Ghosts....?

[Robert]

Hmmm.....well, I keep an open mind on the subject. It would of course be nice to think that part of our personality survives AND manages to dodge the twin H's.

[andy1867]

why don't we hear of happy ghosts?

If Lethbridge is right in his idea that there is a "mechanism" behind at least some "hauntings" - then it maybe that a strong "negative" emotion will trigger things, whilst a good vibe (however strong) will not.

I note that the "young lad in the Wednesday scarf" kept using the later patient's toilet every night...

A toilet will have running or moving water won't it... in the cistern as it refills, in the pipes, in the sewers under the floor, even in the toilet pan. I just point out how that would tie in with Lethbridge's observations. The strong emotions exhuded by the tragic lad might have imprinted themselves.... as Lethbrige suggests.

Phil

I dunno if this would make any difference Phil, i have never heard of Lethbridge, but am quite prepared to be educated, the lad in question was educationally challenged, to a certain extent, without going into too much detail, which is why he had to be accompanied to Hillsborough.
But it was strange, he sort of knew nowt in an academic sense, but could quote the History of Sheffield Wednesday from virtually their beginnings, players, transfers, all sorts of vague trivia that ALWAYS panned out when you checked..ask him who was prime minister at the time and he'd be baffled

[Graham]

I suppose to many people Tom Lethbridge will best be remembered for the rediscovery of the "Gog-Magog" and Wandil figures at Wandlebury near Cherry Hinton, Cambridge. This was by means of an excavation, I believe part-funded by Lethbridge himself, in the 1950's. How old these figures were, and who made them, has never been properly established. It's years since I read anything about these figures, or about Wandlebury, but I think they've been allowed to become overgrown, and are no longer open to the public as they once were. Pity. Tom Lethbridge was seen as an eccentric occultist by many people, but he was a serious if unorthodox archaeologist as well.

(I'm sure I've posted this before somewhere on this Forum...)

It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there ever has been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it. Dr Samuel Johnson

G

[Phil H]

The Gog/Magog excavation was what caused the "rift" between Lethbridge and the academic world - he used dowsing to trace the outlines of the chalk figures whih was too unorthodox for the establishment to accept.

I don't think intelligence has anything to do with leaving "owt" behind us - but I am sure he could feel emotionally.

Phil

[Beowulf]

Here is a picture I took in my kitchen last year.

Cannot figure out how the 'shadow' is there. It is in front of the flash, so I don't see how it could be me as I am behind the flash operating the camera.

I took one before and after this picture at the same time, unknowing of the shadow, just trying to get a good pic. No shadow in those.

Anybody?

[andy1867]

The Gog/Magog excavation was what caused the "rift" between Lethbridge and the academic world - he used dowsing to trace the outlines of the chalk figures whih was too unorthodox for the establishment to accept.

I don't think intelligence has anything to do with leaving "owt" behind us - but I am sure he could feel emotionally.

Phil

that was my point Phil, he was very intense and at times disturbed
Andy

[kensei]

Phil H, you asked for some examples of some of the things I was talking about. I listen to a radio show called "Coast to Coast A.M." that's on every night and deals primarily with paranormal subjects. Ghosts come up often, and every Halloween they call it "Ghost to Ghost" and feature nothing but ghost stories from people who call in. Been listening since 1997 and have probably heard hundreds of stories, as well as all those from books I've read and documentaries I've seen. But how many names, dates, and places can I remember off the top of my head? Not many. I can cite some examples from personal experience, though.

I was a member of a small religious group several years ago that was headed by two women who lived as roommates in a house where they said there was a ghost of an old man who had once lived there. He would do some things that seemed to suggest a recording such as walk a staircase at the same time each night, but there were other things that definitely indicated sentience. He liked to un-set peoples' alarm clocks whenever they had guests staying with them so they wouldn't wake up on time. He also liked to play with their little dog. The dog made a certain sound when someone would play with him with a favorite rope toy, and they would hear him upstairs making that sound when they were both downstairs. One of them also once saw the dog lifted up a few inches, floated through a doorway and set back down, by an invisible hand.

