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Do You Believe in Ghosts?


Do You Believe in Ghosts?

  • Yes

    Votes: 29 43.3%
  • No

    Votes: 12 17.9%
  • Not Sure

    Votes: 14 20.9%
  • I've Seen Them

    Votes: 12 17.9%

  • Total voters
    67
I've seen something that some people would call a ghost.

Did you already post that somewhere? If not, please do. And what would you call it instead of a ghost?

You know I think not even wrong is not even wrong to assume a perfectly explainable source for these "voices", even if it seems he hasn't put this theory to the test.

Sorry about the pun, not even, but I think you'll hear that more often.:D On the one hand, voices and murmuring has often been reported in alleged hauntings, on the other hand, I think it has been shown that some surfaces can resonate with radio waves and produce sound if an emitter is in the vicinity. Did you hear anything that would point clearly to a radio or TV programme, like music or jingles?
 
Did you already post that somewhere? If not, please do. And what would you call it instead of a ghost? You know I think not even wrong is not even wrong to assume a perfectly explainable source for these "voices", even if it seems he hasn't put this theory to the test. Sorry about the pun, not even, but I think you'll hear that more often.:D On the one hand, voices and murmuring has often been reported in alleged hauntings, on the other hand, I think it has been shown that some surfaces can resonate with radio waves and produce sound if an emitter is in the vicinity. Did you hear anything that would point clearly to a radio or TV programme, like music or jingles?

I think most skeptics would agree that when there is a plausible mundane explanation that adequately explains an incident, then the most probable explanation is something mundane. Where skeptics and I tend to diverge is in what we consider to be reasonable evidence. Regarding my own haunting experience:

In my teens ( back in the 1970s ) I was in a 3 piece rock cover band that practiced in the basement of an old church that had once been used as a Sunday school for kids. We started experiencing some rather strange things once in while, like stuff being moved around while we were gone. We were supposedly the only ones with keys and nothing was ever taken. Just displaced. One day one of guys accused me of messing with his stuff, and that precipitated a conversation between all three of us. It turned out we all had issues. So we reinforced the windows and doors from the inside and it actually got worse. One of the other guys said he'd heard some strange noises and thought he'd seen a shadowy figure that freaked him out, but he just wasn't sure. Then one night we were having a teen band party and around midnight we were on a break sitting quietly around the risers when the church organ started to play upstairs.

We figured some party hound had somehow gotten upstairs, so we got our key and went upstairs to get whoever it was off the organ before we got in trouble. We went into the church hall and rounded the corner to where the organ was and just as we did so, the music stopped and nobody was there. Nobody could have gotten by us and there was no other exit or hiding place in the organ cove. The old tubes were still glowing warm inside the organ. We shrugged it off as weird and went back downstairs. About a week later the drummer and I were in the jamming zone in the basement waiting for our other guitar player to arrive. He was late and we were getting a bit impatient. Then suddenly we saw what we thought was him coming in through an old staircase that ran from the minister's office into the basement. This staircase was enclosed but had a translucent panel so you could see the shadow of anyone on the stairwell illuminated by the sunlight coming in from the outer window inside the stairwell.

Now the funny thing about this stairwell is that the old skeleton key that opened the door from the minister's office had supposedly gone missing years before and nobody, not even the minister had it anymore. So we thought it was kind of odd for our other band guy to be using this entrance and assumed he'd stumbled upon the key. At the bottom of the stairs was an exit door that we kept locked from our side just in case, so I went over to let him in. As I approached the door, I could see the door handle turn. I said "hang on while I unlock it" and I flipped the lock open and opened the door ... but just like in the organ incident ... again nobody was there. This kind of freaked us both out a bit. The shadow hadn't run off back up the stairs and the upper door was still closed and locked just like it had been for years ... dust on the door handle and all ... and no other exit.

But this is where it got way too strange for me. One day I was alone down there working on my riffs. I was concentrating hard and working it out when something caught my eye off to my right in shadows. I looked over and was startled by a humanoid shape floating in the air like a partially materialized Star Trek beam-in. I watched as it moved along about a yard away from the wall past the children's mural's of Moses and the Red Sea parting as the Egyptians in their chariots perished, God going before them in a pillar of fire, and then past Jesus nailed to the cross ... the blood dripping down and flowing off the mound, past the door that the shadow had been behind, into the kitchen area and finally out through the door there ... and I don't mean it opened the door first ... it went through the door. Then the door seemed to open a bit and slam shut, which was the final straw because we had boarded that door up with two by fours and six inch wood screws. I just slowly put my guitar down, inched my way toward the exit stairs, and ran out of there and I never went back alone again.

