If you don't believe in ghosts... read this!

I just thought I would provide a counter-point to the thread that gave reasons why ghosts don't exist.

This web-site gives a nice overview of articles that support the case for survival of consciousness. So those would be a good staring point for all the disbelievers out there.

I also liked his accounts of learning to become a medium in a Spiritualist Church. I didn't even know there were still churches of that sort. I've been doing some reading up on these churches since I found this site.

sites.google.com...

reply to post by slider1991
Oh yes, the spiritualist churches/retreats exist. I live very near one and it is the most crooked, cheating place you could ever dream about. In fact, I lived there in my younger days, and it didn't take long to learn their cheating ways. They use magician tricks to ooh and ahh people over stuff like billets and apports. I watched people get fooled by it time and time again. I don't trust anything from the mouth of a medium, even the ones who truly believe that they can speak to the dead, but are actually just using cold reading/body language techniques. I've never met one medium who convinced me of anything, and I've met quite a lot of them.

reply to post by Balkan


Well said.....its always been the same.

But as people became more educated it was easy to see that these people are using "magic" (illusions) to make people believe this nonsense.

Its quite clear, people will believe anything...even nowadays.

Anyone claiming to speak to the dead is a fraud, anyone claiming they have magic powers is a fraud. Funny when they are tested in an environment that they cannot manipulate the results change drastically.....they cant do it lol.

And yet this guy isn't suggesting that people should go to a medium. He is suggesting that they can become mediums. The only thing that will ever convince anyone of psi is a personal experience. If you can be bothered to make the attempt to have an experience, how will you ever know for sure?

reply to post by slider1991
Yes, I understand that. I've taken medium classes. It still didn't convince me of anything. In fact, it just drove me further away from the whole thing. Take 'spirit guides'. I've noticed a repeating pattern with the whole spirit guide thing... you get 5-10% something that may be a hit, and the rest is stuff that never pans out because it is so vague a child could come up with it. Of course, it doesn't matter how vague it is, the believers see most of it as confirmation and validation, and they inevitable ignore the rest and it's never brought up again.. or they rationalize it someway, such as: well, that must have been meant for someone else.

It's going to take more than someone telling me they see the color yellow, or a red dress, or a name that starts with the letter J, for me to be convinced that mediums can speak to the dead.

Mediumship isn't proof of ghosts. It proves nothing. Even if they are picking up on 'something', noone knows what that something actually is. It's quite the leap, in my honest opinion.

reply to post by loves a conspiricy


I am not a medium and am on the side of skeptic as it is, but I feel I was able to communicate, not completely sure now if it was "Dead People" per se, but I feel there was a definitive line of communication occurring. Not to take away from the OP by any means, but if you wish, take a look at my findings.

I Discernibly Hear Dead People!! **Recordings Added, Pg. 2**

reply to post by Balkan


If you are picking up on "something", aren't you interested in finding out what that something is? When you have scientists like Persinger suggesting that consciousness could be connected via the earth's geomagnetic field, doesn't that make you wonder if ESP occurs? If our conciousness could be preserved in the geomagnetic field as well as connected by it, then there is the possibility of contacting discarnate consciousnesses.

Originally posted by slider1991
reply to post by Balkan

 

If you are picking up on "something", aren't you interested in finding out what that something is? When you have scientists like Persinger suggesting that consciousness could be connected via the earth's geomagnetic field, doesn't that make you wonder if ESP occurs? If our conciousness could be preserved in the geomagnetic field as well as connected by it, then there is the possibility of contacting discarnate consciousnesses.

Good post. I am interested in finding out what that 'something' is. I have had my own paranormal experiences. But I'm not willing (yet) to make that jump that that 'something' is definitive proof of 'ghosts'. When people can replicate stuff like the Scole experiment in a controlled environment, then I may be more interested. Until then, mediums convince me of nothing.

I'm not sure anything one can 'read' would convince an otherwise skeptic to believe. And despite having my own personal expierences, I am still a skeptic. Not that I do not believe that the 'ghost' phenomona exists, but rather I'm just not sure what it actually is...? Could it be spirits of dead people? Could it be recorded emotional data otherwise void of intelligence/afterlife? Could it be just a simple symptom of a human mind? I really do not know, but one thing is for certain, and that is that the phenomona of 'ghosts' is in fact real.

reply to post by HomeBrew


I agree. People have these experiences. That doesn't make them deluded or crazy. It's unfortunate that there isn't more work being done to understand basic things like "what is consciousness?".

isnt that one guy got 1million dollars in a bank if ONE person just ONE can prove beyond a doubt of a afterlife and or ghost?
If so why hasnt anyone claimed that money?

Because they cant.

we die and become worm food.
end of the story

otherwise someone would have collected the money by now.

Originally posted by TheAmused
isnt that one guy got 1million dollars in a bank if ONE person just ONE can prove beyond a doubt of a afterlife and or ghost?
If so why hasnt anyone claimed that money?

Because they cant.

we die and become worm food.
end of the story

otherwise someone would have collected the money by now.

That guy you are talking about is a total fraud himself. His long-time boyfriend just got arrested for identity theft. The whole situation was covered up by JREF and CSIcop, who knew the boyfriend was living in the US under a stolen identity.

So do you really believe someone who participates in fraud is going to be honest when it comes to giving away a million dollars?

You need to be more skeptical of who you trust.

I'm not so sure that there's not something weird going on. I don't know if ghosts are the spirits of the dead, or stuck in another dimension, or what....but some recent things that have happened to those around me has me taking a closer look at this phenomenon. More details to follow.

Originally posted by slider1991

Originally posted by TheAmused
isnt that one guy got 1million dollars in a bank if ONE person just ONE can prove beyond a doubt of a afterlife and or ghost?
If so why hasnt anyone claimed that money?

Because they cant.

we die and become worm food.
end of the story

otherwise someone would have collected the money by now.

That guy you are talking about is a total fraud himself. His long-time boyfriend just got arrested for identity theft. The whole situation was covered up by JREF and CSIcop, who knew the boyfriend was living in the US under a stolen identity.

So do you really believe someone who participates in fraud is going to be honest when it comes to giving away a million dollars?

You need to be more skeptical of who you trust.

Well said, Slider. Randi is an egomaniac....also agree with an earlier post pointing out how some people just write it all off as fake, but have never given it a try. If I had to choose between faith and experience, experience would win hands down, every time.

I do believe that there are people who have certain gifts that can not always be explained. However, I do not trust in one selling this gifts/abilities especially if they are referring to themselves as a church.

reply to post by slider1991


One of the more convincing examples of scientifically accrued evidence related to ghosts are EVP.

Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) are electrically measurable and verifiable waveform being imprinted upon an electronic recording device most often times in direct response to a question.

I find this to be intriguing because you have a quantifiable piece of evidence in a sound recording comprised of a waveform consisting of magnitude and frequency and which is also timestamped by the recording device as to when it was created.

How can this occur ?
In computers due to the very high frequencies we have to design systems to not radiate radio waves transmitted by the circuitry itself.
Otherwise they would interfere with other electronic devices via what is called Radio Frequency Interference.

In fact all computer devices are required to meet certain FCC standards RFI generally and is generally solved by isolation circuitry to prevent this from occurring

Otherwise you would hear continuous high pitched noise from the other devices inside your computer through your computer's speakers for example.

Conceptually this is my own hypothesis as to how EVPs are being created via a similar concept to RFI and crosstalk.

The entity is creating these radio frequency radio waves which the electronic device's circuitry behaving like an antenna is picking up similar to RFI and the recording device is imprinting them in the the device itself.

This would also explain why the EVP responses cannot be heard audibly simply due to the fact that they are outside the audible range of human hearing.


Peace