Ship of Fools: Ghosts

Thread: Ghosts Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :

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?

Posted by Gildas (# 525) on :

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.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

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 ]

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

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.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

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."

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

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.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

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.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

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.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

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.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

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.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

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."

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

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.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

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

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

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]

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

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.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

I wish that story were true Horseman Bree.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

Well, something did make a difference to several men, FWIW.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Old men dreaming dreams as Consciousness directs. Spine tingling.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

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.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

[Killing me]

Posted by Edith (# 16978) on :

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.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

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 ...

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

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 ]

Posted by Trin (# 12100) on :

The webcomic XKCD recently pointed out the answer to this question to my complete satisfaction:

link

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

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 ]

Posted by andras (# 2065) on :

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!)

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

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.

Posted by hugorune (# 17793) on :

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 ]

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

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.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

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 ]

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

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.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

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.

Posted by Trin (# 12100) on :

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 ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

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.

Posted by Trin (# 12100) on :

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 ]

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

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]

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 ...'

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

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 ]

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

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.

Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :

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.

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :

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?

Posted by Earwig (# 12057) on :

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.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

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.

Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :

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).

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Happens to me, too. Glad to hear that it's not uncommon.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

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?

Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :

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.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

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).

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

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."

Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :

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.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

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.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
... 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."

I seem to remember it is also alleged to protect from drowning. Have you kept it? And how old is she now?

Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :

My grandmother (from the west of Scotland) was supposed to have the second sight. According to my mother, it was nothing dramatic; just useful. For example, once when my father was returning from the south, he had carefully not told anyone because he wanted to surprise her. But she laid a place at the dinner table for for him that day, and in he came. One of my cousins, who is old enough to remember her, says this is all BS, but I believe this and the other stories, not because I need to, but because I like to.

Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :

My mother always believed I had second sight, particularly in relation to my twin. She said I would fall asleep when he had surgery and that she sometimes had to pick me up from school because of it. I don't remember any of that at all. I've always had this feeling that I would know if something happened to him but as an adult I have had no experience of anything even vaguely spooky, I don't even experience any form of hallucination with my bipolar disorder. I am very intuitive and sensitive to atmosphere but nothing out of the ordinary.
My mother also said that my grandfather's ghost appeared in front of her cousin at his death. I also apparently knew he was dead before being told, but I suspect I was just very good at picking up other people's emotional signals. I think there was quite a cultural belief in 'spirits' in our background.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I knew my grandfather had gone before the family. He had been in hospital - not nice for someone his generation to be in the old workhouse. Also not nice for his mind to have gone back to the field hospital in WWI where he had been an orderly. We children had not been taken to visit him.
That day there had been a day at my school in the next town for parents to discuss the future path through the school. My mother had left the school number with the hospital, but when they rang it, the school could not be bothered to let my mother know that Grandad was on his way. (I only found that out later - the secretaries were excellent at not telling people important and urgent things. It wasn't the only example.) My mother went home before me, so when I walked up the hill to our house I was alone.
An old man was walking up the other side of the road, and for a moment I thought it was Grandad, before thinking that it couldn't be because he was in hospital (it was a real man) but before the thought was finished, I knew that he was dead. I was absolutely sure of this.
When I went into the house I was expecting my mother to come and tell me, but she didn't. I thought that she was keeping silent so as not to disturb my seven year old sister, and was waiting for a good moment. Then, as we ate our tea, the phone rang. It was the hospital, and that was when my mother learned of her father's death. I didn't tell her that I already knew.

Not a ghost story, though. There are people in the family who have had some contacts with recently dead relatives which seem to be more than comforting mental echoes. (And we couldn't be more distant from the parts where the sight is endemic.)

It's quite difficult to reconcile this sort of thing with a scientific education and an analytical sort of mind. Let alone acceptable theologies. (I'm really bothered about all the Roman soldiers reputed to spend their time marching around the country - one, apparently, was a comfort to an elderly lady on Mersea Island as he walked along the road beside her to her home - but it's a terrible amount of time to be wandering this earth.)

