MYSTERIOUS WORLDS

Were nothing is as it seems

                                               Back From Beyond The Grave

 

The question "What is a ghost?" has been asked by millions of people for thousands of years. Every culture across the planet views ghosts differently. Some believe that ghosts are evil spirits that should be feared, while others believe that ghosts are here to help and protect the living.

Ghosts are generally thought of as the apparition ( the appearance of) or spirit of someone or some thing that is no longer living. Many theorize that a ghost is simply caught between the world of the living and the afterlife. Possibly confused about their own death. This is why many people believe that ghosts are often found in places of terrible tragedy and sudden death.

Other theories regard ghosts as just another form of energy. We are all made up of energy. Some scientists believe that energy doesn't die, but simply changes form. Ghosts could be the same energy in a new form, without a physical body. Another theory is that ghosts are only imprints left on the atmosphere around us by what some call our "life force".

Although there may be no definite explanation for what a ghost is, it is hard to deny that there is definitely something about them that has captured the minds of millions. With thousands of reported sightings and encounters for centuries, it is also hard to deny that ghosts just might be real. The thought of a ghost being real is scary to some and fascinating to others. Can they see us? Do they hear us when we speak?

There are different types of ghosts that people have reported encounters with as well. History will tell us that not all ghosts are considered friendly and some actually create feelings of sadness and terror.

Types of Ghosts

1. Guardian Angels - Everyone has at least one. They are usually some kind of relation to you that died before you were born. Most of the time you won't know who they are - or rather, were. They watch over us our entire lives and help us out through the rough and dangerous times. They're the little voice telling you not to take your usual route the day a huge pile-up happens on the freeway.

2. Lost Souls - These are spirits who know they're dead but don't know where to go. They can also fear moving on and are afraid to leave what's known to them. They linger around until the day comes when they're ready to leave.

3. Are We Dead Yet? - An easy example of this is Bruce Willis' character in The Sixth Sense. These spirits walk around, going about their lives not knowing that they've passed on. They wonder why people ignore them and why nobody comes to visit anymore. This happens more often with old people who've spent their later years by themselves. Another (fictional) example is the Nicole Kidman movie, The Others. The spirits may think that the new inhabitants are the spirits, when it is the other way around.

4. Unfinished business - There can be a number of reasons why certain beings stick around after death. As portrayed most often in movies - "catch my killer!" Other reasons can be as simple as waiting to see their child graduate. Once the work is finished, the deceased usually moves on in peace.

5. Self-Appointed Guardian Angels - These are loved ones who stick around after death to watch over someone. It can be a deceased husband watching over his elderly wife during the last of her days. It can be a young mother who died before her time watching over her children as they grow up.

6. Wasting Time Between Lives - As in reincarnation. They're waiting for the next life to come around. What better way to waste some time than being a ghost. Coming and going from the planes as you please, enjoying yourself during your sightseeing, visiting old friends to see how they're doing, and the list goes on. They're not here and not there - there just waiting in between.

7. Messengers - These are usually in the form of a loved one. It can be a warning of certain danger or future events. It can also be a spirit coming to ease the pain from a grieving loved one. My mother and my grandmother have both had the latter happen. With messengers, the spirit is not always deceased.

8. Still Living - These people can be dreaming or having an out-of-body experience (obe). In the case of dreams, the person doesn't usually know they're walking around in the form of a ghost. With intentional obe's, the projector knows what's going on but their intentions are generally harmless.

9. Poltergeist -This is a German word that means 'noisy spirit'. They are thought not to be spirits at all but rather some form of energy very often connected with an adolescent or with someone going through an emotionally trying time. Poltergeists, like the Enfield Poltergeist can be mischievous, disruptive and and destructive but they very rarely hurt anyone. Minor poltergeist activity is quite common but fortunately, the activity doesn't usually last more than a few weeks.

10. Spirit Orb - With the arrival of the digital camera came 'the orbs' that look like small circles of light on the photographs. Probably 99% of the images have a perfectly natural explanation, such as dust, pollen, moisture, lens reflection, etc. However, there are those that cannot be explained in this way. Those that appear 'from no-where' at the request of the photographer or that remain in the same place for minutes at a time. Some say that they are the spirits of the departed. Others that they are the spiritual equivalent of 'dung beetles' feeding off waste 'etheric energy'.

11. Demons - These are various kinds are malevolent spirits. Not exactly ghosts. Most probably the worst type of entity you could wish to encounter. There have been many documented accounts involving demons over the years and going back through the centuries. Most people would probably associate them with those who like to dabble in the occult or use quija boards. But as recorded accounts show people have been taken over by demons who may nothing to do with occult at all.