They moved out eventually and a former girlfriend of mine moved in to that house. She had a little Eeyore toy (from Whinnie the Pooh) hanging in a window just outside a downstairs bathroom. If you pulled down on Eeyore he would speak, either "Uh-oh," "Oh my," or "Goin' down." I was in that bathroom once, with my girlfriend upstairs and nobody else in the house, when I suddenly heard Eeyore say "Oh my." It made me repeat the same thing! (My only experience with that particular ghost.)

More dramatically though, our religious group lost a member, a 31-year old woman who died in a car accident, and her ghost appeared to all kinds of people. I believe I already mentioned her earlier in the thread, as I believe I felt her touch as I lay in bed feeling sad about her the night after she died. The lady who was the main head of our group though insisted that she had many visits with her that involved sitting on her bed together having long conversations. She said that at first it freaked her out, and she would walk around the house going, "Marie, don't you dare just suddenly appear to me and scare the crap out of me!" But eventually she grew accustomed to it, and it went on for some time. Witnesses to this? Afraid not, it is purely anecdotal. But those two women were as close as sisters in life. (The woman who died, Marie, also appeared to her younger sister Gina living thousands of miles away in Alaska. In life she'd been worried about Gina living way up there on her own, and apparently went to look after her in death. Gina saw her, sitting on a wood pile watching her. Also, in life they had enjoyed double-strong coffee together, and ghostly Marie would playfully tap her fingernails against Gina's coffee cups.) All in all, I think it would be hard to find a more sentient ghost than my friend Marie.

[kensei]

I hate to write super-long posts, so here's a new one with another example. This one is of an apparent demonic haunting that was featured on a Geraldo Rivera t.v. show. I have it buried somewhere in my VHS collection. Can't recall the peoples' names but otherwise I remember it very well. Geraldo was talking to a woman who'd lived in a house with such a presence in it that as soon as her family moved in, her young son told her "Mama, the house is evil. We can't live here." Typical haunting elements started happening like lights going on and off, including a lamp that would stay lit even when unplugged, and even after the bulb was removed. But then it turned violent, and her children started being attacked. Her son had to go to the hospital with injuries struck by invisible hands. Geraldo asked her, "Didn't they suspect that you were abusing him?" She said that by then the haunting had been covered in the press and was kind of well known in the community so they didn't question it. She also told about an attack on her daughter- seeing an invisible arm go up her nightshirt (not seeing the arm obviously, but the movement of the garment), and then seeing scratches spontaneously appear on the girl's flesh. After getting the audience thoroughly freaked out, they managed to close the segment with some comic relief.

GERALDO: Why don't you just sell the house and move?
WOMAN: You wanna buy it?
GERALDO: NO!
(Audience laughter.)

Those demonic stories with a sexual element to them are the most skin-crawling of all, and call up the legends of the Incubus and Succubus, demons who molest women and men respectively. There's a story from a university campus in the city where I live that was used as a Halloween piece in the local newspaper once, but it was already kind of well known before that. Seems residents of a girls' dormitory were reporting, for a time, something invisible that would whisper in their ears, blow on their necks, stuff like that. It made me wonder if more severe things might have also happened that weren't reported. Where else would you expect to find an Incubus but in a girls' dorm?

[Phil H]

I wholly agree, kensei, with the fact that there are phenomena such as you describe so well.

Thank you for taking the trouble to cite such brilliant and personal examples.

On the other hand, I am not sure that all these are what I would terms "ghosts". other's may disagree with my definition of course!

For instance, I think that close to or after death appearances are well documented (didn't Mrs Watt's in the Stride case experience such a thing - her "sister"?). But that could be a close emotional bond.

A friend of mine, a fellow church member, dreamed of seeing another member (whom she knew to be unwell). In the dream the woman stopped her car, spoke to Jean and said she was saying goodbye - but had to rush because she had more people to see! I think it was next day it was learned she had "passed on". Now that could be the mind of the dreamer reflecting unspoken apprehension of the other lady's death. Or could it be that the dying woman was thinking of those close to her and that enabled some sort of contact to be made.