[ 16. December 2013, 17:42: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
My mother always believed I had second sight, particularly in relation to my twin. She said I would fall asleep when he had surgery and that she sometimes had to pick me up from school because of it. I don't remember any of that at all. I've always had this feeling that I would know if something happened to him but as an adult I have had no experience of anything even vaguely spooky, I don't even experience any form of hallucination with my bipolar disorder.

I don't know what you would or wouldn't know, but when my mother called my sister to tell her that her twin (our brother) was dead, my sister's first words were "I know."

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
... 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."
I seem to remember it is also alleged to protect from drowning. Have you kept it? And how old is she now?

The midwife split the caul and made it into two lucky charms, one for her and one for us. She said that it was her tenth caul delivery, so a bit less than one a year. I was more of a GLE then, and not keen on lucky charms, so I didn't keep ours. I assume the midwife still has hers as part of her collection.

We do prefer the theory that she can't drown, though I don't want that put to the test! She's now 17.

As an aside, when the midwife was making the charms, a doctor asked what she was doing, and was surprised to hear that lucky charms were prepared on the NHS!

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

I think many people are haunted by things from their past, which at times of duress come forth within their perception as apparitions. But less so than once was due to changes in the zeitgesit. Today, people interpret such experiences more frequently as aliens, from other planets.

I'm respectful of people who suggest they've seen a ghost; their experience is persuasive to them, and perhaps God within infinite wisdom or neglect has decided that only an elect will have such perception. I am not part of such a special group, and not for want of wanting to be, nor a want of trying. I am haunted only by that bit of gristle, like Scrooge hoped.

Posted by Trin (# 12100) on :

If they turn out not to be dead you have a laugh at your supposed "foreknowledge" and discount it as a weird trick of your imagination and forget about it within a few days.

If they turn out to be dead you remember the experience for the rest of your life.

-

The supernatural annecdotes people file away in their brains are often presented rather like an incriminating object produced from a handbag and placed on the coffee table with a meaningful look around the room.

No need for the annecdotalist to actually say anything. Just get it out and leave everyone to draw their own conclusions. Handy because when you give the plain facts and don't explicity state your conclusions you can leave out the extra details that make the whole thing seem less likely to you.

I used to tell the story of the time I saw a huge serpent gracefully looping in the sky, some considerable distance away, from a plane window. I was the only English speaker on the plane so I said nothing and just carried on watching. It vanished off into the distance.

The part I wouldn't include: I was suffering from extreme fatigue, having been awake for almost two days at the time.

By omission, the whole annecdote takes on more credibility in the mind of the recipient than I give the experience myself. Plus I get to seem all deep and open minded about the mysterious forces beyond the knowledge of mortal men.

I would not dare to suggest any specifc individual here has been less than entirely honest, but you must admit, the temptation is there. This is the explanation for most "ghost stores". The rest are either made up, or the teller was taken in by a cow in a field, except in their version they ran away before realising it was a cow.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
If they turn out not to be dead you have a laugh at your supposed "foreknowledge" and discount it as a weird trick of your imagination and forget about it within a few days.

If they turn out to be dead you remember the experience for the rest of your life.

This.
And the brain doesn't store things always in an orderly, linear fashion. So, a feeling/memory generated after an event is referenced as if it happened before the event.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I rip things to bits before deciding what sort of experience they are, and have never put things of this sort in the wrong order. They have not involved looking back and reordering to make a coherent narrative.

What I have put in the wrong order have been odd deju vu experiences - for instance involving the process of getting an inherited ink bottle down from the classroom windowsill. It was a large inkbottle with a pouring device for filling inkwells, which we did not use. On several occasions I got deja vu - usually recalling that last time I did it I had the feeling. I have never been absolutely sure that the first time I did it I had the feeling, though there was a period when I thought I had.

