More Telepathic Experiences

I had a couple friends over weekend before last, and after some chatting and a couple drinks, I casually suggested one of them send me an object mentally.  She had never done this with me before and she sent me four different objects total. 

With the first one, I saw straw, like maybe a scarecrow, but my instinct told me to go with the properties.  (Sometimes I can tell if I'm just getting the properties or the exact item.)  So I said, "I'm getting straw."  She said, "I sent you a red basket."  She sent me a second object and I got simply a big orange ball.  It was just too simple so I figured I had missed it, but I said, "OK, I just got a big, orange ball."  She looked astonished, almost uncomfortable, and said, "I sent you the sun."   The third thing I saw was definitely black and had a large, solid shape to it -- long.  I wondered if it was a whale.  Finally I said, "It's black; it's long, maybe cylindrical."  She said, "I sent you a top hat."

We took a short break and a few minutes later, I asked her to send me another. This time I got a blanket, very clearly.  Again, I felt it was too simple, but I said, "OK, I got a blanket or quilt."  She said, "I sent you a green blanket." She was a bit freaked out over it, and she wanted to stop because it makes her head hurt.  My other friend there, with whom I've always played the game with incredible success, said that it makes her head hurt as well.  They both agreed the pain comes in the center of the forehead.  So while I was disappointed, I didn't request any more objects.  I am going to find out if it makes any of my other friends' heads hurt.

So far, the exercise has worked consistently with whomever is willing to do it with me --  except my husband, my cousin, and my brother.  I was starting to conclude that it only works with females, but recently it worked with a male friend and in the past there was another male friend it worked with.  So I don't know exactly what the criteria are at this point, or if there is a certain type with whom it works best.

First Ghost Hunt

Richie and I got a group together last night to investigate a famously haunted bridge about 30 miles away. It's called the Maxdale Bridge -- on a small road now closed to traffic -- and just beyond it is an allegedly haunted cemetery.

We took five friends -- Christopher and Carrie, Chris and Jessica, and my cousin Matthew. We also took a thermos of coffee, a video camera, and a voice recorder to pick up any EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomenon -- basically ghost voices below audible hearing). Chris, who is a fire-fighter tried to borrow a thermal imaging camera from the fire dept. but they just laughed at him.

We arrived just as the sun was setting, and apparently angered the resident of the only house in the area, because he started shooting off his shotgun randomly. We have heard that the people in the area are tired of ghost seekers coming to the bridge, particularly those juvenile delinquents who like to deface the headstones of those residents' ancestors. Of course, we would never do such a thing. We wouldn't even enter the cemetery because it is posted that nobody is allowed after sunset and will be fined 500 dollars. We discussed sending one person in at a time so that if anyone got caught we could split the fine among us, but we never followed through.

The shot-gun guy finally gave up and went inside. We wondered if he welcomed everyone like that. Two other cars were there when we arrived, and two more would come and go. Apparently, we had chosen a popular night to investigate, as it was a full moon.

Just as the sun set, and right before we were going to actually start our walk across the bridge with our voice recorder and cameras, a cop showed up and told us to leave. Fortunately, the father of Chris and Carrie (brother and sister) is a cop too, and Chris casually mentioned his dad's name to this cop. After that, the cop gave us permission to at least walk across the bridge, then he left as we began doing so -- which we took as permission to stay.

We made several walks across the bridge as we held out the voice recorder. Carrie, easily the life of any party, was brimming with excitement. If we were not going to see anything, she still just wanted to let out a blood curdling scream once, she said, because it would just be funny. I hoped she would not.

On one of these fairly uneventful walks across the bridge, I did feel something hit my leg that was too heavy to be a bug, but so tiny it could have been the tip of a pencil. I never did know what the source was, so it remains unexplained. Christopher tripped over a non-existent something or other that he felt right at his ankle. There was nothing there that it could have been. So that remains unexplained as well. At one point, I saw Carrie stop to peer at something on the bridge, and I walked up to see what she was looking at. Just as I started to bend down and look with her, she stood up and saw me right in front of her. When she had bent over, I had been a ways off, and as she hadn't heard me approach, she shrieked and went into an amusing dance of jitters. Other than that, no excitement.

