My Search for Ghosts and Evil Spirits - All Advice Welcome

[OGjimkenobi]

What do you guys think of ghosts? Do they frighten you? Do you know of any dark or disturbing places that you suspect may be haunted by the angry spirits of dead?

What about demons or other dark and powerful supernatural entities of ancient lore? Do you believe that books such as the Necronomicon can be dangerous to fool around with? If you were around someone who claimed they were going to summon a demon by performing a dark ritual would it scare you bad enough to leave and get as far away from such a foolish act as possible? Or would you stick around and laugh hysterically at the whole process?

Personally, I wouldn't miss it for the world. Although I'm not sure if I could promise to hold back my laughter. I do not believe in ghosts or spirits of any kind however I would love to encounter one.

Ever since I came to the conclusion that there is most likely no life or continuance of consciousness after death I started looking at the concept of ghosts and the spirit world an entirely different light. Evidence of a ghost or spirit of any kind would in my mind greatly increase the possibility of an afterlife. And I think that would be awesome.

So yeah, if anyone knows of a way to piss off a bunch of demons or evoke an evil spirit to come terrorize me or anything like that, I'm open to suggestions. I'll invite them in to my home, piss all over some graves, light some candles, say "Bloody Mary" three times in the bathroom, take a shit in some ancient Indian burial grounds, open a cursed Egyptian tomb, I don't really give a fuck, I'm down for whatever.

So does anybody got any ideas? How do I come face to face with a demon?

 

[PuppetXeno]

Well, you could throw all your morals overboard, rape children in broad daylight, in public, shoot everyone in sight, gut them and mail their bowels to their families, and then at the end of the day, look in the mirror.

You'll pretty much stand face to face with a demon then.

But that's one way of defining a demon, maybe not what you're looking for :lol:

 

[Ratman]

I don't believe in ghosts (Holy or otherwise).

 

[Whisperelmwood]

I rather think this is entirely the wrong forum to ask such things c.c

I used to believe in ghosts, in my teens (I even thought I'd seen one once), but since I started living in reality, they've dropped from 'interesting' to 'quack science'.

I like my fantasy where it belongs, in the fiction section.

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

Whilst I don't believe in ghosts or the afterlife or spirits, I used to - and I get easily freaked out late at night by thinking about it. F.E.A.R. didn't help.

I don't know what to suggest. Just find the nearest reputedly haunted house or castle and troll around there late at night. But anything you experience is more likely to be imagination than the spirit world.

OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT IT 34HKNDF;LDFM

 

[enterman]

Personally OGjimkenobi, I don't think the quote in your signature goes with your belief in ghosts and the like but that's just my observation.

 

[ebbixx]

I rather think this is entirely the wrong forum to ask such things c.c

Why do you say that? I know plenty of people whose belief in the supernatural is very much bound up with their religious beliefs.

True that there are priests and leaders and spokesmen for the "orthodox" POV within many established religions (even recent cultish ones like Mormonism) who try to distance religion from the supernatural, but is that a valid reason to treat them as wholly separate? The history of Christianity at least is replete with instances of the "church" appropriating and incorporating folk beliefs including some very supernatural stuff (besides the "big supernatural" that is).

Seems to me a very valid topic, though maybe it could also fit under Pseudoscience. However, the OP really didn't seem to be bringing this up in the context of trying to render the search for supernatural beings as anything like a scientific process. But maybe I read too fast?

 

[Aught3]

How about 'why waste your time; there are so many, more interesting, things to find out about'?

 

[ImprobableJoe]

How about 'why waste your time; there are so many, more interesting, things to find out about'?

And even better, those things actually exist!

 

[Aught3]

lol, don't be so close minded ImprobableJoe :lol:

 

[ImprobableJoe]

lol, don't be so close minded ImprobableJoe :lol:

I'm totally not! I'm open minded to all sorts of things that actually exist.

 

[monitoradiation]

Ever since I came to the conclusion that there is most likely no life or continuance of consciousness after death I started looking at the concept of ghosts and the spirit world an entirely different light. Evidence of a ghost or spirit of any kind would in my mind greatly increase the possibility of an afterlife. And I think that would be awesome.

Yeah, ghost films and the such never scared me much after I realized that there's no afterlife. If there were ghosts and they are trying to kill me, I then was faced with the fact that I'll probably die, become a ghost, and be able to kick their bottoms in the afterlife. What's so scary about death at the hand of a ghost, who you can harass and possibly become friends with in the afterlife?

In anycase, you could visit haunted mansions. That New Orleans LaLaurie home, etc. If you don't see ghosts, at least you'll be travelling and learning stuff about history.