Then there was the friend who had suggested that I would be expecting trouble when on a train travelling through Hither Green, where there had been a bad crash. So every time I did, that thought was there. And no trouble, of course. But if there had been, that time would, no doubt, have become predictive. There must be dozens of people on any journey who have had bad feelings about it, which are subsequently forgotten.

In dim light I have seen the curtains move as if someone is behind them, and at the same time been able to see that they are not moving because of the relationship between parts of the pattern and other parts of the room. But what my head knows has not been able to stop the movement that my eyes are seeing.

The things that stand out as different from those sort of experiences do so from the time they occur, before the confirmation. They come with a marker of significance. They have to be anecdotal, what else could they be, but the number of confirmed events becomes convincing. I am not aware of having been convinced about something not afterwards confirmed - though there have been a few occasions when it seemed wise to travel another way from that planned, and nothing happened on either route. Not wholly convincing of having made a mistake, since it's not possible to prove that something wouldn't have happened down the road not travelled.

What I have not been able to get my mind around has been the certainty held by someone I met whose sight was always of bad things, and who believed that, once seen, those things could not be altered. It was not something I felt appropriate to argue about, because there was an unhealed hurt there. I've not had anything myself to experiment with.

I once read J W Dunne's "Experiment with Time", which, if there were anything in it, would explain practically all the sight experiences (and the unalterable nature of them). I remain unconvinced by it, though. And it wouldn't explain ghosts.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

<cross-post, was addressing mostly Trin & lilBuddha>

The standard protestations just above point to an interesting problem: any observation of the external world by our brains can be faulty. We could call it the Matrix problem, there simply is no distinguishing between hallucination and reality. The way the Matrix problem gets resolved normally is by repetition and cross-checking with others. While this cannot establish reality in principle, it sure offers a pragmatic solution for getting on with one's life (whether it is real or hallucinatory). We do that all the time unconsciously. For example, when I ask my wife to pick up some milk from the supermarket on the way home, a sheer endless array of reality-markers get confirmed implicitly by her agreement, from the spatial structure of the world to the commercial function of a supermarket. Science is actually little more that a formalization of these processes for very difficult cases, and the modern obsession with science is basically the desire for normality written large.

The problem is of course that unique or very rare events witnessed by one person or very few fall out of this scheme of normality by default. This gets even worse if these events are "personal". A lottery win may be very rare and happens to only very few, but since it is a not a personal event (not something targeted by a person to the winner), we can get a handle on it by truly massive repetition and coordinated observation (millions of people try winning and the lottery company flags the winners for the media). However, assume that I have the unique magical ability to make a rose appear in your hand and I decide to do that once in my lifetime for someone I consider special. There is really no way to establish a modern normality of repetition and cross-checking for such an event. It cannot be elicited other than through my decision, so all reality-establishing methods grind to a halt.

This brings us to the case at hand, ghosts. The appearance of ghosts is a unique or very rare events witnessed by one person or very few. And it is generally personal, simply since the ghost is a person of some description. As such, it cannot possibly rendered "normal" in the modern sense. The only way this can get into the realm of normality is precisely if the appearances become impersonal. That is, if we are talking about a fairly regular appearance that is mostly indiscriminate. The one ghost story that modern normality loves is the haunted house, because one can in principle establish whether that is "true". One simply has lots of "sceptical" people stay there for a long time, and if they experience nothing, then the house is realized to be just another place.

However, the weakness of modern normality is readily apparent. There really is no a priori reason why there shouldn't be unique or very rare events witnessed by one person or very few, and furthermore, there really is no a priori reason either why some of these events shouldn't be personal. And so we have these typical battles about normality, with the modern normalizers insisting that personal experiences are not trustworthy and those who had those experiences being quietly sceptical about reality being contained by modern normality. The Matrix problem has been swept under the carpet, but it leaves a big bump there and sometimes people stumble over it.

Or to sum it up concisely: The plural of anecdote is not data, but the singular of data is not reality.