I relayed this experience to the other guys, and an older friend of ours who had started hanging around and mentoring me a bit on guitar. He told us how his best friend ( a musician ) had committed suicide a year before ( to the day ) of our party and that he had his funeral in that church. So we did this little séance thing and welcomed him to our zone and "released his spirit". We never had any more strange experiences after that. Naturally at the time, we attributed all the strange things that had happened to his "ghost". Maybe that's what it was. I don't know now. I believed it all seemed to explain it at the time. I tried to figure out a rational explanation and considered the possibility of some sort of shadow coming in from a small ground level window in the flowerbed behind me. But investigations the following day didn't indicated that the Sun was in the right position at that time, and even if it had been or if it had been a reflection of the sun off something else, it wouldn't account for whatever it was that was seen. What do I call it today? I generally use the term "apparition".
 
:eek: Holy crap. You are kidding me, right? I mean, I had really taken you for a nuts-and-bolts UFO researcher who won't even consider the paranormal, especially after you sounded quite sceptical about a ghost hunting experience in another thread.

OK, stuff being moved, quite explainable, no problem for the sceptics. The organ playing, I guess you can't rule out that someone did that and somehow got away unnoticed. Btw., when you heard the organ playing, was it really playing a tune or just producing sound? And the shadow in the staircase, the doorhandle turning, that's damn creepy, but I guess sceptics would just wave it away as results of an overactive imagination or something.

But a frickin' apparition? I mean, wowzies. Now that would be hard to explain away by ordinary physical means. I guess you remember the details about the mural so well because you can still see the whole thing before you when you are remembering it? So... when you say humanoid shape, did you see any details or was it just a shadow? I guess so, because you mentioned that you looked at the possibilty of it having been a shadow cast from the outside.

Man, you have to forgive me, but that sounds just right out of a horror movie...:confused: I was expeecting something like goggs' old woman who dissappeared in a dead end (which was interesting, too), but that's just something else entirely.

Oh and thanks for complying to my request and relating that experience in spite of the sceptical reactions that are to be expected. :) Awesome. Much appreciated.
 
:eek: Holy crap. You are kidding me, right?

Nope ... not kidding at all. Yes I'm still an advocate using skepticism as a tool in the search for truth. If you were alluding to my discussion with Sandanfire several weeks ago, I still feel bad about how that ended. It was never my intent for it to go that way, but at the same time I think my points were fair to consider. I just don't talk much about ghosts because they aren't my "field" so to speak. I know how the story sounds and I accept that most people simply won't believe it, others will attribute it to a mental aberration or confabulation. Others may attribute it to a "ghost". I don't know what it was, but it was real to me and it's one of the reasons you'll hear me say that I believe strange things do happen.

Regarding the shape, it was a distinctly humanoid shape, but like I said, the only way I can describe it compared to anything familiar is that it looked similar to a partially beamed in person from the old Star Trek original series ... diffused, three dimensional with a kind of sparkling combination of darkness and light. It didn't seem to be paying any attention to me and didn't walk, but floated in an odd undulating manner It was in plain view for about 15 seconds and passed by me no farther away than 20 feet. It completely unnerved me. I simply wouldn't go down there alone again, and that led to some ribbing by our other band guy who hadn't experienced anything that weird. The other two of us always waited until the other guy got there.

Regarding the organ incident. It was playing something harmonious, but I don't know what it was. It sounded kind of Procol Harum-ish. To add a couple of details: The door into the hall was locked and only we had keys except for the church people. When we got to the door it was locked and we wondered how whoever it was had gotten in. The organ was literally right around the corner 5 feet away from the door. We unlocked the door while the music was playing and burst in around the corner. Nobody could have moved that fast without being seen and the organ was definitely in use because I checked the tubes through the back grille and they were still cooling down. It had definitely been switched on.
 