 

[blinddesign]

i was always too sceptical. even when i was about 6 years old i would try to buy into all the bullshit just because everyone else did but when i realised there's nothing fucking there, i saw the supernatural for what it is- nonexistant.
kind of my religious experience too...

 

[Whisperelmwood]

Why do you say that? I know plenty of people whose belief in the supernatural is very much bound up with their religious beliefs.

Pardon? Seems you've taken my point completely out of context. Perhaps I should say 'forum as a whole' instead of just 'forum' next time. This forum-as-a-whole is populated primarily with skeptics and non-believers - hence my suggestion that this is the wrong forum-as-a-whole to be asking such things.

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

I moved this to the pseudoscience section, didn't really belong in religion (I eventually realised.)

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I believe that the ghosts storys arrise as an evolution of spiritism that is more of less due to the poblem of identity rather then anything else. The idea of ghost is some what independent from after life, you can have the idea of after life without the idea of ghost or spirits, and ghosts amd spirits are not even the same thing.

To speak frankly we all kind of suport the idea that it is nothing else then a waky childrens story.
Anyways your "experiment" is scientificaly pointless without a mechanics, so it is basicaly pointless.

 

[Orsbore]

What do you guys think of ghosts? Do they frighten you?

I ain't never seen no ghost.

 

[ebbixx]

Pardon? Seems you've taken my point completely out of context.

I wasn't taking it out of context, I was simply not clear on just what you meant to say.

Yes, I realize this forum is populated mainly by skeptics and those who value rationality over superstition.

But, IF one could provide credible evidence for some persistent form of energy that maintains a certain coherence after creatures die, I don't think (however wildly improbable it is) one should discount that remote possibility out of hand. There's plenty of stuff (like the fact that most of what we're made of was made in supernovae) that is far from self-evident.

Let's be clear, I seriously doubt we will ever have such unequivocal evidence, and it seems highly unlikely to me that such phenomena are anything but wishful thinking, so my prejudices are that people will find nothing. And Ockham's Razor should be rigorously applied to any attempt to discuss such matter in the context of science, in virtually all cases. That said, perhaps one reason such "studies" are mostly garbage has to do with the stigma attached to "fringe" subjects? Very few well-trained PhD candidates are going to risk their future in academia by focusing on a field that is fringe, be it SETI or Yeti. The career risk is too high. So instead, the field tends to be populated by amateurs with bad training and iffy peer review. Until one of those people manages to find incontrovertible evidence of something in the so-called supernatural realm, mainstream academics are not going to be likely to take a risk of looking in those areas or subjecting them to the kind of rigor that would be needed to prove much of anything about them.

Nearly all the stuff I've seen on the subject appears to be claptrap -- for instance, I actually found a "rod" in one video clip I shot last fall, but it's clear from the environment it was shot in, that my "rod" is just what most credible video image analysts will tell you it is, a motion-blurred flying insect trail.

All the same, where would we be if all scientists were automatically dismissive of unusual claims? The point is to test rigorously, sceptically, and demand a very high standard of proof, particularly in dealing with such concepts. Much as we have an amazing grasp of the physical laws that govern the natural and material world, there is much that remains unknown. I'm not prepared to claim that my present understanding of those physical laws is entirely without what seem like exceptions, but may turn out to be genuine physical phenomena that we have yet to fully grasp and understand through science and rigorous analysis.

Sorry for a slightly random response. I'll try to add references to Thomas Kuhn et al. sometime later if my connection doesn't fail again.

 

[Xiam]

I watched one of those 'ghost hunting' shows, the other day. I found it quite amusing when they were pointing out an 'orb'. Anyone, with half of a brain, could see that it was just a dust particle on the dudes lens. The so called 'floating orbs' were nothing more than the dust being kicked up off of the floor and their lighting equipment enhancing the particles. In one instance, I could see the fishing line that was tied to the chair...making it rock. Such bogus nonsense. I can't believe that A&E would allow that crap on their network. As Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

Besides, I don't need to believe in ghost or demons to be scared, human nature is scary enough...and, humans are real.

 

[ebbixx]

I ain't never seen no ghost.

I ain't never seen no quarks, not directly at least, though the case for them is almost certainly better than the case for ghosts and supernatural demons.

Direct observation (or lack thereof) is not necessarily compelling evidence that something does not exist. Leading me to ask what *would* be compelling evidence that ghosts (and demons) are entirely imaginary, or evidence of a seratonin imbalance?

Would there be some ethical way to experimentally confirm the conjecture, for instance, that most personally compelling individual sightings of such phenomenon coincide with psychotic breaks or at least events very similar, biochemically to what takes place in an extreme manic episode?