So . . . Do you do believe in ghosts? As for me, THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS GHOSTS!!! Anyone up for for a nice, friendly conversation with everyone respecting each other's opinions and no one bashing each other on the topic?

Just something to talk about, cuz I'm bored.

halochild

I believe in ghosts, just not ghost hunters

LMAO!

I don't believe there are ghosts at all. Only angels and demons. I think that once someone dies, their spirit cannot come back to earth. And what people see or hear or feel sometimes are actually demons playing tricks on them. And the Ghost Hunters show, I know they are hearing something and seeing something definitely, but its not ghosts. Demons can take any form they want and can manipulate objects and make sounds, they just can't touch US.

I live not too far from one of the most famous "haunted houses" in the country, the Belle Witch Mansion in Adams, Tennessee, and I've been to it. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I don't believe that people, wandering souls, would make me feel like that. But demons definitely would. I can't describe the feeling, the evil, I felt when I walked in there.

And then there's angels. People have reported receiving their assistance and protection for as long as time. And not surprising at all, people do not feel fear when they have an angel encounter. Usually they appear in human form and then disappear abruptly after they have done their job.

Anyway, y'all know I am of the Christian faith, so there's my opinion. Does anyone have a different one? I just find this stuff interesting.

Ghosts exist regardless of whether or not anyone chooses to believe in them.

As for ghost hunters, it is like any other profession - there are good and bad, skilled and unskilled. I respect those who bring honor to the profession since they make it more acceptable for people in general to be honest about their experiences. I look forward to someday, in the future, seeing the transition from 'ghost hunter' to 'ghost healer' though.

Halochild, you have every right to believe whatever makes you happy. But I wonder if anyone has taken the trouble to try and explain the difference between ghosts and imprints to you? Would you like me to try? It seems possible that what you experienced at that mansion was an imprint, rather than a haunting.

Hello Calmmountain, it is good to talk to you again, and thank you for answering my post.

It appears that each of us have "beliefs" so strong on this subject that we are at a deadlock. I "know" I am right, and you "know" you are right, and sometimes that is the beauty of the differences in people. What a boring world it would be if everyone thought the same, huh? My exhusband is an attorney and if no one ever disagreed he would be out of a job! (lol)

I believe that all we "know" about the world around us could just barely fill a thimble. It's just every time I see an EMF reader misused it irks me, Im a tech and was an apprentice electrician, so I have used them for thier intended purpose and can say that if the EMF reader is supposed to prove there are ghosts, then every building in any country with electricity is haunted. However I have no idea if there are ghosts, and if there are, then why they exist. I have felt my grandfather's presence around me ever since he died, and sometimes I can hear his voice, still giving me advice, but I cannot know for certain whether it is him or a chemical imbalance in my head... I move through life constantly aware that I may be completely insane, helps me have a sense of humor about life

Halochild - I agree. The two of us, we should call a truce here. Since I am not you, I have not shared your life experiences and therefore I can not fully understand your experiences. Logically, then, I should not try to pass judgement on that which I can't fully understand. Do you think you could return this favor, do me the same courtesy? If you don't believe that you can then perhaps it would be best for you not to read any further.

Please consider that an astonishingly wide range of people do in fact all claim to be 'christian'. So... It's a word that has basically, in my dictionary, been overused to the point where it has lost meaning. Saying that you are a christian, as far as I am concerned, explains nothing. What do you really mean by that word? Please give this some thought and, if you choose to answer at all, answer carefully. Rushed answers are rarely useful. I should mention... There were christians screaming insults on the local news the other day because they believed it was their highest duty to protest the opening of the Twilight movies. They'd wanted to do a public book burning as well but couldn't get a permit. Same town, same day - there were christians on the local news doing volunteer work at the food bank because they believe it is important to try and help the less fortunate. Might have been some of the same people at both events. Makes me wonder if the definition just changes, if being 'christian' is something they make up as they go along. But perhaps this is a discussion best avoided.