[ 17. December 2013, 09:03: Message edited by: IngoB ]

Posted by Trin (# 12100) on :

You mention the matrix problem - the difficulty in distinguishing between hallucination and reality.

For purposes of illustration, let us amplify the problem:

If it could be shown that the victim of literally every paranormal experience ever endured was high on LSD at the time, a pragmatic person might think it safe to assume the reported phenomena did not exist in the real world.

But your line of reason IngoB would still hold true. You could say "There is no a priori reason why an LSD user may not happen to witness real paranormal activity whilst high." - And you would be correct, but we'd still all feel fairly confident that there was no actual ghost.

As it happens, they aren't high on LSD. But they are still subject to the biases, fears, fantasies, retrospective fallacies, and lapses of integrity which, in various combinations, result in the odd semi-credible sounding ghost story cropping up once or twice in a lifetime. I know, because I'm subject to the same biases, fallacies and the temptation not to let boring rationality and scepticism get in the way of a good story on the retelling - and this part is, to use your terminology, normalisable, even if the specifc claimed experiences are not.

This is the basis for my doubt. As you correctly point out, I cannot prove anything.

[ 17. December 2013, 11:46: Message edited by: Trin ]

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:

I'm respectful of people who suggest they've seen a ghost; their experience is persuasive to them, and perhaps God within infinite wisdom or neglect has decided that only an elect will have such perception. I am not part of such a special group, and not for want of wanting to be, nor a want of trying. I am haunted only by that bit of gristle, like Scrooge hoped.

I don't know why you'd want to try and see a ghost. Seems rather unpleasant to me, although it's interesting to hear about other people's experiences.

The only ghost I want to experience more of is the Holy Ghost.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
If it could be shown that the victim of literally every paranormal experience ever endured was high on LSD at the time, a pragmatic person might think it safe to assume the reported phenomena did not exist in the real world.

The actual Matrix problem includes the very existence of LSD. It is simply our assumption that LSD is a psychoactive substance that can induce hallucinations. Perhaps LSD is instead a drug that removes our regular hallucinations for a brief period of time. Or perhaps both reality and LSD hallucinations are parts of a larger dream... Obviously, there is no way to overcome the Matrix problem. However, we cannot live according to such speculations. We must construct some kind of "normality" or become dysfunctional. My point was simply that this pressure to construct a liveable normality lead to biases. And in our days these biases are towards the "empirical": what is normal is what is repeatable and objective by mutual agreement of observers. Everything at odds with this threatens normality and is hence rejected, often dismissively. But the construction of normality does not determine reality.

quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
As it happens, they aren't high on LSD. But they are still subject to the biases, fears, fantasies, retrospective fallacies, and lapses of integrity which, in various combinations, result in the odd semi-credible sounding ghost story cropping up once or twice in a lifetime. I know, because I'm subject to the same biases, fallacies and the temptation not to let boring rationality and scepticism get in the way of a good story on the retelling - and this part is, to use your terminology, normalisable, even if the specifc claimed experiences are not.

The problem is however not with the biases you are aware of. The problem is with the biases you are not aware of. Obviously it could be the case that every case of ghostly activity ever reported is simply a matter of human error (or indeed trickery). But it could just as well be that you are actively (if perhaps mostly subconsciously) shutting out evidence that would run contrary to your own convictions of normality. For all we know, you've been visited by dozens of ghosts and your home is the playground of demons, but you keep on attributing anything that doesn't fit your scheme of normality to approved normal causes. You were seeing things, but you were just tired. You are sure that you put this object there, but now it is there, so clearly your memory is shot. That voice you heard must be from someone on the street. The noises from the attic probably are birds or rats, perhaps it is time to call pest control. Etc. Of course, all of this can be perfectly true. That's not my point. My point is that our opinion concerning what is normal is a powerful filter, and it takes some doing for the abnormal to smash through it.

quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
This is the basis for my doubt. As you correctly point out, I cannot prove anything.

