Ghosts & Spirits: What do you believe?

I have always believed in the idea of spirits that wander the Earth. Whether good or evil; whether here for unfinished business or as a guide; I believe they are exist.

When I was 11, me and my friend saw what could have been an "apparition", something paranormal. However to this day I cannot tell if it was genuine, or our fear playing tricks on us. It's something I have been meditating on more and more recently.

Since seeing the possible apparition, I have been fascinated with the idea of ghosts. Which is why I wish to bring the matter here today. So I ask: do you believe in the paranormal? If yes, what do you believe? If no, what reasons do you have for doubting it? And it goes without saying that if you beleuev youve seen something, here is the place to post it!

I look forward to your inputs, may the Force be with you.

I have not personally had any encounters with what I would call ghosts or spirits but I know enough people who have whom I trust to say that I believe it's possible. I believe that it is possible that they are remnants of a person's energy that hasn't quite dispersed fully yet into the Force after their mortal form perished.

I also believe in the idea that inanimate objects can posses a spirit of their own in a sense. They can give off an energy of sorts. Many weapons that I have held felt as though they contain an energy and some vehicles as well. For example, in my family we will frequently name our cars. I drive a Mustang which I named Roy (after Roy Mustang from Full Metal Alchemist). People always feel like it's weird that I didn't give him a female name as is more common with cars but I honestly feel like he gives off a more masculine energy, that his spirit feels more male to me. If he were a girl he'd be Sally, as in the song Mustang Sally.

I don't believe in the paranormal as far as spirits or ghosts go. I do believe in what Goken described an an energy that radiates from all things. To me, that's an aspect of The Force.

That being said, I like to pretend I believe in the paranormal. And I mean "pretend" in the same way Sara from "A Little Princess" described her doll coming to life when there was nobody around:

"Can she-walk?" [Ermengarde] asked breathlessly.
"Yes", answered Sara. " At least I believe she can. At least I PRETEND I believe she can. And that makes it seems as if it were true. Have you never pretended things?"

I own a Tarot deck that I use from time to time. I notice people's astrological signs. I went to a medium once when I had the opportunity...

Deep down, my rational, skeptical mind doesn't let me truly believe in the paranormal, but it's still fun to play around with. And I sometimes learn things by accident about myself when messing about with it.

I believe there are things I have never seen that are there anyway.

That said, how I view spirits, ghosts, demons...these are the ripples we leave behind when we die.

When it comes to the paranormal, I have a problem. I am on a very deep, basic level, wholly unable to tell it from the normal. No matter what I see, be it ever so bizarre and unnatural, I have no way of concluding just from the experience alone, what caused it. I am a flawed mind stuck in a body with a flawed brain operating with flawed senses among peers who suffer from all of the same imperfections to their condition. I know I can be tired, I know I can be fooled, and I know that I can remember things that did not occur, at least not the way I remember them having occurred. This is not to say that my senses and mind are fundamentally or mostly or even only some of the time unreliable. But this is the one and only reason, the foundational reason, if you will, for any and all skepticism, in my opinion. Out of the two possibilities that I was subjected to yet another of a thousand daily flukes of my own mind or a deception on the one hand, and that I instead witnessed the appearance of a being that boldly defies everything we know about what little we know anything about on the other, I would suspend all pretense of intellectual honesty before I could insist that the latter be a more likely case than the former. Insofar as ghosts or spirits do exist in any sense of that word, until such time that their sightings became commonplace to the point of being regarded as mundane, I am stuck unable to tell the rare genuine sighting from just another lie or error.

rugadd wrote: I believe there are things I have never seen that are there anyway.

That said, how I view spirits, ghosts, demons...these are the ripples we leave behind when we die.

I believe in something a little similar. Rather than ripples left behind, spirits are the person left behind, perhaps with unfinished business. The amount of stories I have read in which one come back from "the beyond" to give conclusive evidence on their own murder; evidence that could not have been witnessed by anyone other than the murderer...

That's my take. That being said, the unfinished business isn't always positive. Perhaps there are some that just wish to torment.

You mentioned Demons, I have read that they are creatures that were "Never of this world" but simply some kind of evil or malevolent energy. Similarly to the above, all they do is cause torment, according to sources.

As I personally don't believe in a coherent, everlasting soul, this pretty much rules out ghosts and spirits for me as well. I believe in the continuation of life after death - but simply by rearrangement of the elements that now make up my body. In the universe, nothing is ever lost. Everything is connected through the Force.

I believe there is more we have still not discovered in reality than mankind has ever dreamed in fantasy




So, no, I don't believe in Ghosts, but then, a lot of the things I do believe, and rely on every day, some people find too ridiculous to contemplate.

Death, yet the Force wrote: So I ask: do you believe in the paranormal? If yes, what do you believe? If no, what reasons do you have for doubting it?

I don't believe it's 'para'normal. I think it is quite natural lol.

Let me see how simple I can keep this hahahaha.

Spirits are beings I regularly interact with. I think there are two kinds of things people usually see in this world. Echoes or impressions, these are what you see repeating but don't interact. There are also intelligent ones that will talk, move (non-repetitive) or interact.

There are also malevolent creatures that also come by to have their go at people for various reasons.

But I also know that the human memory is an imperfect thing. Great use for surviving, but we tend to trick ourselves into seeing things. There are several instances where I think I saw something but doubt it enough to not claim it. Some that I believe were spirits but it's still up in the air because I have no solid proof. But I've also had one specifically that had enough other people around to witness the ghost and the events around it that I can't explain it away.

I've heard others talk about things going bump by ghosts etc, but never had any physical event strong enough to satisfy me yet. But I am open and do believe in some supernatural stuff. It's just always subconscious manifestations for me.... whether or to what extent that is accessing real information outside of my otherwise normal perception or just creations of imagination are unknown. Just sights, sounds, visions etc. Such that I assert conditional belief to facilitate progress in exploring it, but besides that am critical as much as possible. Though in the early days of electronics I noticed a lot of funny patterns in failures of high use personal electronics :lol:
Such that I entertained the concept (lightly) of my computer having a spirit or being a vessel for spirits!!! I also gave my turntables names, but that was a different thing entirely :dry:
I tend to currently think the Force exists throughout space, but gets clouded and distorted as matter by gravity wells, and by its nature allows some capacity to predict short term future events and hold patterns (like sentience) within its structure, and that sentience within the Force has a hard time interacting with matter..... so yea my head is in the clouds a little bit on this topic :silly: