Things that go bump in the night....

[caddyman]

Having been reading Lucya’s blog, syndicated on LJ As badwitchblog, I got to wondering about people’s attitudes towards ghosts and the supernatural generally.

I am generally sceptical about the entire business, but I do acknowledge that strange things do occur and that it is sometimes somewhere between difficult and impossible to think of a rational explanation. This does not, of course, mean that there is no rational explanation simply that it has not been found yet.

The interesting thing about belief, or lack of it, in the supernatural, is that it seems to operate separately to religion. I know more than one person who believes in God (the supreme supernatural entity!), but dismisses ghosts, goblins, fairies, sprites et al as flights of fancy. I don’t want to get into that, but as a matter of interest, I would like to know if you have religion of some kind. For the purposes of this entry, it doesn’t matter if you are (in no particular order) Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan or any of the other nine generally recognised world religions. It would just be interesting if you were to indicate belief in a deity or deities.

Even better, if you have any ghostly or strange experiences, it would be fun to read about them: annoyingly, I don’t as such. I have been in a few rooms with strongly unwelcoming atmospheres, but the nearest I ever got to a ghostly encounter was when I was about six or seven years old. I woke up one night and it seemed to me that there were two golden figures standing at the foot of my bed; one tall, the other short¹. There was no feeling of threat and they neither spoke nor moved. I thought they might be my Dad and little sister, but they didn’t respond when I spoke and I just lay back down to sleep. When I looked again (I think) a minute or two later they were gone. And that’s that: the nearest I have to a ghost story and it’s a damned boring one at that!

What strange experiences do you have?


[Poll #1253523]

¹They were not camels! (NWO in-joke).

Comments

[ellefurtle.livejournal.com]

I think I wanted to tick the maybe box for some of them as I haven't made my mind up. But then, if there was a maybe box, we'd probably all tick it!

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

That's why there is no maybe box!

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Richard Dawkins famously says that all of us are atheists to a degree; Christians don't believe in the Gods of Ancient Rome, for example. He (and other athiests) just take it one God further.

I'd count myself as a Christian (though woefully out of communion with the RCC) and therefore religious; however, I'm not sure I could answer "Do you believe in ghosts / sprites / etc.?" with a simple yes/no, or indeed without the ability to wave my hands, so I haven't filled out your poll.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Hmm...

Perhaps I should have put a 'maybe' option after all, but then I suispect that Elle is right, that would have got more hits than the others and not been particularly illuminating!

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

Interesting Post.

I am one of those who doesn't believe in Ghosts, or UFOs, yet does have a fairly strong 'Faith'. i.e I believe that there could be a 'god' but not that he it wears robes has a long white beard and sits on a cloud.

I keep meaning to do a post setting all this out, but essentially I do believe that there could well be a benign universal intelligence that our 'souls' may become part of after death - sort of like the intelligence described by Arthur C Clarke in the Space Odyssey sequence.

As a child I used to 'often' answer my Mum before she even asked a question - this wasn't random stuff I would apparently give very specific answer to questions she was about to ask me. However I lost the ability to do this at about 6 or 7 years old. My Mother shared a similar bond with her mum but it lasted into my Mothers 20's until she got married where they would actually share feelings, illnesses, thoughts and dreams. This was before phones were common place and my Mum lived in a bed-sit in London while her Mum lived in Gillingham Kent.

The nearest I have come to a supernatural experience was when I drove along a supposedly haunted stretch of the Caterham Bypass late one night - I had no knowledge of the haunting at all but after driving home late from a friends house in Woking I had the most chillingly real feeling that someone was in the car beside me in the passenger seat - as I turned the bend the sensation dissipated. Aside from being v creeped out I thought nothing of the event until several months later when I learned that there had been many odd sightings along the exact same stretch of road.