I know the basis of your doubt. We all do, we all are children of our times. None of us can even imagine any longer a normality that would be filled with spirits. People always seek the "either/or", so once there were shamans now there are scientists (like yours truly, as it happens). But reality seems to me to be more "both/and" than we like, an unparsimonious mess in which Ockhams' razor gets stuck as in trying to cut treacle.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

I cited the two instances which I described only because others, unbidden, had seen these particular apparitions which appear to be be linked to these places.

I omitted the most vivid experience I had of this nature, where I clearly saw the figure up fairly close and can still recall the details of clothing and appearance, quite simply as nobody else I knew had seen him. I leave this one open to it being a trick of my mind or my eyes.

My own feeling is that it is foolish and possibly dangerous to seek a connexion to these spirits (entities), but that there are some realities out there which we can't quite explain. I would share the sentiments of a medical researcher I know who said that, while she didn't believe in ghosts, she had seen one.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

I guess I'm on the other end of the spectrum, I would like the experience of seeing a ghost if it were possible. Not really seeking one, but would certainly not shy away. I am much more frighted of people than anything other worldly. People can do me harm, the spirit world is neglectful in contrast, and I'm a natural sceptic which may mean the ghosts are impossible to perceive because I dismiss them as my mind's creation.

I've had senses of thing, have excellent auditory memory, but would probably take the sound or voice of a ghost as a sign of imagination before anything else.

Posted by Trin (# 12100) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Everything at odds with this threatens normality and is hence rejected, often dismissively. But the construction of normality does not determine reality.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
My point is that our opinion concerning what is normal is a powerful filter, and it takes some doing for the abnormal to smash through it.

An insightful point, and I take it.

The thrust of your argument though, I can't really engage with.

Many people: I've had a ghostly experience
Trin: Here are some reasons why I highly doubt ghosts are real.
IngoB: Aaah but what can we truly know about reality?

Seems a bit like goal post shifting to me.
Or perhaps you're aware of that but just want to talk philosophy. Which is fine. But you've widened the scope of the discussion, I feel.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I would like the experience of seeing a ghost if it were possible. Not really seeking one, but would certainly not shy away. I am much more frighted of people than anything other worldly. People can do me harm, the spirit world is neglectful in contrast, and I'm a natural sceptic which may mean the ghosts are impossible to perceive because I dismiss them as my mind's creation.

I've had senses of thing, have excellent auditory memory, but would probably take the sound or voice of a ghost as a sign of imagination before anything else.

People have many ways of altering their mental state, so if you believe that ghosts are simply signs of imagination there must be some way of inducing your imagination to create them. Hypnosis, perhaps?

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I would like the experience of seeing a ghost if it were possible. Not really seeking one, but would certainly not shy away. I am much more frighted of people than anything other worldly. People can do me harm, the spirit world is neglectful in contrast, and I'm a natural sceptic which may mean the ghosts are impossible to perceive because I dismiss them as my mind's creation.

I've had senses of thing, have excellent auditory memory, but would probably take the sound or voice of a ghost as a sign of imagination before anything else.
People have many ways of altering their mental state, so if you believe that ghosts are simply signs of imagination there must be some way of inducing your imagination to create them. Hypnosis, perhaps?

Which is why I want to see a real ghost. Not a figment of my little brain. No fako. Realo.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trin:

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Everything at odds with this threatens normality and is hence rejected, often dismissively. But the construction of normality does not determine reality.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
My point is that our opinion concerning what is normal is a powerful filter, and it takes some doing for the abnormal to smash through it.
An insightful point, and I take it.

The thrust of your argument though, I can't really engage with.

Many people: I've had a ghostly experience
Trin: Here are some reasons why I highly doubt ghosts are real.
IngoB: Aaah but what can we truly know about reality?

Seems a bit like goal post shifting to me.
Or perhaps you're aware of that but just want to talk philosophy. Which is fine. But you've widened the scope of the discussion, I feel.

