Ghosts: Clothed & Naked

[TulipTree]

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

:laughing: :blush: :wince:

My worst nightmares coming true.

Edited to quote

 

[Bannik]

Oobe ghosts

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.

This reminded me of Doppleganger Child.

 

[stu neville]

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.

Perfectly reasonable - like on the Ghostly recordings of Horrific events thread, IMHO it's misleading to try and ascribe one blanket explanation to an entire range of phenomena. Each case must be examined on it's own merit, so all of the above may well apply.

 

[zygmunt_rocks_on]

Cleopatra's Needle, on the north bank of London's embankment is supposed to be haunted by a man who runs from the road and jumps into the Thames without a splash. I've read in the past that he's naked. There's not much around on the internet, but a brief search turned this up:

http://www.paranormaldatabase.com/london/lonpages/ec12lon.htm


_ _

 

[zygmunt_rocks_on]

Cleopatra's Needle on London's embankment is haunted by a naked man who jumps into the thames. Presumably a suicide.

 

[GNC]

I read a report in a book a few years ago about a vicar who felt he was embraced by a naked woman when there was nobody to be seen in the room.

 

[MrRING]

We've got an earlier Naked Ghosts thread worth checking out:

[Emp edit: Threads merged so link removed]

 

[James_H]

I read a report in a book a few years ago about a vicar who felt he was embraced by a naked woman when there was nobody to be seen in the room.

Frustration?

 

[GNC]

Wishful thinking, maybe.

 

[PeniG]

My first guess would have been that such things do not happen. Maybe they were involved in a near miss with another vehicle (ran it off the road) - then reported the 'sighting' after feeling guilty and going back for a look. (NB - this quote from a post that's now part of another thread - stu)

Really? What Fortean lit have you been reading? :laughing: Things like this happen all the time in the World o' Weird!

You're quite right that we need a source closer to the events than a TV show dedicated to spooking people. If the outlines of the story are as reported, however, the reporting couple couldn't have been guilty of running the woman in question off the road, as the events had 4 days between. (Unless it took them four days to repent, which is not inconceivable.) If you were making up a story, though, wouldn't you make up something closer to what really happened? It's the non-sequiter nature of the sighting that attracts me - the things people make up generally have more of a storyline than that.

In the absence of the original police reports or a reliable news story, though, all theories are hot air.

 

[stu neville]

In the absence of the original police reports or a reliable news story, though, all theories are hot air.

Well, you could say that about 90% of the stuff in this place, for a start...

 

[PeniG]

90% is setting it a bit high, I think. Besides, hot air is nice to have on a cold night.

I think we could all benefit from making our assumptions clearer at the outset of a discussion than we often do. "Assuming this report to be accurate" and "if this is as reported" don't take that long to type. "These people are lying" is an unfalsifiable proposition in most cases; but it's also sometimes the only thing the speaker is capable of believing.

Good data is wonderful when you can get it.

 

[Anonymous]

Can anyone find any links to the story other than attempts to sell DVD copies of the tv series? That would be interesting. The only other link I found was to two postings on an archive of 1994 postings to a sceptics usernet group.

As I posted above: according to 'Unsolved Mysteries' (which was a hugely stupid and unreliable programme) the dead woman was called 'Christine Skubish'.

EDIT: why on earth have these threads been merged? The Naked Ghosts thread was generic, speculative and did not require specifics -- whilst the 'Christine Skubish' thread is specific but the (ahem) facts are open to much doubt. IMO it doesn't serve as an example of the original thread. Doh! 2 differently interesting threads murdered.

 

[stu neville]

Good data is wonderful when you can get it.

Define good data though - a first hand account is only wonderful if you trust the source. And then again, even if you believe the source to be of good character, what if you just don't believe the story and believe the teller deluded?

...why on earth have these threads been merged? The Naked Ghosts thread was generic, speculative and did not require specifics -- whilst the 'Christine Skubish' thread is specific but the (ahem) facts are open to much doubt. IMO it doesn't serve as an example of the original thread. Doh! 2 differently interesting threads murdered.

Because it was about a naked ghost, probably. But, as it's Xmas, and I'm feeling generous, I'll split the Christine Skubish posts off into a thread all of their own .

EDIT - have done, and you can find it here .

 

[Anonymous]

Excellent. Since the main point of the other thread is not the nakedness. First we need to know whether the story actually has any basis.

 

[PeniG]

Good data is wonderful when you can get it.

Define good data though - a first hand account is only wonderful if you trust the source.

I shouldn't even try, I'm so tired...
Oh, well. Personally, I always trust the source during the story. It's the best way to enjoy it. The impossibility of telling objective truth from outright lies, illusion, delusion, and subjective truth is the gravitational center of Forteana. I am not interested in believing things, only at getting to their experiential heart and confronting the infinity of the universe with my finite human brain. But you don't get that from second-, third-, fourth-hand and deliberately dishonest stories. I want an honest story told as near to the bone as possible.

If this makes no sense to anyone I can try again when I'm rested, but that won't be until well into January.

 

[Anonymous]

If, as suggested earlier, we are "projecting" the image of clothing that we are expecting to see onto naked ghosts then surely we would never unexpectedly see a person naked. Streaking would be impossible. Any one who ran naked onto a football pitch would then presumably have the clothing normal fans wear "projected" onto them by us all (?!).
If perhaps inanimate objects have souls of sorts, as has also been put forward then at what point does the clothing's "soul" become released to join the ghost. A person may die and their clothes go to charity and have many years of use before being discarded. Does the ghost go naked until then? Do the clothes have to be destroyed before the "soul" is released?
The lack of naked ghosts has always seemed to me to be the clincher in the denial that ghosts are souls returning to walk amongst us.