AsherDelampyr - Thank you for joining this conversation. I hope that your example will inspire other people reading this to share their opinions and experiences as well. Would be nice if there weren't so many lurkers. I agree - that which we don't question is of no value to us. Questions are a necessary part of surviving, learning, growing. A certain amount of doubt and humour is probably healthy, extra especially when the question of sanity is concerned. =P =D


I'm not well versed in the proper use of EMF machines but I do have empathy for the struggle here. How do you show a non-visible ghost to a skeptical television audience? I don't have cable so I don't get to observe the shows often but from what I've glimpsed it seems that they are currently using several tools, almost none of which were designed for that explict purpose. So I suppose the better solution would be to have something designed for the explict purpose of detecting individual patches of non-standard energy... But doing that would also require trying to define what constitutes 'normal' in terms of energy in any given environment. Challenging, perhaps, but not impossible. Ghosts are not a new phenomenon on Earth, if any part of human history is accurate. So there is already a wide range of data waiting to be verified and also some low-tech or no-tech tools that do exist. Unfortunately certain enforced biases in history have now attached such strong negative associations with some of these simple ancient tools that the credibility of the tools has been damaged. So they're no longer widely used or understood. So we're not likely to see them replacing the EMF readers.

...


There are things which are known. There are things which are believed. And then there are some things which are, occasionally and inexplicably, remembered.

Ghosts exist because the soul is not immune to injury.

Pause for just one moment, please. Consider the medical history of our so-called civilization. In the past - in both the ancient past but also more recently than anyone would care to believe - think about what happened to a person who got sick. Think of the folklore. Before the concept of germs was widely accepted, weren't nearly all physical illnesses blamed on the existance of demons? Many of the mental illnesses in our world still struggle with this label and it's because we, as a society, don't have better answers yet. So as a result, people will continue to be misdiagnosed and will continue to suffer until all of us have learned how to better deal with these challenges.

If you visit a patient in a hospital, they are recieiving special care. Because they need that care in order to continue surviving. Do you expect to always find them in a good mood? No. Sometimes a patient is confused, anxious, frightened, angry, frustrated. Sometimes they aren't able to feel much at all or to think clearly. What does the injury do? It creates limits. A person who breaks their leg can't walk 'normally' while the leg heals, etc. Even getting over the common cold often requires people to get more rest and make temporary changes to their 'normal' diets. If an injury lingers, if the healing is slow or develops complications... The amount of stress that is created can result in depression and despair. People can feel trapped and hopeless.

Positive experiences with ghosts is not unheard of but perhaps this is why it's a tiny bit uncommon. They have lingered with their injuries - physical, emotional and otherwise - and they just plain don't have the energy to deal with it on their own anymore. Some of them are open to recieving help and others are not. It's often delicate. Some don't like to ask for help. Some just don't think to ask. Some don't realize that they need help and some... It's more complex. Because that's how people are.

Ghosts are earthbound souls - some are too injured to leave us and others are just unwilling to leave. Some are hanging onto their loved ones and some are being held. There is a bright side: souls are eternal but ghosts generally are not. Most do eventually recieve help, thank goodness. But there is a lot of work yet to do.



Spirits are souls which are not earthbound and not injured. Hence these are more commonly the positive encounters. Because spirits are not distracted by their own pains, they are more likely to be aware of us and will often try to accommidate our limited perceptions in order to better communicate. Spirits can disrupt electrical appliances, create scent, create sound and move physical objects - usually with the intent of getting your attention or triggering specific memories. (Ghosts can do some of these feats as well but tend to be low on energy and motivation due to their injuries.) Since spirits are not earthbound, it is possible that their energy has the ability to exist in ways that might require quantum physics to describe properly. Basically, they could literally be fully presence in multiple places at once. Among other things.



Imprints are sometimes also called 'residual hauntings'. If you pick something up with bare hands then you leave a physical mark on it - your fingerprints. You also leave traces of your own personal energy on it. If the amount of energy that you project onto an inanimate object is especially strong then that object takes on an aura of its own. A childs favorite toy is an example of this - they drag the toy everywhere and love it. Why? And why do people have lucky socks or underwear or keychains? If we say that an object is lucky and treat it as if it is lucky then does the item in fact change? Does the item start to become luckier? Do we just project so much good energy at these favored items that eventually, they start radiating good energy back to us? These do indeed seem to be the current prevailing theorys.

Places can also absorb energy. Think of the Vietnam Memorial. So much unresolved pain... That's a negative imprint. Even people who know nothing about the war, who lost no personal friends or relatives, the sheer energy at that location... It affects the visitors, the way they feel and the way they behave. The way they remember and the way they speak of the past.

Most disaster sites do have physical marks of the traumatic events that happened in those places - wildfires leave scorch marks, hurricanes leave wreckage, wars leave graveyards, etc - but as with people, it's not just the physical aspect of the place that needs to heal. Think of September 11th. All the energy that was (and still is!) projected at that place. If they rebuilt the towers tomorrow, it wouldn't be enough to make people feel better - would it? We'd never be able to look at them in the same way. The Gulf Coast, all the troubles they've had and the seriously long-term clean-up that is going to be underway there... It's changed the way that people feel about visiting the area, changed the emotions and attitudes of the people there as well. It's not all negative energy getting sent that way but the negative IS probably the stronger side of it. I hope it doesn't become an imprint there.




If I wanted to stop believing in cars and trucks, does that make it safe to walk across the street without looking both ways? No, correct? Because cars and trucks will continue to exist whether or not I choose to believe in them. People can and do experience ghosts, spirits and imprints without believing in any of them at all. Because even though not everyone cares to admit it, we're all basically programmed with the goal of survival. Since energy is practically everywhere, being a little bit sensitive to energy is an important tool for survival in our world. It's like breathing, a skill that we use daily but take for granted most of the time. Breathing is not something that we often explain or are even fully conscious of most the time, it's just something that we do.


Life is a journey. Some people want to keep taking it for granted and some of us want to try to become more aware. To each their own.

I offer my opinion and that is all.

Hello Calmmountain. I am so happy we can agree to disagree.

You may find this surprising, but I don't go to church. Just go to a big church when services are letting out and watch some of them trying to get out of the parking lot, cutting each other off and honking their horns. Then they will go to lunch and have drinks, be rude to the server and not leave a tip. But they think since they have gone to church they have paid their dues to God for the week. But they will tell you they are a Christian.

Jesus didn't have his own church to preach in. He taught wherever people would listen to him. He never owned a home. He slept on the ground or at the home of someone who would take him and his friends in and feed them for the night. At the beginning of the Book of Revelations it starts off with Jesus sending letters to "the seven churches" telling them that they are living in sin and they must change their ways immediately, each letter worse than the next.

I was in a Christian bookstore not too long ago and there was a man, very nicely dressed in his church clothes (I assume, it was a Sunday afternoon), yelling at the young clerk behind the counter because the bible he had special ordered had not come in on time.

I see how things like this can turn people off from Christians, I really do. But there are still some of us, individual people, who really do love God with all our hearts and have a real love relationship with him and talk with him everyday and are truly greatful for our lives and try in every way possible to give back to him by loving and helping other people. Not by burning books (lol). I've seen what he can do, in my life anyway, and to me he is my everything. I would be dead several times over if he had not saved me and that's all I know.

There is a wonderful book out there that is about what you were talking about, Calmmountain. It is called "Crazy Love" and it by Francis Chan. He talks about "lukewarm Christians" who think it is enough to just go to church on Sunday and try not to cuss. He talks about how Christianity is about having a REAL love relationship with God and not taking the bible so lightly as people have come to do.

"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." (James 1:22)

Anyway, thanks for listening.

halochild

No, actually, this doesn't surprise me in the least. You've mentioned being a parent, Halochild. I know that there are churches with low to no tolerance of children. All christian parents that I've known seem to get glared at and a certain degree of cold shoulder treatment, even if they bring well-behaved kids to church. But the opinions seem especially harsh toward single parents. I've heard of single moms being being basically told that 'we don't want your kind here'. Then again, I've heard of married couples being told 'if you didn't get married in our church then you're not really married, so you're living in sin and we don't want you here.'

Seriously. Like I said before, there are all kinds of people claiming to be christian.

I'm glad that your faith has given you some positive support in your life, Halochild... but the way you describe it... Makes it sound kind of like you credit god for everything good that happens and then blame yourself for anything else. Which means that you kind of have this crutch - and we all have our quirks, don't get me wrong, we all need a philosophical crutch now and then... But it means that maybe you don't often take the time to credit yourself for anything good that you have accomplished. And that seems a shame.

WOW HALOCHILD!!!

We have something in common!!!

I love your post about most Christians............ basically being Hypocrites!!!

