Do You Believe In Spirits?

[florduh]

florduh, that's cool you worked as a magician. Have you seen this clip where Derren Brown hosts a seance?

 

Derren Brown is the king, in my book. Here in the States I've learned some things from Kenton Knepper, who creates and performs similar feats as Brown.

 

Kenton has a good quote: "As long as there are scientists making claims that psychic and intuitive thought is a scam, psychics and psychic performers will have a job, performing what science claims is impossible."

[Brother Jeff]

I don't know if ghosts exist or not, but I will share some experiences I have had.

 

When I was a teenager, I used to hear knocks on the walls at night as I tried to go to sleep. I saw apparitions on the walls. My bed would shake though I wasn't moving a muscle. After I got slaved and gave my life to Kryasst, the music minister of our church came and prayed in my room, and the ghostly activities stopped. Or maybe they stopped because I stopped smoking shitloads of pot every day... I just don't know...

[Insanity personified]

I believe in the spirit of human ingenuity

[TheHammer]

I don't believe there are any supernatural entities out there in the traditional meaning of the word. As of yet I have still to hear of or see anything that simply could never have had a natural, logical explanation (and I mean natural according to current scientific knowledge). However, I'm open to the possibility that there are other dimensions of which we simply have no part, as explained by Carl Sagan for instance. A 4D creature would, to a 3D creature, look either incredibly strange or be invisible, just like a 2D creature would look flat to a 3D creature. We are 3D creatures, or at least our organs experience everything (to my knowledge) in 3 dimensions.

 

In any case, if "spirits" existed and perhaps were 4D beings, then it would not be beyond science to find out how such things exist, come into being and cease to exist, but until science confirms that there is some connection between "spirits" and some dimension, I see no reason to believe anything that lacks support by tangible evidence.

 

But yeah, if the exorcists here could perhaps tell us something that they think could never have been produced by suggestion, placebo or anything of the sort, then that would be nice, because so far, like people have said here before, it's all about personal experiences. If you could tell us about experiences with your ex-clients remaining anonymous etc, then perhaps that would be a way to do it?

 

Personally, I have one single experience that I have yet to explain and which seems too strange to me to be an obvious coincidence: I'm sure a lot of the ex-Christians here are familiar with "spiritual warfare" and things. When I felt such an "attack" coming on, I would feel like god had abandoned me. I would coldsweat and panic about going to hell. It was awful. One of those nights, I prayed fervently for god to urge someone to pray for me. The next day, I received a text from a then fellow Christian, who asked if I was alright and she said she had woken up in the middle of the night and felt very strongly that she needed to pray for me. Now, what I think may be the explanation is that I may have sent a text to her that night asking her to pray for me, but I don't remember doing that. I may still have done it and simply, in my wish to believe that god had answered my prayer, willfully forgotten having sent her the text, but then it wouldn't make sense for her to say she had woken up (by herself, not by the phone), unless of course she was lying, but then, why would anyone lie about something like that?

[florduh]

The next day, I received a text from a then fellow Christian, who asked if I was alright and she said she had woken up in the middle of the night and felt very strongly that she needed to pray for me.

 

I can tell you that I had a couple of relatives who made statements and phone calls like that. Sometimes, in my experience, certain Christians feel they are spiritual warriors and just do shit like that, especially if they just read something on the subject or recently heard a sermon about it. When Aunt Mary would tell my dad she was "burdened" to pray for a situation he might be having, he always played along, fitting something in his life at the time to her "burden." It was like a New Ager making the cold reading fit, because it must.

 

I'm just saying it could have been coincidence.

[Vomit Comet]

i hope i can eventually say the same thing, i think there is still some sort of mental block that wont let me let go of my experiences on this one....

 

i really really hope

 

Me too, man. I hope to goddamn hell that none of it was ever real.

[Vomit Comet]

All I got are anecdotal experiences. And I could easily write them all off, were it not for the following:

 

There have been many cases where several people independently experienced the same thing, only to find out later that they all saw/felt/heard the exact same thing. It's those cases that prohibit me from being 100% certain that it was all phony-baloney, as much as I would like to be able to be so certain.