 

[Anonymous]

Ghosts

just wanted to say 2 things on this.
one is that a ghost is supposed to be a spirit and so is not related to the body but is the essance of the person, closer to the idea of the mind, so would be a projection of the mind. Like imagining what you would look like rather than what u do look like.

The other is why do people assume that ghosts are the spirits of the dead, looking at the photos and stuff like EVP it makes me think that it is something else, the next time you look at a weird photo or listen to spooky EVP think is this what i would do when i die.

 

[MrRING]

A story about the Peeksville Ghosts, who are reportedly naked:

http://www.ufowisconsin.com/wfiles/files/gh_peeksvillenaked.html

And, though it's more folkloreic about a specific event, it adds to the idea that people wouldn't want to admit seeing a naked ghost if it were flabby & saggy....

 

[MrRING]

This books seems relevent, but it doesn't seem to be on Amazon:

LINK

Familiar Spirits: Sexual Hauntings Through the Ages, Colin Waters, 1993, photos and line art, biblio., 174 pp. $16.95 HB

Not quite as titillating as you might think, this book could be titled, "The Naked and the Dead." Tales of ghostly rapists, panting spirits, lewd goblins, incubi and succubi. Five nude ghosts dancing around Trafalgar Square, a beautiful ghostly streetwalker who turned into a hideous hag, a pathetic pregnant spirit of a murdered girl.

 

[MaxMolyneux]

Maybe it's what your wearing when you die at the time of death.

I like Woohoo's post about it and is a good theory on it.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

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? [/i]

No. As I addressed this same issue on another thread here earleir today, MOST ghosts seem to crisis phenomena which are "hallucinated" by the witness/experiencer. NOTE: by "hallucination" I most certainly DO NOT use the word in its extremely limited modern sense of "delusional" but rather in its 19th Century currency of "mental construct.")

The witness perceives psychically that X has died and his (her) brain then responds by creating a perfect image of X, He (she) sees X as clothed, never having seen X naked.

 

[LordRsmacker]

Naked???
Has anyone made a gag about having the willies put up them by a ghost?


Um, OK, I'll get my coat................

 

[OldTimeRadio]

The "other" type of ghost being the more-or-less humanoid-shaped fog or mist. It's been suggested that if the disembodied spirit or soul is a actually a peripatetic electro-magnetic field, it may attract a certain amount of water vapor to itself, creating a misty effect. This does rather neatly explain the association of ghosts with rain, thunderstorms, lakes and rivers, seashores, humid summer evenings and so on.

This ghost would not be clothed, although possibly observers would interpret the gauzy edges of such an cloud-like entity as clothing or robes.... or sheeting.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Epiphany

I've just this moment had an epiphany - we (and I very much include myself) may have spent quite a long time confusing ghosts with the just plain old-fashionred reanimated dead.

The traditional specter was often "sheeted" - and this is usually interpreted as indicating WINDING-sheets, cerements, burial clothing. Such "sheeted" ghosts of past centuries were commonly said to be partially decayed or even semi-skeltonized. They were often reported as smelling bad.

Such creatures would seem to have MUCH more in common with VAMPIRES than garden-variety spooks!

And of course they would be "clothed" - just clothing you or I wouldn't much care to wear.

In addition, "sheeted ghosts" (as well as "real" vampires) seem to have pretty much disappeared with the advent of modern embalming techniques.

 

[MaxMolyneux]

Naked???
Has anyone made a gag about having the willies put up them by a ghost?


Um, OK, I'll get my coat................

I believe someone already took your coat.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Naked???
Has anyone made a gag about having the willies put up them by a ghost?


Um, OK, I'll get my coat................

I believe someone already took your coat.

Of course. We're taking up a collection of them to clothe poor, naked ghosts.

 

[escargot]

we... may have spent quite a long time confusing ghosts with the just plain old-fashionred reanimated dead.

*slaps forehead* Of course! Easy mistake to make!

Old occult drawings of the 'raising of the dead' certainly bear this out.
This famous one
http://kelley.akada.net/edward_kelley_and_john_dee.jpg
shows it being done in a churchyard.

 

[MaxMolyneux]

Naked???
Has anyone made a gag about having the willies put up them by a ghost?


Um, OK, I'll get my coat................

I believe someone already took your coat.

Of course. We're taking up a collection of them to clothe poor, naked ghosts.

I thought it'd make a good rug as well.

 

[Tangent7]

Personally, I've always wondered whether or not many ghosts need the human element to actually manifest. In other words, in many cases we may in some way be the doorway. Our minds and perceptions are needed to somehow bring the ghost into our reality.

I remember reading a book several years ago (sorry, can't remember the title or author right now, but I'll try to get back to you on this) where a suggestion was offered in which many sightings of phantoms may actually be produced by the brain and transmitted through the lens of the eyes, leaving an explanation on why more than one person sometimes sees them.

If the mind produces the image, then the choice of showing nakedness would be dependent on the source of the image production. Within the projector's mind or from an outside source. That may also explain why most are clothed images. Perhaps modesty? Or perhaps the innate social propriety of the person seeing the image? Don't know, but an interesting facet to consider.

I'm also not sure about the physical feasibility of all this, but it still seems interesting.