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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Ghosts
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
I have a good friend who believes in ghosts, and has had an experience of 'feeling' their presence, though she has never seen one. She's a Christian, and a generally very sensible person. I am sceptical about their existence, and, although I'd very much love to see a ghost, I feel almost certain they don't exist except in our imaginations (rather like gods).
Has anyone here personally experienced a ghost? Does anyone have any kind of idea what they are supposed to be, in more or less scientific terms? Is there anything useful that theology tells us about them?
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
I don't believe in ghosts, nor have I ever experienced one.
The two theories I can think of which are knocking around are either that ghosts are the spirits of the dead which for some reason are supposed to be knocking around a place or the psychic recording of dramatic events that happened in a place. An example would be the spirit of Catherine Howard who is supposed to continue to attend her place of execution.
The Biblical example is the ghost of Samuel who was, allegedly, called forth from Sheol by the Witch of Endor. At that period devout Jews generally held that the souls of the departed entered a shadow realm, called Sheol, and existed in an insubstantial state. Samuel was allegedly called forth from Sheol and predicted Saul's doom. I don't think Christians are obliged to sign up to this as literal historical fact but peoples mileage doubtless varies.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick
Does anyone have any kind of idea what they are supposed to be, in more or less scientific terms?
Why "in more or less scientific terms"?
The empirical scientific method may not have anything to say about the spiritual world, but that does not mean that that world cannot be real. While I have no idea whether ghosts exist (unless one includes "the Holy Ghost", whom I prefer to refer to as "the Holy Spirit"), I certainly believe in dimensions of reality that go beyond what is generally termed "the natural", this latter term being extremely vague and ill-defined of course. Interestingly it seems that apparently naturalistic thinkers cannot actually discount such a reality, hence all the speculation about parallel universes, some of which may function according to laws completely unknown to what we know as "the laws of nature".
The way science seems to be going - what with the weirdness of QM, for example - I think it is now rather old fashioned to dismiss claims that unobserved dimensions of reality may exist. To assume that such dimensions are merely the product of the human imagination, is rather flattering the human imagination I would suggest...
This doesn't answer your question about ghosts, but it does attempt to set the subject in its proper philosophical context.
[ 14. December 2013, 21:45: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Has anyone here personally experienced a ghost? Does anyone have any kind of idea what they are supposed to be, in more or less scientific terms? Is there anything useful that theology tells us about them?
I have not observed a ghost myself. Ghosts are generally considered to be the disembodied souls of the dead. By that definition and from a Catholic perspective, there is no question that ghosts exist. Indeed, almost all the dead are currently ghosts. The question is rather whether these ghosts are allowed to appear on earth, rather than remaining in hell, purgatory or heaven, where they wait to be reunited with their resurrected bodies.
Given this perspective, it is clear that any actual apparition of a ghost on earth would be beneficial in some way, since it would be specifically and extraordinarily allowed by God. A proper "Catholic ghost" would for example encourage the living in their faith, or ask for their prayers.
However, continuing in this perspective, ghosts are not the only spirits who can manifest themselves on earth. So can angels, but also demons. And the latter is the key problem. How does one distinguish between a malevolent demonic impostor and a benevolent genuine ghost? But worse, if we seek out the help of a "medium" or use other occult practices to "force" a connection to the dead, then we are de facto trying to force God to make the special and extraordinary happen for us. That is clearly sinful, and basically an open invitation for demons - or indeed human charlatans - to play their tricks on us. Hence the Church has always been strictly against any such "spiritism".
In summary, according to Catholic teaching there are billions of ghosts. But if you ever see one of them on earth, which is very unlikely, then it will be in the same spirit as a Marian apparition. Though perhaps more "personal" than that: so if you tell me that your dead grandmother knelt with you in prayer one night, I will consider that possible. But if you talk about "haunted houses" that scare people out of their wits, then I will consider human psychology first, human trickery second, and demonic actions third.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I don't believe in ghosts except the Holy Ghosts. From people who believe in them, I have the feeling that they mainly instill fear in them. I don't know why you'd believe in something that gave you such a reaction.
Once I had a girlfriend who sometimes after we had a couple of drinks in the evening would say: "There's a ghost standing outside the door!" I would usually answer "Invite him in, ask if he wants a beer."
