There was another topic about ghosts and I was about to comment but better yet, I start my own thread.

If ghosts are real, how comes...?

- They wear clothes? Do spirits wear pants, shirts, shoes? if so, what brand? - I never heard of a haunting experience where the ghost is naked... If I was a ghost and really want to scare someone, I would be naked.

- They live in old houses/places?
If I was a ghost, why live in and old place? - I would be living in the coolest places ever. I would live around beautiful people. Visit the nicest places on earth. It would be fun!

- They talk?
Some people claim they heard voices, screaming?
How could a ghost do that? They would need lungs, lips. Even a quiet voice is sound waves created with air and your vocal chords... you need a physical body for that.

- They scare people?
Home comes ghosts scare people, what is the reason behind that?
Also, they make noises, people hear steps, they move stuff, people find things have moved... If I was a ghost, and I would like to scare someone I would do more than that... why to go subtle when you can go really mean?

Well, so many reasons to think that ghosts are really stupid, non-sense, weird... my conclusion is "they do not exist"

...not to mention: why aren't there thousands of ghosts per square meter, given the number of people who've previously lived and died? We should be awash in a sea of 'em. Bumping into them all day every day. Having them show up while we're sitting on the toilet making jokes. Leering over us while we have sex, wishing they could still get some. And so on.

Yeah...no reason to think there's any such thing. Just people mistaking something else for a "person," or imagining, etc.

Sometimes it will turn on lights, and knock on my window, always three times. Not joking, either.

Really? The ONLY explanation for the lights going on or knocks on your window is that a GHOST did it?

Of course. The correct answer to "I don't know what's causing this" is always god or ghosts. Always. :)

If I see an open cabinet, I think: "I must've left it open again."

If I discover a picture titled: "I guess I didn't balance it right."

If I can't find something: "Hmmmm. Where did I put that."

If the light goes on by itself: "Better change the switch."

If I hear knocking on the window: "Damn neighborhood kids fooling around again!"


Never thought to blame "Casper and Friends."

What, not ET or Bigfoot?

When I was little, I was afraid of the big tree in the yard. Until I figured out that energy-wise it was impossible for a tree to reach through a window and grab a kid. Plus there are no movable joints.

The only reason that keeps happening is because you aren't giving the proper response:

"What is wanted?"

"...knock on my window, always three times."

Are you sure it isn't the ghost of Sheldon Cooper?

Sheldon would knock in binary: 101

I'd like a ghost here and there. I just don't see why not.

You know what you don't read or hear about? Ghosts in groups.

In the Casper the Friendly Ghost, Casper had uncle ghosts, who mocked him for trying to help people, v. frighten people. And then there were the 'ghosts' in the Harry Potter novels/films...

But in the 'real life' accounts, the ghosts are always alone and are remarkably boring in their approach to scaring people. Wouldn't it make for sense to steal all your underwear, or mismatch your socks, or tear the bottom of your garbage pail liners, or poltergizing your glow-in-the-dark condoms into your granny's See's Candy sampler?

But apparently the height of ghostly hijinks is to knock three times and run.

When Sanora Babb talked about ghosts (privately, with people she respected and trusted) she always talked about single ghosts (regardless of whether they were people ghosts or horse ghosts---she had personal experiences with many horse ghosts, in particular...but the ghosts Sanora knew were always in one-on-one interactions with her).

I don't think she ever mentioned, in her work, the ghosts she had known (she was a writer; Google her for an amazing real life "story").

She didn't ever mention ghosts wearing clothes (or not wearing them, either), but she was very particular about the fact [from her experience] that the ghosts she interacted with were mostly "good"...

...but sometimes the human ghosts were mischievous (in a annoying, "bratty kid" kind of way). In particular: that SOME ghosts (always males), when interacting with her, would intentionally fart during their conversations...and she did NOT like that!!!

Her encounters with human ghosts were always interesting...but her encounters with ghost horses (still joyfully running in certain pastures she used to go to) were not just lyrical, they were a glimpse into what "other dimensions of reality" (in a quantum physics sense) might REALLY be like. (When I am reading anything about quantum physics or multiple dimensions, I ALWAYS think of Sanora and her many interactions with ghost horses.)