Nope ... not kidding at all. Yes I'm still an advocate using skepticism as a tool in the search for truth. If you were alluding to my discussion with Sandanfire several weeks ago, I still feel bad about how that ended. It was never my intent for it to go that way, but at the same time I think my points were fair to consider. I just don't talk much about ghosts because they aren't my "field" so to speak. I know how the story sounds and I accept that most people simply won't believe it, others will attribute it to a mental aberration or confabulation. Others may attribute it to a "ghost". I don't know what it was, but it was real to me and it's one of the reasons you'll hear me say that I believe strange things do happen.

Regarding the shape, it was a distinctly humanoid shape, but like I said, the only way I can describe it compared to anything familiar is that it looked as if it were a partially beamed in person from the old Star Trek original series ... diffused, three dimensional with a kind of sparkling combination of darkness and light. It didn't seem to be paying any attention to me and didn't walk, but floated in an odd undulating manner It was in plain view for about 15 seconds and passed by me no farther away than 20 feet. It completely unnerved me. I simply wouldn't go down there alone again, and that led to some ribbing by our other band guy who hadn't experienced anything that weird. The other two of us always waited until the other guy got there.

Why? Was it just for a safety in numbers kind of thing or did the activity kind of dissipate in the presence of the one member of your group who was skeptical? If so I find that really interesting, almost like there's a whole you have to 'believe to receive' aspect to the phenomenon. Maybe that's why skeptics stay skeptics and believers stay believers? Maybe it explains why I've never seen any ghostly type activity, having always been rather skeptical of it, but why I have seen some very strange UFO activity, having been a believer that aliens are out there, somewhere. Great story though, thanks for posting it.
 
Why? Was it just for a safety in numbers kind of thing or did the activity kind of dissipate in the presence of the one member of your group who was skeptical? If so I find that really interesting, almost like there's a whole you have to 'believe to receive' aspect to the phenomenon. Maybe that's why skeptics stay skeptics and believers stay believers? Maybe it explains why I've never seen any ghostly type activity, having always been rather skeptical of it, but why I have seen some very strange UFO activity, having been a believer that aliens are out there, somewhere. Great story though, thanks for posting it.

I guess it was a safety in numbers thing ( totally irrational ). We'd been the two guys who saw the shadow in the stairwell at the same time, and he had seen the shadowy thing out of the corner of his eye so we were both believers. The other guy was just skeptical. Also, the thing never actually did us any harm and we didn't have another rehearsal zone. We really liked jamming and once we got into the groove we'd feel OK being down there. BTW this church was in the same valley where I saw the UFO. It's got a fair bit of lore around it just like Chris' mysterious San Luis Valley. Last time I was out there I noticed that the old church had been converted into a store.
 
@RenLady - any chance of finding the exact coordinates on google earth of your former home? Call me curious but I'd like to have a look. I realise I won't see anything paranormal but it just makes it more 'real' for me.

I had one sighting of what I'll call a full-body apparition. Thing is, I was with a friend who also saw it. We were like 13, no drugs, stress, mental illness or alcohol etc. In fact, we initially assumed it was a real person until basically it did something (went somewhere) a real person couldn't. Because it wasn't until straight after we even realised we'd seen something weird, we were not in the least scared. Even after we were more intensely curious than anything else.

We didn't get any negative vibe either. If I had to guess I would say it was simply the 'ghost' of someone 'activated' somehow. I don't even think there was any intelligence to it. If these things are as common as I hear, I think they can be positive (good), negative (evil) or just neutral.
 
I'll PM
@RenLady - any chance of finding the exact coordinates on google earth of your former home? Call me curious but I'd like to have a look. I realise I won't see anything paranormal but it just makes it more 'real' for me.

I had one sighting of what I'll call a full-body apparition. Thing is, I was with a friend who also saw it. We were like 13, no drugs, stress, mental illness or alcohol etc. In fact, we initially assumed it was a real person until basically it did something (went somewhere) a real person couldn't. Because it wasn't until straight after we even realised we'd seen something weird, we were not in the least scared. Even after we were more intensely curious than anything else.

We didn't get any negative vibe either. If I had to guess I would say it was simply the 'ghost' of someone 'activated' somehow. I don't even think there was any intelligence to it. If these things are as common as I hear, I think they can be positive (good), negative (evil) or just neutral.

I'll PM you the coordinates. If I find another listing for that casita on Craig's List, I'll PM that to you as well - of course, PLEASE do not contact the landlady there. I don't need any more problems in my life right now.