[romney.livejournal.com]

As you and others know, I'm a Christian, and firmly believe in both God and also the supernatural. The Bible describes various supernatural entities - demons, spirits, ghosts - and mostly says to have nothing to do with them. So I don't.
The exception is Angels who, from scripture, might be expected to drop round for tea on occasion, although it is not clear what the actual benefit it.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Do I? No.
Would I like to? Probably, but I'm a bit of an empiracist at heart, and would like to see the proof, experience it for myself.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

The exception is Angels who, from scripture, might be expected to drop round for tea on occasion, although it is not clear what the actual benefit it
They bring their own (well regarded) cakes?

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that in an article I read it quoted some research (which I don't have the reference to, but I believe was undertaken by CRUSE) that suggested that the majority of people had experienced something unusual after the death of a close person. Something like smelling their perfume, or hearing them run up stairs etc. Now, whatever you attribute that to, the experience of it is real. So, yes, I believe that people experience those things. For me, the jury's out on the causes. Often I suspect that the things we describe as supernatural are more likely to be natural, but as yet unexplained, and possibly inexplicable.

[ed-fortune.livejournal.com]

I feel feintly embarassed when talking about spooky things, but I actively divorce 'the weird' from 'faith'.

The former is stuff I can't find a rational explanation for, the latter is something that doesn't need a rational explanation.

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

The more I hear of Dawkins almost fanatical anti-religious rants the less I respect him as a man and scientist.

He hasn't said anything that greater minds like Carl Sagan hasn't said before and with a great deal more compassion and humility.

"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. " - Carl Sagan

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Having read excerpts from The God Delusion I did wonder how Dawkins got his reputation as a scientist, and had to re-read The Selfish Gene to remind myself.

He's really intelligent, and really good at what he does when it comes to science, but when it comes to religion he is, as you rightly point out, a fanatic.

Which is a shame, because he causes people to polarise; either for or against him, whereas someone like Sagan, from your quote, is reaching out to find common ground.

As an (atheist) friend of mine often says "I quite like Jesus, but I can't stand his fan club."

[jfs.livejournal.com]

My 'Maybe' comes from the belief that such things exist, but my explanation / belief of why and how they exist would probably differ significantly from some pagans (for example); possibly so much that it would be difficult to agree that we were talking about the same thing at all.

Hence the inability to write yes/no.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

One of the translations of 'Angel' is 'message from', rather than 'messenger of' God.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Angel Cakes?

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Fair point.

Perhaps rather than a 'maybe' option, I should have given more options, with stricter definitions, but it was done quite quickly as I was struck by curiosity.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I have problems with the idea of 'religion' cos it seems inevitably less a definition of relationship to some concept of god, and more to do with a conformist social structure.

The more paganism defines itself as a religion, the less comfortable I feel with it. I've got a spiritual system of my own that I believe in wholeheartedly, but that's for me; I can't even clearly explain it let alone share it. As for other things, um, yes, seen 'em lots, know they are there, but there are many explanations, some supernatural, some not. Identification is the fun bit!

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I was just using 'religion' as a catch all term, fully aware that there are varying interpretations of the word. I tried to cover what I was after in the preceding text. I nearly asked the question "Do you believe in God or a pantheon of gods?" but I thought that might be more counterproductive than simply asking about religion.

Essentially, the religion bit was simply to see if there was any sort of correlation between 'spirituality' as defined by belief in sentient higher forces or force, and ghosts.

Not being a believer myself, I find it interesting that people can believe in God, but dismiss the rest as fantasy.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Them's the ones *g*

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

I wonder what Frederich would have said about that?

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I see what you mean, But spirituality and 'otherworldly phenomena' have never been comfortable side by side, because the latter suggests a randomness at odds with the idea of a rational god, even when the mystery of it can seem to explain the presence of the unknowable; we need our gods to make human sense. Fairies, for example, have been around for aye and aye, but fitting them into the Christian mythos has been torturous. Ghosts are an uncomfortable suggestion that the doors of heaven and hell have dodgy latches.