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
A number of years ago I was preaching on the woman who was washing Jesus feet with her tears. The story is about a Pharisee who invited Jesus to dine at his home. As they were dining a woman came in and began washing Jesus's feet. I did the sermon in complete first person taking on the role of the Pharisee. I must say I was really into it. Probably one of my best sermons.
One of the congregants later came to me and shared that as I was preaching she saw a being come in through the front door of the church and occupy my body. As I finished the sermon, the being left my body and exited out of a side door to the church. The member was very disturbed by what she had seen.
Now I did not see anything; but, like I said, it was one of the best sermons I think I ever preached.
I asked the woman when she saw the being if it was threatening in anyway or was it benevolent. She said she thought it was benevolent. I told her, then not to worry it was a good spirit.
I once blessed a house because the woman of the house thought there were ghosts in the house. After the blessing she said they disappeared.
I also witnessed a demonstration by a psychologist--can't remember his name, though. He had done some work in the paranormal. He pointed out that there are something like 17 different dimensions of which we are aware of only three, maybe four. He asked a member of the group to come forward for an interview. As he touched that person, he quickly withdrew it. He said he got an image of a very powerful ancestor in this person's background. The person said his great grandfather had been a native American shaman.
Speaking with a number of native Americans, they tell me the above experience is not all that unusual in their cultures. They point out that if you expect to see such things you will probably see them.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
The way science seems to be going - what with the weirdness of QM, for example - I think it is now rather old fashioned to dismiss claims that unobserved dimensions of reality may exist. To assume that such dimensions are merely the product of the human imagination, is rather flattering the human imagination I would suggest...
You cannot flatter the human imagination: it is the greatest power we know. Art, science, theology - all are the product of the human capacity to think of something for which there is no external correspondence, and bring it into being.
And this is where I go as mystical as I get: there is a shared dimension to this. Our individual minds touch on a wellspring - the collective unconscious - in which live the perceptions of milennia of your forebears. It is not so much that the dead appear to us, rather we are the dead. They live in our speech, our dreams, the little odd happenings of our daily lives. Ghost stories externalise them, and deck them in all sorts of fears and projections, because we know that we too will soon lie down in darkness.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
I've seen ghosts twice. Once when I was a student in Dublin, and I perceived a woman in a dress standing in the room where I was working. Later that year, friends were drinking and one was counselled not to have another as she would be seeing the lady with the grey dress again. I locked eyes with her, and she said: "You've seen her, haven't you?"
The second time was in the cloister of the church in Carrion de los Condes, when I saw two shadowy figures in a side chapel. The next morning, I was taking a spartan breakfast (the Spanish don't believe in breakfast) at a bar when one of the other customers was declining a second brandy (the Spanish have a peculiar understanding of what is needed in a basic breakfast) on the grounds that he would might start seeing the monks at Santa Maria's. I enquired of the barman what he meant, and he replied that these were two monks from many years ago. They were harmless and just walked around from time to time. Had I seen them?
On both occasions, I would have dismissed what I saw as a trick of the eyes but, on both occasions, what I might have seen was confirmed after the fact.
The former partner of one of my old roomies claims to see ghosts on the streets of Toronto, telling me that Queen Street West is well-populated with them.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Several years ago I had an experience I can't explain. I'd dashed to the Post Office to catch the last (5pm) post with a birthday card, and I was heading home, trying to think whether I could go straight home, or whether I needed to buy milk / bread / eggs whilst I was near the shop anyway. Very dull.
I was walking past my church, which has a graveyard along one side and to the rear. I could clearly see a woman kneeling on one of the graves, arranging a large bunch of white flowers. She was a large middle-aged woman, wearing a short-sleeved blue summer frock. She either had short dark brown hair, or her hair was tucked into a bun. At the point at which I'd drawn level with her, she was only about 15 ft away.
I'd gone a few steps passed her (but I was still alongside the graveyard), my mind still on the contents of my fridge, and whether it needed replenishing, when it struck me that short sleeves were an odd choice in September - I was wearing a fleece jacket.
