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What Is A Ghost?

In fiction, and in popular culture, it is a usually depicted as a spirit. However, evidence from actual ghost sightings does not generally support the idea of an intelligent entity.

The most general definition, from actual cases, might be a figure of a human, or sometimes of animal, that is not physically present with the witness. This would cover just about all ghost sightings without excluding a paranormal interpretation.
 
Good question!
I haven't a clue about that one.

There are lots of possibilities:

(1) Spirits of deceased people.
(2) People from another dimension or timeline.
(3) Aliens walking among us, wearing invisibility cloaks.
(4) Demons (which raises another question - what are demons if they exist?).
(5) A 'stone tape' - where gravitational and electrical activity in the rocks records and replays sequences of things that happened in the past.
(6) A quantum effect where things happening in the past may be seen by means of some time travel phenomena.
(7) Events induced in the observer's brain by magnetic, sonic and gravitational activity.
( 8 ) Hallucinations.
(9) Swamp gas, will o' the wisp etc.

Did I miss anything?
 
All of the above.(apart from the aliens)
 
You missed illegal immigrants, call yourself a mail reader tsk!
 
Cultjunky said:
You missed illegal immigrants, call yourself a mail reader tsk!
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I am NOT a Daily Mail reader, so no, I don't call myself one.
 
thethingishere said:
Why all of the above apart from aliens.
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Yeah, good point.
Why not aliens? It's just as valid as any of the other 'out there' ideas I listed.
 
Because the aliens are out there, where as the ghost are down here.
 
but how do you know the aliens are not down here and the ghosts are out there
 
thethingishere said:
what is a ghost.
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There is little hard evidence that ghosts exist. The parameters that prove their existence shift through the ages depending on the medium. In Victorian times, a bit of muslin cheesecloth hanging out of the nostril and early darkroom 'artistry' techniques were described as evidence of ectoplasmic apparitions and people lapped it up. Now, of course we aren't as gullible and we have orbs which, despite all the photos taken through the last century and in spite all of the individual frames on millions of feet of celluloid produced by the movie industry, have only recently arrived - coincidentally with the limitations of miniature digital cameras. And people have lapped it up.

But people do claim to see things without a medium. If these sightings are not the result of subsonic resonances....

http://meta-religion.com/Paranormale/Gh ... quency.htm


...or other mind-messing natural phenomena then there remains the possibility that they are an energy imprint of the human psyche.

Although the best guess is that there is no such thing as ghosts and nurture, folky campfire tales, vulnerability, the power of suggestion and the capability of the mind to play tricks on itself does the main job of conjuring a spook.
 
Sorry for asking this question just i know people on both sides of the fence that either believe or dont believe ghosts do exist. both sides say that they know what ghosts are but as the board has soon me no one can say for definitly what a ghost is. each answer may or may not be the true one but none of them can be dismissed.
 
It's a question with no correct answer as far as we know, so speculation is all we have.
 
gncxx said:
It's a question with no correct answer as far as we know, so speculation is all we have.
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Indeed.
 
norton51 said:
In fiction, and in popular culture, it is a usually depicted as a spirit. However, evidence from actual ghost sightings does not generally support the idea of an intelligent entity.

The most general definition, from actual cases, might be a figure of a human, or sometimes of animal, that is not physically present with the witness. This would cover just about all ghost sightings without excluding a paranormal interpretation.
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My biggest problem with the notion of 'ghosts' lies in the assumption that the diverse phenomena observed are necessarily to be interpreted as human / animal 'spirits' or projections that correlate with an individual human / animal (past, present, other-dimensional, whatever ...).

To be certain, those observed phenomena which include the perceived form of a human / animal would steer one toward such explanations. However, many of the phenomena lumped together as pertaining to 'ghosts' don't relate to specifically human or animal forms or manifestations.

It's analogous to my antipathy toward the presumption any / all 'UFO' sightings are necessarily interpretable in terms of artificial vehicles.

My point is not to dismiss the anomalous observations - only to dismiss the narrow categories into which we've progressively force-fit them as a matter of course.
 
Quite.
Ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, Nessie, MIBs etc could all be the same thing that doesn't know what to be yet.
 
It comes as a surprise to many to discover that ghosts were actually invented by the National Trust in the late 1940s.
 
To repeat what I said on another thread -

I think that the spectrum of experience that we describe as 'ghosts' actually covers many different phenomena which may (or may never) lend themselves to several different explanations, some of which might well sit within the boundaries of more traditional science. As an example of the latter - I suspect that the effects of low frequency sound may end up explaining some experiences. However, I'd also accept that there's a possibility that something like this, rather than simply explaining an experience in and of itself, may actually act as a trigger, and is therefore not necessarily entirely incompatible with (other theories)
 
McAvennie_ said:
It comes as a surprise to many to discover that ghosts were actually invented by the National Trust in the late 1940s.
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Wasn't there some prior art - such as in the works of Shakespeare, perhaps?
 
EnolaGaia said:
To be certain, those observed phenomena which include the perceived form of a human / animal would steer one toward such explanations. However, many of the phenomena lumped together as pertaining to 'ghosts' don't relate to specifically human or animal forms or manifestations.
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What other kind of ghosts are you talking about here, please?