For me, one of the most upsetting things about this story is that the night I absolutely had to write about it was the very night that my dear friend died. I wonder about whatever energies were happening that night and even if his curiosity about the place caused him harm. I also find it upsetting that the last time I spoke to him happened almost immediately before he died, yet he sounded perfectly fine.

I never truly saw an apparition, unless you want to call the shadowy figures "apparitions." The time that I came home and saw that shadow appear next to mine was extremely disturbing. Some people have said it was just another fainter shadow of mine but unless my shadow was able to go inside and change clothing, that can't be the case. I had just come home from work and was still in a dress. The other shadow looked like it was in pants and possibly even suspenders. The most common problem, though, was the horrible smell that would just materialize out of nowhere, frequently with a sudden drop in temperature. It's hard to explain why I find that as upsetting as I do. I guess you'd have to experience it.

I used to always joke that no one would ever make a ghost story about me because as soon as anything strange happened, I'd be out of there like a rat on the Titanic. The thing is, sometimes you have absolutely nowhere else to go. I was there for 18 months and I have no idea how I managed as long as I did. The sad thing is, it was really a lovely casita in a lovely area. While I've never liked Santa Fe, there is something rather magnificent about Nambé. On the quiet nights if I couldn't sleep, I would simply camp out in the living room and watch the stars go past the high windows and it was truly peaceful and inspiring. There's just something about the rural high desert that I love, possibly even more than I love the mountains.
 
Just a brief follow up on the apparition I saw, years later I began to think that such things could be explained by some kind of advanced technology. When I think back again in this context, the partial Star Trek like beam-in was all there was that was like it back then that I could relate to, but since then we've seen cloaking suit FX that are also kind of similar. Cloaking suits seem much more plausible than Star Trek transporters. I once heard a physicist say that transporters might be theoretically possible, but that the energy required for a single transport would be something like the output of the Sun. On the other hand, cloaking suits are already under real development .

transporter.JPG
Pred3.jpg
 
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If I had to guess I would say it was simply the 'ghost' of someone 'activated' somehow. I don't even think there was any intelligence to it.

As Ufology's apparition, because he/she/it didn't interact? But if the organ playing was something paranormal, the cause of that would somehow have to be intelligent for it to notice that someone was coming. And the stuff being displaced inside a locked room, that sounds like someone intentfully wanting to baffle them.

I think RenaissanceLady said that she has had more stuff happening along these lines. So what about you, goggs and Ufology? If Muadib's theory that one somehow has to be predisposed or accepting to experience someone like that in the first place, has anything unusual or psychic been happening before or after? Or have you always been more on the sceptic side?
 
Just a brief follow up on the apparition I saw, years later I began to think that such things could be explained by some kind of advanced technology. When I think back again in this context, the partial Star Trek like beam-in was all there was that was like it back then that I could relate to, but since then we've seen cloaking suit FX that are also kind of similar. Cloaking suits seem much more plausible than Star Trek transporters. I once heard a physicist say that transporters might be theoretically possible, but that the energy required for a single transport would be something like the output of the Sun. On the other hand, cloaking suits are already under real development .

transporter.JPG
Pred3.jpg

I watched a program on the Discovery Channel, I think, and they had experts from many different fields discussing sci-fi tech concepts. Apparently, the major problem with transporter tech isn't the energy required but storage capacity, as the machine would have to keep track of the position of every single individual molecule in the human body, I remember the estimate being something like a 100 story building filled with 1 terabyte hard drives or something ridiculous like that. There's actually a specific theoretical component of the Star Trek transporter device designed to take care of that very problem. It was a really interesting show, I wish I could remember the name of it...
 
So what about you, goggs and Ufology? If Muadib's theory that one somehow has to be predisposed or accepting to experience someone like that in the first place, has anything unusual or psychic been happening before or after? Or have you always been more on the sceptic side?

I've always been open minded about the reality of strange phenomena, but skeptical about individual cases and non-committal about the explanations offered. The only thing that I think there is sufficient evidence to draw a vague but accurate conclusion about is UFOs. Alien craft are real and have been observed by people on Earth.
 
I watched a program on the Discovery Channel, I think, and they had experts from many different fields discussing sci-fi tech concepts. Apparently, the major problem with transporter tech isn't the energy required but storage capacity, as the machine would have to keep track of the position of every single individual molecule in the human body, I remember the estimate being something like a 100 story building filled with 1 terabyte hard drives or something ridiculous like that. There's actually a specific theoretical component of the Star Trek transporter device designed to take care of that very problem. It was a really interesting show, I wish I could remember the name of it...