So I turned round, assuming the woman was a visitor, and intending to ask her if she wanted me to let her see inside the church - we get occasional overseas visitors making family history visits. She wasn't still kneeling on the grave so I thought she must be exploring the rest of the graveyard. There's only one way in, and she hadn't had time to leave. So I went in, and I walked through the graveyard, increasingly baffled that I couldn't see her.
Eventually, I thought I'd go to see whose grave she'd arranged the large bunch of white flowers on - there were no white flowers anywhere.
I have no explanation of what happened and I'd dearly love one.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
Do I believe in ghosts? Well yes, because I have heard too many stories of people who have seen or experienced them, who are reliable enough. I also believe that the spiritual realm is real, and manifests itself in all sorts of ways.
Do I know what ghosts are? Not a clue. I cannot offer a "scientific" explanation of something that is inherently outside the realm of scientific study. Despite the various "ghost hunter" expeditions, which are pseudo-science at the best.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Once I had a girlfriend who sometimes after we had a couple of drinks in the evening would say: "There's a ghost standing outside the door!" I would usually answer "Invite him in, ask if he wants a beer."
A more gentlemanly (and scientific) reply would have been "Let me check, and if there is one I will invite him for a beer."
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Haven't experienced anything particularly ghostly myself, but I can offer this story for your edification/amusement/consideration.
There seems to be something at work there.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Sorry, forgot there was a click-through. Go direct on this one: Friday the 13th: a Ghost Story involving Frederick Douglass and some racist preachers in the 20th century
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
It is not so much that the dead appear to us, rather we are the dead. They live in our speech, our dreams, the little odd happenings of our daily lives. Ghost stories externalise them, and deck them in all sorts of fears and projections, because we know that we too will soon lie down in darkness.
I rather like that . In fact there was a time , before I signed to the somewhat complicated Christian theology on death, that we all ,(the living), were in fact the dead on a sort of holiday or mini-break . We have come from eternity and to eternity we shall return.
I have been a maker and fitter of gravestones since 1999 so spend a lot of time in churchyards and Cemeteries , something of a traditional place to encounter a Ghost .
Sorry to disappoint but I've yet to experience one, although there have been times recently when I swear there is someone passing the corner of my vision , esp in dim light . Occasionally a flower placer will creep up on me but usually no one is there.
Time to change jobs maybe ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Personally, I'm not a fan of the term "ghosts;" it's too laden with cartoon-like stereotypes. That said, I've twice experienced something out of the ordinary, though I don't know what to call it.
On the first occasion, I was in my early teens, visiting a relative's home "up country," as we used to call it. I was assigned to sleep in a particular bedroom. It was very hot & still; the window was open; I was dozing, not fully asleep (but neither fully awake). The curtains at the window began moving, then the nearby rocker began rocking.
I sat up, thinking the heat wave had broken, there was a breeze, rain might be coming and I should adjust the window. But there was no breeze, the air was as hot and still as ever. As I turned to get back into bed, I was overcome with the most powerful sense that something HUGE had occupied the room with me, and hated and loathed me with every molecule of its being and wanted me dead.
I was utterly paralyzed with terror -- couldn't move a finger. The feeling grew & grew, until finally (no idea after how long -- could have been seconds, could have been hours) I somehow managed to break free and get out of the room.
I spent the rest of the night in a living room chair (my relative had no sofa). Too embarrassed and puzzled to try to explain what I found inexplicable (plus the fact that my family would have mocked me mercilessly), I simply told them it was too hot upstairs to sleep.
A few months later, over Thanksgiving weekend at a large family gathering, my sister's boyfriend was assigned that room. He, too, was discovered in a living room chair in the morning, looking the worse for wear. He'd had, it turned out, an experience similar to mine (minus open windows and heat, but with moving curtains and rocker) -- but I had never described mine to anyone.
The other experience was more benign. I was house-sharing 10-15 years later with a woman who was bringing up her granddaughter, then about 9.
When sitting in the living room, I kept glimpsing out of the corner of my eye someone passing in the hallway making for the stairs or maybe the front door, but when I'd look up there was never anyone there. There was no particular emotion attaching to this, but it was irritating since it often interrupted my reading (I was in grad school at the time). I thought it must be some trick of light and shadow coming from the windows, but it happened at all times of day and evening. Then the 9-year-old shared with me her conviction that the place was haunted, because she told me she was frequently bothered by the same phenomenon, only with the added detail of seeing a female figure in a pale, old-fashioned dress (the house-share was situated in a place built in the 1890s). Again, I hadn't shared details of my "glimpses," since I didn't want to be considered wacko or (alternatively) to frighten my housemates. The grandmother never noticed a thing.
