do you believe in ghosts?
October 28th, 2008 @ 6:22 am
last saturday, chris and i went with some friends to a ghost tour in franklin. franklin has quite a history behind it, especially during the civil war era. who knew?
i never really believed in ghosts until i was in eighth grade. my family had just moved into a house in abilene, texas, and my friend julie was spending the night. we were up talking and out of nowhere my bed sheets and comforter were ripped off of me. not in a casual, fall-off-the-bed kind of way, either. it was like someone had grabbed them, yanked them off full force, and threw them in the closet which was at the foot of my bed.
julie was directly across from me the entire time. it freaked the both of us out and i slept in the hall for months after that happened.
whether or not it was a ghost - i don’t know…i didn’t physically see anything, but i know something out of the ordinary happened that night!
so, what about you? any ghost stories? or do you think it’s a bunch of hullabaloo?*
—
*you gotta give me some love for using the word hullabaloo in a sentence.
Related posts:
Fear · Hmmmm
Prairie Rose said,
October 28, 2008 at 6:57 am
I think “ghost experiences” are real, but I don’t think they’re caused by ghosts. I think it’s demonic activity.
lynse leanne said,
October 28, 2008 at 8:01 am
i mean, if you can work that word into a sentance and people read it without thinking “did she really just say that!?!” there are major props!
i have been told stories by my mom about some “ghost activity” she has experienced. i am not a “spooked” kind of person…so i dont really know. i have never had an experience with them or whatever. so until then i dont have an opinion. but i do think you can creep yourself out….but in your case you cant really make that happen in your mind. just sayin
kara said,
October 28, 2008 at 8:28 am
Yay for throwing hullabaloo out there. And that story is just plain creepy. I really don’t know what to think– whether ghosts are real or not, or if it’s demonic activity or whatnot, but stories like that make me shudder.
Steph said,
October 28, 2008 at 8:42 am
after my great-grandmother died, my parents bought and restored her house. my room ended up being the room she stayed in until moving to the nursing home. I could always “feel” a presence. I definitely believe there are things happening around us that we don’t see - and not necessarily demonic.
Angela Ramsey said,
October 28, 2008 at 8:43 am
I think ghosts are real. My grandparents moved into an old house in Charleston, SC and they had all kinds of weird experiences until the house caught on fire. They remodeled after the fire and there were no more weird happenings. They say fire is the only way to get rid of spirits. Who knows. Ghost tours are fun…..we did one in Charleston a few years ago that was cool.
Shane said,
October 28, 2008 at 8:45 am
Well, a brou-ha-ha hasn’t started over the ghost issue yet, so I will throw in my two cents.
I am with Prairie Rose. Ghosts are demonic activity.
I actually subscribe to the idea that there are two classes of evil entities that serve Satan. The fallen angels (principalities and powers) and the bodiless spirits of the Nephilim, the offspring of the fallen angels and men which has occurred from time to time in history (see Genesis 6, also note the difference in abilities and characteristics between angels and the spirits that feature in the Gospels). Because they are neither human nor angel, their spirits cannot go to heaven or hell. They are responsible for ghost experiences and for what we call demonic oppression/possession.
Chilly said,
October 28, 2008 at 8:55 am
This might help:
http://www.gotquestions.org/ghosts-hauntings.html
nancy said,
October 28, 2008 at 8:56 am
wowser! I’m not going to be sleeping tonight, just clutching my covers!
Kenyon said,
October 28, 2008 at 9:03 am
I didn’t believe in ghosts until I played Pacman and let me tell you THEY ARE REAL AND THEY ARE OUT TO GET YOU!!!
John Ireland said,
October 28, 2008 at 9:16 am
yep, i am in the “hullabaloo” group. :)
anne jackson said,
October 28, 2008 at 9:35 am
Kenyon just proved that ghosts exist. I really can’t say anything to that.
Jeff said,
October 28, 2008 at 9:48 am
I agree that there is spiritual stuff happening beyond our understanding - angels, demons, and so forth. But with the exception of Saul raising Samuel’s spirit (which totally surprised Samuel, Saul, and even the witch), I don’t see much biblical precedent for ghosts. Of course, that passage, however, shows that it’s possible (although definitely forbidden) to communicate with the dead. In my own experience, I’ve seen all kinds of freaky stuff that before I was a Christian, I probably would have said, “Those are ghosts.” Now, I know better. I don’t want to blame everything on the Devil, but believing in neutral paranormal activity kind of negates the Bible’s teaching on two kingdoms: one of light and one of darkness. If you encountered a “ghost,” it would still have belong to one of those kingdoms.