However, on one of our last walks - this one with just Carrie, her brother Chris, his wife Jessica, and myself - Chris and Carrie suddenly stopped and pointed out some white thing in the distance. They were seeing something far out in the river bank right where the river bend began. According to them, this thing was "pacing" back and forth next to a large pale rock. I could see the large pale rock, but not the white thing moving near it. We stood there for a long time, and both of them would say, almost in unison, "There it is again!" They would ask if Jessica and I saw it. They would identify its exact position: "It's moving toward the rock! Ok, now it's moving away! Do you see it?" Alas, we didn't see it. I tried so hard to see it that my eyes would blur over until I couldn't see anything. Chris and Carrie would re-position us somewhere alongside the bridge and then point to try to get us to see it. I couldn't. I was so disappointed. I took comfort only in the fact that Jessica couldn't see it either. This thing moved so obviously, then would disappear, and their descriptions of it only frustrated us more.

Then Carrie took the opportunity to let out the meaningless, bloodcurdling scream that she had been suppressing all evening, and I immediately took off running across the bridge. I realized almost instantly her scream had been a joke, but loud noises always make me run. I ran until my fear subsided, then I turned back around. Carrie was almost rolling with laughter. Jessica and I were not amused.

Finally, we called the rest of the party over, and they all saw the white thing as well. They didn't see it with the frequency Chris and Carrie did, but they saw it a couple times. And then, to my dismay, Jessica saw it too, at least once. "I still don't see it, and I have nobody left who hasn't seen it." I said sadly. Nobody saw the thing as clearly as Chris and Carrie, but everyone (but me) saw something at some point, and they always agreed on where it was at the moment and in which direction it was moving. At one point, Richie took out a powerful flashlight that reached just far enough to slightly illuminate the playground of the white thing, and then Carrie said, "There it is! Where the light is!" And I STILL couldn't see it. They finally gave up and we moved on. My only comfort is that I am not susceptible to hallucinations based on suggestion.

Before we left, we decided to shine our headlights on the bridge for 10 seconds, then turn them out. The legend goes that if you do this, you will see the apparition of a man that hung himself. I personally didn't want to see such a sorrowful apparition. I would rather see a happy cowboy riding leisurely on a horse across the bridge, or fishing down by the river. But anyway, we tried the headlight trick several times, to no avail. As the group stood watching the tree and commenting on how they saw nothing, I sarcastically said, "Well, I see it!" This drew much laughter, which was the most I could hope for, on this very uneventful investigation.

After that, we drove to the cemetery where we stood respectfully by the fence and saw nothing there also. On my way up the incline to the cemetery fence, I almost fell in a ditch. Chris did fall in. We made sure to laugh hard about everything, by that point; otherwise, it would have been a complete nonevent. A few minutes later, we saw the approach of two cars, which sent some of us into a panic, even though we weren't technically doing anything wrong. Chris took off running to hide somewhere, and I hurried after him, planning to hide as well. But there was nowhere to hide, and we ended up running in aimless zigzags until we finally just stopped.

The only other amusing thing was that we came up with a name for our paranormal investigation group. Modeled after "The Atlantic Paranormal Society, better known as TAPS, Richie said we were the Texas Paranormal Society, which we realized is TPS. To pronounce that properly, you cannot use your vocal chords, and it sounds ridiculous. So we enjoyed using it as often as we could throughout the evening. While this was amusing enough to us, it is made less amusing by the fact that there really is a TPS, as well as a CTPS (Central Texas Paranormal Society) and a few others, which isn't surprising, but... well, it was fun last night.

After our investigation, we decided to go to the soccer field in Harker Heights, allegedly haunted by a Camanche Indian. But we didn't know where the field was, so we went home.

We still have some video to watch and a couple hours of voice recorder to listen to. Carrie said there will probably be an EVP saying, "Naomi can't see meeee." But that won't matter because I probably won't be able to hear it.