I don't know what to make of any of this. I am persuaded, though, that there's more we don't know about the world we inhabit than we do know.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I wish that story were true Horseman Bree.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Well, something did make a difference to several men, FWIW.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Old men dreaming dreams as Consciousness directs. Spine tingling.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
I've had a very eerie experience.
I saw a white shapeless form hovering above the ground along the far wall of a field. Darkness was falling and we were all transfixed, scared of staying there, but not wanting to move away either.
it was moving closer, and closer still, until it became close enough for us to see that it was the white parts of a black and white cow.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Edith
Shipmate
# 16978
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Posted
Not personally, but a priest friend of my mother's, Fr Velden, was in Calais during the war. He was a very learned and sensible man, but he told this story.
'As I was walking across Calais market place one day in autumn 1944 I was unable to move as the most powerful feeling came across me that my father and sisters needed help and prayer and that something catastrophic had happened. So strong was this feeling that I abandoned my plans for the day and went to the nearest church and said a requiem Mass.
It wasn't until after the war tat I discovered that at that exact moment a bomb had fallen on their house and they had been killed instantaneously.'
He said that never before or since had he experienced anything remotely like it.
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Edith
Posts: 256 | From: UK | Registered: Mar 2012
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
The Biblical example is the ghost of Samuel who was, allegedly, called forth from Sheol by the Witch of Endor.
The witch seemed pretty shocked when he actually turned up, iirc ...
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Investigations of reports of the paranormal do not have a high record of tracking down specifics.
I've never seen a ghost and insofar as it is worked out (i.e not a lot) my theological understanding of the afterlife is agnostic about discarnate souls. The general resurrection as described in the NT suggests an eternal body. We "put on immortality" somehow. Somewhen is also an unresolved issue, at least for me.
So I'm pretty sceptical about ghosts. I'm less sceptical about the after-effects of baleful deeds in poisoning a place or a local community. Sometimes it seems that it's not just the people who remember; the place seems to. At the other end of scale is the concept of "thin places", which also seems to have some weight. Peaceful places seem to be associated with much faithful prayer. I've had some experience of that on retreat, found it both refreshing and not easy to explain either.
There are just a few scriptures about healing the land, which suggests that there may indeed be wounded places. We're called to repentance and prayer as a precursor to the healing of the land. So I'm more open minded about the value of prayer for the healing of wounded places, than I am about the reality of paranormal manifestations.
[ 16. December 2013, 07:56: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Trin
Shipmate
# 12100
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Posted
The webcomic XKCD recently pointed out the answer to this question to my complete satisfaction:
link
Posts: 442 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
The webcomic XKCD recently pointed out the answer to this question to my complete satisfaction:
link
Yes - town centres are so comprehensively covered by CCTV now, you'd think there'd be at least some ghosts 'caught on camera'.
Cue for a TV show?
[ 16. December 2013, 08:31: Message edited by: Boogie ]
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
Without going into detail, I have seen one twice (the same one on each occasion); and - much against what I'd have expected - I was neither frightened nor particularly surprised.
On each occasion she (and I know just who she was, being a former inhabitant of our house) didn't do anything as vulgar as vanishing - she just somehow stopped being there.
On other occasions I've slept in rooms that were reputedly haunted and have experienced nothing at all. Strange.
(BTW, the Witch of Endor seems to have been a 'fake medium' - witness her surpise when Samuel's spirit actually does show up!)
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 544 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
The webcomic XKCD recently pointed out the answer to this question to my complete satisfaction:
link
Yes - town centres are so comprehensively covered by CCTV now, you'd think there'd be at least some ghosts 'caught on camera'.
Cue for a TV show?
I've no explanation for the woman I saw in our churchyard; I just know I've rarely felt as baffled as I did as I wandered round trying to find a woman who just wasn't there. But up to the point of trying to find her to offer to show her round our church I was sure she was a flesh and blood person - if she appeared on CCTV she'd have looked like any other normal stout middle-aged woman putting flowers on a grave.