 

See, there's one of three possibilities here:

 

1. It was all fake, or the result of mental illness on my part or the part of others.

 

2. It was real, but it was a different, larger or separate reality from "Christianity." So there are "beings" out there, but not God or Satan or demons and angels or anything.

 

3. It was real, and it was what I/we thought it was at the time, which would therefore mean that Christianity is all or partly real. Which would really fucking suck.

 

I had a dream last night where it turned out Christianity was real. I was told to repent. My brother stood with me and was confused. So I told my brother to go to them. He was then wearing a white robe and he went down the hill to join the throng of white-robed souls. But I remained standing there and I looked up the hill at the door to hell (it was taking place in a gigantic underground cavern) and decided to enter through it because I just couldn't bring myself to once again acknowledge the Christian God. Basically, I told my brother to save himself, but I didn't want to be saved even though I could have.

 

I woke up right before I walked up through the door to hell.

 

That should tell you how I feel about the possibility of #3 being true. And I hope to goddamn hell that #1 is the case, but I guess I could live with #2.

 

Edited to add: anyways, I plan on telling my full story at one point. (It's long as hell.) And if anyone could convince me that it was 100% fake, I would be eternally grateful to them. So, until next time....

[Vigile]

I reject the belief in any "spiritual" entities for the exact same reasons I reject Christianity. IMHO there are valid alternative explanations for sightings and feelings and sounds that others have claimed. I personally find these explanations satisfying and I don't find satisfying any of the apologetics I have thus far encountered for the claims. I too am open to being proven wrong, but thus far the claims I've heard and read are equally dubious to the claims of xianity.

[Casey]

Or maybe they stopped because I stopped smoking shitloads of pot every day...

 

That may well have had something to do with it.

Casey

[I Broke Free]

For me, any type of supernatural is completely ludicrous.

 

 

Same here, my mind does not work that way. I never seriously entertain the idea that anything I can’t explain has some supernatural component. I feel perfectly content to have a lot of unanswered questions floating around in my mind.

[orlando]

I think Derren Brown is cool as well - he wrote a book about some of his methods/ideas which I would recommend.

 

I don't think spirits are real, but think the mind can play strange tricks on people that make them think they are experiencing spiritual phenomena. There is still a lot that is not well understood about the brain and consciousness etc - for example the experience of multiple personalities. I have met people online who consider themselves " healthy" multiples - they are aware that two or more seperate people/consciousnesses share their body and take turns to be in charge. Often these seperate people are aware of each other and able to cooperate. I think something similar, but without the element of control and acceptance, is happening when someone seems to be possessed, for example. It is thought that traumatic expriences sometimes cause a splitting of the personality. I think when people think they hear voices something similar is going on - and that it is real to them, but is not being caused by some objective being deriving from outside their brain.

 

I would be interested if the ex-exorcists could give some - anonymous, with any identifying features taken out - examples of any things they experienced that could seemingly have no rational or physical explanation?

[Vomit Comet]

I will when I have time. It's gonna be half a book I'm afraid.

[orlando]

I will when I have time. It's gonna be half a book I'm afraid.

 

Ok, look forward to it. I mean I find it hard to think of anything that would prove some "spiritual" or "paranormal" phenomenon was objectively real and not psychological - possible examples could I guess include : if a possessed person was able to speak fluently a language they never learned or if there were genuine poltergeist phenomena like objects flying through the air untouched

[Legion]

I believe in the spirit of human ingenuity

I think this is nicely said IP.

[Neon Genesis]

My thoughts on all things supernatural is the same as my thoughts on the existence of god. I don't think it's impossible that an afterlife or supernatural beings like demons or ghosts can exist. But if they do exist, I don't think there's any evidence they've interacted with the physical realm or are too concerned with humans and I don't find the personal subjective experiences of people who say they've experienced supernatural beings to be compelling enough.

[Vixentrox]

I believe that there are things science has not explained yet. So, "something" might indeed be out there but it might just be some strange electromagnetic phenomenon, weather effect, psychological thing, odd life form, alien, ect.