No end to how far this might be taken. Goal posts need to be generally established or there is not much point to the discussion. It is interesting to see where people think is the proper distance for the goal, though.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I would like the experience of seeing a ghost if it were possible. Not really seeking one, but would certainly not shy away. I am much more frighted of people than anything other worldly. People can do me harm, the spirit world is neglectful in contrast, and I'm a natural sceptic which may mean the ghosts are impossible to perceive because I dismiss them as my mind's creation.

I've had senses of thing, have excellent auditory memory, but would probably take the sound or voice of a ghost as a sign of imagination before anything else.
People have many ways of altering their mental state, so if you believe that ghosts are simply signs of imagination there must be some way of inducing your imagination to create them. Hypnosis, perhaps?
Which is why I want to see a real ghost. Not a figment of my little brain. No fako. Realo.

How would you know it was real?

Posted by Graven Image (# 8755) on :

We lived in a house where I would often feel a presence in our dinning room and sometimes would catch something in the hall with the corner of my eye. It seemed benevolent and I simply thought it was my mind playing tricks on me. After we had moved one night my husband spoke abut feeling a presence often in the corner of the dinning room of our old house. " Very benevolent but still strange," he said. Ghost, or both of our minds playing tricks on us? Who knows?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trin:

The thrust of your argument though, I can't really engage with.

Many people: I've had a ghostly experience
Trin: Here are some reasons why I highly doubt ghosts are real.
IngoB: Aaah but what can we truly know about reality?

Seems a bit like goal post shifting to me.

Except you didn't provide any reasons why you doubt that ghosts are real. You provided some reasons why you believe that people's testimony about ghosts could be erroneous. And I did (somewhat obliquely) attack precisely those reasons: I'm saying that your opinion about that is to a large extent determined by your view of normality (rather than reality). That's not to say that you are wrong (about reality), it is to say that it is not quite so easy here to say who is wrong and who is right. Because the issue at hand is one that lies outside of the modern comfort zone of normality.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I don't know what this one was, but there was confirmation, of a sort.

A friend and I would go and sit in a local church which was open all night, light candles, and pray. It was a fairly modern, 1960's sort of building.

One night, I couldn't settle. There were odd noises - nothing that couldn't be accounted for by temperature changes, or passing vehicles in the street, but also a powerful feeling that there was something around, an uneasy feeling. I really couldn't do what I usually did, which was what I do in Meeting at the Friends. I just waited until my friend was ready to go.

At which point he revealed that he had been aware of something, too. In his case, the odd noises had always come just as he was getting into his prayer state deeply.

We were both so convinced that something was amiss that we searched the building - up in the altar loft, round the passage behind the chancel, behind the altar, under the altar, in every part we could get into. The only thing was that beside the front pew on the right, a single freesia lay on the floor. We checked outside, as well.

We didn't go and tell the vicar, as it was a bit late on a Saturday night, and we thought that the following day's services would deal with anything intangible that was hanging around, anyway. But it was very odd. And not pleasant.

(The church has now changed its habits, following some tangible interferences, and is mostly locked.)

(The "of a sort" comment was because my friend and I could have picked up hints from body language, leaking pheromones or something, and fed each others' imaginations.)

[ 17. December 2013, 19:42: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

The most convincing story I know of, concerns a couple who moved into a house and were so sure it was haunted that they put it back on the market within the year, willing to take a substantial loss just to get out. They were professional people, and were worried that their professional credibility would be affected if it was known that they "believed in ghosts" so they wanted to keep everything quiet.

However, they had had the house re-surveyed and the electrics etc thoroughly checked to try to discover a reason for various problems - domestic appliances switching themselves on and off, odd noises, cold patches in the house etc, so they had some independent verification of inexplicable occurrences.

(I was a solicitor in the firm handling the sale, though I wasn't dealing with the sale myself.)

