Ghost, Spirits, Etc...

[veritasseeker90]

What does everyone believe about this? I can honestly say me and my family has had many encounters with that which is strange and unexplainable.

And many theories have circulated around, both in Christian and Non-Christian circles.

Do you believe it's "spirits", demons, other dimensions, our imaginations, or what?

I'm quite interested to see what pops up in this discussion. ;D

[duchessashley]

I was scared to death of "ghosts" growing up. Saw the movie "Poltergeist" at a way too young of an age and that, forgive the pun, haunted me for a great deal of my adult life. My husband took a pastorate at a church and the parsonage was right next door to the cemetary. I had just had a baby, so I was up in the middle of the night for feedings...and many nights, I really thought I was going to die of fright. Lived in that house for 2 years - never saw or heard a thing. My fear of "ghosts" - cured. Don't believe in them anymore.

Indeed, I do believe that demons exist. The Bible says so. But as for the rest of it - hooey. ;D

[tris]

Neil Anderson has two really awesome books out that deal with this from a practical viewpoint...Bondage Breakers and Victory Over the Darkness.
Both can be termed "spiritual warfare" books. It's the best handling of this topic I've read.

There are no such thing as ghosts; however, there are demonic forces at work in the world and while I don't advocate going out and looking for them, Christians do have to deal with them. (Sometimes we dismiss it as our imaginations when it's really not.)
One of my very good friends was a missionary in Hong Kong that experienced a demon sitting on his chest after praying for a man enslaved by a demonic idol.
We dealt with this issue in our little family while serving overseas and Anderson's books helped us break free from a lifetime of "fear of things that go bump in the night."

[metalikhan]

My family has also had many encounters with the uncanny.

The most recent occurred when I went to help my mom and sisters earlier this month. We were on their deck taking a break when a phone started ringing in the house. Odd, because my cell phone was clipped on my belt, my sister's cell was on the picnic table next to her, and the cordless house phone was on mom's lap. Odd, too, because the tone sounded like the ringing from the early rotary dial phones and quite distant even though it was inside the house. I started to get up but mom said, "You won't find it. It's just Amber letting us know she's fine." Amber (my 19 y.o. adopted sister) passed away a little over two years ago, three days after her car took a plunge into an icy river. Mom said the ringing phone started a week after her death, occurring once or twice weekly since that time.

Another thing occurred at the time of her accident, although none of us heard about it until a month after her death. When her car went through the guardrail and into the river, the first two cars behind her stopped immediately. One driver was a medic just getting off his shift; the other was a nurse on her way to work. Because there was a drop down to a narrow ledge on the riverbank, the medic and two more drivers who stopped lowered the nurse to the ledge first then helped the medic down. Another man was helping Amber onto the ledge when they lowered the nurse. She and the medic started working on Amber whose core temperature had dropped below 90 degrees. The nurse looked up to ask the other man a question. He was gone. The only thing she or the medic could recall about him was that he wore blue jeans and a brown flannel shirt, and was completely dry (unlike anyone else on the ledge). No one standing on the highway's shoulder saw a fourth person on the ledge.

In the three days following the accident, Amber never remembered how she got out of the car and to the ledge. Because the river was so swollen and running so fast, her car remained in the river until late summer — attempts to retrieve it proved too dangerous for the divers. When the nurse contacted my folks a month later, she related what happened on the ledge; and she said the only conclusion she and the medic could reach about the other man was that he was an angelic being assisting Amber so she could die in peace at home rather than in the river.

Those are just two examples involving one family member. There are others. I can only think of one occasion where evil seemed so palpable that even animals reacted to it. Most occurrences in my family have not generated fear; rather, they gave assurance and pointed toward God.

Is that one of the applications of testing spirits? To discern if the occurrence attacks our faith in God or strengthens it?

It's an especially difficult topic when you have personal experience(s) with unusual manifestations. There are no easy answers.

[Christian Soldier]

I read one theory by a British exorcist. He posited that often times the manifestations we see are spirits, whether demon or angel, that inhabited the deceased. Sometimes I think these spirits find themselves bound to where the person lived or died or find themselves attracted to someone within that blood line. The book was entitled "Dark Sacrament", but it's not scary or anything. It's just a list of ten "real" stories told by two different exorcists in two different sects of Christianity.

[Nova]

This is a topic ive been thinking about for a bit over a month. A friend of mine who also has been thinking about it sat down and came up with a few different ideas as to this.

There is of course the view that these esperinces are from Demons. In 1 Thes. 5:23 Paul says that humans are made up of mind, Body, and spirit. Ive researched this and found different views such as that at death the body dies, the soul goes to heaven, or hell, and the it is unknown what happens to spirit. Whitch in many ways considered the life force of existence. Could these things seen be this life force so imprinted in the routines of people that they continue doing things that they had always done. Not saying these things would be alive but a mindless copy of an individual.

One thing ive wondered is in Jesus parable of Lazerus and the rich man. We are shown a hell with obvious levels to it. As Lazerus is in the place with Abraham. However at this time access to heaven was impossible so what were seeing is a hell with atleast two levels.

I dont hold closely or preach these thing, i like other people have pondered and tried to understand these things. These are alternative ideas ive lookin at.

[Divides the Waters]

I used to think that the spiritual issue was pretty black and white. The more I study it, the more I'm reminded of the line from Hamlet (Act 1, Scene V): "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreampt of on your philosophy."