It's analogous to my antipathy toward the presumption any / all 'UFO' sightings are necessarily interpretable in terms of artificial vehicles.
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UFOs and ghosts are similar in that they are both phenomena with many different explanations. UFOs can be caused by planes, clouds, balloons, birds, reflections in windows, satelliites, planets etc. Ghosts reports are mainly caused by misperception and various types of hallucination. What unites these UFO reports is the popular concept that they are extraterrestrial craft. Similarly, any report of a human figure in a place where it could not have been is interpreted as a ghost which is, in popular culture, a spirit.

I am amazed by how often infrasound is mentioned as a cause of ghostly hallucination. There is little or no evidence, as yet, that infrasound has, or even can, cause hallucinations of ghostly figures. On the other hand there IS evidence that certain low frequency, low strength varying magnetic fields have been shown to cause such visions.
 
norton51 said:
EnolaGaia said:
To be certain, those observed phenomena which include the perceived form of a human / animal would steer one toward such explanations. However, many of the phenomena lumped together as pertaining to 'ghosts' don't relate to specifically human or animal forms or manifestations.
Click to expand...

What other kind of ghosts are you talking about here, please?

It's analogous to my antipathy toward the presumption any / all 'UFO' sightings are necessarily interpretable in terms of artificial vehicles.
Click to expand...

UFOs and ghosts are similar in that they are both phenomena with many different explanations. UFOs can be caused by planes, clouds, balloons, birds, reflections in windows, satelliites, planets etc. Ghosts reports are mainly caused by misperception and various types of hallucination. What unites these UFO reports is the popular concept that they are extraterrestrial craft. Similarly, any report of a human figure in a place where it could not have been is interpreted as a ghost which is, in popular culture, a spirit. ...
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I was referring to phenomena that are characterized as 'ghosts' without there being a discernible human / animal form (on the basis of which to consider them the 'spirit' of any individual organism(s)). For example ... A recurring amorphous light along a road might be popularly characterized as a 'ghost', but more constructively addressed as something else (e.g., a will o' the wisp or earthlight phenomenon).
 
EnolaGaia said:
I was referring to phenomena that are characterized as 'ghosts' without there being a discernible human / animal form (on the basis of which to consider them the 'spirt' of any individual organism(s)). For example ... A recurring amorphous light along a road might be popularly characterized as a 'ghost', but more constructively addressed as something else (e.g., a will o' the wisp or earthlight phenomenon).
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I wouldn't count such phenomena as ghosts though they could be seen as haunting phenomena so there is a connection, I suppose. I guess some people might count lights as ghosts though most paranormal researchers would say they were 'light phenomena' rather than actual ghosts.
 
norton51 said:
I am amazed by how often infrasound is mentioned as a cause of ghostly hallucination. There is little or no evidence, as yet, that infrasound has, or even can, cause hallucinations of ghostly figures...
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Visible phenomena are only one part of the spectrum of experience that we call ghosts - I wasn't actually suggesting that infrasound caused visions, I was speculating along the lines that some apparently ghostly phenomena may be a response to our environment. Possibly low strength varying magnetic fields would have been a better example.

There may be no scientific evidence to suggest that low-frequency sound causes actual visions, but there is sober speculation, and anecdotal evidence (the Tandy case comes to mind), which suggests that it can create feelings of unease, anxiety and even dread - which, combined with other elements, might create the impression that a haunting is taking place.
 
Spookdaddy said:
There may be no scientific evidence to suggest that low-frequency sound causes actual visions, but there is sober speculation, and anecdotal evidence (the Tandy case comes to mind), which suggests that it can create feelings of unease, anxiety and even dread - which, combined with other elements, might create the impression that a haunting is taking place.
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The Tandy case is interesting in that the electric fan thought to be rersponsible for the experiences could equally well have produced suitable magnetic fields as well as infrasound.

I agree totally that infrasound can produce feelings of unease. There are various 'spookiness' factors which have been shown to increase the likelihood of reports of haunting phenomena. These include low light, low temperature, high humidity, old architecture and so on. Infrasound may well be another such factor.
 
jimv1 said:
D'Oh! I misread the original post.

In that case, what is 'What'?
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Oh yeah...it's a statement. With no question mark.
 
In the case of crisis apparitions there's plenty of anecdotal evidence they're as described, an appearance at time of death or great stress by one party or the other.

An example I read of recently was a woman who rented a house during WW2 while her husband was in the RAF. One day she felt unaccountably depressed, a mood she was unable to shift. In the afternoon she went into the bedroom and saw the upper half of her husband smiling at her for some seconds until it faded. She said she knew instantly that he'd died and so it turned out.

A classic CA case (plus the half body detail) that's repeated numerous times. There are questions about our interpretation of what the apparition 'means' and what its consequences are (a final goodbye, a release of psychic energy, telepathy?) but the evidence for the occurrence of crisis apparitions is considerable. The incident above was discovered in local history, not ghostly literature.
 
One evening I asked a friend who's an archaeologist whether he'd had any weird incidents, as he spent many years digging in remote spots, including clearing at least three grave yards for redevelopment, one of them with quite recent burials. He said absolutely not and he'd never given it a second thought.

He did say he'd seen his late father just after he'd died however. He was obviously not joking but apart from saying it was in the house he wouldn't add further details. I'm coming round to the traditional idea ghosts may be some kind of spirit, maybe something tuned in at a different frequency to our normal reception.
 
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