Review of Whitley Strieber's Communion

I have always shied away from this book, largely, I think, due to my very Orthodox Christian background. I always knew it was an in-depth account of alien visitation that might confuse me a little, challenge some dearly-held beliefs. (Not that it isn’t healthy for a faith to be challenged.) But as unexplained phenomena is one of my passions, and I had slowly, through other media, been broken into the world of abduction stories with my faith still intact, I finally read it. Besides, I have long had the impression that Communion is canon for any UFO enthusiast – much like Enders Game or Dune might be for a Sci-fi fan – and I didn’t want to be caught not having read it.

Communion is the story of Whitley Strieber’s experiences as a possible abductee of otherworldly visitors. I say “possible” because he never boldly answers the question of what his experiences are; he only believes they are real, whatever they are. His experiences are bizarre, to say the least. From childhood to present, they are spattered with seemingly unrelated images: a skeleton on a motorcyle, small figures in blue jumpsuits, a blurry “white thing.” Likewise, the sum of his experiences resists any theme or cohesive pattern: missing time, a exploding seltzer bottle, a mysterious voice in the speakers, and abductions resulting in everything from a cut on the finger to unexplained implants.

Strieber first suspected that he had been a recipient of some strange activity in 1985, but hypnosis regression therapy suggested prior anomalous events. As he explored his memories – both conscious and unconscious – he began to piece together a pattern of strange experiences starting as early as age two. His stories would evoke incredulity at best if certain elements were not corroborated by credible witnesses, medical proof, and similar stories from experiencers ignorant of Strieber’s own. Just a few reoccurring reports among experiencers include some type of implant, sexual procedures, disappearing pregnancy, and the ability to affect electronic equipment. The reported entities look the same as well, with the now familiar large, black eyes and nearly non-existent mouth.

Because Strieber recounts his experiences in the order that he remembered them in his regression therapy (or otherwise), and due to regressions that unpredictably interrupted other regressions, any sense of chronology becomes extremely convoluted, walking the reader along Strieber’s own mental labyrinth. To get a better sense of the timeline of Strieber’s experiences, I have logged the events by order of occurrence. (See below.)

In his theorizing about the exact nature of these entities -- during which he charges down long paths of speculation about ancient mythological figures and religious conventions – Strieber takes broad leaps, and I found myself wishing for more narrative and less conjecture. He seems to lean toward a positive view of the entities, but relays no experience to justify this feeling. He admittedly feels a certain affinity for the consistent female visitor, but the terror and sense of invasion which accompanies most of his experiences overshadows anything positive for the reader.

As for reading this from the perspective of an Orthodox Christian, I can see how one might conclude the entities are demonic. However, regardless of what they are, I read this book with the respect I would give anyone who wanted me to hear him out. I was moved more than once to empathy and compassion. I did not approach the book with any preconceived notions about what he experienced or about his motives. I was disappointed to read, in the new preface, how Strieber was treated with such contempt by “the religious right and the intellectual left.” I believe it take guts for a man like Strieber, an intellectual and professional, to write such a book. He presents his case with the vulnerability of a child, and one would be remiss to exploit that trust by ridiculing or condemning him.

I am glad I read this book. If nothing else, it gave me insight into the very real trauma of one who has encountered something inconceivable and unacceptable to much of society. By default, such a person – who needs more than anything to be heard – is alienated. Books like Communion help overcome that alienation, if only for the moment that we are listening.

Timeline of Whitley Strieber’s Experiences

1947 – age two – at Grandmother’s: memory of “a terrifying, round object” in the sky and “a crowd of big, gray monkeys” breasting the hill.

[1954] -age 9 - sleeping outside with a boyhood friend. Some noise wakes them up and they explore around the yard in the dark for awhile, then they hear someone approaching and they run. He runs right behind his friend, but then finds his friend fast asleep as if he’d never been awake. Same friend also saw, with Whitley, a “huge object” in sky one night along with a black car with no lights on that raced by.

July 1957 – age 12 – train trip from Madison, Wisconsin to see aunt and uncle: on the Texas Eagle from Chicago to San Antonio. During trip he becomes violently ill. Someone shoves a bladder thing down his throat. A “nurse” puts a drop on his tongue to keep him from throwing it up. Father is crouched, looking in agony. Later remembers soldiers in fatigues lying unconscious in craft. He is excited, then sees father (who is standing by his sister) look at something in terror and he himself becomes terrified. He tells his father it is alright and his father says not it is not alright.