On a sidenote, how was the ghost tour? I saw this super-flaky guy on the morning show the other day, talking about how he’s seen a certain Nashville ghost at least three times. Would you recommend it? I’ve considered doing something like that with my wife but have mixed feelings on it.
Kaye said,
October 28, 2008 at 10:14 am
I do believe in ghosts. I have had some weird experiences that I won’t go into and I know (perfectly sane) people who lived in a house that was haunted and would tell stories about it. Now…my personal dilemma is that I have no idea where they fit into my theology. I know some of them could be demonic, but not all of them seem to be. I just chunk them into the category of “things I cannot understand.”
A friend of mine (who happens to be a preacher) once gave me an interesting point though…if ghosts weren’t real, why did Jesus make such a point to prove he wasn’t one when he was resurrected? No idea what the answer is, but it was an interesting question!
Brooke said,
October 28, 2008 at 10:26 am
I DO believe in ghosts!! I have no idea what ghosts really are, and im sure that believing they are real goes against everything in the Bible…so i will say that i’m not some big ghost hunter or anything…BUT, when i was in Savannah, GA i went on a ghost tour and it was awesome! We did see ghosts and it was SO creepy! You could see them in the pictures on your camera, and even more so when i got home and looked at them on my computer. Most of them were just circles, which were the ghosts. There were more of them depending on where we were and the story behind the house, building or land we were on. But there was one house where in the picture, you can actually SEE a mans face & body. The ghost was a doctor who haunted there, and was looking back at us through the door as we were calling his name. It was FREAKY! Since then, i now believe in ghosts. :-)
Beautiful Intellectual said,
October 28, 2008 at 10:46 am
**love** for using hullabaloo. Your next challenge…shenanigans!!!
Lori said,
October 28, 2008 at 11:06 am
Our friends owned a very old Bed and Breakfast a few years ago. They had all sorts of weird, ghostly things happen. Including their three year old son talking about the “blue lady” that he would see in the hall. They prayed over the house. In the end, they sold it and got the heck outta there. We were glad … too freaky!
DaveAllen said,
October 28, 2008 at 11:35 am
I do believe in spooks
I do believe in spooks
I do I do I do believe in spooks– The Cowardly Lion
And so do I, because Bert Lahr was a man among men.
Heidi Reed said,
October 28, 2008 at 11:39 am
If by “ghosts” you mean “demons” then absolutely and I have some stories that would send shivers up your spine and send you right back to hallway sleeping.
However… I am not about to expose myself that much on the internet. I would get hate mail for years, I’m sure of it. ;)
newton said,
October 28, 2008 at 12:35 pm
most definite bonus points for hullabaloo. i’ll give you a gold star if you can work “dust up”, “hodge podge”, and “willy nilly” into one post!
there most definitely has to be some sort of spiritual world intertwined with our physical world. that said, i don’t know if i should call them ghosts, apparitions, angels & demons, or just weird & unexplained shit.
Mike Ellis, Church For Men Florida said,
October 28, 2008 at 12:51 pm
hullabaloo was originally used in a Scooby Doo episode, I think.
Crystal Renaud said,
October 28, 2008 at 1:23 pm
i remember you telling me this story driving from OKC to KC when we went to a conference one time. i absolutely DON’T believe in ghosts as they are portrayed on TV but i absolutely DO believe in demonic behavior. i have the gift of spirit discernment and all around us is a spiritual battle. open yourself up to the belief of ghosts and you’ll see ghosts. but none of these ghosts (in my opinion) are the former living. after death, either you’re burning in hell or you’re in heaven. the rest is angel and demons. no doubt your in house abilene could have been “haunted” but not by ghosts. but of demonic behavior which is very, very real.
Brice Bohrer said,
October 28, 2008 at 1:26 pm
hullabaloo as far as ghosts. Maybe all Peretti on you, I am down with that and agree with Crystal above. But no ghosts.
West said,
October 28, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Well, I’m going to say…yes, I believe in weird things happening. I was convinced that they were ghosts, but now i just think they’re better left unexplained and I’ll ask Him when I get the chance…if I still care about that by then.