Yes, storage capacity would be a huge problem too I'm sure. I think the rationale for the energy requirement was due to the "matter/energy conversion". Apparently it takes a huge amount of energy to make just one bit of matter, let alone hundreds of pounds. Either way cloaking suit technology seems less challenging.
 
I had never had anything paranormal (if it was and I think so) happen before or since. But from a young age I most definitely liked ghost stories and anything 'unexplained' - so maybe you do need a predisposition to experience such things?
 
I had never had anything paranormal (if it was and I think so) happen before or since. But from a young age I most definitely liked ghost stories and anything 'unexplained' - so maybe you do need a predisposition to experience such things?

Or perhaps maybe it's just that one needs to be open minded enough to accept that something truly unexplained has happened. Another experience three of us had out in that valley is only accepted as beyond normal by two of us. The other guy just writes it off as a lack of sleep, but there was no way that explains it. So to him it never happened. I just shake my head head and go "dude your in a state of denial".
 
I've never witnessed an apparition, but- Back when I was in my late 20's, I took a part time job to supplement my income in hopes of getting approved for a mortgage. I worked alone at night, cleaning a 3 story Bank/office building that sat on the banks of the Delaware River in a historic neighborhood. I had a routine down that started with me cleaning the top floor and working my way down to the basement floor (which sat an even 40 yards from the river) Each night, before I reached the floor above the basement, the old man who collected the garbage would come in through the basement door, stand in the stairwell and shout my name, repeatedly, until I heard him and came down to help him load the trash bags into the back of his pick-up, and off he would go. This one particular night, I helped him load the pick-up before saying good night and see you tomorrow. About 40 minutes after he left, I'm in the basement area finishing up my cleaning and securing all the office doors. I then heard the old man yell my name. I thought, what the heck is he doing back here- a bit annoyed that he might hold me up, as I was very close to finishing my rounds. I yell back, telling him I'm on my way to see him. He was not in the stairwell, so I'm looking around the basement area calling his name- I hear him call my name again, louder this time. Annoyed, I yell back asking him where he was.
At this point I look out the drivethrough window that overlooks the back lot where he should have been parked- the lot is empty. I check the alarm, which is a high tech alarm, being a bank- and the alarm shows only one person in the building, me.
Completely spooked out at this point, I set the alarm, walk out the basement door which locks automatically behind me. Had there been anyone in that building, the alarm would not have set. The old guy who collected the trash was a bit of a cripple, who moved slowly and could not climb the many stairs in the building. When I got into my car, I called the old guy and asked him if he recently returned to the bank for anything- He had not. Whatever called my name twice, had done so in the same voice and manner in which the old man had done every night. The next night when I came in to work my rounds, the first thing I did was go to the basement floor and try to debunk what I heard- Squeeking doors that happened to sound like "the old man yelling my name" ? -Nope. This was a 400 year old building sitting on a river... although I experienced nothing else while there, that little incident was real, whatever it was.
 
As Ufology's apparition, because he/she/it didn't interact? But if the organ playing was something paranormal, the cause of that would somehow have to be intelligent for it to notice that someone was coming. And the stuff being displaced inside a locked room, that sounds like someone intentfully wanting to baffle them.

I think RenaissanceLady said that she has had more stuff happening along these lines. So what about you, goggs and Ufology? If Muadib's theory that one somehow has to be predisposed or accepting to experience someone like that in the first place, has anything unusual or psychic been happening before or after? Or have you always been more on the sceptic side?

I've always considered myself a very rational and skeptical person, as I think many of my posts will show. I'm more agnostic than anything, having no use for faith but not entirely discounting human experiences even if these cannot be proven at this time using current scientific methods.

While I do not believe in an all-mighty deity that is tinkering with affairs here on Earth, it does not mean I refuse to "believe" in energy. Our current understanding of energy is that energy never dies but can only change or be manipulated. I don't see why the energy that is life would be any different. I also know that research was published in the Lancet medical journal about near death experiences when the patients showed no brain activity at the time. They still discovered that these patients overwhelmingly had near death experiences even when their brains could not have been giving them hallucinations - and that the most vivid experiences happened to those who truly died shortly thereafter. These patients also generally did not describe these events as being religious in nature but rather that there is simply something else that is happening to them and that they felt safe. (I've linked to this study before on other threads and don't feel like finding it again at this moment, though maybe later. It can easily be Googled. Wikipedia has also discussed this study in its site for near death experiences.)

