People who believe in ghosts

I don’t want to believe but unfortunately have no choice due to a past experience. I would much rather be a sceptic though so just don’t think
too much about it or go out of my way to be around anyone or anything to do with paranormal activity. I think it’s very naive to think nothing exists outside of what we know.

Which was the point I was trying to make. You have experienced something that cannot be explained in terms of current scientific knowledge, but the person you're telling won't accept that something happened that current scientific knowledge can't explain.

I'm glad to see so many posters here taking the view that science doesn't know anything and is evolving.

I think (as a sceptic and someone who puts their faith in science) that the most sensible position is to keep an open mind. Scientists keep open minds - why wouldn't you?

I've said upthread that I (and husband) were/are super-sceptical by nature. Like you, I'd nod and smile when people told me they'd seen a Roman soldier, just from the knees up, walking across a tea-room in York.

But things happened to us in our home about 15 years ago which made us re-assess. Not ghosts - things happening and things moving, some of them in front of our eyes, along with other less tangible events. It still affects us today and the way we live our lives. And we both witnessed things moving at the same time.

I'm not claiming I know what was going on - just that it wasn't something we could explain in everyday terms.

I think it's just as silly to close your mind to things as to be totally a believer in every anecdote you hear.

😆

Indeed.

People who would love to believe that anything outwith their understanding can be understood and dismissed by our limited brains, bodies and senses come across as genuinely quite thoughtless. And often, frankly, a bit thick.

There are plenty of reasons why we don't question every single atom of the fabric of the universe, generally. We know we can't fly, as anyone who's attempted to walk out of a window instead of a door could testify, if they survived the attempt. It isn't practical to debate every nuance of our material existence, we just accept our own physical limitations for example, because to do otherwise is to risk harming ourselves and others.

But to attempt to shut down any debate about the unknowable nature of the supernatural and unseen is about self comfort, not being practical.

I don't bother engaging with them because their beliefs are set in stone and they can't be budged.

It's actually so simple to just say (and truly mean) "I don't know if ghosts exist" "I don't know if there's than that which we can experience with our limited vision and senses" and it's fine to add "And I have no real interest in the discussiont hanks". But OP instead wants to be patted on her back for refusing that logical, fair and uncontroversial stance.

Unless someone's charging you 50 quid to run a seance or otherwise interfering in your safety or day to day life the fair, reasonable and logical thing to do is just accept that the universe is vast, our knowledge is tiny and truly accept that the words "I don't know" are the only rational ones relating to the supernatural.

There is a huge amount of anecdotal evidence, all throughout history, that there are more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in our philosophy, to paraphrase the Bard.

Anecdotal evidence, by the way, is exactly and precisely how all knowledge was passed down to us until very recently. Without the acceptance of it we'd have no history at all, and prior to the written word, we'd have had to re-learn how to invent the wheel, quite literally, each new generation.

People telling people their experiences has always counted as evidence. And, like all evidence, it can be weighed against their character and other factors and either accepted or dismissed.

But according to the "We just call a spade a spade" bumpkins, we know everything there is to know about the supernatural, right here and right now, and that's that.

Some people prefer the shelter of their limited knowledge of the universe. They're the ones who'd have calling the earth flat and shaking their heads sadly and laughing at all the round earthers a few hundred years ago.

As for me, I prefer the thoughtful, intelligent stance. When it comes to ghosts I know what I think, but really "I don't know".

how many people actually believe in ghosts and why?

I do. (Although I’m very much a “we should be more afraid of the living than the dead” type of believer. Spirits aren’t something to be scared of).

I was at work one day, which was an office building next to what was once a “lunatic asylum” in the Victorian times. Anyway, I was walking down the corridor after lunch looking out of the windows, which overlooked a mostly empty carpark and a man wearing a long suit jacket and a top hat was walking across the carpark. I only saw the back of him. My vision outside was blocked (only for a split second) as a notice board on wheels was pushed up against the windows, and as I walked past the next set of windows I looked outside again and he was gone. Vanished into thin air. He wasn’t near any of the cars so couldn’t have got into one.

(This is a story from my dad). When he was younger, in his 20’s/30’s, he and my mum went to pick up their friends for a night out (a couple, Jill and John). As they were parked outside the house, my dad saw an old lady draw back the curtains from an upstairs room and wave down at him. My dad waved back, and she closed the curtains. As their friends got in the car my dad said “Oh is that your mum inside babysitting then Jill?” And apparently Jill looked shell shocked and said “Oh my God you can see her too?” Turns out their kids were sleeping out and weren’t in the house. No one else was in the house that night but Jill often saw the old lady in her house from time to time.

I believe in ghosts but it’s a pointless discussion on MN.

I've met silly people like this before, sometimes unfortunately they are family members. I usually nod and change the subject. You can't give them a rational explanation because the belief is not rational.

Superstition.

Some people believe in God, others Ghosts, some both. It’s all the same and yet no one goes around churches accusing people of having ridiculous beliefs.

I don’t believe in any of it but I let people be.

"I try not to engage in these conversations with my opinion really because people can believe in whatever they want to and it’s pointless getting into a debate about it, because if someone’s already made up their mind it’s hard to convince them otherwise"

And yet, here you are starting a conversation with the hope of insinuating that you're superior to those who do believe in the supernatural, starting a debate, and with your mind entirely made up and no hope at all of shifting your beliefs, which are set in stone.

Oh well, maybe you were bored :)

Neither does mine, he is very sensible unlike MIL and SIL. Do we have the same husband? 😂

I actually do burn sage because when I lived there for a while I learned to love the smell of the stuff! Don’t think it makes much difference though, the old house still creaks and my little dog still stares into space by their logic we are as haunted as it gets.