Conspiracy Theories

The term "conspiracy theory" is used to indicate a narrative genre that includes a broad selection of (not necessarily related) arguments for the existence of grand conspiracies. The term is frequently used by scholars and in popular culture to identify secret military, banking, or political actions aimed at "stealing" power, money, or freedom, from "the people". Conspiracy theories are based on the notion that complex plots are put into motion by powerful hidden forces. Less illustrious uses refer to folklore and urban legend and a variety of explanatory narratives which are constructed with methodological flaws or biases. Originally a neutral term, since the mid-1960s it has acquired a somewhat derogatory meaning, implying a paranoid tendency to see the influence of some malign covert agency in events. The term is sometimes used to automatically dismiss claims that are deemed ridiculous, misconceived, paranoid, unfounded, outlandish or irrational. A proven conspiracy theory, such as the notion that United States President Richard Nixon and his aides were behind the Watergate break-in and cover-up, is usually referred to as something else, such as investigative journalism or historical analysis.

The political scientist Michael Barkun discussing the usage of this term in contemporary American culture holds that a conspiracy theory is a belief which explains an event as the result of a secret plot by exceptionally powerful and cunning conspirators to achieve a malevolent end. According to Barkun, the appeal of conspiracism is threefold: First, conspiracy theories claim to explain what institutional analysis cannot. They appear to make sense out of a world that is otherwise confusing. Second, they do so in an appealingly simple way, by dividing the world sharply between the forces of light, and the forces of darkness. They trace all evil back to a single source, the conspirators and their agents. Third, conspiracy theories are often presented as special, secret knowledge unknown or unappreciated by others. For conspiracy theorists, the masses are a brainwashed herd, while the conspiracy theorists in the know can congratulate themselves on penetrating the plotters' deceptions.

Some scholars argue that conspiracy theories once limited to fringe audiences have become commonplace in mass media, contributing to conspiracism emerging as a cultural phenomenon in the United States of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and the possible replacement of democracy by conspiracy as the dominant paradigm of political action in the public mind. According to anthropologists Todd Sanders and Harry G. West, evidence suggests that a broad cross section of Americans today gives credence to at least some conspiracy theories. Belief in conspiracy theories has therefore become a topic of interest for sociologists, psychologists and experts in folklore.

In an essay on conspiracy theories originating in the Middle East, Daniel Pipes notes that "five assumptions distinguish the conspiracy theorist from more conventional patterns of thought: appearances deceive; conspiracies drive history; nothing is haphazard; the enemy always gains; power, fame, money, and sex account for all." According to West and Sanders, when talking about conspiracies in the Vietnam War era, Pipes includes within the fringe element anyone who entertains the thought that conspiracies played a role in the major political scandals and assassinations that rocked American politics in the Vietnam era. "He sees the paranoid style in almost any critical historical or social-scientific analysis of oppression."

Noam Chomsky, linguist and scholar, contrasts conspiracy theory as more or less the opposite of institutional analysis, which focuses mostly on the public, long-term behaviour of publicly known institutions, as recorded in, for example, scholarly documents or mainstream media reports, rather than secretive coalitions of individuals.

Protection Against Spirits

Paranormal Investigators face danger each time they enter an allegedly haunted location, each time they attempt to communicate with a dis-incarnate spirit, when they enter a place they know little about. Each time they don't know the outcome and they put themselves in danger to help others. It is vital they protect themselves against any intrusive or dangerous spirits that may turn up.

Protection is not something that you should take lightly or be afraid of, but rather, something you feel good about doing.  Be very couscous of it and committed to doing it each and every time you ghost hunt. Because, dealing with the spirit world can be a very dangerous- albeit exciting- endeavor.  You need to be sure you are protected. You must learn how protect yourself.

To ward off evil or demonic forces or entities, protection prayers are recited. These prayers are not necessarily considered to remove demons that are already present. Instead, they are meant to prevent demonic entities from entering into or otherwise influencing a person, home, property, or object.

Paranormal investigators and professional exorcists often use the repetitive recitation of protection prayers as a chant to shield themselves from harm or fear whenever engaging malevolent spirits or demons. Since demons cannot really be destroyed, so to speak, but only banished from one individual or space to another, these prayers also prevent demons from “jumping.”

When demons jump, they shift from a currently possessed individual or space to a new one. Demons have been known to do this in order to temporarily fool exorcists into believing they have successfully cast them out, when in fact the targeted demons have only moved to a new space. In extreme cases, when serious mistakes are made by an exorcist, demons have even been known to attempt jumping from the possessed person or space to the body of the acting exorcist. Reciting prayers of protection can offer a protective shield against the demon being engaged.