Evan Weatherford said,
October 28, 2008 at 2:21 pm
i like newton’s answer. mainly because he said ’shit’
Klint said,
October 28, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Not sure what I believe. There are many thought provoking points on either “side” of the discussion here. I do, whole-heartedly (do you hyphenate that?) believe that we live and walk in a spiritual realm that most of us are really good at ignoring.
Whether ghosts, demons, nephilim, spirits… I have a strange attraction the subject matter. I can’t seem to get enough Ghost Hunters, Christian horror stories (demon stories) etc.
hmm.
Tiffany said,
October 28, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Okay I don’t believe in ghosts necessarily, but props on using the word Hullabaloo. I do however, believe that strange things can certainly happen. =)
All in all…that story was really creepy!
Harold McKee said,
October 28, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Anny, I have always had a strange curiousity about the existence of ghosts. Are they real, are they biblical, are they demonic, but I never really came to any conclusions until recently.
My second grandson lives in the last home that my grandmother lived in before she died. He is about 19 months old now and has lived there since birth.
One of the first words he said was Nana. Nana was the name we called my grandmother. Now she had been dead a few years before he was born and there were no pictures of her or anything like that around his house.
I doubt if he ever heard her name before we heard him say it. Now you could write that off to “baby talk sounds like whatever you want it to sound like” except he would almost always walk to one certain place in the living room when he said it. There is nothing in the living room in that certain location now but in the last few years of her life that is where “her” chair was located.
So he will walk up to what would have been square in front of “her” chair and hold out his arms as if to be picked up and say Nana, Nana, Nana.
There are acutally a few other stories associated with her that I have personally experienced as well as my daughter.
I am not sure what we are experiencing now but it is not frightening or anything like that. It is really more entertaining and interesting that anything else. Nana loved us all very much and always wanted to know what was going on with others in the family, if you know what I mean. It appears that was a hard urge to overcome.
Phil Thompson said,
October 28, 2008 at 4:55 pm
imho that was demonic activity, or in your case, familiar spirits!
What are those? http://www.gotquestions.org/familiar-spirits.html
(just giving you a hard time about your involvement with that stuff)
patrowland said,
October 28, 2008 at 5:23 pm
the only ghosts I ever dealt with as a kid were the ones on PacMan.
Nathan Hov said,
October 28, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I’ve experience night terrors in my late 20’s early 30’s weird things happened like, being awake but unable to move at all accept my eyes and feeling a very strong sense of evil in the room, seeing a black shadow figure in the corner.
I also had dreams, though really was much more than that? I would be pulled down then something would pull me up and on and on this would go, for a while it felt like I was being pulled down into hell by this presence of evil and every time would be pulled up by something else and then I’d realize Jesus, oh yeah Jesus, and would command to be let go in His name and would be pulled up once for all and then wake up…
Here’s the thing though, when I did wake up I’d fall back onto my bed. not like I had jumped or was startled, no, I would fall from what seemed like 6 inches - from my head to my heels, everything was off the bed and I would fall down.
Science offers their explanations, but if you’ve experience this you will know it is a battle between good and evil.
True story
Nathan Hov said,
October 28, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Another one: In the first house I bought, the same house where the last story took place an elderly woman had died, no big deal, right. My girlfriend at the time was over and I had jumped in the shower she yelled my name a few times and kinda freaked out, she was an intelligent woman, well educated not prone to making things up so when she had told me she had seen an elderly woman with white staring at here from my kitchen as she studied in the living room I wasn’t sure what to think - then I told her about the woman who had died in the house - she hadn’t known that before.
Gwen Jackson said,
October 28, 2008 at 7:15 pm
It doesn’t really get phrased this way much anymore, but I remember people calling the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost. In the realm of angels there are both God’s ministering spirits (angels) and Satan’s demons (demonic spirits), both are real. One has to do with life (see Psalm 103:20 and Hebrews 1:14), the other evil (see Ephesians 6:12). I like what Paul writes in Romans 8:38… nothing separates us from the love of God - “neither angels nor demons… nor any powers.”
As Christians, we don’t have to be afraid of demonic spirits, because “we are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms,” which gives us the power to resist and take authority over them.
Brad Huebert said,
October 28, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I’d be pretty cautious about ghost tours, given the biblical understanding of demonic activity. Sure, a lot of sightings might be fakes, or overactive imagining, but that seems a bit too much like trying a seance to me. Why on earth would I do that? I can’t think of a single good reason, personally. It could open doors to things I don’t understand.
