Ghosts: Clothed & Naked

[MrRING]

Think about this - if a ghost is a person's soul or essence, why does it manifest with clothing? Is it a deep seated shame of the human body?

Or does clothing also have a soul, and are co-haunting with the person?

It just seems to take away from the idea of ghosts that they are apparently (since I've never heard to the contrary) always seen clothed. Not only can the souls of the dead manifest, but they can create the illusion of clothing?

I guess another idea might be that the observers mind is putting a context on what it is seeing and that our mind supplies the clothing...

 

[Yithian]

Then why don't we always see ghosts in modern clothing?

Especially if we haven't been told beforehand that the ghost is from a specific time-period.

 

[stu neville]

This to me has always been the most compelling evidence that most observed ghosts are psychic recordings, rather than independent entities. It's just a visual echo of an event emotive enough, or in the right place at the right time, to be somehow imprinted on the immediate environment.

IIRC a lot of mediaeval woodcuts show ghosts and spirits as naked, as they would have been under their shrouds (which is where we get the "ghost in a sheet" image from).

Then again, it raises the philosophical question about how many ghosts we see every day unwittingly, because they look so ordinary we don't realise.

 

[MrRING]

Caroline:

If clothing is a projection, maybe what we see on ghosts is clothing we think that a ghost should have. If we were in a house built in 1845 and we saw the ghost of the original owner, maybe we "see" Victorian clothing based on our knowledge of the time or pictures we have seen because we expect the ghosts to have old clothing.

Stu:

I had never heard of the old woodcuts of naked ghosts, but that is interesting. Any linkage? I wonder if all over the world, various culture's ghosts are clothed as well?

Also, if someone psychicly imprinted themselves on a area because of a violent death, why would they preserve their clothing and not just their natural body? Is the psychic imprint more like a photograph (taking in physical form) and less like a mental projection of the dead's soul?

It just seems strange in that a ghost would manifest itself beyond it's body into the realm of clothing.

 

[stu neville]

I'll see if I can google some up: there was a striking copy of a 19th Century engraving in "Mysteries of the Afterlife", part of the Orbis "Mysteries" series, of the ghost of a drowned German sailor stood, naked and soaked, by his wife's bedside (it was in the section on crisis apparitions).

Actually, there was a print there of George Cruickshank's "Stockings" to illustrate their section on ghosts of inanimate objects (the Kensington red bus, etc) - can't remember how they covered clothing etc, but remember it being mentioned - it's over twenty years since I last saw the book.

Someone out there's bound to have read or seen the book too: jog any memories, people?

 

[Yithian]

But what about instances where the person seeing the ghost has no prior knowledge of the haunting. If I went to this house and saw your Victorian ghost, why should I see him in Victorian style clothing? Especially if I went without being told which time-period the ghost was from. What would be the result if someone was told the ghost came from a different age?

 

[Spookyangel]

Maybe the ghost just appears the way he/she would like to be remembered.

 

[MrRING]

Caroline, I was just thinking that if you see a ghost in an enviroment, given what we know about the past, we might clothe them in an appropriate fashion, because we expect them to be from the recent to the fair long-ago past... even if you don't know it's Victorian per se, you might in the back of your mind, as a default, think of Victorian fashions when encontering the ghost so it becomes from a certain time frame.

In a way, I'm doing a bit of devil's advocate job with this, but I also think this is a valid question.

Thinking about Spooky Angel's reply, wouldn't that attribute power to create clothing or a "glamour" in addition to being the soul of the dead? It's almost like that a person's self-image extends to their clothing in some way... and people who are seen with clothing are usually something formal too, like outdoor clothes, rather than jeans and t-shirt or just underclothes or a bath robe.

Does anybody think that maybe ghosts are all nude anyway and we just "See" them clothed because it seems more natural that way?

 

[Anonymous]

I was looking at the thread in question but I can't find it...

A while ago on another thread concerning ghosts of busses, plains ect. I proposed a theory similer to Stu's where I argued that if phantoms of soulless objects exist than ghosts have nothing to do with the spirit of the decesed.

The same observastion applies here: clothing has no spiritual presence but yet manafests itself in hauntings (indeed there are reported insidents where only clothing was saw) therefore I canot see how hauntings have anything to do with 'spitit', 'soul' or whatever you want to call it.

 

[Anonymous]

"Is the psychic imprint more like a photograph (taking in physical form) and less like a mental projection of the dead's soul?"

