RSS Feeds: Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Before I begin, this is a quick aside for the people who believe the gospels of the New Testament. When Jesus (Yeshua, Yashua, Joshua, and other names depending on the bible version) returned to the disciples after his resurrection, he told them he was not a ghost. If ghosts didn't exist, why would he be compelled to tell them that he wasn't one?
Before 2003, I didn't believe in ghosts. That changed after my father-in-law (whose name was Joshua, coincidentally) died as the result of a traffic accident in 2003. Between May of 2003 (when he died) and April of 2006 (when I left the US), I had random encounters with what I believe are ghosts. At least on one occasion, I thought it was my father-in-law. In the last couple of weeks, I've started seeing things again as I explained in my article, Okay, I Am Officially Weirded Out.
When I lived in Phoenix, after my father-in-law died, I worked at night (5 pm to 5 am to be exact), 4 days on and 4 days off. On one of the nights I was off, I was in the family room watching TV. I got up to get a drink and spotted the back of someone wearing a white t-shirt as the person exited the kitchen (which was between the family room and the dining room). I only saw the backside of the person, but it looked like my father-in-law! I rushed after the person, only to find nothing but air.
I thought I was the only one in my family seeing things. It turned out I was completely wrong about that. My wife and son both saw things during the period I saw things in the US. My wife described one night where she was up late playing mahjong with some friends in the family room. She saw a white t-shirt out of the corner of her eye walking in the living room, which was visible via the downstairs hallway. She yelled at our son, Jonathan, to go back to bed. The other players looked at her like she was crazy and told her he had been asleep for hours. She ran upstairs and he was indeed fast asleep.
Jonathan described to me an incident that was similar to the incident I had, except that the t-shirt color was red. Both my son and my father-in-law were fond of wearing white t-shirts around the house, usually undershirts.
After I published that article, and told my wife everything, she blabbed it to her brothers and sisters. Guess what? They've been having the same experiences that I have had, except that it has been going on since two of my brothers-in-law were murdered more than 5 years ago. In fact, the older victim was spotted next to a tree (that was removed to build my house) not more than two years ago, but only for a few seconds.
Before I started seeing things from 2003 onward, I just thought my in-laws were overly superstitious and prone to seeing things. I no longer think that way. The one thing I don't like about recent occurrences, and my wife's big mouth, is that now my in-laws are afraid to come into my house after dark.
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It could very well be a ghost. You see I believe in spirits – not in the sense Westerners do, but I do think that our "soul" and our "bodies" need not necessary be one and the same. And of course, it is possible that your father-in-law's spirit is still lurking in this world.
In our country, that's why we have the ceremonies performed every year on the anniversary of a person's death. These are not merely superstitious but they have some meaning in that the message is that people who die simply do not cease to "exist." And yes, people who die violent or unnatural deaths are more prone to reappear as a spirit in this world than those who die naturally of old age or similar (in other words, those who've died after their time). It shows that the person who died has more attachment to this world than the next.
It might sound silly to a lot of people, but the concept of birth, re-birth and karma are a very vital part of my religion and I do have faith in the theory that I was once my own ancestor.
I don't know about your religion, but this definitely needs investigation. In our country, we perform ceremonies and rituals to keep our ancestors happy in spirit.
Regards.
Absolutely!
I've always believed in ghosts, but living in Hawaii has reinforced it wholly to where there is absolutely no doubt that spirits exist.
I think hari has a very good point in the cases of spirits still having attachment to the world. Most of my encounters were in a very old house in Kalihi Valley, which used to be the home for an artist community (drugs were prevalent) and then a brothel. The spirits we encountered were young in every case and tended to be abusive males or females. My fiance always felt a sense of doom when she was there by herself and would see peripheral movement or like someone was standing right on top of her.
You're not alone!
Hari, I don't have a religion. I believe in God, for very personal reasons, but I do not believe in all the things that religion encompasses.
My wife's family is Roman Catholic, but they follow the same tradition as Latinos in that they celebrate the "day of the dead" as opposed to Halloween (or All Hallow's Eve), which is the very next day. On that day, they have certain ceremonies they go through that sounds much like what you describe.
And for what it's worth, I respect your religion and the history of it. I find it uniquely interesting.
Hawaii, where I lived for a total of 6 years (a long story). It has a long history of apparitions. People have been known to see "memories" of famous battles without having prior knowledge of them.
Yeah, I think you could ask just about anyone who has lived in Hawaii an extended period of time and a large majority would say they believe in spirits. I'd wager not one person doesn't know of the Night Marchers.
I had sporadic encounters throughout my travels in the U.S. Navy in Massachusetts and Charleston, S.C., but Hawaii is on an entirely different level.
After we moved out of that house into a new place, we haven't had any encounters. I think the older a place is, the more likely the chance of a spirit encounter.
Ah, I'm no expert in such things…
By the way, I think that one article I read a while ago in a newspaper about similar experiences of a person said that the nature of a spirit is very much dependent on the type of person he was when living.
I have never had a personal experience, but I certainly believe that they exist. Both testaments of the Bible speak of them; members of my family have had experiences; countless people have had experiences regardless of their religion, personal beliefs, soberness, or intelligence.
In one sense I am not thrilled they exist because it's creepy (lol), but their existance (whatever their motives) does mark that there is definitely something beyond this life.
Josh, my experiences up to now are just the beginning, I think. As I continually question everything and open my mind to every possibility about life, death, and everything in between, I think I'm going to be seeing a lot more than I care to. Creepy indeed!