I'd love an explanation.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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hugorune
Apprentice
# 17793
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Posted
In theory, I don't believe in ghosts. Or angels or demons in any manifest form. I know people, myself included, sometimes see and feel strange things, but I've always found the scientific explanations for those phenomena to be quite sufficient.
But in practice, I'm not quite so sure that I can rule any of those things out. If we experience some sort of afterlife existence outside time - then it follows that there could be a representation of that that mirrors itself back on Earth at different points in time. Or... just a memory imprinted some way in ourselves that is so powerful that it manifests, in the mind - even minds of those who did not experience it directly. Or in 'reality' itself. And/or in such a fashion that there is no meaningful difference. It's very hard to put into words exactly what I mean here, though - as I don't really know myself.
As for heaven and angels, hell and demons - most Christians seem to think that they're more than just metaphors for states of humanity either in union with God, or in exclusion from it, respectively. I always thought the latter - they are just metaphors. But I'm not sure of it.
[ 16. December 2013, 09:38: Message edited by: hugorune ]
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“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”
C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity
Posts: 47 | From: Melbourne | Registered: Aug 2013
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
I was always brough up to believe that there are many strange things between heaven and earth and it's best not to enquire too much.
Having said that, last Thursday morning.....
On a low side table about a foot off the ground, in the reception of my office is one of those hotel bells - where you push the buttom down on the top and it goes "ding." Last Thursday I unlocked the office at 0745, went into the kitchen adjacent to reception and put the kettle on. "Ding" - I poked my head around the door, but there was no one there. Pouring out the tea 2 minutes later "ding." Still no one there.
It was the day of the work Christmas party and the final act was when I left the kitchen to put my secret santa present under the tree. At this point I had my back to the bell, say 3 feet behind me, and as I bent down under the tree "ding" - quick as a flash I turned round and put my hand over the bell - which was resonating as though it had just been struck.
At this point I said aloud - "I'm really not in the mood, give it a rest: Happy Christmas." Silence from then on.
I should point out that our office is a converted 17th century coaching inn. Previous reports from workmates have included desktop keyboards that self-type, and a couple of months ago one of my colleagues was the last one out at post 2200 and fought a running battle with the top floor lights for 10 minutes - every time he came down the stairs having turned them off they turned back on.
There's an explanation most probably involving fuses and dodgy wiring for the lights, and overactive imaginations for the late night typing. But the bell...
I've never seen anything much (with me it's more noises), but my mother has always had "the sight" - to the extent that she gets quite upset sometimes. Most people in my family with genes from that side tend to wake up simultaneously when someone dies. All very odd - I'd like to say I'm a sceptic, but I don't suppose I am really.
Like I said, best not to probe too deeply I think.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
I should point out that our office is a converted 17th century coaching inn. Previous reports from workmates have included desktop keyboards that self-type.
I'm intrigued by the idea of 17th century ghosts or poltergeists knowing how to use a keyboard.
[ 16. December 2013, 10:27: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I'm rather relieved not to have 'the sight'. I can't help thinking it must be quite disturbing to have these things butting into one's consciousness from time to time.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
what with the monitors not being on, I don't suppose we're imputing any particular talent with the keyboard beyond rattling it!
2 years ago I was told very clearly and distinctly to f*** off by a man's voice while upstairs in the office alone at gone 2300. As that is exactly what I was doing at the time, it was only when I got halfway down the stairs that I got round to thinking "who on earth said that?"
Like I said, in many ways I'd prefer not to give any credence to this sort of thing, but find that very difficult. There's almost always an explanation. Except when there isn't.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Trin
Shipmate
# 12100
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I'm rather relieved not to have 'the sight'. I can't help thinking it must be quite disturbing to have these things butting into one's consciousness from time to time.
In my experience people who "have the sight" tend to be a bit tapped to begin with. Fantasists, attenion seekers and the socially dysfunctional.
[ 16. December 2013, 12:31: Message edited by: Trin ]
Posts: 442 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I'm rather relieved not to have 'the sight'. I can't help thinking it must be quite disturbing to have these things butting into one's consciousness from time to time.
In my experience people who "have the sight" tend to be a bit tapped to begin with. Fantasists, attenion seekers and the socially dysfunctional.
I must be lucky then - I don't know anyone who has "the sight".
I'm not even sure what it means.
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Trin
Shipmate
# 12100
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Posted
quote:
I'm not even sure what it means.
Me neither. I just took it to mean someone who claims to see ghosts on any kind of regular basis.
[ 16. December 2013, 12:47: Message edited by: Trin ]
Posts: 442 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
The man's voice telling you to 'fuck off' could have been some kind of projection of your inner psyche ... trying to save everyone else the trouble, betjemaniac ...
![[Biased]](wink.gif) ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
That's a joke ... that's a joke ... he protests as he's dragged Hellwards ...
More seriously. Would a ghost say that? It'd have to be a fairly recent ghost. I can't imagine medieval monks saying that.
'There are more things in heaven and earth ...'
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
I should point out that our office is a converted 17th century coaching inn. Previous reports from workmates have included desktop keyboards that self-type.
I'm intrigued by the idea of 17th century ghosts or poltergeists knowing how to use a keyboard.
Well, if you've been stuck hanging out in a building for three, four hundred years, you might idly pick up a few things to pass the time.
ETA: ...on the other hand some wag in the office might have picked up this little gadget.
[ 16. December 2013, 13:13: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The man's voice telling you to 'fuck off' could have been some kind of projection of your inner psyche
Rather like the time I was putting off a piece of work by consulting the I Ching on 'Will I succeed in X' - and got the response (in essence) 'Not if you keep arsing about. Get on with it'.
I have no problem with the idea that we have an area of perception and even action out with our conscious scope. For me, it mostly operates as foreknowledge - entirely personal, and usually trivial. Spontaneous instances occur mostly in dreams. Or I can try to identify the 'feel' of a statement about the future. Or I can magnify the effect through the likes of the Tarot.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Stercus Tauri
Shipmate
# 16668
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Posted
Perhaps the opposite experience... A few weeks after an old friend died in Scotland a couple of years ago, his wife - a minister - wrote and said, "I think he has left now". He would be welcome back any time as a ghost.
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
In my experience people who "have the sight" tend to be a bit tapped to begin with. Fantasists, attenion seekers and the socially dysfunctional.
quote:
Me neither. I just took it to mean someone who claims to see ghosts on any kind of regular basis.
I've never met anyone fitting these credentials who claimed to have seen ghosts on a regular basis. I've met a young woman whose parents had 'tapped into the spirit world' via mediums, ouija etc extensively as she grew up, and who claimed that as a result she was still troubled by spirits who possessed her. I remain open minded, but as someone prayed for her I thought I saw something rippling under the skin of her face....
I also knew a couple who claimed that a ghost often pulled the bedclothes off of them, caused them to hear footsteps on the stairs when nobody was anywhere near them, moved objects from shelves, closed doors and flushed the toilet. They were not afraid of it.
I wonder whether there are different ways of 'having the sight.' It's not the same thing to see ghosts, think you're communicating with 'spirits', or to pick up on something happening in the spiritual realm such as someone dying, is it?
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Earwig
Pincered Beastie
# 12057
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
2 years ago I was told very clearly and distinctly to f*** off by a man's voice while upstairs in the office alone at gone 2300. As that is exactly what I was doing at the time, it was only when I got halfway down the stairs that I got round to thinking "who on earth said that?"
I have regular auditory hallucinations, especially when I’m tired. People calling my name, especially – I tend to think of them as farts in the bathwater of my mind, or neurons twitching.
So I’d not be too bothered if I heard this, but if I saw something I’d be terrified out of my wits.
Posts: 3120 | From: Yorkshire | Registered: Nov 2006
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Previous reports from workmates have included desktop keyboards that self-type...
I've heard of this elsewhere. Do the typings make sense?
And yes, there are more things in heaven and earth, etc.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Stercus Tauri
Shipmate
# 16668
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Earwig:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
2 years ago I was told very clearly and distinctly to f*** off by a man's voice while upstairs in the office alone at gone 2300. As that is exactly what I was doing at the time, it was only when I got halfway down the stairs that I got round to thinking "who on earth said that?"
