posted on May 18, 2009 09:26:35 AM new
You're so right. Exploitation of fear and ignorance is fundamentalism's MO, whether christian, muslim or in any other disguise. I'm afraid I don't discount the paranormal entirely helen, and I'm afraid I might be one of your "otherwise normal" folks.
I don't know that I can "explain" it to you. I can't explain it to myself. I have witnessed the ghosts of relatives long past here on the ranch all my life. So has most of my family. My great grandmother makes regular appearances, especially around the holidays. Some of us see her, all can smell her perfume. I see my grandfather puttering around in the barn fairly often, especially during busy seasons like lambing and shearing. I speak to him, but he never seems to notice me. There are also a couple of young kids who have appeared to others but I haven't seen them. We don't know who they are, but our family plot contains lots of child graves from a century or more ago when kids died fairly often.
I can easily dismiss that which I haven't seen or otherwise directly experienced, but face to face encounters are impossible to deny, especially when they occur routinely.
This witchcraft craziness is another thing entirely.
posted on May 18, 2009 10:18:42 AM new
Awesome! Isn't it interesting that such apparitions appear to you around the holidays? Do you suppose that I too might be able to see such things if I could enhance my perception with some bottled spirits?
posted on May 18, 2009 01:53:04 PM new
Those holiday appearances may well be bottled spirits, but the other times it happens can't be easily explained. There is no predicting when or to whom they'll happen. We've even had it happen to guests staying here for the first time. One guy came to pick up a horse he'd bought and spent the night. The next morning he was wandering around the place with his coffee while we got his horse ready to load.
.
"Is the old feller out in the barn deaf? I spoke to him but he didn't seem to notice."
"Naw, grandpa's just too proud and stubborn to speak English. Nothing personal!"
posted on May 18, 2009 02:12:34 PM new
Lol! Now, you're spiking the coffee and the orange juice! As I think of the favorable aspects of that practice, not a bad idea!
posted on May 18, 2009 02:24:17 PM new
Helen, you probably won't believe this either. I visited my daughter recently in Fallbrook, CA.
They bought an older home and are renovating it.
The bedroom is off the living room and downstairs. I happened to glance thru the door to the bedroom and saw a figure of a woman walk by. I asked my daughter who that was downstairs and she said, "Oh, you saw her". She had never mention her to me before this.
She said she had seen the woman and also her sister in law had seen her. It was in the late afternoon and the 2 buck chuck hadn't been opened yet. LOL
posted on May 18, 2009 04:22:04 PM new
My recommendation is to read some neurology books; those by Oliver Sachs are well-written and thought-provoking.
Is it any wonder that a human mind, capable of smelling numbers, mistaking a wife for a hat, thinking that one's leg belongs to someone else, etc. would "believe" in ghosts? Beyond the neurological, there's also the psychological (suggestion, hysteria, group dynamics).
I find ghosts pedestrian by comparison, but I guess if I really thought my dead grandfather was in the barn, it would be pretty cool. Absent my grandfather, I'll just have to continue to be fascinated with the more reality-based wonders that neurology and psychology provide.
posted on May 18, 2009 05:09:48 PM new
LOL No Helen didn't visit the Prof. and no one dumped a board on my head. One of these days it will happen to you and you will be a believer.
Cash, mention of that case reminds me of the night when my Dad was having a nightmare and mistook my Mom for a boa constrictor...or at least that's how he explained the situation.
"One of these days it will happen to you and you will be a believer." Maybe not. I would discourage the man who mistook his wife for a hat from "believing" that his wife in actual fact was a hat. Similarly, if I see a "ghost" I will search for a reasonable explanation.
FWIW, those Nigerians probably believe as strongly that the kids are witches as you do that you've seen ghosts. The difference, and it's not trivial, is that you don't abuse anyone as a result of your belief. However, I find a belief in the "supernatural" to be dangerous because once you get the camel's nose into the tent, well ...
posted on May 19, 2009 08:42:14 AM newMan has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.
posted on May 19, 2009 05:38:43 PM new
I don't think you are Helen. I don't know what you've seen or not seen and I'd never presume to tell somebody who thinks "ghosts" or whatever you want to call them are superstitious hokum that they're wrong. What I do know is that I am a reasonable person. I look for simple and logical explanations wherever possible. I also know how to recognize when my reason can't explain something I know I've seen.
I have a cousin who's a priest. He's always kidding us about this stuff, telling his own kin that they must have been drunk or it's simply a case of being suggestible because somebody else thought they saw something. Scrooge's "underdone potato or bit of bad beef". Obviously abuelito can't be hanging out in the barn because he was a devout catholic and he's now with god. They're gone. There are no catholic ghosts. This is the same fellow who warns other relatives that they shouldn't go to curanderas (traditional healers) because it's dangerous to consort with "witches".
It's all a matter of personal experience. I've never seen a UFO, so for now, for me, they don't exist. I also tend to sneer and discount the stories of those who say they do. When one lands in the horse pasture though, I'll probably have to rethink my position.
posted on May 19, 2009 08:02:37 PM new
Profe and Niel, I'm sorry that I failed to appreciate your serious intent while focusing only on the humorous aspect of your experiences.
posted on May 19, 2009 10:56:38 PM new
that's OK Helen. While I was in CA an earthquake woke me up one morning, but I know that was real. However, it could have been that same ghost trying to get me up and out of bed LOL
posted on May 20, 2009 06:12:26 AM new
Thanks, Profe and Niel
Like Cash suggested, I would also tend to attribute such heightened perception to a neurological effect, probably inherited since other members of your family have experienced the paranormal encounters too. (Although that doesn't explain the guy who came by to purchase the horse.)