[.god]

I heard an interesting question on the radio today about ghosts...

 

Why do ghosts always wear clothing?

 

anyone have any experiences with naked ghosts?

[Vomit Comet]

I just had an image of "streaker" ghosts running across a college campus in the middle of the night, hooting and hollering.

[Neon Genesis]

3. It was real, and it was what I/we thought it was at the time, which would therefore mean that Christianity is all or partly real. Which would really fucking suck.

Whether demons or spirits of sorts exist or not, I think it's highly unlikely that they would be Christian spirits. Because in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Abraham said it was impossible for you to cross over to the other side once you went into hell. So if demons are in hell, then that would mean it's impossible for the demons to leave hell and come over to this side. But then wouldn't this also contradict the bible stories of demon possession if you can't cross over to the other side once you're in hell?

[Vomit Comet]

3. It was real, and it was what I/we thought it was at the time, which would therefore mean that Christianity is all or partly real. Which would really fucking suck.

Whether demons or spirits of sorts exist or not, I think it's highly unlikely that they would be Christian spirits. Because in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Abraham said it was impossible for you to cross over to the other side once you went into hell. So if demons are in hell, then that would mean it's impossible for the demons to leave hell and come over to this side. But then wouldn't this also contradict the bible stories of demon possession if you can't cross over to the other side once you're in hell?

 

I was taught that Satan's kingdom was "the kingdom of the air", so basically everything between the ground and outer space was their turf. Him and his demons weren't going to be cast into hell until the end times; in the meantime, they're here to fuck with us and meddle in or outright orchestrate the world system. I was taught that satan was the "god of this world" and that we Christians were here to war against him, with sporadic help from God/Jesus, until the day when big bad Jesus comes down to kick Satan's ass.

[PandaPirate]

I beleive in electromagnetism.

[The Sage Nabooru]

Mind reading is something entirely different though. And very real.

My first hand account:

I dated a girl (very briefly!) who could and did read my mind. She told me she could and I didn't buy a word of it. First she pulled a three digit number out of my head. (Okay, that was neat.) Then she told me what five digit number I was thinking of. (Alright, I'm impressed.) Then she told me what seven digit phone number I was thinking of. (At no point in time had she ever met any of my family. She didn't even know any extended family names. I thought of my Grandmothers phone number. There was no way she could have known that number.)

Then she had me think of a name. I ran through a couple and landed on an old classmate with a very odd name. We used to tease him because of it. It sounded like it was straight out of a Dickens novel. Yeah, that weird.

Without saying a word, she grabbed a pencil and wrote down his name. She only had one letter wrong. I broke up with her that night

 

This girl lived 25 miles away and had moved to the area from even further, only a few years before I met her. There was no way she could have known the things she did.

 

My mom had a weird experience like that once.

 

They were having a party up at her work, and they had some kind of psychic there - I think a palm-reader. Now keep in mind my mom's a total, committed Christian, who believes this woman has neither skill nor power.

 

She told my mom she'd lose something "somewhat important" that night, and that she'd find it.....She got a weird look on her face, and finally said "nightstand? It's like a small cabinet or something...... It's behind that." My mom just kinda rolled her eyes, smiled, and went on.

 

Later that night after she was home, she and my dad decided to go out for a drive, and her keys are missing. Of course, my dad has keys, and there's another set, but my mom's one of those people that, when something's missing, the world ends until she finds it. She checked every and all places she could have possibly put her keys, either because she usually put them there, or allowed that she might have temporarily abandoned her usually highly-predictable self and put them somewhere odd. Nothing. She was about to totally lose her mind, when she was looking around in her closet (I was about to lose my mind too - you ever been around obsessive people when they lose something?), tossing stuff everywhere, when she found the keys behind her jewelry box, a fairly odd one my dad had made for her, which resembled a small cabinet more than a jewelry box. So she was right.

