Halloween has come and gone with its shredded sheets hanging from trees symbolizing ethereal specters. Artificial apparitions aside, are ghosts real or subconscious projections of human thoughts? The online journal Tech Times reports that 43% of Americans believe in ghosts. The idea of ghosts is as old as Homer’s Odyssey and as recent as the tales of Edgar Allan Poe and the “Goosebumps” anthology of author R. L. Stine. Shakespeare added to the idea with the dead king of “Hamlet” roaming about Elsinore Castle. If authentic, then where do ghosts come from and what is their intent?
Scientists say it’s all in the mind of the beholder. Many ghostly appearances are likely metaphysical conjurations of thoughts. Other ghosts spring from psychotic and delusional states of the mentally unstable. The popular idea of ghosts, taken from psychics and movies, is that appearances of shadowy figures is a projection of extra-dimensional consciousness, departed beings stuck between this life and the next. Paranormal investigators seek traces of them with night vision goggles and thermal imaging. Some even seek sex with ghosts. But such phenomena must square with the scripture in Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.”
Ghosts are not the dearly departed who failed to “cross over.” The are not wandering souls caught between earth and wherever. When real they are almost always demonic. (The only rare exception would be a discarnate state of consciousness, such as a generationally dissociated identity “haunting” the mind of the victim. As such they would not take visible form.) Hunting ghosts or seeking to connect with them leads to demonic possession. Some past existential evil (e.g. a murder, suicide, occult act) may have given them the right to frequent a dwelling, a property, or some physical dimension. Ghosts are never friendly and never benign. I’ve done countless house cleansings and actual exorcisms on those who thought otherwise. Ghosts aren’t real, except as supernatural, demonic manifestations. In that case, they are spiritually deadly.
Halloween has come and gone with its shredded sheets hanging from trees symbolizing ethereal specters. Artificial apparitions aside, are ghosts real or subconscious projections of human thoughts? The online journal Tech Times reports that 43% of Americans believe in ghosts. The idea of ghosts is as old as Homer’s Odyssey and as recent as the tales of Edgar Allan Poe and the “Goosebumps” anthology of author R. L. Stine. Shakespeare added to the idea with the dead king of “Hamlet” roaming about Elsinore Castle. If authentic, then where do ghosts come from and what is their intent?
Scientists say it’s all in the mind of the beholder. Many ghostly appearances are likely metaphysical conjurations of thoughts. Other ghosts spring from psychotic and delusional states of the mentally unstable. The popular idea of ghosts, taken from psychics and movies, is that appearances of shadowy figures is a projection of extra-dimensional consciousness, departed beings stuck between this life and the next. Paranormal investigators seek traces of them with night vision goggles and thermal imaging. Some even seek sex with ghosts. But such phenomena must square with the scripture in Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.”
Ghosts are not the dearly departed who failed to “cross over.” The are not wandering souls caught between earth and wherever. When real they are almost always demonic. (The only rare exception would be a discarnate state of consciousness, such as a generationally dissociated identity “haunting” the mind of the victim. As such they would not take visible form.) Hunting ghosts or seeking to connect with them leads to demonic possession. Some past existential evil (e.g. a murder, suicide, occult act) may have given them the right to frequent a dwelling, a property, or some physical dimension. Ghosts are never friendly and never benign. I’ve done countless house cleansings and actual exorcisms on those who thought otherwise. Ghosts aren’t real, except as supernatural, demonic manifestations. In that case, they are spiritually deadly.
