universe which requires liberal applications of my time, effort and money so that other humans may enjoy power, wealth and status at my expense seems, to me, to need a more rigorous standard of validation (but I’d settle for the same scientific method that validates doctor’s prescriptions).

As Carl Sagan is claimed to have said “Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”
 

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Posted by Noxious (# 17318) on :
 
I think the sleep paralysis explanation while compelling is not complete enough in itself. I've had a few dreams of either being in another place unable to move and also waking dreams where I've been in the darkness of my own room and paralysed. But on all those occasions the panic associated with the paralysis is in response to and secondary to a powerfully realised external threat. Mostly this would be manifest as being literally pinned down in the bed by something but occasionally it would be the perception of some entity being nearby and approaching. It's not a perception/feeling I've had at any stage in the real world, a combination of concentrated "unclean" and evil that literally turns the stomach - and very much personified, not at all vague.

The times this has happened I've managed to pray, once only managing to slur out a 'Jesus...' with great effort when I felt my jaw was being pressed into the pillow. And every time in an instant the presence left. Despite being fairly sober as far as supernatural manifestations are concerned, I've little doubt that these have been of demonic origin, not something I'd interpret as "ghost" activity. And not least because the paralysis/evil dreams stopped since I've backslidden from a more active practicing faith. If the combination was a natural, if infrequent, human experience I would have expected to still be having those dreams.

(And now I'm off to bed )
 

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Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
I don't know if you have come across Dr Susan Blackmore's research on this phenomenon. It can be experimentally induced, and she actually underwent the procedure and describes her experiences in that link.
 

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Posted by saysay (# 6645) on :
 

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Human beings are not born with a belief in a supernatural world – they have to be taught it.

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Human beings are not born with a belief in a supernatural world – they have to be taught it.

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Or experience it untaught/unsought.

Paul on Damascus road. Various other classic saints startled by an unsought encounter with a personality they didn't believe in. Occasional modern day folks similarly startled.

On the whole I'd say kids live closer than adults to awareness of this realm, are more likely taught by adults not to "see" it.
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
I would love photos to be put on a high shelf where people have 'out of body' experiences. If they see the photos then we will have scientific proof.


 

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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
Tangent alert
This isn't about a claimed paranormal experience and so strictly is outside the OP. However, that doesn't seem to have bothered a lot of other shipmates who have posted their opinions rather than experiences on this thread.

Why does it have to be assumed that if there are what we call paranormal experiences, there is a separate spiritual realm, one that is quite different from the natural one that we can see and touch? Why shouldn't the invisible be part of the same universe as we are in, and not a different one? We can't see the ultra-violet or infra-red. We can't hear sound outside the range of our ears. But we accept they are all there because scientists tell us so.

Why then do we not accept that what we might call the spiritual is there, just because clergy and others tell us it is?
 

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Posted by passer (# 13329) on :
 

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Originally posted by saysay:
I've known a lot of kids who are born with a gift of seeing things in the spirit realm

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Originally posted by Boogie:
I would love photos to be put on a high shelf where people have 'out of body' experiences. If they see the photos then we will have scientific proof.

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Originally posted by passer:

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Originally posted by saysay:
I've known a lot of kids who are born with a gift of seeing things in the spirit realm

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This sounds very interesting. I would love to hear more about it. How many of them, how the gift manifested, how did they share these experiences with adults, how they came to lose it, what happened to them then, what their memories of it are - that sort of thing.

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Originally posted by Boogie:
I would love photos to be put on a high shelf where people have 'out of body' experiences. If they see the photos then we will have scientific proof.

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

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Originally posted by Boogie:
I would love photos to be put on a high shelf where people have 'out of body' experiences. If they see the photos then we will have scientific proof.

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Not unusual to read of people who "die" on the operating table and have an out of body experience and later tell what they saw in the operating room and in the waiting room -- who was doing what -- that the NDE person had no other way of knowing but the details were correct.

One problem with your proposed experiment is, why would the person having an out of body experience be interested (during that out-of-body time) in looking at those photos? Even if interested enough while fully conscious to agree to the experiment, priorities may be quite different during the experience.

