Ghosts

[Alice 26]

I really want to believe that there are spirts out there but when i watch TV rograms like most haunted i find them really hard to believe. Can anyone explain what a spirt is or have any real prof of one??

[El D]

Why do you want to believe? There is just not enough basis to believe in ghosts - e.g. imagine you had survived death and were desperate to pass on your message to those you loved. Instead you either close a door/knock on the table/make the air go cold, all of which allow you are fully capable of interacting with the physical world. The weight of logic and evidence is fully against ghosts existing as commonly understood. I have to laugh watching most haunted and seeing how scared they get - after all the number of ghost related fatalities/injuries is rising every year. . .

[kev100]

Many years ago James Randi offered one million dollars to anyone who could show him any kind of paranormal activity, ghosts, spoon bending, faith healing, psychic surgery, Mr Randi has exposed them all as frauds.

Needless to say the million dollars is still unclaimed.

[boom boom]

well, i'm not as sceptical as those other guys. i do beleive in the spirit world, Although there are of course frauds and 'most haunted' is total cack. why don't you look in your local paper to see if there are any spiritual churches in your area. they are usually free or your asked to make a small donation to keep the evenings running or buy flowers etc, its very intimate and not at all hollywood, more people go than you would expect, and its a really nice evening xx

[bobclean]

Hi Alice. You are right, it is hard to believe, but I think it is quite normal for you to WANT to believe. A great site to look at for some answers is www.randi.org. Here you will find rational explanations for all things 'supernatural'

[dmsjps]

My mum always told me that when you died your spirit left your body not long after and all that was left for people to see was a shell. I never understood what she meant until she died. I was called home from work and she was lying upstairs on her bed. But she wasn't a shell, she was complete at that time (she'd had a heart attack while she rested after she had been suffering chest pains and the doctor had only an hour previously told her there was nothing wrong with her! But that's a different story and I get quite cross about that one!).

A few days after mum had gone, me, my husband & kids, my sister & her kids and my dad were all in the living room in mum & dad's house and all of a sudden there was a very strong smell of the air freshener mum used to spray when dad farted to show him how disgusting he was! We all smelt it, but the air freshener was in the bathroom, no one was in there and no one had been in there. I said to dad, 'Have you just guffed?' and he said he had.

So my mum came back to say goodbye to us in a very odd - and slightly comical - way, but she had to give dad one last telling-off before she went.

When we went to see her at the Chapel of Rest a few days later, she was a shell; the change was so profound.

[El D]

Not trying to be insensitive, but your mother passed on a message from beyond the grave by using air freshener? Do you not think there would be a better or more meaningful way of communication? Such a story implies that

1. The alleged spirit does not leave the body for several hours despite the cessation of all physical activity in the brain - why would this be the case?
2. Such spirits can interact with the physical world and not ever through the use of physical objects i.e. your mother undoubtedly did not spray air freshener from a can but was able to simulate the effect, unless they have air freshener in the spirit world. This would involve the injection of energy or the creation of the necessary matter - how are spirits powered and if they can effect the physical world why has never in the course of human history one ever been recorded as making actual contact as opposed to obtuse references to their former lives?

I have no doubt many people have such anecdotal stories of contact normally I would guess involving suggestion combined with a strong desire to believe it but it will take more than that to convince me.

[dmsjps]

El D, I would have taken some convincing till it happened as well, but it was witnessed by (or rather, inhaled by) 9 people at the same time and we were all looking at each other gob-smacked for ages before anyone said anything.

As for it being a 'corny' way to get in touch, then yes it was; of course I would much rather she gave me a squeeze or stroked my hand or something, but that didn't happen so I'm not going to say it did.

[Little Lady]

I had something rather like dmsips had happen to her not long after my grandad died, although it was the not very nice smell of urine as he had problems running up to when he passed away, i came down the stairsand semlt it very strongly and it instantly reminded me of him, there was no way our house coud have smelt like that and as i went into the kitchen then back into the living room the smell had gone as quickly as it had appeared.

I really dont care if someone wants to try and explain that to me or wether they want to believe it or not i do and that is all that matters to me.....

[Pi]

It sounds to me as though these are mostly cases of neural action and re-action. Your brains make associations, it forms the basis of thought, your brain fills in the gaps. When dad "farted" the nasal receptors smelt the gas and the brain which was used to the following scents completed the routine on its own, it is a memory engram, your brain has become programmed, in the absence of other sensory input the brain heightens what it has left. I dont believe in spirits, but I do believe that you live on in these memories, this is what is meant by eternal life (in my opinion)

[RevShirls]

This is a subject that has always fascinated me and I've had some strange experiences myself. I have on occasion been asked to exorcise a house. I am not so sure what I believe about this. On one hand, I don't want to discredit people's experiences (indeed, some people's experiences including my own are very convincing) but on the other hand I have felt that if I exorcise a house I am in a sense colluding with those that believe there is a real presence there - in other words, confriming what they believe even if I may have my doubts - so generally, I have tended to say a prayer with people addressing their fears and also asked for God's blessing on their home (�f they believe in God).

I do believe that some people do experience strange and even frightening phenomena - but I think it perhaps comes from the mind - and by that, I don't really mean that it is imagined. We know so little about our own minds. I wonder if our minds are limited by time and space. Just musing here as I really don't know (nobody really does) - but I often get feelings of d�j� vu - and that fascinates me. I wonder if my mind is a wee bit of a time traveller :) If it is, then that could explain an awful lot. Incidentally, my husband adheres more to the d�j� vu theory where the mind  has a hiccup/short cut whereby one thinks they have seen something in the distant past when in actual fact it was in the recent (split second) past. I guess that is why he's a scientist and I'm a bohemian. Fascinating, though!