Her life was enormously interesting. She and her husband (one of the most well-known, and honored, Hollywood legends, Google: James Wong Howe---he was a motion picture cinematographer) had to live, for many years, in separate apartments (in the same building) even though they were married, because he was of Chinese descent and she was American prairie-bred WASP, and therefore, their life together was literally illegal for a good part of their relationship...they were, during the earlier years of their marriage, in genuine actual danger of being arrested and imprisoned for being with each other.

I never believed in ghosts until I met Sanora Babb. I still don't really "believe" in ghosts, but I definitely believe that the ghosts Sanora interacted with throughout her life WERE real.

If you had listened to her talking about her experiences, the chances are: you would believe that at least some ghosts are real, too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2016 02:26PM by Tevai.

Tevai,
Those stories are interesting, and even revealing (mostly about the person writing them).
However, stories about ghost horses running in fields don't have anything to do with quantum physics. :)

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
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> ...However, stories about ghost horses running in
> fields don't have anything to do with quantum
> physics. :)

To me, personally, much of quantum physics is plenty difficult to TRY to understand. In essence, the "student" is frequently TRYING to visualize things that we "know" to be impossible---and sometimes, literally unimaginable---at least for most people (and I definitely belong in this category).

Sanora's ghost horses, especially in the straight-forward but almost mesmerizing way she described them, have been (for me!!!) a way into at least a measure of understanding the "can't logically BE" parts of quantum physics.

I can take something I am reading in a book that seems incomprehensible, and mentally "translate" that intellectual process into my visualization of Sanora as she described her ghost horses, running and leaping around the pastures she knew so well.

I know there are people much smarter than me who can (I think!!!) actually visualize "straight on" the newer and more arcane hypotheses of quantum physics, but I can't do this. I am acutely aware of my own brain, "how" it functions...and its limits. I can go to a certain point by "myself"...but after that (even if other people can continue) I have to "translate" the hypotheses (and sometimes the actual data) into a visual that I CAN comprehend, and for me, this is invariably Sanora's ghost horses, joyfully free, leaping around an area which, very well, right now might be a housing subdivision.

The two different things (ghost horses in a long-ago pasture, and present day suburban neighborhood), which are both "true," can actually meld, in my mind, as both true SIMULTANEOUSLY, RIGHT NOW---which is something I can't do directly, vis-à-vis similar quantum physics conceptions, without Sanora's ghost horses.

Does this make what I'm talking about clearer to you???



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2016 02:52PM by Tevai.

Tevai Wrote:
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> Does this make what I'm talking about clearer to
> you???

Yes, it does.

I personally get really frustrated, though, by the superficial "popular" depictions of "quantum physics" as something we "know to be impossible" or that is literally unimaginable. Because neither is the case. And such depictions of the field only serve to make people think they can't understand it, it's too weird or difficult or specialized for them, and only super-brilliant scientists who spend their lives working in the field can actually understand it. Again, neither is the case.

What we know about quantum physics was really only "counter-intuitive" given classical physics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There's still a lot we have to learn about how things work on really small scales, but we've come a long, long way since then.

The "popular" depictions of it, though, seem to encourage using "quantum physics" as a sort of "argument from ignorance" fallacy that seems "sciency" -- anything we don't really understand can be lumped into "quantum physics" because we don't understand THAT, either. And, one more time -- not the case :)

If ghost horses are indeed cavorting across fields and are visible to some people, then an explanation for what's going on would need to be forthcoming (and I'm not saying it's NOT happening, by the way). Based on what we DO know, though, that explanation almost certainly won't be "quantum physics" :)

You'd be a scary ghost, elder! Me, I'd haunt the golf course, hide all the golf balls. O.o



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2016 11:57PM by KiNeverMo.

Sure, groups will witness to having heard footsteps, or voices, or see a pot flying across the room. But when it comes to groups experiencing visual contact which would require expensive Hollywood-style special effects to fake ...

Bupkis.

I can buy 'ghosts' as projections of a human mind. But not actually as any part of the 'real' world. And I've enjoyed the role in literature of the person chased by his or her ghosts.

That's about it...

Y'all jist don unnerstan! Y'all posed ta be skirred!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2016 05:01PM by desertman.

desertman Wrote:
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> Y'all jist don unnerstan! Y'all posed ta be
> skirred!