Yes, I do have stories that take place starting when I was very young. Some things happened to me then, including a serious illness, that may still be impacting my overall health. Whether it was that illness or something else I don't know but even then, I was always aware prior to my parents making an announcement that someone in the family had died and sometimes I saw things that weren't discussed. I'm under the impression that there are those on my father's side of the family who had similar experiences, especially in childhood. I do know that he lost a sister to the same illness I had at the same age I was when I got sick. Specifically my (much older) father lost a little sister to scarlet fever when she was 3. When I was 3, I was diagnosed with scarletina (another name for scarlet fever) which was followed by a rheumatic fever. Again, coincidences, or patterns - much like my friend dying when I absolutely HAD to write the ghost story he had encouraged me to write.

I know that during a slumber party when I was asleep, several of my little friends saw a male figure walk past the window and vanish. I know that my ex-husband would doubtless say that the only time he ever truly saw a ghost was when I was sleeping beside him and he saw another female figure walk past the bedroom door and vanish. I've heard others say that they have seen things near me when I was sleeping, so I'm guessing you can see a pattern here. Maybe my resting energy activates something? In other stories where I was awake, there was definitely something that was conscious enough to interact with me.

What I detest is how religion has hijacked how we discuss death, thereby implying that a lack of religion also impacts how we discuss death. Energy is scientific, Gods and all-powerful beings that require constant praise and blind faith are not. Somehow, we are going to need to get square with the fact that people are discussing the same near death experiences over and over again, even when there has been no measurable brain function at the time these experiences occurred. We should be able to discuss what happens to us after death without it being a discussion of heaven and hell, gods and demons. Life and death should be discussed as it relates to energy manifestations.
 
... While I do not believe in an all-mighty deity that is tinkering with affairs here on Earth, it does not mean I refuse to "believe" in energy. Our current understanding of energy is that energy never dies but can only change or be manipulated. I don't see why the energy that is life would be any different ...

The above is an interesting take and reminds me of another recent conversation I was having with a skeptic here who made a similar statement. Unfortunately, even though there were quite a few exchanges there; that conversation didn't advance in any meaningful way beyond where it started. Without going into the details as to why, I hope to avoid the pitfalls of previous conversations this time by stating that when I appear to be challenging a statement, it isn't a personal challenge, but intended to illuminate a particular problem that has yet to be resolved before we have sufficient reason to add it to our list of assumptions. In this spirit, perhaps your reflection on this issue of "energy" might result in some kind of a nudge forward.

Having encountered the "energy" approach before, and reflected on it quite substantially, although it is often used by those who wish to avoid being associated with any particular religious, new-age or metaphysical movement, and instead come across as scientific, when examined closely with respect to issues of the paranormal, it tends to get wrapped up in the same packaging but with different labels. By that I mean that at some point, the word "energy" inevitably becomes synonymous with "mysterious supernatural force" rather than mainstream scientific principles. To be more specific, in mainstream science, energy is an indispensable prerequisite for performing work, and work is seen as something that causes a measurable change in movement, direction, structure or other measurable properties by acting through a distance.

In the case of ghosts, we have no scientific evidence that the phenomenon ( whatever it is ) can do this. However we do have indirect ( circumstantial evidence ) by way of accounts that connect the presence of the phenomenon with the movement of objects. This assumed connection would allow us to say that the phenomenon was able to transform part of its own energy into kinetic energy. So far so good. But it gets murky when we start to deconstruct the rationale for what a "ghost" is ( a disembodied non-material consciousness ). The thoughts that make up our consciousness are the result of a functioning brain and although you mention a Lancet article that seems to throw this into question ( a reference on that would be nice ), even if we accept that as true, thoughts themselves are not the same as the physical processes that give rise to them. In other words, a bunch of neurons at work are not the same as the thought that appears in a person's head as a result.