1958: announces to friend that he has built an anti-gravity machine under the tutelage of “spacemen.” Friend recounts that when Whitley plugged it in, “there was a great buzzing, the electromagnet in the core of the thing whirled madly, and the lights in the house began to pulsate.” Lots of noise, sparks, house lights go haywire and some burn out… He pulls plug. Parents exclaimed in alarm initially, but he never told them what had caused it.

1967 – college age - Austin: Has just moved to Austin from San Antonio. He experiences, over a period of twenty four hours, several consecutive chunks of missing time. Weeks later, visits grandmother in San Antonio, is lying in bed reading Time, then suddenly transported back in time to a few weeks earlier. He hurries into his car and tries to drive away, but a demonic face peers in the window and speaks to him in a high squeaky voice. He tells entity that they cannot leave the car in the street. Keeps trying to drive away, but has an overpowering urge to go back into his apartment. (In real life, is lying in bed at grandmother’s during flashback, fighting the urge to get out of bed and rush outside.) Comes to as if from a nightmare and is still at Grandmother’s. (Afterward this incident, becomes obsessed with getting out of Texas and out of the U.S. This started his lifelong “running.” Desires a big city with lots of people and lights.)

Jan, 1968: Moves to London to attend London School of Film. One night, goes to sleep at a friend’s flat and, after a blurry memory of what he has always called a “raid” during which he crossed rooftops (looking down into chimneys), he wakes up in his own flat with no idea of how he got there. (He never says if his flat was able to be reached from his friend’s flats via rooftops.) The next day, he desires to leave England for another continent. He goes to Italy, and meets a woman on the train. Then his memory gets fuzzy and he recalls going to Rome, hitting Florence on the way, and has always reported that he stayed in Florence for six weeks. (However, when he went to Florence in 1984, he realized he had never been there. ) He left the female friend in Rome, hopping from city to city, eventually going broke and remembers “nights of terror,” being afraid to turn out the light and wanting to keep the door and window locked. He sought comfort in large crowds. He lost weeks of time. He remembers a “noisy, smelly airplane with someone who called himself a coach, and something about taking a course at an ancient university.” He saw “little adobe huts,” and mentioned to someone how simple they were. He returned to London “weeks later than..planned” and his aggravated landlord, having not heard from him nor received any rent, had rented out his apartment, packing all his things up and putting them in the basement. He had originally told his landlord he would only be gone two weeks. He “simply accepted all this” and stayed with a friend until he found his own place.

1972 or 73: He and wife in San Antonio visiting his family, sleeping in sister’s old bedroom on second floor. In middle of night, suddenly awakens and feels he had heard a loud noise, leaves to get a glass of water, smells something like smoldering cardboard. On way to bathroom, sees a small, dark figure w/ a red light in it hand burst out of his old bedroom and run down the stairs. Despite its very short stature, he dismisses it as a family member.

April 1977: he and wife are sitting in LR listening to the stereo, when right after a record is finished playing, a voice begins speaking to them through the speakers. It holds a conversation with them. He can only remember the last words “I know something else about you.” They report the experience to Federal Comunications Commission. A man explains that what he reported was impossible, as they had no microphone nor cassette deck. He and Anne move.

June 1978: Something “terrible” occurs in the middle of the night but the memory is of nothing more than a “phone call followed by a menacing visit” and “a series of menacing phone calls.” The police are called and they check the premises but find nothing. He and Anne move again.

Early 1979: He is awakened by the “bizarre impression” that people are “pouring into the house through the windows.” Some nights later they hear screams. He and Anne call the cops but they cops never show. They move again.

Jan 1980: sees strange streak of light in sky, son wakes up screaming as if from a nightmare, then a small, dark figure rushes out onto their balcony, then there is an explosion in the pantry, which was a seltzer bottle. “the glass was reduced to beads, to dust” with no “trace of the water that had been inside.” They move again the next January.