 

Coincidence? I have to answer with the eternally irritating "Maybe, maybe not". I think people tend to draw their conclusions about such events based on what they want to be true and happen, and either elaborate thereon on its mystical properties or dismiss it as nothing. For me, the challenge is to examine each case individually, which often leaves me with the issue of having to accept that at this point most of the time I simply do not know.

[PiracyOfTheHead]

If you exorcists can provide any proof of the supernatural I would be grateful. I am not trying to challenge or be argumentative. I just want to understand what people who are involved in such things actually experience, and if there is any video, photos or audio authentication.

 

Florduh, I have pictures of multiple orbs, shaped beings of light, faces, whats known as ectoplasm, and entire areas of colored "light".

 

There were no shots with the same pattern or even the same color, they varied so much from orbs, to blobs, to ecto, to faces, to entire flashes of colored light, to me it seemed absolutely impossible it was a camera error, there were also intermittent shots with nothing in them, maybe 1 of 4 was blank, we had blacked out the entire apartment and turned off or covereed all electrical devices after the first few nights, that didnt change a thing..

 

I took these pictures in our old apartment 2 years ago, starting on halloween, and for 3 straight weeks until the digi cam stopped working all together.

 

I sat on this info a while, took it to a priest and had exorcisms done, masses said for my family and so on.

 

about a year later I sent a few in to a "ghost hunting" org., they kinda blew them off and wanted to come out, but we had already moved out of the place.

 

I asked them to PLEASE verify the photos, run tests on them etc etc., because I had taken them myself and knew I hadnt forged them, maybe they get a lot of bullshit because they didnt wnt to take the time, I was quite dissappointed and I said screw it.

 

After that I found out about TAPS and GHI, (I hadnt watched TV for 5 years or so) so I looked at their websites, watched their shows and I didnt have the cash to buy a new camera but I found my mother had a pretty high tech mini recorder, I tried it out for 3 nights straight and was able to pick up distinct voices and a lot of "whispering" or muttering...thatw as the creepiest part.

 

I backed all of these up onto a mini disc, then our computer crashed. When I checked the disc, out of the 100+ photos we had, only about 15 or so were onthe friggin mini disc. I still have about a dozen and a half of the really good pics.

 

I sent them to a friend of mine as well so they will be on his hard drive, there may be some of the ones I lost on his comp.

 

How can I attach them to my posts?? I am willing to do so as long as I can request that nobody copy them and use them as their own,i dont know WMDs policy on stuff like that here and i have never put an attachment onto a post.

 

If anybody wants me to do this and knows the policy about copyright...as well as how to attach them please reply or PM me.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

I don't know what to believe about spirits. They are hard to test scientifically. I have my own accounts with what appeared to be a demon, as well as others who have related spooky things to me.

 

My own experience was in the Nazarene church during a morning service. The pastor was talking about the reality of the spirit world when a woman let out a scream that didn't sound like it could be made by her, more like a wildcat scream mixed with tearing metal. She flipped over backwards into the pew behind her and kept growling. I think we lost half the congregation to that incident.

 

My sister said that she kept hearing footsteps, and one morning after a new snow, there were footsteps leading out from the upstairs window across the roof, with half a footstep leading out from the window frame. (I don't know why would snow be affected and not the wood)

 

A couple of friends related several ghosts being in the Victorian house they refurbished. One is a woman in a blue chiffon dress that they only ever see passing by a doorway. One was a 10-year old boy that liked to play with the other kids that visited, and who left their house to stay with the relatives. And the last was the mother-in-law ghost that would take things and hide them out of spite.

 

But I don't know what to make of these things now. I know that people can talk themselves into a lot, otherwise we wouldn't have religions, and I wouldn't have followed a religion for so long. But the accounts are intriguing to me, and I'd like to visit the Victorian place again.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

One other thought occurred to me today. If we assume that spirits exist, just because a spirit represents itself as a particular character doesn't mean that it really is that character. For example, a famous occultist says he had an encounter with something that claimed to be the Egyptian deity Horus. In the Bible people have encounters with a spirit that claims to be God. Then again the occultist was known to take drugs to attain such "visions", so he may have only been encountering what he wanted to see and his brain filled in the rest.