My husband doesn’t believe, he just laughs and says “that didn’t happen” or “explains it away for them” I have to be polite, lol. Apparently I don’t see the same things as my mind is closed, there really is no come back as they absolutely want to believe. My sil burns sage in their house, to ward off evil spirits, yet they see things. I don’t burn sage and nothing ever happens here. Doesn’t that mean burning sage isn’t working, it’s a conundrum! Lol

Another one with nutty in laws! I find it entertaining so I haven’t banned it as a topic of conversation but she can’t be mad when I laugh.

MIL truly believes my dog can see spirits, it’s absolutely ridiculous 😂.

My little dog does stare intently into space sometimes, like she’s looking at something moving where there is nothing, I just call her schizophrenic and move on. MIL on the other hand likes to ask her what she can see, like the dog can answer?!

I once felt like I was being pushed at the top of the stairs, thought hm that was a weird feeling and moved on. MIL was convinced the deceased homeowner was trying to kill me from beyond the grave…

I don’t believe in ghosts, but my ILs do. We’ve agreed never to talk about it. The thing is, they do, but they always preface it with “I know you don’t believe, but…” and I’m left with nothing to say as we’ve agreed not to talk about it. Humph!

Im sure sam and dean would soon salt the bones its from the show supernatural

scents can travel quite far thats partly why snipers are trained in military fieldcraft and sniper training to not use anything that will give off smells when in the fields etc

Once worked in a building dating back to 1800 (oldest part, subsequently added to many times until it was quite sizeable) that had been used for several purposes but always for public use. We used to get people seeing or hearing things, even two people seeing the same thing at the same time, grown men refuse to go into a particular room, and one area that a lot of people didn't like the feel of.

In one particular room a young boy had been seen, probably a dozen times over 40+ years. In researching the building I discovered six people had died there over a period of 75 years. Then, I discovered - and almost by chance, three years after I began researching - that a young boy had died there, in that specific room, 125 years ago, rather unpleasantly. The death notice and subsequent inquest report were so hard to find, there is no way all those people could have found them over that 40+ year period.

I had an experience there myself once, having previously been very dismissive. I don't know what the explanations are, but I now believe there is something to all this. May not be ghosts, but there's something we don't get know about.

Also covered by EMF about 30 years ago.

my teenagers know the song, it gets blasted out in our car from time to time

It might seem odd, but a belief in ghosts is comforting to some people. It means that even after someone dies, their “self” continues in some way. They still have agency, can still communicate. On the other hand, this also extends to notions of malevolent spirits. Hopefully, the people will never have to deal with such obnoxious and harmful phantoms. After WWI and the flu epidemic, there was a surge in belief of ghosts and the supernatural. So many, many people, especially young men, were lost. It was a way of coping.

I don't believe in Ghosts as such but I'm open minded as to the cause of possible anomalous happenings. I am sure in years to come science will have a better grasp on what we now label as supernatural. I do enjoy a spooky story, film, podcast though. I also encounter people who seem deeply uncomfortable with any mention of the paranormal and who seem to find no fun or whimsy in any of it which I find a bit odd.

Here goes - but I warn you, it's very 'niche'!! Bear with me because the rather complicated context is crucial.

At one time my husband (an academic) collected copies of The Cornhill Magazine - I don't know when it stopped being published - but these copies came from the 1920s. It's a literary magazine with short stories and poems. A few writers we might recognise, but many are obscure and hardly known now - I'm an English Lit grad, and I hadn't heard of the writer of this particular story.

Before we had the children he read a story called Winterwood and recommended it to me - by an obscure, forgotten writer, so not a story anyone is likely to come across. Then the magazines were stored up in the attic and totally forgotten about.

One day he was sitting in the living room with my 15 year-old daughter (who is ND and hates reading fiction, btw - she's only ever read Harry Potter and her school set books under duress!) My husband told me that suddenly, for no reason he could explain, he remembered the Winterwood story - he hadn't thought about it for 15 years or more. At that moment my daughter looked up from her laptop directly at him and said loudly 'Winterwood!'. He was stunned and asked her why she'd said it. She said 'I don't know - it just came into my head!'

He was very unsettled by this - and so was I, but I wasn't actually there.

My daughter was rather troubled as a teenager - and we did have some scary months of what might be called poltergeist activity. Honestly - we were, and in many ways still are, very sceptical people. But the events of that year when she was 15 definitely gave us a different perspective.

I think that if ghosts really existed, we'd be drowning in them. Hospitals and rest homes would be full of them, and we'd see loads more ghosts from the modern era.

I think most experiences of ghosts have rational explanations; infrasound, pareidolia, hypnogogia, and suggestibility. At the same time, some places (even just ordinary homes) do have a vibe that can feel welcoming or ominous, seemingly inexplicably. I'm sure there is an explanation, such as infrasound, but I wouldn't entirely dismiss the idea (as pp have said) that energy could somehow leave imprints. Although it does seem unlikely.

I wouldn't argue with someone who believed in ghosts in real life, though – I find the supernatural very intriguing, and I can understand why people want to believe in it.

I do believe only because when I was 16 I lived in a flat/apartment and when I was in my own would often feel like someone was watching me. I also felt an old guy in my now ex's house and told him the ghost felt lost. Turned he had passed away in that house after caring for his wife. So felt like he was looking for her. I've also had it where I heard a voice saying he going to die a week before my dad passed.
Not me but my boyfriend got a old style doll from a cat bootsale and when he brought it back to his strange noises started happening since he got rid of it the noises have stopped. So I'm some what a believer. I think its a case until you've experienced it yourself its hard to believe. I would never push that on your someone else

😂