My wife is a waitress and she says the SAME thing - she says they come out of church every Sunday ALL dressed up nicely (like an expensive Tuxedo is gonna get them into Heaven) and they think they have paid there dues to God - then they talk to her like she is the lowest shit on the face of the earth!!! If i ever caught one of the motherfuckers talking to her like THAT - let's just say i'd make there heads SPIN!!!

But that's EXACTLY why i don't go to church either - because people are hypocrites!!! They say shit like - "If you don't go to church then you won't get into heaven" - yeah well BULLSHIT!!! Mr Tapass believes that WHATS IN YOUR HEART will get you into heaven. I'm sorry - but i personally don't have it in me to be hateful to a waitress if my drink is not on my table on time or my food is late coming out etc etc etc - it's not like the waitress is doing it on purpose - just remember the COOK has to make food for the hundreds of other greedy motherfuckers in the restaurant that arrived there before YOU!!! So if your food or drinks are late - it's because they are BUSY!!! So what gives anyone the right to come out of church thinking they are a SAVED goody two shoes and then talk to a waitress like shit!!! It's AMAZING!!! HYPOCRITES!!!

And then i've had my own personal experiences with these hypocrites!!! Now i'm not saying ALL Christians are like this - but the majority of the ones i have ran into are some of the most OFFENSIVE people i have ever met!!! I live in Florida but i am originally from England and these two faced motherfuckers have insulted ME, some of my American friends and my country!!! And they are ALL CHURCH GOERS!!! One of them said to me "Your here because this is the GREATEST country in the world" and i replied "No - i am HERE because i married an American citizen and she wanted to move back home with her family and i followed my WIFE you Dumbass!!!"

Another time - i was at work - and i was watching South Park in the break room - and they had edited out all the cussing with BLEEPS - but somehow still - one of these stupid hypocrites wanted me to CHANGE the channel because the BLEEPING was upsetting her!!! I felt like telling her "Yeah - it's upsetting ME too - i wish they wouldn't put all those fucking bleeps on there so i could hear what they are saying" - LOL

Yeah - i can go on and on - but basically - I believe there's higher power and sometimes i talk to this higher power when i need him - but i refuse to go to church to be around these morons/hypocrites and receive there bad energy incase it rubs off on me and i become like them. I'm not a perfect man (hey who is?) But i choose in my heart to follow what i feel is right, i try to treat people how i would like to be treated - and i only EVER hate on people if THEY dish it out first.

Thank you Mr. Tapass, you're cool!

And you're right. I'm sure you can ask your wife and she will tell you that you can ask any waitress or server, or anyone who has done this type of work, if they like to work on Sundays, and you can just see the expression change on their face. I've had friends who were servers and they would do anything to get out of their Sunday shifts just because of the "church people".

It's pretty damn bad when the Bible says Jesus will come back and the first thing he will do when he gets here is tell the churches "YOU SUCK!" haha

It's right there in Revelations.

And like Calmmountain said, its the people who need God the most, who are usually welcomed in church the least. If a man walked in on Sunday morning reaking of alcohol after a weekend drunk and said "I really need some help, I can't stop drinking and I'm ready to come to God", do you think they would embrace him? No! They would probably turn him on his heel and tell him to go to the local chapter of AA. And what if a prostitute walked in and came to the alter and said "I confess that I am a prostitute with 5 children all with different fathers and I can't feed my children any other way and I'm losing my home and I need some help." How do you think she would be welcomed?

And those two people are the exact people that Jesus sought out. The ones he wanted to be close to. The ones he tells us to reach out to.

What the hell are these churches doing???

LOL

It's not CHURCH anymore!!! That's the thing!!! It's more like a social gathering. To talk about how GREAT they are!!!

They are probably people that work in business or offices and they just gather in church on Sundays because in there minds they think that because they are sitting inside a church - they are automatically being Save!!! When really they just go there and fucking talk to each other about Business deals or "Hows your wife and kids doing?" or "Hey we must go hunting next week" or whatever the fuck it is they do - but i guarantee you it's NOT about being a BETTER person.

And they WON'T get into heaven because they have HATRED and GREED in there hearts. It's REALLY aggravating to witness that shit - but it's REAL and it's OUT there and it DOES happen!!! People are SELFISH HYPOCRITES!!! And it's disgusting for me to watch. So instead of catching any of there bad energy - if i want to talk to the BIG man - i'll pray at home - and he DOES listen. My prayers may not be answered right there and then - but they do eventually get answered in some way, shape or form.