I do believe that some people are seeing and experiencing paranormal jigetty-foo (that’s my made up word for the day), but are mislabeling it ghost activity when it’s really either emotionalism or demonic interference. I’ve personally seen and felt and heard the whole gamut of what would be labelled haunting but is really just demonic stuff. Nothing to fear, and in fact, when you know that deep down, and satan knows that you know, you don’t tend to experience it much after that (something about Satan realizing that the direct fear approach isn’t worth his time and the subtle temptation approach is better over the long haul).
Thoser muthoughts.
Heidi Reed said,
October 28, 2008 at 8:32 pm
My stories are very, very, eerily similar to Nathan Hov’s first story.
Five times they have petrified me. The most recent was just a couple of months ago.
Twice I have experienced unbelievable visions that were awesome!
Enuff said.
Fran said,
October 29, 2008 at 8:22 am
First of all…I LOVE the world “hullabaloo!” LOVE IT!
Second, I’ve never had an instance with a ghost, but I sure think weird, creepy things can happen and what the heck? Sure.
Cindy K said,
October 29, 2008 at 9:23 am
The human mind has an incredible capacity to fool itself. That said, we also live amongst an active spiritual world that we rarely if ever catch a glimpse of. And the devil is the king of all liars, and would LOVE to frighten us. This does not mean any demons have to manifest themselves in order to do so. Quiet scary whispers in our head is clearly enough to cause our over active imaginations to take flight.
So should we be afraid? Certainly not! :-) There is nothing to fear in any aspect of life any more. I place my faith and trust in God. I walk in the light, with the holy spirit inside of me. Who or what then can be against me?
I used to be UBER fascinated with this kind of thing. Today I know indulgence in this kind of thing can invite trouble of my own creation or otherwise. Taking my eyes off of our Creator is not a good idea anyway!
But I do have a pet peeve that involves this subject: That John Edwards guy who says he contacts the dead is a darn liar and a cheat, and I wish I could stop him. He preys on the hopes, wishes and regrets of those in mourning, and that’s dangerous and immoral stuff! Gosh I don’t approve of that guy!
Brad Huebert said,
October 29, 2008 at 10:12 am
Well put, Cindy K!
Jeff said,
October 29, 2008 at 10:37 am
I like Gwen’s comment. If ghosts exist, then they still are under the authority of the Son of God, which means that I have no reason to fear them. If God can rescue me from sin, death, and the powers of hell, surely he is mighty enough to save me from Casper.
Leanne Shawler said,
October 29, 2008 at 1:23 pm
First time commenter. Yep, I believe they are ghosts, and I don’t think they’re all demonic either.
I was staying in a hotel and had this awful nightmare about a very demonic ghost at the foot of our bed. I woke myself up out of it, and someone was patting my shoulder in comfort. I thought it was my hubby until I realized he had his back to me!
The place is reputed to be haunted by the original owner, who likes to check in on his guests and make sure they’re okay. He sure did that with me!
Whether it was real, or my imagination continuing to run riot, or it was Jesus not the 19th century hotel owner, I don’t know.
But that’s my ghost story.
Andy McMahon said,
October 30, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Hmm. Interesting question. My friend, Omar swears to me to this day that he saw his grandmother in his hallway for about a week after she died.
It’s insane.
On a completely different topic, That picture…. I can’t help but think someone might take it the wrong way….
Just sayin. :)
Ross Middleton said,
October 31, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Om, simply, I think they are demonic spirits. If it ain’t God, it ain’t some random ghost thing. Its a demon. That’s just the best way that the world can describe it. If by asking do I believe in ghosts, you are asking do I believe in demons? Heck yes, the Bible says they are real, I’ve seen some demons with my own two eyes, so it would be pretty hard for me not to believe in them.
On another side note, I have a theory that UFO sightings and people who claim they have been abducted by aliens are demonic sprits also. I could be wrong, but it makes sense to me:)
Beth Nelson said,
November 2, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I wrote on something similar a week or two ago, and my husband pointed out that in Matthew 14:26 as Jesus is walking on water toward the disciples’ boat, we are told they thought He was a ghost, and they were scared. However, unfortunately for our little confab here, Jesus didn’t expound on that part of their experience (though I’m thankful He went on to bigger things with that whole exchange).
Now I’m off to do a small research project on “nephilim,” which is a new word for me.