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

Just to add - this was well over 20 years ago, and if there had been ongoing problems in the house I would have expected it to have become public knowledge by now but I haven't heard anything further.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Trin:

The thrust of your argument though, I can't really engage with.

Many people: I've had a ghostly experience
Trin: Here are some reasons why I highly doubt ghosts are real.
IngoB: Aaah but what can we truly know about reality?

Seems a bit like goal post shifting to me.
Except you didn't provide any reasons why you doubt that ghosts are real. You provided some reasons why you believe that people's testimony about ghosts could be erroneous. And I did (somewhat obliquely) attack precisely those reasons: I'm saying that your opinion about that is to a large extent determined by your view of normality (rather than reality). That's not to say that you are wrong (about reality), it is to say that it is not quite so easy here to say who is wrong and who is right. Because the issue at hand is one that lies outside of the modern comfort zone of normality.

The preposition that ghosts do not exist lies in there being no objective framework for their existence. So then, the burden of proof is on the believers, yes?

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
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.

I think this is where I am, too. Iona is just one classic example of a "thin place".

The vast majority of ghost stories are down to human imagination and also to the way that the mind tries to make sense of incomplete data. I listened to a fascinating discussion on the radio recently about song lyrics and how, if we can't hear the lyrics of pop songs clearly, we make up something that fits, even if it is complete nonsense. I suspect that the same thing goes on with ghost encounters. We hear or see something in a very partial way and the mind starts to fill in the gaps, leading to a wrong conclusion.

With regards to "spectral typing" - I once heard a story of an IT consultant who was asked to look into a problem with one woman in the office, whose computer kept on writing garbage when she wasn't looking. She would be sat at her desk and all would be fine. She would turn away for a moment and when she looked back, the screen was filled with nonsense. She had tried changing her screen and keyboard, but it still kept happening. The only option (as far as she was concerned) was that it was a ghost playing tricks on her.

The consultant sat with her and simply watched her at work. For an hour or so, nothing strange happened. Then a colleague brought her a cup of coffee. Having been told that she shouldn't run the risk of spilling coffee over the keyboard, she kept the cup on a shelf well away from the computer. As she reached across to pick up the coffee, her ample bosom brushed across the keyboard....

Hey presto - not a ghost after all. Just boob-typing.

Having said all that, there ARE occasions which defy "rational" explanations. In a previous parish, one of the churchwardens was very matter of fact about having a ghost in her house. Apparently, all the family had seen it regularly. It was a young woman who appeared in the front room from time to time.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The preposition that ghosts do not exist lies in there being no objective framework for their existence. So then, the burden of proof is on the believers, yes?

There are plenty of frameworks for the existence of ghosts (I mentioned one of them above), and the existence of ghost is demonstrated by personal experience to the satisfaction of many individuals (not including me so far, as it happens). You are here exactly trying to normalise this particular set of observation to the modern quasi-scientific mould of repeatable cross-checking. But we know right off the bat that this cannot work, as argued above. Just think about how such a "proof" (quasi-scientific evidence gathering), could be performed. There is just no way to organise it meaningfully. This does however not necessarily mean that ghosts lack reality. It means that they are not modern-normal.

Personally I think ghost stories are more believable than say alien abductions. Do I believe in the existence of ghosts? I can't say that I do, and I can't say that I don't. They fall in the "who knows" category for me. Sufficiently many people provide sufficiently tight testimony to assume that something is going on, and that not all of it can be "explained away" with references to faulty memory, observer biases, etc. Perhaps indeed people sometimes have "awake dreams". But then I worry that the implied significance of that statement is precisely what I cannot prove, namely that there is no "external meaning" to this. After all, the classical definition of a ghost is a disembodied soul of the dead. Any sensory percept of something incorporeal is by definition "hallucinatory", but not in the usual "meaningless" way...

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

Hey presto - not a ghost after all. Just boob-typing.

Helluva sensitive keyboard. This woman - bruised much? She seems extraordinarily unaware of contact with physical objects.