Only Casper is capable of skirring me!

All that publicity about him being the "friendly" ghost...well, I think that's all just high-priced p.r. to obscure what Casper is R-E-A-L-L-Y like...just because your p.r. says something is so doesn't mean that it's true!!

Then they should pay rent like normal people, I mean just because your dead doesn't mean I can't evict you!

I don't really believe in ghosts either, but I can't ever deny my belief in the visitation that I described in detail.

Maybe ghosts are stuck in their ghostly state because they're being punished for being so boring and unimaginative.

I saw what people would identify as being a ghost when I was 16. I just no longer attempt to put an explanation to what I saw. I know that I saw it, but I don't know what it was that I saw. I assume it was some sort of trick-of-the-mind.

I believe in ghosts, aka the spirits of dead people, and not ashamed to say it or "out" myself.

Have seen a few in my time. Was I able to take their pictures, or hold them down while I did? No, because I wasn't trying to prove I saw them. Usually I was more frightened than curious or interested in their appearing when they did. There was no communication other than the fear they might've seen on my face when I looked back at them staring at me.

People are quick to write off what they don't understand as imaginary. Just because you haven't seen a ghost doesn't mean they aren't real or don't exist.

The last time I saw what I believed to be a ghostly visitor was in my home some years back. I believed it to be the spirit of the teenage son of the family who lived here before us, who committed suicide within a couple years of their moving from this house. He was wearing a hood and a long robe, and I couldn't see his face when his spirit appeared to me. He grabbed my arm, which caused me to look up and see him standing there. It frightened me, yes. He wasn't a spirit at peace.

This house had some bad karma when we moved into it. That was the only haunting event I've seen since living here.

At the house we lived in prior to this, a little girl had died in it at the age my daughter was when we moved into it. They were the last family to live there before we took possession. Only we didn't know about them until after the haunting of the little girl with my daughter. They shared the same first name, and both had the same bedroom where the little girl had died.

My daughter used to hear her call out her name to come and play with her. Sometimes she heard her giggling. One morning I awoke to hear a young girl giggling, but it wasn't my daughter's voice.

Then one night I had a dream of a beautiful angel floating outside my bedroom window of our 2nd story house. She told me she couldn't leave that spot! It was right over a bed of tulips on the ground below.

A few days or weeks later I was sharing that dream with my neighbor who lived right across the street. She was the one who then told me about the little girl and her family who'd lived there before us. The significance of the angel was that the tulip bed had been planted by the family's church while their daughter was convalescing so she would be cheered by the pretty flowers. When they didn't bloom the first spring the church sent over a prayer team with the pastor, and prayed over the flower bed that the tulips would grow.

The following year they did, and returned each spring after that. She believed, and so did I after she told me of the family that the angel was assigned to watch over the tulip bed. That was over the same spot she was floating when she appeared to me in my dream when she told me she couldn't leave there. She had to stay.

Later that same year my son came home from school sharing a story of one of his classmates of the same little girl's cousin who was in his class. She shared with her class how her cousin's spirit came to her after she died, wanting to play with her. She said the very same things to her that the spirit said to my daughter, in my daughter's bedroom! She had not met my son, or conferred about his sister's experiences, or vice verse before he heard her say the same things my daughter had been telling us.

It didn't seem strange to me. It was a normal thing for a post-living mortal who hadn't yet really parted this world for the next.

Hie,

What about the theory that electrons can be in two places at the same time? Didn't someone get a Nobel Prize for figuring that out?

Maybe ghosts thought of it first.

So, these ghosts who somehow obtained the neuron network in their brains after death to know advanced physics managed to make their clothes magically appear in some wave-state along with their bodies (and their props!). Then they somehow move their molecules into particles so that they can physically rattle a chain or something. Never mind that their brain and all the neuron pathways that housed their knowledge is rotted in their grave.

Maybe there is a ecto-clothing and props store in ghost-land where angels can get flaming swords and ghosts can get period outfits?

And what do ghosts do with this advanced knowledge? Do they leave messages about how to cure cancer or anything about how they are breaking the known laws of physics? No. They lurk in shadows making cupboard doors open and float around pointing at things.

Funny how their messages are things we could have made up or guessed. (Grandpa says hi. Little Jane is hiding in the woods.) Funny how the ghosts never show up at a science convention and allow themselves to be examined.


I'm not saying they do or do not exist, but there are more plausible explanations that need to be ruled out first. (They never are ruled out):

The person telling the story could be mistaken or they are telling a lie. What is more plausible: Someone tells a tall tale or that a law of physics is broken?
The person could be putting pieces together in the story after the fact to make it fit.
The person could be exaggerating or embellishing the story.
The person wants to find meaning or feel special.
The people who tell these stories resort to "a ghost did it" rather than recognize the most plausible explanations have not been ruled out.

Maybe there is an after life, and maybe there is a direct correlation between what you learned and believed during this stage of existence and what you'll be doing in the hereafter?

If there is an after life, if there is a purpose to it, why are there slackers, like ghosts who hang around doing the inane things they are reported to be doing?

Why, if a mommy ghost can direct rescuers to save her baby stuck in an upside down car in a river, aren't there ghosts doing something useful during an 'active shooter' situation?

You know how in Harry Potter, ghosts and humans interacted? If there really are ghosts in our world, why aren't we having dialogues with them, exchanging points of view and getting them to find lost balls on golf courses?

They obviously don't have hard and fast rules about staying hidden from sight, so why aren't they helping out on a daily basis? Imagine having ghosts in the Secret Service details who guard the president!! Imagine going through puberty with a friendly, knowledgeable ghost companion of your favorite sex encouraging you to be all you can be!

From what I've read, there are three basic theories people have about ghosts:

1. When one experiences a ghost as doing the same action over and over or as just being an image, these are considered to be "imprints" on the "mental atmosphere" of a place, usually imprinted there by strong emotional experiences of the past. These "ghosts" are not conscious beings in any sense.

2. When a ghost is experienced as engaging in spontaneous varying actions that show purpose and intelligence, it might be an "earth-bound spirit" still hanging out, for example, in a house or place he or she was connected with when alive. These ghosts are considered to have at least some degree of consciousness, manifested as volition.

3. Poltergeist phenomena. Most poltergeists are considered to have no connection to the dead, but result from liberated psychic energy from troubled adolescents, causing household items, etc. to fly around without being touched.

Note: I am not bearing testimony as to the truthfulness of any of the above theories, but just reporting on what I've read.

commongentile Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
1. When one experiences a ghost as doing the same
> action over and over or as just being an image,
> these are considered to be "imprints" on the
> "mental atmosphere" of a place, usually imprinted
> there by strong emotional experiences of the past.
> These "ghosts" are not conscious beings in any
> sense.

Another is that certain minerals or rocks, like quartz, can act almost like a tape recorder and under the right conditions, a scene from the past can play back into the atmosphere.

>
> Another is that certain minerals or rocks, like
> quartz, can act almost like a tape recorder and
> under the right conditions, a scene from the
> past can play back into the atmosphere.
>

Would you recommend some way to do away with the ambient light so that the image would be crystal clear?

> basic theories people have about ghosts:
>
> 1. When one experiences a ghost as doing the same
> action over and over or as just being an image,
> these are considered to be "imprints" on the
> "mental atmosphere" of a place, usually imprinted
> there by strong emotional experiences of the past.
> These "ghosts" are not conscious beings in any
> sense.


This known as The Stone Tape Theory (after a wonderful BBC play of the same nae written by author Nigel Kneal and very well worth tracking down and watching). The basic problem with this hypothesis is that there is no plausible mechanism on which to base.



> 2. When a ghost is experienced as engaging in
> spontaneous varying actions that show purpose and
> intelligence, it might be an "earth-bound spirit"
> still hanging out, for example, in a house or
> place he or she was connected with when alive.
> These ghosts are considered to have at least some
> degree of consciousness, manifested as volition.


I have heard that many ghosts are really dead people who just don't know they've died yet. Well, there might be tiny clues for them like not going to work everyday, not weating, not sleeping, not watching TV or listening to the wireless, not going to the lavatory ...

You know, tiny little hints like that.


