Why ghosts exist

Why Ghosts exist

Do only the dead become ghosts?

Fiction, especially Victorian fiction, made ghosts dangerous and threatening. This may not be accurate. Many people claim to have seen a ghost, a great many more believe they exist.

Definition of a ghost-- the disembodied spirit of a dead person supposed to haunt the living as a pale and shadowy vision.

Definition of haunt-- to visit in the form of a ghost.

By these definitions ghosts have to be shadowy and can only be generated when the person, or animal, is dead. By dead we have to mean without life in the physical body. Millions of people around the world consider that any human person has both a physical body, which can become dead, and a ethereal or spiritual life force that does not die with the physical body. In this the separated life force continues but this meets part only of the definition of a ghost, That is, it can be said to be the disembodied spirit of a dead person; but there may not be any desire to haunt anyone. Millions of people and many very old religions, agree that the disembodied spirit lives on after the physical body dies. So if the above definition of ghosts is held sacrosanct, we need a differential between such disembodied spirits and ghosts.

Many sightings of ghosts, even within the definition, contain no threat, no feeling of harm being done, or intended. Some experiences are as if the ghost is being inquisitive. May be ghosts are frustrated by not being able to communicate with the living. A great many people have had the experience where they sense a “presence” nearby but without seeing anything.

There are many records of claims of an “out of body experience”, where the person is not dead but some form of ethereal life form leaves the body. May be this ethereal life form is visible to some super sensitive humans. This could explain ghost sightings.

Science and some religious belief systems, discount the possibility that ghosts exist. Science because, Newtonian science requires measurable, repeatable, physical evidence. Quantum science has move the goal posts a little on this, since quantum physics and mechanics show that a particle can be in 2 places at the same time and, more relevant; that there is so much of the physical world that is not explainable by Newton style physics. Why some religious leaders proclaim that ghosts do not exist, may be due to simple earth bound desire not to have to explain their existence. One odd thing about the perception of spirit after death; many of those who believe the spirit lives on, also appear to think that the spirit is a better “person” than the whole body plus spirit was. It also may be that bad people become bad ghosts?

Another possibility is the science fiction concept of “alternative universes” when every possible possibility for an event, co exists in an infinite number of alternative universes. Any one of which may be almost the same as the one we live in, but fractionally different. In this theory “ghosts” are not spirits of dead people but fleeting interactions with a near, but alternative universe.

People have “meetings” with apparently solid human forms, not pale and shadowy, yet there is no real live human person there. The fact that there is no physical presence indicates that this is a sighting of an ethereal event or entity but it does not comply with the standard definition of a ghost. Dreams and hallucinations must come into this consideration. Hallucinations are described as the alleged perception of an object when no object is present. There has to be some cause, medical science will claim it is from the mind but the human mind is an incredibly complex thing, even science has never fully explained what so much of it does. So is there a part of some peoples brain, that has developed a perception of ethereal reality, that is not physically detectable? This may also explain sightings of a “person” while that person undergoes an out of body experience, as mentioned above.

If it is true that humans exist to further creation, by their creative efforts, then when physical death occurs and the spirit leaves the body, the judgment may be made based on how much help they are or have been, to creation. So there is a need to consider the possibility that not all spirits are considered worthy of continuing if they did not help creation; so some have to reincarnate back to living humans and try again, while others go on to non physical “life” working for creation, and others are extinguished. If this is true then it is those waiting reincarnation who become ghosts.