But I don't think such events/experiences are ghostly or hauntings.

History holds many instances of such phenomena as you mention (succubus, incubus and so on). The burning of witches in Britain and America might relate to people who possesses related powers and were feared by their communities. But I have sometimes wondered whether the succubus might not be connected to "nocturnal emissions" which were misinterpreted.

That said, sexual energy has always been a powerful thing - poltergeists (and that might explain incidents such as the Eye-ore one) are I believe connected to such energy.

Where else would you expect to find an Incubus but in a girls' dorm?

Think also of that "convent" style pent up sexual imagery. Is it possible that some of the women had passionate sexual thoughts about others which actually manifested themselves in physical (albeit remote) ways such as kissing/touching? I don't know, I just offer the thought.

Lethbridge, talking about "ghouls" - the bad feeling connected with certain places, talks about going to a certain cover and standing on a cliff edge. Suddenly a black mood came over him, depressive and destructive and he was about to throw himself off the cliff when his wife came up. the moment was broken. Back at their guest house that night they talked about where they had been and the proprietor said (without prompting) that a young man had committed suicide at that very spot only recently.

Lethbridge's mind being what it was, he immediately asked himself, was what he had felt:

a) the mood of the young suicide which had somehow adhered to the place and transmitted itself to him? or

b) had the young man picked up a pre-existing "atmosphere" at the place, been alone and succumbed to the suggestion to throw himself off? (Lethbridge had, in other words been saved by his wife.)

Lethbridge offered no answer, as often with him, just a highly pertinent question.

Thanks again kensei - I am very interested in what you say.

Phil

[Futzbucket]

The Amityville Horror

As most of you probably know, what allegedly happened was a family moved into a house that was the scene of a mass murder, and they claimed to be accosted by ghosts which forced them to abandon the house only 28 days after moving in.

It was the husband, George Lutz. He hypnotized members of his family and planted false memories that would be triggered from certain cues. A recent documentary came out where the son, who is now an adult, has finally came forward to give his testimony. He said that George had books on the occult, satanism, witchcraft, hypnosis, and mind-control. When George went on TV, he was asked if he had any prior interest in the supernatural before the incident, to which he denied having any.

George wasn't the natural father. The mother was married with three children, got a divorce and then she met George in a bar, and then a year later she was not only marrying this man, but pushing to allow George to rename all the children and gain full parental custody over the children.

I suspect George hypnotized the mother, Kathy, to believe she was in love with him, most likely by planting false memories. The youngest two children were too young to be a threat and were easy to hypnosis where he planted false memories of positive feelings to, but the oldest child was 10, and old enough to realize that something was terribly wrong with all this, so George next targeted the boy.

George hypnotized him, planted horrific false memories in the boy, for the purpose to make the boy appear insane and dangerous, so the mother would agree to cast the boy out. What happened later, was George was bragging with his lawyer about what he's doing, the lawyer recommended this could make a good selling book, and realizing that this story could make him money, George escalated his abuse to several of the other family members.

George basically sat there and just watched this poor family he wormed into run around losing their minds, all the time anticipating a big fat paycheck from the book.

As bizarre as this sounds, this exact kind of behavior was actually a bit of a problem in America during the 1970's. Complaints of satanic cults started clustering in towns, enough where the FBI actually commissioned a task force who's sole purpose was to investigate and discover if there were actually satanists performing sacrifices, and they only thing they could discover were crack-pot "therapists" that were using hypnosis to plant false memories in people. These cons were all over the place, and still are, but it's not nearly as popular now then it was then. The most common type of this con is someone will say they can help you remember a past life, hypnotize you, and then plant false memories where you remember you were Joan of Arc! They also like to use alien abductions, and yes, even ghosts.

[Beowulf]

Here is a picture I took in my kitchen last year.