Traditional Christianity (to take the religion I know most closely) is a bit at a loss with random psychic phenomena, or random creativity come to that. Fairies and ghosts often being a combination of the two - at least! - don't really fit at all.

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

What about fairy cakes then?

[ladkyis.livejournal.com]

no, Angel Food cakes...
Similar to Devil's food cakes but without the chocolate, thus proving that chocolate IS the deveil's winnits

Bizarre stuff

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

I have lived in a house where an awful lot of unexplained things happened. I'll give a few examples:

Mum used to knit and one night she stuffed it up and gave up for the evening, but when she picked it up the following evening to correct it she found that it had already been sorted out. Only two of us lived in that house, we hadn't had any visitors and she hadn't spent any more time knitting.

Mum got one of those really complicated 1980s digital watches that had an alarm on. Neither of us had any idea how to set the alarm, yet one day it was suddenly set to 10.15pm and any attempt by anyone to alter it would result in it resetting itself to that time a few days later. The thing that made this really spooky was that the TV would often change channel by itself within a few minutes of the watch alarm going off!

Sometimes bottles of wine or stockings would go missing or the oven would be found on in the morning (even if we hadn't cooked in it the previous night).

In a different house the stairs would sometimes creak as though someone was walking up them and the cat would seem react to someone who we couldn't see.

Also, I have had quite a few direct experiences of telepathy and possibly a couple of telekinesis. So I am not so sure that ghosts are necessarily something that exist only after death - I think it may be that we as a species have the ability to project our spirit somehow but just don't know how to use it and sometimes it happens accidentally.

Another example of that kind of thing was that one morning in the flat I woke up having had a very vivid dream that someone was loading my car onto a low loader and that I had run out into the street to scream at them to stop, but they couldn't see me and just carried on. When I looked out of the window the car was gone and there were the kind of tyre tracks that one would expect from a low loader backing onto the grass where the car was. It could have been a coincidence, but was generally a bit bizarre!

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

What Romney said.

My LJ page contains an account of the one ghostly and one demonic experience I have had. Just where it is in there, I don't know...

[ladkyis.livejournal.com]

After my grandmother died my grandfather had a spinal arterial thrombisis that left him paralysed from the waist down. The Doctors wanted to keep him in the gereatric hospital but he was so determined to get out of "the workhouse" that he taught himself to walk again. Because he had no feeling in his legs he had lots of accidents; falling down the step in the sittingroom, dropping a bottle of milk on his foot and breaking a bone, that sort of thing. One day Mum and I were out in the garden playing with my children and doing a bit of weeding when we both heard my grandmother call my mum's name twice. It was loud and urgent. Mum took off towards the house at a gallop and I followed behind having gathered the baby up from the lawn and chivvied the other two in front of me - gardens are not for the under threes without supervision.
When mum got to Pop (grandfather) he was sound asleep infront of the open fire. At some point he had removed the fireguard and put another log onto the embers and then settled back and gone to sleep. The wood had spit out a hot ember that had landed on his trouser leg and burnt through it and his woolly sock and was burning a hole in his leg.
The burn was small and after a trip to the local doctor it healed quickly. If Granny had not called us it could have been so much worse. We both heard her very clearly and my daughter, who was nearly four at the time asked where the lady's voice came from ..."did it come out of the sky?"
So yes I know spirit is there, I know that they watch over us, I don't believe they can see our future anymore than we can but they are there.

Re: Bizarre stuff

[w00hoo.livejournal.com]

So, what had happened to the car?

Re: Bizarre stuff

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

I never found out! I reported it as stolen and that was the last I heard of it.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Too soapy

Re: Bizarre stuff

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

*grins* Mum used to shout at me for stealing it - except I didn't, and there wasn't anyone else there!

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, my parents bought my grandmother's house and she moved to the Isle of Wight. I remember Mum commenting on how she felt a sense of peace in one of the rooms - one that my ill grandfather (who had died by then) rested in.
Spirit, or association - there's the question.