I have regular auditory hallucinations, especially when I’m tired. People calling my name, especially – I tend to think of them as farts in the bathwater of my mind, or neurons twitching.
So I’d not be too bothered if I heard this, but if I saw something I’d be terrified out of my wits.
I think you are right there. My uneducated guess is that the "auditory hallucinations, especially when I’m tired", are dreams without being asleep. I've often had that happen, and rather than suspect alien voices in my head, I am pretty sure that the clutch has slipped due to fatigue and the brain has momentarily got loose. (I think it happens to my cat, too).
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Happens to me, too. Glad to hear that it's not uncommon.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
My uneducated guess is that the "auditory hallucinations, especially when I’m tired", are dreams without being asleep. I've often had that happen, and rather than suspect alien voices in my head, I am pretty sure that the clutch has slipped due to fatigue and the brain has momentarily got loose. (I think it happens to my cat, too).
Surely this could easily be just as true for visual hallucinations?
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Stercus Tauri
Shipmate
# 16668
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
My uneducated guess is that the "auditory hallucinations, especially when I’m tired", are dreams without being asleep. I've often had that happen, and rather than suspect alien voices in my head, I am pretty sure that the clutch has slipped due to fatigue and the brain has momentarily got loose. (I think it happens to my cat, too).
Surely this could easily be just as true for visual hallucinations?
That's a good comment, and you may be right. The only time I've experienced it (that I remember) was the result of a drug interaction after surgery. It was a bad one.
Somewhere I have a copy of Oliver Sach's book on hallucinations that I had better finish reading; then maybe I'll know a little more of what I'm talking about.
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
I think I'm much more in agreement with Raptor Eye here - there's a world of difference between the wannabe Doris Stokes attention seekers and people who very much don't shout about it (or even want to mention it very much, but for whom it has been a lifelong thing).
Outside the anonymity of the Ship, I've certainly never gone shouting about it.
FWIW I'm attracted equally to the actions of a tired brain in the first instance, and the "tape recorder" theory of charged atmospheres if we have to go down that road. I still think that probably leaves some space for "other."
I've had very little experience of "other," am not keen to have any more, and prefer to write it all off as nonsense as far as possible (always notwithstanding the nagging feeling I have that it almost certainly isn't).
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I'm rather relieved not to have 'the sight'. I can't help thinking it must be quite disturbing to have these things butting into one's consciousness from time to time.
In my experience people who "have the sight" tend to be a bit tapped to begin with. Fantasists, attenion seekers and the socially dysfunctional.
I must be lucky then - I don't know anyone who has "the sight".
I'm not even sure what it means.
My great-grandmother had second sight, but this was in a part of Scotland where second sight was just one of those things - the seventh son of a seventh son was also the local healer in the absence of anyone medically qualified nearby.
Great-grandmother "knew" when people died - she "saw" them over a distance of many miles. I don't know if she was a fantasist or attention seeker, but she certainly wasn't socially dysfunctional - just a very ordinary wife and mother.
My grandparents first home (near my second-sighted great grandmother) was reputedly haunted by the ghost of an elderly lady who had died in it. My grandmother would go out (just to feed the hens, or the pig, not far) and leave the ghost in charge of the baby. Apparently, within the community, this was not regarded as an odd thing to do.
My daughter was born in a lucky caul, and the first thing the midwife said, before we even knew if we'd had a boy or a girl, was that we had a child with the "sight." Fortunately, there's been no indication of this so far. We would strongly discourage any suggestion of "the sight."
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Can't remember if I've shared this with the Ship before. My sister's resurrection appearance lasted about fifteen seconds, neither of us being keen on overblown ritual. Besides, the pub was open and we were both gagging for a pint.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
I've had a very eerie experience.
I saw a white shapeless form hovering above the ground along the far wall of a field. Darkness was falling and we were all transfixed, scared of staying there, but not wanting to move away either.
it was moving closer, and closer still, until it became close enough for us to see that it was the white parts of a black and white cow.
Just as a camera does not capture an image with its lens, we do not see with our eyes. Film, and camera sensors, capture the light which strikes them. And still can mangle the product. Our brain interprets that light through many more filters. How can one be certain one's brain is recording faithfully?
The XKCD link outlines my POV on this.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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