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

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Originally posted by Truman White:

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
[QUOTE]. If one wishes to have an extraordinary claim accepted by another person one should present extraordinary proof.

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I think Daffyd answered this argument on a previous thread .

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I don't

Daffyd takes issue with the use of the word extraordinary - the need for proof is not addressed.

Human beings are not born with a belief in a supernatural world – they have to be taught it. Teaching should include evidence that what is being taught is valid or it should be taught as hypothesis. The more unlikely a hypothesis the greater the need for validation. Unlikeliness(?) can be graded with reference to evidence."

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Nope. And I never will. There again I didn't believe in Irritable Bowel Syndrome either ...

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Originally posted by saysay:

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Originally posted by passer:

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Originally posted by saysay:
I've known a lot of kids who are born with a gift of seeing things in the spirit realm

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This sounds very interesting. I would love to hear more about it. How many of them, how the gift manifested, how did they share these experiences with adults, how they came to lose it, what happened to them then, what their memories of it are - that sort of thing.

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I don't know exactly. In my experience most kids (under 5) have some sort of sense of something else, something other than the strictly material. They just don't know how to talk about it. Of course, kids that age don't necessarily know how to talk about the material world, either - they simply don't have the vocabulary for it and adults fill it in by providing or correcting words when they can figure out what their kids are trying to say.

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But a lot of adults don't have the vocabulary either (because they don't believe in those things and/or have lost the ability to see them).

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IME this doesn't just happen with spiritual/supernatural things, but with other intuitions - ie, the kid knows that their parents are upset or angry about something, but instead of reassuring them that they are upset about something that happened at work not something the kid did or that they are angry with each other because adults sometimes argue and become angry they simply deny that the kid's intuition is correct.

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So the kid learns not to trust it and not to talk about it (there's no point in telling someone you see a ghost if they respond that ghosts don't exist). When it comes to the supernatural/spiritual mostly parents don't know what the hell the kid is talking about and just ignore it, although occasionally you'll run across someone either with a strong enough gift or a powerful enough ghost who wants to get a message through that people have to acknowledge that something weird is going on.

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Most of the kids I've known grow out of having this skill around age 5 - I don't know if that's a developmental thing or the result of the fact that in the US that's when we send our kids to school and even if parents tend to be tolerant of the kids talking about it, teachers are not.

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Most of the people I've known who have retained some ability in this area had teachers who were tolerant - even if they didn't think the kid was talking about something real they chalked it up to them having an active imagination and didn't discourage them.

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The ones who get trained out of it generally don't remember having the gift at all (most people I've encountered don't remember a lot that happened before they were five).

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The ones who don't grow up to be adults who are generally thought a bit weird.

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Does that answer your question? (Not really sure what you're looking for here)

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Originally posted by passer:
I don’t see how your observation of children’s behaviour makes the leap to “the spirit realm”. If they don’t know how to talk about it, how do you know it is what you think it is? I’m assuming that you don’t use your own powers of adult suggestion to provide words for them?

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It’s only your personal opinion that we have lost the ability to see something.

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This is slightly different, as you’re referring to behaviour within our understanding. In such cases I don’t think the child’s intuition is being impugned. It’s social intercourse, and this is how the child learns it, through the parents. As long as the parents don’t transfer responsibility for the upset to the child the child learns that sometimes it’s best not to get involved.

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You’re back to the spirit world here and I think you’re extrapolating too far. I believe that in the example you use the child is more likely to learn the opposite – to trust the feeling that there’s stuff going on between people significant in his life that he should not try to get involved in. This doesn’t relate to abstract things that the child might perceive that aren’t relationship based. Because children don’t talk about ghosts you can’t just deduce that they choose not to; perhaps it’s because they don’t see them.

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Who is deducing that because children don't talk about ghosts it's because they choose not to? I was talking about kids who talk about ghosts, are told ghosts don't exist, and demonstrate to others that something is communicating with them by telling others true information concerning, for example, their recent death. And I still think you're wrong that a child learns to trust the feeling that there's something significant going on between the people significant in his life that he shouldn't get involved in it when they completely deny having certain feelings. A more extreme and abusive form of this behavior is called gaslighting.