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

Sure, but the *feeling* exists either way, so I'm not sure it matters all that much. Also, many people report feeling comforted by those experiences. So I tend to thinking that it's best to just let people believe what they like about it. They will anyway!

[thomryng.livejournal.com]

I disagree with Dawkins. And not for the first time.

I certainly believe in the gods of Rome. I just don't believe that any of them are the One Creator of the Universe and Time™.

Angels, demons, ghosts, pixies, ancient gods - why not? I pray Psalm 94(95) every morning and I'm always struck by the lines

The Lord is god, the mighty God,
the great king over all the gods.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

True; sorry, my point was intended more as a point of support rather than a counter.

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

Ahh, sorry! I misread you. :)

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Seeing as I often hurl out comments in between pretending to work, it's more than possible that I wasn't conveying things as well as I wished.
Or, if you will, I mis-spoke (but not in a Clintonian/Hilary-ous fashion) ;)

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

Hee! Written text is weird, because you can't hear the tone of voice. Leads to all sorts of misunderstandings.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Well you don't have to be so sarcastic about it ;p

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

:)

[theo]

I don't really have a belief system. It is more of a speculation system. I think that I believe in some indifferent initiator. There seems to be so much that is beyond our understanding.

[w00hoo.livejournal.com]

When my father in law died his two daughters were discussing the Will and at one point where they were mentioning options they wouldn't do the bread-bin in the kitchen they were sat in slammed shut, startling them both. On returning to this house one of them found the postcard he had sent them had detached from the magnet holding it to the grid and was laying in the middle of the dining room floor. It had never moved before, nor since.

It was sufficient for them...

Personally, I don't believe in it, if only because I'd much rather retain my privacy thank you very much.

[w00hoo.livejournal.com]

I just believe we haven't worked it all out yet and when/if humanity finally does work it all out they will shake their heads at what was believed in much the same way that we would often do at the Egyptians or Aztecs.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

I think that polarization has its uses. For example, Atheists are one of the few minorities that most people think it's okay to despise or discriminate against.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/downey_24_4.htm

Polarizing puts a point on the meme, helps it travel. How many discussions has Dawkins sparked on the subject do you think? Quite a few.

Discussion sheds light.
Light is the way.

[boredinsomniac.livejournal.com]

I answered yes to the first two questions but I really thought they were too specific. I don't believe that Supernatural Creature Type A exists and Supernatural Creature Type B does not, and such things - there seem to be some things acting that we can't identify or explain, but I certainly don't know enough to explain what specific creatures they might be. Really, of course, ghosts or anything else are made up to explain this stuff, so I don't really believe in any of them.

My ghost story: I was a camp counselor staying in this three-walled structure with a tarp over the front, a few hundred feet into the woods. We slept on the floor. One night during a light rain, I was the last one awake and I kept thinking I heard footsteps coming from behind the structure around to the front. The first few times, I went to the tarp when they came around front, but I didn't see anyone there. After that I got a bit spooked and just lay there listening.

I am sure I wasn't asleep. I don't have physical sensation in my dreams, I never wonder repeatedly whether I'm dreaming, and they never go for such a long time with only one thing happening. The footsteps went around and around the building for what seemed like hours. It was very quiet and I heard no breathing or other noises from outside. Sometimes I would think that my imagination was running away with me, but sooner or later something would happen to prove otherwise. Like, I'd think it was the rain falling on the leaves, or a small animal, but then eventually I'd hear a definite left-right-left-right sequence of steps, or a stick breaking along with a footstep, or something else that could only be a person walking around. This went on until I finally fell asleep. I've been there many time over the years, but it only happened to me once.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

As you can see from the other comments, it's hard to come up with something quickly that covers everybody's thoughts on the matter. Still, it was meant to be a little bit of fun and nothing else. And although I had to do a follow-up post, I did get a few strange stories!

Belated happy birthday, by the way!

[boredinsomniac.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get that. and thanks!