About a year after they have moved (which would make it two years from the Jan 1980 incident), Anne wakes up hollering that she has been “poked in the stomach” by a white thing. This thing strikes him on the arm the next night and a few nights later his son reports that “a little white thing” poked him repeatedly. The following Sunday the babysitter calls them reporting a “child in a white sheet” has startled her by peaking into the kitchen from the fire escape. He and Anne move again, this time to the Upper West Side.

March 1983: he goes outside for a breath of fresh air and ends up losing 3 hours.

Oct. 4th, 1985 – “explosion” in house; Jacque Sandulescu sees light and Annie Gottlieb hears explosion and hears little feet scurrying. A small hooded being enters Whitley’s rooms and touches his head with a silver wand, making images appears in his head. He sees his father dying and mother just looking on, an image of the world blowing up…

Dec. 26th 1985 – taken from bed naked into woods, then up into craft, probed, finger cut, he asks to smell entities. Entities in blue coveralls.

Feb. 7, 1986 – he is frantic, can feel entities’ presence, he and his wife could smell them (smoldering cardboard, cheese, cinnamon). Loses four hours of time, finds self naked. Next morning, finds two little triangles inscribed on left forearm. Remembers that the odors he and his wife had smelled night before were odors he had smelled in 1972 or 1973.

March 1, 1986 – First hypnosis - w/ Dr. Klein. Regresses to Oct. 4 incident.

March 5, 1986 – second hypnosis – w/ Dr. Klein – Regresses to Dec. 26th incident. (During this session, he regresses to being abducted with father and sister from train at age 12.)

March 10, 1986 – hypnosis with Dr. Klein – they explore incident that took place in Oct. or Nov. of 1984: W. encounters two entities in a fogbank while driving his truck on the highway. He sees a white truck with a black windshield. Finds himself in a “long, gray room.” He is sitting on floor, dressed, being watched by someone with “big, black eyes.” Sees this female being who shows him pictures in his mind that calm him. Pics are of triangles, circles, etc.

March 11, 1986: begins to see female being – the one that has continually visited him – in his mind’s eye. So clear it is living. It moves so he can see whatever part of it he needs to describe when he discusses it with Hopkins and Klein later.

March. 14, 1986 – hypnosis - regresses to night at grandmother’s house in 1967 when he had been lying in bed: suddenly there is an entity there that slaps him in the side of the head with a ‘big, flat-headed silver nail.” He changes “into something else…heavy and big.” He is scared to death. Entity has a face like a giant fly. He walks out of room, then is suddenly back in the bed again looking at the same page of his magazine. During this hypnosis session, he regresses to age 12 incident: he and sister see a fireball, then he sees a “skeleton” like being that grabs his shoulders. He is terrified, then finds himself calm on the grass, while the being works something into his hair. They go inside and report fireball to parents. He then regresses – at doctor’s suggestion to Jan. 1980, age 36: sees a meteor, then there are six figures at bedside and they get closer every time he closes his eyes. He can’t wake up Anne, and the dog won’t wake up. Andrew screams and when they run to him, his diaper is pulled down around his knees. They discover the Seltzer explosion. W. returns to description of beings around the bed: “dark blue uniforms…gray [skin]……mushroomy-gray. Smell funny, too…Two big round eyes and a round mouth…” and possibly no noses.

An accidental invocation

Yet another dark story from the dark little town of Parker City, Indiana. I was about 16. My best friend Lana, at that time 19, had seen a light in her parent's room one night. It was a supernatural light that occasionally appeared when she needed comfort. Her parents room, oddly enough, had no windows, and this light appeared to Lana in the dark. My friend Toby and I showed up for an impromptu visit, and Lana excitedly told us this light had appeared. We decided we would try to get it reappear, and that the best way to do this would be to hold a little sort of worship service and create a holy atmosphere. So we all three gathered in the bedroom, shutting the door and turning off all the lights so that we were in complete and utter blackness. That way, if and when the light appeared, we would know for sure that's what it was.