The image ( I typically use the example of a red Ferrari ) is not material, yet we see it and therefore it is real in the context of our subjective consciousness. However that image has no ability to do any actual physical work and therefore it does not fall under the scientific definition of energy. In fact we don't really know what it's made of, yet we tend to assume that it is energy anyway, and that's where the metaphysical leap comes in. Every sense required in order to achieve consciousness can be inserted into this logic. We may imagine a sound, but that sound has no pressure wave associated with it that can perform any actual work like move a microphone diaphragm. It has no measurable decibel level or frequency. Yet we can certainly hear it ( how many times have you had one of those tunes stuck in your head? ), so it is real within the context of our conscious awareness. We might be tempted to say that we can measure brain activity, but EEGs don't actually measure our experiences. They only measure the brain's electrical energy output on a graph. EEG energy isn't the actual image we see or the sound we hear. We can't take the brain's audio center's EEG output and plug it into a stereo and hear what the person is thinking ( although it might be interesting to try ).

The other problem is that if our consciousness alone is able to manipulate physical objects, why can't we do this while we're alive? Logic suggests that if our disembodied consciousness is the same consciousness that resides within our body, that it should have at least the same abilities while we're alive as it does when we're dead. So why aren't we all telekinetic? The bottom line is that using the scientific understanding of energy to support the assumption that a ghost is a disembodied human consciousness doesn't seem to stand up. It still requires an assumption that is not part of what science defines as energy. Assuming that the phenomenon is real in the first place, this leaves us with two branches of inquiry. The first is that consciousness, although not directly measurable is obviously a crucial facet of our existence. Therefore we should continue to explore this issue until we have an answer as to what it really is, and that answer might allow us to draw some connection to the phenomenon of ghosts. The second is that ghosts aren't actually disembodied human consciousnesses, but some something else that gives us that impression ( e.g. some sufficiently advanced technology controlled by some kind of intelligence ).
 
I personally do not believe in ghosts. But, I can be convinced otherwise of course if a ghost were to show up in my house tonight. They almost seem "too paranormal" to me. I think many of the bumps and noises people hear can be attributed to things we can understand. I think most ghosts people see are likely strange reflections and other phenomena related with light, refraction etc. I'm very skeptical of those whoe have seen full ghost apparitions...

Took the words right out of my mouth - could not have phrased it better.

I actually have three photos of a 'ghost' that my late grandmother took in the '90s, in an allegedly 'haunted' house, supposedly of an old man that lived there and had passed away several years before, in Bicester, in Oxfordshire, UK.

I won't go too deep into what details there are just yet, suffice to say that I do not believe for an instant that it is anything supernatural, even though you can kind of see the moses-like face of an old man- but I put that down to the jagged, rock-like stone wall, and the mind making you see something.

It also must be said that my grandma, rest her beautiful soul, was very Irish, hence very religious/superstitious: she had claimed to have spoken to spirits, had one walk through her when she was a nurse in her youth at a hospital, ect, so if a man's face can be seen in rock work on a wall, it MUST be a ghost!

Apparantly, my uncle who lived there at the time did claim to have had 'experiences', though these can be instantly discounted due to the fact that, I hate to admit it, he's not the most reliable of persons, and, he's also a bit of an idiot :p

Anyways - bottom line - NOT a ghost - but I promise that as soon as I can find them out, I shall surely scan all three photos into this thread, just for prosperity, even though they may not be the most impressive pictures ever seen.
 
I've never seen a ghost - and like it that way - at least not in the way most people describe, or the way it is being described. Not really interested in poking around in that area because in my world-view what you focus on you start to manifest - and in this area things can get pretty responsive. No thank you.

Here's one of my ghost stories. :)

I was working as a bookkeeper for a small college in New York state about 20 years ago. It was a very small school and the accountant and I shared a large office in a suite of offices. The rooms were in what amounted to the 1st floor of an auditorium. One would enter the building through large wooden doors and then two staircases would sweep upwards left and right to the auditorium. The auditorium had a stage. It was all hand-built just before and during WWII so it was quite beautiful, the wood, the windows, everything was hand carved. It was a place that had seen a lot of history in the small community. This auditorium was used by the resident dance troop. Downstairs to the left was the bookstore and to the right were the suite of offices where I had my office. To the back were the dressing rooms for the stage, and further back storage, props and costumes.

We were changing over the bookkeeping to a new computer system and I was laboring over substantial data entry, finding it easier to do all this data entry once everyone had gone home. I began staying after 5:00 p.m. First I stayed until about 7:00, then 8:00, then 9:00. A security guard would come around checking the doors and would often stop to chat. One night he found me still at my desk close to 10:00. He advised me to go home. I lived on-campus. It was very safe and I wanted to get this system change-over done. The security guard said it wasn't the outside he would be concerned about. I asked him what did he mean.