If the ghost is a psychic imprint, like a photo taken at a point of intense emotional upset, then wouldn't it be possible that what we perceive is an image of how the individual (who became the ghost) perceived themselves at the moment? Or, in some odd cases due to the mental state of the individual/ghost at that precise moment, they leave the image of the inanimate object that holds some symbolizm or importance that we may never understand.
This may help explain why some ghosts have a 'normal' apperance and others are unsettling, bearing the wounds that killed them, or have the appearance of corpses.

 

[lopaka]

I recall reading (sorry, but the book is 5,000 miles away at the moment, so this is kind of fuzzy) about a phenomena known as Radiant Boys , the ghosts of small children who would appear to people and were an omen of the viewer's
death. And would sometimes appear naked. Also believe that they were children who had been killed by a parent.

I'm going to try to look this up on the web later today when I actually have time and possibly edit this post heavily.

 

[Anonymous]

I've heard of Radient Boys. I read about them in a book titled "The Encyclopedia of Ghosts" but I can't remember the author or publisher off the top of my head. If anyone wants to know, pm me and I'll have it for you tomorrow.

 

[Beakmoo]

We all want to know I'm sure, bung it on the thread Midnight.

 

[Anonymous]

Sure will.

 

[MrRING]

I google-looed it and came up with

http://www.geocities.com/laxaria/radiant.html

Which seemed pretty good.

Interesteing theories, BTW.... keep 'em coming.

 

[Anonymous]

The book I referred to yesterday with the chapter about Radiant Boys is " The Encyclopedia of Ghosts" by Daniel Cohen, published by Dorset Press.

 

[marion]

I'd say if a spirit didn't need clothes it also wouldn't need to have the physical form of a human body,and would be just as likely to manifest as a ball of light or fog or just be invisible. I think some ghosts are recordings and some are true spirits.

 

[Anonymous]

If the ghost is a psychic imprint, like a photo taken at a point of intense emotional upset, then wouldn't it be possible that what we perceive is an image of how the individual (who became the ghost) perceived themselves at the moment?

Two possibilities here...
An entity that we would call a ghost is in a dreamlike state, and projects an image of how it perceives itself.
So the ghost can be naked, or dressed in its normal clothes, or altered in a strange way, just as we perceive ourselves in a dream.

or-
it is ourselves that dream the ghost, in a waking dreamstate, and similar rules apply.

 

[MrRING]

Ghosts of Flight 401

It seems like there may be two kinds of things that go on in ghostly sightings then.

1) Images seen without interaction
and
2) Interaction with ghosts

Like, for instance, the famous Ghost of Flight 401 hauntings.

(A link for those who want to know more about the haunting:

http://www.geocities.com/donuts13/main_9.htm

and the crash as a whole

http://www.geocities.com/donuts13/index.htm)

So would neither one be ghosts of the dead? With the images, we are seeing some kind of impression like a living mental photograph, and with visitations it is something else? Or is a visitation with a talking being a soul of a former living person or something else?

(Interstingly, the 401 ghosts always were seen wearing their flight uniforms)

 

[JamesWhitehead]

I am reading a book called Haunted Houses by one Charles G. Harper -
it's a cheap reprint of a volume first issued in 1907 and revised 1927.

Harper gives the story of the Cauld Lad of Hylton Castle, near Sunderland.
More often heard than seen, he was understood to be a naked spirit
of the industrious kind: he would tidy things up and was infuriated if he
was not left enough work - then he could be destructive.

It was decided that the best way to be rid of him was to make him a suit
of clothes. When this was done, he appeared, cavorted around in his new
togs and disappeared. Well, it might have happened!

This sounds very like the tales told of fairies or brownies.

The same book gives a number of cases of hauntings where the sounds of
long silk dresses were heard moving around in rooms. I doubt if these days
we would recognize the sound as a dress and such stories seem to have
died out - unless we interpret the sounds differently. As breathing, for
instance.

 

[MrRING]

Living Ghosts

So, then, a most logical explination could be that faires, ghosts, and even alien phenomenon could be the same kind of things, a living entity?

Suppose there are sentient energies around us that can take any form it wants, for reasons known only to it. It can be fairy if it wants to or can tell that belief in such a thing would be present in the viewing individual, or an alien if the viewer is more apt to believe in that, or a ghost (maybe of a loved one, maybe from a past period) if it is looking for a certain response.

As to why - maybe the entities get something in the bargan from our fear and fascination with their apperance, or maybe it's a cover for something else they do.

Thinking about it a little further, most verbal communication with the dead takes place through communication devices (a medium, Ouija, a telephone) but ghosts that are visually present don't generally verbalize in any way to communicate intelligent thought. Neither do alien visitors or fairies that I can recall.

So maybe the visual dead are actually living reflections of what's inside us, a thought outfit worn for reasons we can't fantom.