I have an artist friend who has a photographic memory and can amazingly paint scenes and people as if they are right before her canvas. Maybe that talent has a neurological basis too. Perhaps a photographic memory may be linked somehow to your ability to see your deceased relatives.
One chapter of the Oliver Sacks book that you mentioned stresses the fact that not all neurological functions are deficits but rather excesses. So maybe I should say that my friend may have a superabudance of function in that respect.
posted on May 20, 2009 02:22:00 PM new
I'm open to any and all explanations for the things we've seen, EXCEPT the explanation that we haven't really seen them. We have, and so have unrelated others. I take no position on whether they're the spirits of the dead or something else entirely. I suspect there is a much more rational but as yet unrevealed explanation, perhaps having to do with the fact that we've taken care of this place for a VERY long time, especially by American standards. If this place ever falls into the hands of others, they're gonna have lots of company, and we'll all be related...
sp. edit
[ edited by profe51 on May 20, 2009 02:23 PM ]
A lot depends on what you mean by "seeing." Heck, if seeing were simply an accurate representation of what's hitting your retina, you'd think the world had a big hole that moved around wherever your eyes were pointed (because of the blind spot caused by the optic nerve). For that matter, the retina is considered part of the central nervous system, and there's even neural processing that takes place before signals leave the eye.
As one example, frogs have receptors in the eye that are only activated when a "speck" goes past them in one direction, another set of receptors activated with movement in the other direction. This is handy for flicking out the tongue towards flying insects, which can be done very quickly since there's no "brain" processing involved in deciding that the frog has "seen" an insect.
Even on a good day, I'm strictly an amateur at his, but in my view (pun intended) the wonders of the human brain, nervous system, belief systems, perception, etc. are so much grander and mysterious than a ghost would be that it would almost be a let-down if ghosts actually exist.
posted on May 20, 2009 09:20:47 PM newEven on a good day, I'm strictly an amateur at his, but in my view (pun intended) the wonders of the human brain, nervous system, belief systems, perception, etc. are so much grander and mysterious than a ghost would be that it would almost be a let-down if ghosts actually exist.
As I said cash, I make no claims to knowing what causes the things we've seen. I'm open to any and all theories. I also know what I've seen, and I've seen my grandfather on numerous occasions throughoutl my life. It's almost routine, happening half a dozen times a year or more. He passed when I was a little boy. Perhaps my pleasant recollections of hanging out in the barn with him as a little boy are nearly palpable, and my mind puts him there. No problem, I can accept that. But did my mind also put him there for unrelated others to see too? If it did, I want to figure out how to use that little trick.
posted on May 21, 2009 06:39:43 AM new
Oliver Sacks-is that the guy who wrote the book on the Island of colored blind?
It is really 2 books,the second book dealt with a disease called Lytico Bodig on the Islands of Guam back in the 40s??
Egypt is in Africa and the ancient Egyptians believe the person has 6 components-the Ba,Ka,Ankh?,your name,your shadow and your physical body.
After a person passed away.the ka hovers on earth and BA ascends to Heaven.
The Ba is the one who comes back to earth to visit his physical body and since it decays,it cannot recognise its former physical self until they started to preserve it by mummify the physical body .
The ka is the so called lower self in Occult and the inferior soul in Voodooism and hangs around the graveyard where its physcical counterpart is buried.
Those who can see spirits and ghosts see them eating the food offered to them in festival and holidays.
I think some of the African customs stem from ancient EGypt,the Egyptians have a rite where they use a metal instrument to open the mouth of the deceased to let the spirit escaped,it is called opening of the mouth ritual,the Voodoo priest will also do the same ,using a bottle to capture the spirit of the dead.
Now a trained Tibetan priest will also be called upon to release the spirit of the deceased ,the priest also eats his own medicine by practising letting his own spirit to escape through top of his head.
The spirit you see does not have to be part of the dead,it could be a live person who knows how to separate his spirit from his body!
*
Economic Reform act of Chairman Obama of the socialist States of America :
10 ounces of meat per month,half a yard of cotton per year per adult.
Hellilujah!
posted on May 21, 2009 06:50:40 AM new
Witchcraft is the oldest religion in the world,some of the herbal medicine they concoct may be crude but thats the best they can do back then.
As for what the article said about children-
Many of those targeted have traits that make them stand out, including learning disabilities, stubbornness and ailments such as epilepsy, he added.
-Children are easier to possess than adults,
-as for epilepsy,Shaminism originates in Siberia where the night is long and those who suffer from vitamin deficiency are often epileptic ,violent seizure of the physical body releases the spirit who travels astrally and visit places either physical and /or astral planes!
Thats why they tend to be psychic and performs feats other mortals cannot.
-learning disabilities,if they are possessed or pychic,they are not interested in learning A is for apple,B is for bear,they are too advance !
As for stubborness,they already know too much,what can you tell them that they dont already know?
*
Economic Reform act of Chairman Obama of the socialist States of America :
10 ounces of meat per month,half a yard of cotton per year per adult.
Hellilujah!