[metalikhan]

I've also read that the spirit & soul are separate things, although the version I read said the soul was that part of us where our mental processes and personalities reside. If I remember correctly, the book said the soul was what lingered, sometimes visibly, while the spirit moved on to God's presence (or separation from God); and spirit and soul would be reunited at the same time as our spirits are reunited with our resurrected bodies.

Another explanation I've heard is that what we call ghosts are actually glimpses of a bend in the river of time, visible under certain circumstances in certain locations. Not a lingering dead person, not a demon or angel — merely a peek at a loop of time when the person was alive.

[Always]

I wrote a paper in Greek class at seminary about whether the Biblical understanding is that a human is unitary, binary (body and soul), or trinary (body, soul and spirit). I forget the exact verse, but Paul does use trinary language somewhere, so as far as I'm concerned, that's confirmed; humans possess body, soul and spirit.

[jfranklin]

When Jesusis back among his disciples after the Third Day, he tells them he is not a ghost and offers to eat in their presence. Does this suggest that Christ was acknowledging that there could be ghosts?

[waldenwriter]

Personally, I believe spirits exist. Angels and demons are definitely real, as is the human spirit. But I don't believe in ghosts. All those paranormal shows about talking to ghosts, etc don't really interest me. If there are ghosts in a story (like the Harry Potter series, for example), I don't mind reading about them, but I don't believe they truly exist.

Someone pondered the idea of what happens to our spirits when we die. Obviously our body remains here and our soul goes to heaven or hell (or purgatory, as Catholics believe). I guess since the Bible says we will have spiritual bodies in heaven that I always thought our spirits would be present in those bodies. But I guess our soul, the thing that goes to heaven or hell (or purgatory), would be what inhabits those heavenly bodies. So I don't know where our spirit goes.

The Ancient Egyptians had an interesting idea about the mind-soul-body thing. They believed that in addition to the body, one had a Ba, which represented one's personality (similar to our concept of a soul today) and a Ka, or spiritual "double," as it is often translated (though it is more like one's life-force). The idea of the Ka in particular is used quite a bit in Egyptian myth, including "The Greek Princess," the only non-Greek story from antiquity about Helen of Troy (that I know of), where the real Helen is kept safe in Egypt while Helen's Ka goes with Paris to Troy. I suppose the Ka would be like what we call the "spirit" and the Ba the "soul."

[thewordcrafter]

A couple passage to consider.... 1 Samuel 28 & Mat 27:52&53. I don't think we understand everything that CAN happen. I certainly don't think human souls or spirits coming to the earth are the "norm", and I think it must be sanctioned by God first... but scripture at least supports that it is possible and has happened.

That being said, I think most ghost experiences, whether good or bad, can be contributed to demonic activity in a very sly mis-direction scam, to point people to ideas away from God.

[dizzyjam]

I can't remember for sure just who it was I had heard say this first, but a popular saying nowadays in certain church circles is this: "A person is a spirit that possesses a soul that lives in a body." Another one is this: "A soul is the person's mind, will, and emotions."

I would say more, except I got to get back to work. I'm adding a whole bunch of DVD products to my website today that I will publish on it tonight at midnight because of the release of Star Trek. As much Star Trek DVDs and Blu-Rays as I can find are going to be on my site - www.beyondthecharts.com Maybe after midnight - if I can stay awake - I'll come back here and add to what I was saying.

Meantime, have some fun with those definitions of a person and a soul. I look forward to seeing what you come up with from those.

[Paul Baines]

Two (related) incidents from my extended family:

A couple were driving through the countryside late at night, their two young daughters in the back seat. They decided to look for a hotel for the night. They found one in the middle of nowhere, apparently deserted. There were no lights other than in the reception area and the car park was empty. They rang the reception bell and eventually an "odd-looking" couple appeared and signed them in (theirs was the first entry in the register). They were given adjoining rooms and they left the door between them open. The daughters went to sleep in one room with the light on. The parents stayed up for a while, after which the man went to turn off the light. As soon as he did this they were both physically attacked and pushed around the room. This continue for some time until the man said "in God's name, stop". The attack ceased long enough for him to be able to turn on the light. They grabbed their daughters and fled the room, leaving all of their luggage behind. The hotel was still deserted but they could hear what sounded like a party in one of the rooms as they ran out to their car.

A while later, they had a second experience. They were woken in the middle of the night by sounds coming from the bathroom. One of the daughters was in there making strange noises. The light was on but they could not open the door (which was strange because there was no lock). They called the police and their pastor. The police broke down the door to find one of their daughters pinned to the floor with her hand behind her back, and speaking in a man's voice. They were unable to move the girl. The pastor was able to translate the voice which was saying: "I want your daughter. Leave me alone." The pastor exorcised the spirit and the daughter was released.

Of interest here is that, prior to the first incident, the couple were considering joining a church in the hope that it would help their ailing marriage. After the event at the hotel they became Christians. Their daughters, however, did not. Then the second attack occurred.

It is as if the devil was trying to scare them while he could because he knew that once they gave their lives to Christ he would not have any power over them.

[jfranklin]

I just remembered in the Book of Samuel, didn't Saul consult a "Seer" to summon the ghost of Samuel who confirmed that David was the next King? What does this suggest regarding Ghosts?