Japan often claims to be one of the most haunted places in the world, and has a vast amount of ghost stories, legends and many documented
ghosts/spirits, demons and other entities etc.
Yurei are the souls of the dead, and so were once ordinary people.
"More specifically, yurei are the ghosts of those who at the moment of death were deprived of the time to repose themselves. Quietness is necessary
to achieve the spiritual calm required for attainment of Buddhahood, and the most common cause of ending up as a yurei is sudden death by murder,
slaying in battle, or rash suicide. The soul of the Japanese person cut off too soon is left to mope through a sorry existence until it is properly
laid to rest, but it will never allow itself to be laid to rest until its purpose for remaining among the living (usually revenge) has been fulfilled.
Most yurei ultimately avenge themselves and rise to a better state of being, but this may take centuries--and some are never quite appeased. It is
rumored that Oiwa, Japan's most famous yurei, who obtained vengeance for her husband's cruel deeds over three hundred years ago, still haunts the
area around her grave.
In general, yurei do not roam arbitrarily, but stick to familiar locales--such as the place marking their untimely death. A late-night sojourner
(specifically one traveling between the hours of 2:00 and 3:00 AM, when yurei are apt to appear) who unwittingly crosses a field where someone once
took her own life, or who traverses a bridge spanning a river in which a body was once left to float, may well encounter a yurei. Rising up from the
darkness, yurei reanimate themselves with the flame of their passion. This makes them partially human again, reinvested with their original mind and
something of their former bodies to--scars, blood and all. But unlike a living person, yurei are utterly concentrated on a single goal. Retribution or
clearing their name occupies their entire being, and so they lack the roundedness of a mortal. A yurei is a purpose."
"Many yurei are female ghosts who suffered badly in life from the vagaries of love, and whose powerful emotions of jealousy, sorrow, regret, or spite
at their time of death has brought them to seek revenge on whomever it was who caused their suffering. Male yurei are less common, and less likely to
be seeking revenge; a common type is the warrior who was killed in battle and so has no personal grudge (since to die was part of his profession), but
cannot pull himself away from the historical events in which he figured. This type of yurei figures often in Noh plays, and he is often
indistinguishable at first sight from a real person. He hangs around ancient battlefields or moss-covered temple precincts waiting for a kindly person
to come along who will listen to his story of what took place there in the past. A record is set straight, a smeared reputation untarnished, a name
cleared. Such ghosts let out the secrets of history, and are bent only on letting the truth be known. The matters in which they had been involved in
life are too long past for the struggles to be rekindled.";
See more here;
www.mangajin.com...
Check out this japanese ghost on YouTube;
www.youtube.com...
I guess something like that could be faked with a projecter or something, but the guys got a lot of interesting ghost video's none the less.
Anyone here ever experienced anything spooky/paranormal while abroad?