(Or I'm going nutters)

 

[TVgeek]

or dressed in its normal clothes, or altered in a strange way, just as we perceive ourselves in a dream.
or-
it is ourselves that dream the ghost, in a waking dreamstate, and similar rules apply.

I recall reading a "hypnotic regression" story in which a woman
recalled things occurring "after she dies" in a previous life.
(Bridie Murphy?) It seemed to her like she was in a dream-like
state and although she remembered watching her husband and her house after death, it seemed confusing to her as to why she was constantly ignored.

It sounded quite dream-like... and frustrating!

TVgeek

 

[Anonymous]

I was looking at the thread in question but I can't find it...

A while ago on another thread concerning ghosts of busses, planes ect. I proposed a theory similer to Stu's where I argued that if phantoms of soulless objects exist than ghosts have nothing to do with the spirit of the decesed.

Looking at it from another angle though, could one thus argue that inanimate objects also possess souls of some kind? Or should i find and read this other thread quick smart?

 

[MrRING]

Okay, here is a idea:

So, if ghosts were just the body and some independent entity itself they would probably be naked. But the vast majority are clothed, so the hypothesis was put forth in earlier replies that they could be recordings of previous events.

If ghosts then are "recordings", what are they recorded in?

The only answer I can come up with would be "time-space". Because we already have a ready event where we see another time/space on a regular basis: the night sky that we see is billions of years old, because the light can't get here fast enough.

So, maybe there are unusual properties of light (like ball lightning for electricity) that don't treat time and space in the normal way, but insteads turns in on itself so when when see a ghost, it is just a really unique event in time space, but no more sentient than a television signal.

Which doesn't explain communication with the dead, but it might be an interesting theory for seeing ghosts.

 

[Anonymous]

The book I referred to yesterday with the chapter about Radiant Boys is " The Encyclopedia of Ghosts" by Daniel Cohen, published by Dorset Press.

Also on 'Radiant Boys', the 'Weekend' Book Of Ghosts (which has mysteriously vanished from my shelf, so I can't tell you editor or ISBN, though the publishers may be 'Weekend'?) has a chapter on this phenomenon.
However, If I remember rightly, not all of them are naked according to ths book. It points out that the one said to have appeared to Lord Kitchener (Of the pointy finger/ moustache poster) soon before he died was naked, but suggests that this could have had something to do with his homosexuality. So, either it's just a prurient little speculation on the part of the writer, or maybe it's another anecdotal piece of evidence in support of the 'Ghosts appear as we want/expect to see them' camp.

 

[stu neville]

Just turned up this report from Ghosts of the North (report no 13, about 1/3 of the way down the page):

Hylton Castle, which lies just three miles west of Sunderland, and is now cared for by the Department of the Environment, was said to have been haunted for three centuries by the naked ghost of the “Cauld Lad of Hylton”. He was heard more than he was seen and appears to have haunted the lower part of the castle, especially the kitchen area, where he revelled in helping the kitchen staff by tidying up. The serving staff actually left work for him to do, and it was only when no work was left for him that he became frustrated, smashing crockery, overturning kitchen pans and utensils and generally creating havoc.

 

[escargot]

A nekkid man who doesn't talk but tidies up!

:blissed:

edit- nah, he wouldn't have anywhere for his wallet!

 

[Bannik]

Re: Living Ghosts

Thinking about it a little further, most verbal communication with the dead takes place through communication devices (a medium, Ouija, a telephone) but ghosts that are visually present don't generally verbalize in any way to communicate intelligent thought.

Inverurie Jones told me
here that you have to take the initiative and speak to them first before you get a verbal response. Must be some cosmic rule or something.

 

[TulipTree]

This is an odd theory, but...

While some apparitions might be recordings, others spirits of the dead and still others manifestations of enities that have never been human, I have also read that some might be us having an OOBE while dreaming or meditating.

There's a story in MI about a woman who made her husband stop the car at a house sale / open house. She said "This is the house I've been dreaming about every night, let's just go look!" The home owner answers the door and screams saying "It's you! You're the one who's been haunting our house." Or something like that. There's also a tale of woman who was seen in the hallway outside a weekly meeting looking rumpled, although she was really at home asleep, exhausted from a long day. The next week, when asked what she wore to sleep in, the people from the meeting confirmed that they had seen her in her pajamas.

Unless it's one of "those" nightmares, I would certainly hope that if I've left my body to visit someplace in a dream, that I would create the illusion of clothing. If not, Lordy help those poor people!

 

[escargot]

'Did you notice what Tulip tree was wearing?'
'No, but it sure needed ironing!'