The security guard shared that he refused to be in the building after 10:00 p.m. He said he just didn't like being in the building at night. I asked if he ever had been and oh-yes he said he had. So what happened, I asked. He wouldn't say, just that I should go home. I reasoned that I was alone in the building - and he said I was - that when he locked the doors at 7:00 that was it. It was only me and I was locked in. But now I was curious because I was certain I was hearing someone enter the building after 7:00 p.m., a couple of nights in a row. Not possible he said. But I told him what I heard and asked him who was coming in the front door in the evening. He told me no one. He was the only one with the key and the front door was locked at 7:00. He used a side door on the other side of the building for his exit. Go home, he said.

Off he went. What follows is what I 'heard' over several nights.

As I sat doing my work I began to hear what sounded like the front doors opening. It sounded like a stream of people entering, as for a function. It was very festive. People were chatting and it was all friendliness. My office door opened out to the reception area, and that room's door was partially ajar, which opened out to the lower entrance space which was why I figured I was hearing the crowd come in. I half expected someone to pop their head in and say 'hi'. I looked at the clock - it was 10 minutes to the hour, 11:00 p.m.. Very strange time to have a function or meeting but the auditorium was notoriously difficult to book, it was in heavy use during the day so I figured maybe this was the only time they could have their study group or whatever it was. They flowed up the stairs and above me was one of the function rooms where meetings took place. I heard chairs being moved, footsteps, the drone of conversation, even glasses tinkling. Then it became relatively quiet right at 11:00, though I would occasionally hear murmurs. It sounded like a meeting was in progress. At the hour of 12:00, suddenly the chairs were being moved again, the muffled sound of random conversation began again and many footsteps went out of the room and down the stairs and out the door. I heard the doors close. I was not afraid - it seemed all normal and friendly and I really thought a function had taken place that I hadn't been told about. Shortly after, probably minutes, I decided to go home myself and was surprised no one was about - the pathways deserted, no lingering conversations happening.

The second night it all happened again - so on the next day I began to question people - what function was happening at 11:00 p.m. at night? Blank looks. None - or none that anyone knew of. I should ask the security guard, so the next night I did. He assured me there were no functions that late at night and again suggested I not stay in the building past 10:00.

Now I was aware something was odd - but I also was very close to finishing my data entry and I stayed very late that night - not just to 12:30 but close to 2:00. Even though I now 'knew' that there was no one in the building, still I heard the entry. It was still all very happy. Again I heard the clear sounds of exit from 12:00 until 12:10. Then the building sunk into a very deep silence. I was on the homeward stretch and decided to push until very late. At 1:00 I sense something change in the 'atmosphere' of the building. It became very cold. I had once been told that one sees 'etherically' out of the side of one's gaze, not dead-on, and that's what happened. I 'saw' someone standing in the reception office - but when I looked dead-on, no one. Back to my work, and he was there again, I could even describe him, smiling, jovial, looking at me. He was 'telling' me to go home. Suddenly in front of me I sensed a very agitated presence - like a woman - railing at me, very angry - disturbed I was there. If I looked dead-on there was no one there, but looking down I could see her in my peripheral vision. Then an image came into my mind that there were many people in the auditorium and suddenly I felt my skin prickling. I knew I should not be in the building. The man I could sense in the reception room was now more insistent that I go home.

I stood up, got my stuff, and walked out rapidly - I don't think I turned out the lights - and from that point on I never worked past 5:00 and if I was in the building after that I always made sure there was at least one other person with me.

Reality? Yes - but not physical reality. Perceived because of several factors - the most important being that it was a building saturated with residual etheric/life forces. What was being perceived were not 'living' in any physical sense but were old powerful forms still playing out. I am not a seer - I do not 'know' in that realm - but I know it is best not looked at too closely because there are aspects to it that are antithetical to peace of mind unless one has a firm command of self.

I know someone who feels that the abductee experience is an etheric experience.

P.S. I voted 'No' - I don't believe in ghosts - because I don't believe they exist as defined by the popular imagination. I think the experiences of ghosts are perceived through a filter that is rooted in physical universe pre-conceptions.
 
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