Cannot figure out how the 'shadow' is there. It is in front of the flash, so I don't see how it could be me as I am behind the flash operating the camera.

I took one before and after this picture at the same time, unknowing of the shadow, just trying to get a good pic. No shadow in those.

Anybody?

Anyone care to try to explain this shadow?

[kensei]

Anyone care to try to explain this shadow?

Sorry Beowulf, I missed your picture before. That is indeed odd. A light source projecting from behind you would be necessary for that to be your shadow, but you say your other pics do not show it. If this is being suggested as a ghost photo, let's see... The table seems to be set for a meal of an intimate nature. Anyone passed away in the backstory of you and the other person?

[Magpie]

why don't we hear of happy ghosts?



Phil

I have a happy ghost story (Forgive me if I've posted this before)

I spent a year as a technical director of a small theatre that operated in and arts and culture owned by the city. The building was an old brewery/distillery built in the late 1800's, and had also served time as a military hospital during WW1 and an army depot. While it was a brewery, a night watchman was murdered during a late-night burglarly and his ghost was said to haunt the complex, but there were other ghost stories too. This is one that I witnessed personally.

I'm basically a night person, and I often stayed late in the office to work on paperwork when there weren't a bunch of actors and directors underfoot. The theatre had two large rooms on the upper floor as office space, and there were several other groups with workshops and offices, including a Potter's Guild, a Weaver's Guild, Girl Guides and a dance school. The building had a high cathedral ceiling, and everyone's walls went up about 8 feet, then were open from there up, the space covered with steel mesh to prevent people just climbing over the wall into the space.

One night I was in the office. It was about 4 am. I was relaxed, but not tired or drowsy. I was completely awake and the only person in the building. The other offices were all empty and locked, with no lights one. I suddenly heard the sound of a young girl laughing. It was brief, and at first I thought I'd just mistaken some other sound. As I listened, it happened again. It was definitely the sounds of a girl laughing, clear and distinct. I got up and went into the hallway--all the offices were still dark, and the laughter continued, accompanied by the sound of someone skipping. I searched the building from one end to the other--there was no-one there, and the sound was constant, however it was impossible to tell where it was coming from--wherever I looked, it seemed to be coming from somewhere else. After about 30-40 minutes it stopped, and I locked up the office and headed home.

For the next five nights I was there, the laughter would start at around the same time, and would last about the same length of time. After the second night I gave up searching for the source and simply carried on with my work, content to have "company" for the evening. It actually made the place seem quite cheerful.

Like I said, there were other ghost stories from the complex, but although I heard about them, this was the only one I witnessed first hand.

[Phil H]

Interesting story. Phil

[Beowulf]

Sorry Beowulf, I missed your picture before. That is indeed odd. A light source projecting from behind you would be necessary for that to be your shadow, but you say your other pics do not show it. If this is being suggested as a ghost photo, let's see... The table seems to be set for a meal of an intimate nature. Anyone passed away in the backstory of you and the other person?

The light in our kitchen (which is where I was standing) is overhead, it's a fluorescent light, about 4 of them encased in a frame and covered over with white plastic sheets that are made to cause the light to be diffuse. That little table is on the end of my kitchen, I'm in there all the time of course, never throws a shadow.

I should put the other pic up here and if I can find it I will, to show you, the light was on, but I also took pictures with it off. Either way no shadow.

Really puzzles me. Have been racking my brain to fig out a normal explaination, which I'm kind of thinking there really is, but I've not come up with one. That's why I thought I'd put it up here for feedback.

We have had a ghost in the house, but not been very active for years, just an occasional thing, small.

Another thing, nothing big, but it surprised me the flame is so vivid in the shadow. If there was a natural reason for a shadow would this be normal?

My husband and I live here. I made dinner and had bought a new tablecloth, which is why I set it out so pretty, to show it off that night. Thought I'd take a picture before we ate, took several and got this.

No one has died recently, although both of us have had deaths in our families, but over 4 or 5 years ago. We've had the house 10 years but other than the couple we bought it from we don't know of any deaths in the house.