> 3. Poltergeist phenomena. Most poltergeists are
> considered to have no connection to the dead, but
> result from liberated psychic energy from troubled
> adolescents, causing household items, etc. to fly
> around without being touched.

Again, the problem with this as an explanation is that there is no proposed mechanism of action.

On the lighter side, Frank Muir (a British humourist) when asked what a poltergeist was famously replied "any geist which polters" :-)

if ghosts were real then magic would have to be real.
no magic, no ghosts.

I have never seen what I believe you are referring to as 'ghosts' ----- seeing a spirit in a totally conscious state just suddenly appearing. Others say they have and I don't really doubt them but that has not been my experience.

However, I have 'seen and heard (most likely telepathically I believe)' spirits in a 'dream/meditative-state'. I haven't 'only heard' spirits for a number of years now.

I only have seen friends and relatives, all had messages, and all wore clothes (similar to what they wore in life when I knew them). Some I didn't notice their clothes as I was concentrating on their faces.

Do I believe they exist in the 'human-like spirits' they appeared to me as? Definitely not ----- the 'eternal'
part of us is definitely not human outside of reincarnating periodically in human bodies! They only appeared that way for me to recognize them so they could give me their messages ----- normally based on questions I asked.

I believe once they 'return to the between life/light' they are in another dimension. I do believe some spirits do not return immediately back and could appear as 'ghosts' in our dimension to humans to try to communicate the message that they are not dead.

Do the already-deceased relatives that dying people see (and talk to) qualify as ghosts???

Do the recently dead people that non-dead people see (and talk to) qualify as ghosts???

If so, then---although I, personally, never saw either of them---my maternal grandmother would qualify as a ghost (I never thought of it this way before!!!) because my aunt had a fairly extensive conversation with her (her mother) before my aunt died (about three hours later), and although I didn't see Nannan, I witnessed the interaction.

And my paternal grandfather would qualify as a ghost, because he woke up my Dad soon after my grandfather's death to tell my Dad that my Dad had done the right thing by timing my Grandpa's death (and my Mom, who was sleeping next to my Dad, was awakened by their conversation with each other).

Talking to already-deceased relatives and close friends is fairly common among people who are dying protracted natural deaths. (In my aunt's case: pancreatic cancer...in my Grandpa's case: leukemia.)

I just never thought of them as "ghosts" before...to me, they were just Nannan and Grandpa!!!

:) :) :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2016 01:34PM by Tevai.

If you are receptive, I think you are more willing to accept that there are times when a deceased family member might leave a message.
If you are not receptive, likely you won't see or hear anything or recognize any messages.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2016 01:37AM by SusieQ#1.

SusieQ#1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you are receptive, I think you are more willing
> to accept that there are times when a deceased
> family member might leave a message.
> If you are not receptive, likely you won't see or
> hear anything or recognize any messages.

That's probably "true."
But...

If you are receptive, you are more willing to accept that the Book of Mormon is true.
If you are not receptive, likely you won't get any "burning in your bosom" to indicate it's true.

See the problem with being "receptive?"

Things that actually happen, happen whether you're "receptive" or not. :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2016 01:17PM by ificouldhietokolob.

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> SusieQ#1 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > If you are receptive, I think you are more
> willing
> > to accept that there are times when a deceased
> > family member might leave a message.
> > If you are not receptive, likely you won't see
> or
> > hear anything or recognize any messages.
>
> That's probably "true."
> But...
>
> If you are receptive, you are more willing to
> accept that the Book of Mormon is true.
> If you are not receptive, likely you won't get any
> "burning in your bosom" to indicate it's true.
>
> See the problem with being "receptive?"
>
> Things that actually happen, happen whether you're
> "receptive" or not. :)


A lot of "things" can happen and people are completely unaware of them. Your reasoning doesn't hold up.

There is a principle that I think works: we are receptive to what is needed or comfortable or necessary at the time, however, we can certainly change our mind about whether it continues to work for us.

As far as deceased spirits (ghosts, or whatever) it is my view that they are there whether we see or hear them or not.

That's been my experience too, SusieQ. :))

It depends on your definition of what a ghost is or might be.

matt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It depends on your definition of what a ghost is
> or might be.


For me that is a reference to the spirit of a deceased person manifesting in some manner or leaving some message. My mind is open to the reality.