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I don’t understand how you can determine the personal development of very young children who are not within your own family circle but are within another family circle. You’re positing opinions based on personal suppositions about third and fourth parties that are unverifiable.

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So you know people who have retained this ability to see into the spirit world?

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Maybe they don’t remember having said gift because they didn’t have it.

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Does that answer your question? (Not really sure what you're looking for here)

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Not really. I can see that you broke my query down and addressed the individual points, but what you’ve written is strong on generalisation and supposition and weak on detail. However, thanks for the response. I can accept that you believe it to be the case, but I am unconvinced. Sometimes people just want to believe stuff so hard, in order to satisfy some inner need, that they find ways of convincing themselves. It's allowed.

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Originally posted by Enoch:

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

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Originally posted by Boogie:
I would love photos to be put on a high shelf where people have 'out of body' experiences. If they see the photos then we will have scientific proof.

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One problem with your proposed experiment is, why would the person having an out of body experience be interested (during that out-of-body time) in looking at those photos? Even if interested enough while fully conscious to agree to the experiment, priorities may be quite different during the experience.

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I don't think there are many people who would be willing to be very nearly killed for experimental purposes, so as to find out whether they could check what pictures were on a shelf. I certainly wouldn't.

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Not unusual to read of people who "die" on the operating table and have an out of body experience

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Originally posted by angelfish:
The article I linked to ...

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Originally posted by Doublethink:
I don't know if you have come across Dr Susan Blackmore's research on this phenomenon. It can be experimentally induced, and she actually underwent the procedure and describes her experiences in that link.

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Originally posted by Gregory's Girl:
By the same token, my gut feeling is that it is "wrong" (in that it denotes a lack of faith in God's ability to look after our loved ones) to try to contact the dead but the dead might contact us due their own or our crises.

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
One problem with your proposed experiment is, why would the person having an out of body experience be interested (during that out-of-body time) in looking at those photos? Even if interested enough while fully conscious to agree to the experiment, priorities may be quite different during the experience.

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Originally posted by leo:

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
why would the person having an out of body experience be interested (during that out-of-body time) in looking at those photos? Even if interested enough while fully conscious to agree to the experiment, priorities may be quite different during the experience.

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They'd look at them, not out of interest but, because the first stage of a NDE is confusion and trying to work out what is happening, which involves looking carefully at everything to see what is happening.

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Originally posted by Enoch:

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Originally posted by angelfish:
The article I linked to ...

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Unfortunately, when I followed that link, all I got was a site of advertising listings, including one called asianbeauties.com!

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

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Originally posted by leo:

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
why would the person having an out of body experience be interested (during that out-of-body time) in looking at those photos? Even if interested enough while fully conscious to agree to the experiment, priorities may be quite different during the experience.

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They'd look at them, not out of interest but, because the first stage of a NDE is confusion and trying to work out what is happening, which involves looking carefully at everything to see what is happening.

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Interesting, I have not heard that, although I expect reactions vary. More often I hear of peace. Freedom from pain. Wanting to reassure loved ones. And not really wanting to go back to the body.

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Close relatives claim to have experienced a ghost. It used to frequently flush the toilet, pull the bedclothes off, close doors behind them, move things on shelves, and climb the metal stairs outside one step at a time and knock on the front door. They never knew whether it came in when they opened the door. They didn't see it, and were not afraid of it.

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Originally posted by Moo:
This sounds like a poltergeist. I am not committing myself on whether there are such things as ghosts and poltergeists.

Moo

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Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Another experience to relate .... in the 1980's I was the manager of a branch of a well known UK Building Society in a bedfordshire market town.

It was a 2 story office and had once been a hotel. The upstairs was only used for storgae for past records of our and other branches. From time to time I had to retrieve documents from the store. The main room had a heavy iron door always closed on exit. When next I visted, I always found it open. It needed a good push to open it: I had the only key to the upstairs on my key ring.

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