Is the official C of E stance that ghosts, demons etc exist?

[Oscha]

Vicars do exorcisms, right? So they must believe in ghosts, demons, possession, etc etc? That seems so...odd. Frankly. I don’t mean to offend. It’s just occurred to me and I can’t get my head round it! Do all Christians believe in ghosts then?

Were you there, lola? Maybe we were next to one another saying the umpteenth Glorious Mystery and hoping the grownups would snap out of it and we could go for chips...

Ah no. We didn't go in for foreign travel much. The quare water gave us the shits so we liked to keep cl9se to home.
Ballinaspittle? Sure that's like going to Antrim

Doobigetta

@Witchend - Not Elijah but Samuel.

My grandmother remembers an exorcism of a child in Dublin, it was the 1950's or 1960's.
She went on the radio to affirm it happened when it was being talked about on a talk show in the 70s or 80s.
I'll ask her if she remembers but she is a little gaga. But she might remember.

@Hasbro Of course. I couldn't think which one it was and was too lazy to look it up.
Elijah was the one who jokes with the prophets of Baal, wasn't he: "I'm not sure he's heard you; maybe he's on the toilet."

This is really interesting.
IME of ordinary Christians, Catholics (like me) tend to be fairly superstitius and 'woo', C of E are more sensible.

Any born-again Christians about? I don't know any well enough to ask.

@Doobigetta 😂😂

I am a C of E Christian and don't believe in ghosts. Not sure at all that they would be the same thing we demons, and not sure they are particularly referred to in the Bible. Although I could well be wrong.

I suppose there is a case of using the word ghost as just meaning spirit. I believe that people's soul/spirit goes to Heaven and wouldn't be hanging around down here

Can I refer you to the books of Phil Rickman and Merrily Hopkin, the female diocese exorcist for Hereford.
C of E. And lots of bell, book and candle antics.
www.amazon.co.uk/Phil-Rickman/e/B000APIPYI/ref=sr_tc_2_0?tag=mumsnetforum-21&qid=1535132657&sr=8-2-ent

Hope the link works. I love these books for a mixture of woo and scare your pants off and the intricacies of what goes into assessing possession or removal of unwanted spirits. The church itself is divided but it is interesting.

It's complicated. Priests in the C of E have guidelines about what they can and can't do. I've prayed in houses where I've suspected that lots of emotion is causing stuff to happen in a way that can't be explained but is human in origin. I've been asked to pray with people where I'm fairly sure the issues are MH but as I'm no specialist so I listen and pray for peace and protection. To do anything other than this I would need to call in the specialists. An exorcism requires the bishop to sign off on it and it is very rare.

In one of my parishes we did have a retired exorcist who said that of 100 cases he was called out to 99 had a human origin. I was always curious about that one other one but he wouldn't be drawn.

thegreenheartofmanyroundabouts this is what my exorcist acquaintance said and he didn't elaborate on the details of what he believed to be a real situation.
As Catholics, in the creed we declare every week that we believe God, creator of heaven and earth, in the seen and the unseen...its there in the T&Cs.
There is a documentary on BBC about exorcism. Iplayer. I would normally watch these but I think recently, the interest in it is not from a objective question of what surrounds exorcism, but folk looking for a good scare or goulishness.
Most exorcists are very reluctant to reveal themselves or what occurs in the process so I take a very dim view of those who do.