Just as some ghost stories seem too neatly explicable, so that story seems improbably illustrative of 'There was a comically simple explanation' genre.

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

Hey presto - not a ghost after all. Just boob-typing.
Helluva sensitive keyboard. This woman - bruised much? She seems extraordinarily unaware of contact with physical objects.

Just as some ghost stories seem too neatly explicable, so that story seems improbably illustrative of 'There was a comically simple explanation' genre.

I just offer it as a story that was told me by someone who claimed to have been there. Make of that what you will.

I think my bigger point is that we start with the assumption that there is a "simple, rational" explanation for these things. Only once we have eliminated all these possibilities should we resort to ghosts and so on.

Some time back, when Buffy the Vampire Slayer was popular on TV, I went through a whole period of people contacting me out of the blue, wanting their houses "exorcised". What seemed to have happened was that people were watching "demonic activity" on TV and then getting twitchy about odd noises and unexplained things that they would normally have ignored.

I would go round to the house, listen to their story and then pray in the room(s) where the "odd things" were happening. And that seemed to do it. I never had to go back a second time.

In most cases, I didn't actually think that there was "something going on" - they had just spooked themselves. Heck - I've done it from time to time myself.

There were two occasions where I was left unsure about what was going on. On one occasion, a woman who lived alone kept coming home to find the gas fire switched on when she hadn't touched it. That was weird but there were all sorts of possible explanations.

On the other time, a couple said that they had kept hearing a baby crying upstairs. They had just thought that it was sound coming from next door until they asked and found that none of their neighbours had babies. It didn't seem to be a TV or radio - all they ever heard were the muffled sounds of a baby crying. They seemed a very rational and down to earth couple - unlike some of the fruit-loops I had previously dealt with. Strange.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

A very odd thing happened once in my old home, involving the door bell. It was a very early version of the wireless type, and the receiver swallowed enormous amounts of electricity, so it had an option for running it off the mains, which I did.
After a while, it started to have single rings at odd times, when there was no-one there. I initially suspected someone was playing Knock Down Ginger, but there didn't seem to be anyone about giggling. I knew that there was only one other of its type in the vicinity (from doing a Christian Aid collection), several hundred yards away, so I didn't think it could be interference from someone calling at another user. I stuck a notice over the push asking callers to ring twice.
And the false rings doubled, too.
There came an evening when I was hosting a group of astrophysicists. I had changed the notice to asking for three rings. Followed by the phantom ringer.
During that evening, as we discussed the possible cause, tested with and without the mains connection (no problem with batteries), and the probable outcome of upping the ring numbers, the frequency increased, usually around the hour, but not at exactly 60 minute intervals. And it built up to 5 rings, after we had suggested that, only in my living room. I didn't have any heating or similar device which could have been cutting in or out. (Though maybe someone else in the flats did, even though we had separate supplies.) I even asked the AA man who was working on a car just up the road if he had been producing sparks.
We all agreed it was very peculiar.
The next day I contacted the power company and asked if there had been any spikes the previous evening, and had no satisfactory answer. I took the thing back to Argos, the shop, and got a refund.
I had had my suspicions of a family in another flat, with a small boy - though too young to have worked out a way of working my bell from indoors, and with their door too far away for him to get out of the way after ringing the bell manually, but the way that sequence followed discussion which they could not have overheard (no common walls between us) ruled that out.
It was very odd.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

I had a somewhat strange thing happen. I was walking to an appointment in an old residential neighborhood with houses with long front lawns, when a nine volt battery dropped squarely on top of my head. No trees overhead from where a bird or a squirrel might have dropped it. The nearest house and coverage was about twenty yards away. And no muffled sniggers. It would have been a hell of a lobbing shot, anyway. No planes either, although if it were dropped from a plane, I think it would have hit me with much more force than it did. Maybe it was a crow who liked a shiny thing, then dropped it because it wasn't worth the weight.

Or maybe it was a ghost. [Eek!]

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