We began singing hymns and praying, earnestly endeavoring to draw this light back. It never showed up, but at one point I saw the most interesting thing: this black figure (amazingly enough black on black, since the room was already black) with wings right in front of me. I saw the wings slowly dip down and rise again, and I saw a head with sort of a ... maybe a gargoyle type snout turn to the side. I honestly thought it was imagination, and I said nothing. I wasn't even scared because Toby and Lana were right there with me. We were all huddled on the bed. Finally, we all got bored and quit the service. We decided to go somewhere (out to eat or something) and as we exited the doorway, either Toby or Lana suddenly said, "Did anybody see like a black winged creature..?" And the two of us exclaimed yes, we had, and then somebody else (not me) said, "Did it have like a long, beak-like snout?" We all agreed that is what it had looked like. So, apparently, what I had seen was real. And that is how I learned not to try summoning things, because you don't know what will show up.

Dog alerts me to some unseen evil

This took place in Parker City, Indiana, but not in the spooky house. My parents were out of town for a couple nights, and I was sleeping in their room with the family dog, Caity. (There wasn't room for her in my twin bed.) In the middle of the night, Caity woke me up barking and snarling ferociously, as she would always do -- much to our mortification -- when visiters would come. She was going ballistic, as usual, and at first I thought she had heard someone in the house, at the door or something. But then I realized she was standing by the bed, looking up into the air over my parents' chest of drawers. I knew instantly, innately, there was something dark there. I lay there in fear, unable to even pray. To pray would be to acknowledge there was something to pray about, and I refused to acknowledge that there really was something in the room. I ordered Caity to get back in bed and be quiet. She reluctantly complied, but was still furiously growling. She continued this until I finally worked up the nerve to say, "Plead the blood." (Pleading the blood -- calling on the power of the blood of Christ.) The minute I said it, Caity went dead silent. Her whole demeanor became peaceful. She then began looking, calmly, from the foot of the bed to the side of the bed, back and forth, back and forth, and I knew angels had come to my defense. I was, however, still too scared and still somewhat in denial. I wanted nothing in the room, not demons, not angels, nothing but me and Caity. I kept pushing her head down, but she would always lift it back up and continue staring peacefully from the edge to the foot of the bed. I lay uncomfortably for probably 30 minutes before I was able to fall back to sleep. That was the only negative experience I had in that house.

Invisible Hand

This took place in Cincinatti, Ohio at a Waiting upon God, a sort of three day church fest that the church organization I was involved in held about once a year. Again, I was around 14, and I was eating lunch with my best friend, my boyfriend, and my boyfriend's sister. We were sitting at a booth, and I was on the edge with my boyfriend to my left. My best friend and my boyfriend's sister were across from us. As I took a bite of soup, I felt a finger rest heavily on my shoulder. Assuming it was my boyfriend, I simply tried to shrug it off so I could eat in peace. It wouldn't budge and I continued shrugging in annoyance, only to look up and find everyone staring at me. It was then I saw that my boyfriend wasn't touching me. I slowly turned to see what was on my shoulder, and just as I established there was nothing there, an electrical surge shot into my shoulder, jolting me. I lurched forward with the impact. (Of course, by now I was really getting some odd stares.) I never knew what it was. I confided the experience to one of the more deeply spiritual ministers at the gathering, and he prayed for a few minutes, then said that God's hand had been on me and wanted me to do His will.

A similar but less poignant experience took place a year later when I was living in West Virginia with my godmother. I was rearranging my bedroom -- as I did about every two weeks -- and I stepped back into a corner to assess my work. As I did, something draped over the top of my head. It felt like a web or sheet of some sort. In a panic, I reached up to feel for what it was, and there was nothing. I looked for signs of a spider web or anything, but never found anything at all.

Evil, unseen presence

I am long overdue to journal the paranormal experiences I have had, and as few as they are, it's really not a tall order.

I want to start with the most terrifying experience, as it has always stood out among the other memories. I was 14, and we had just rented a house in Parker City, Indiana. (Incidentally, Parker City was darkest feeling place I've ever lived and all my negative paranormal experiences took place there.) There was something wrong with this house; I was always scared. At the time, however, I didn't have the knowledge to pray over or bless the house.

One night I had just gotten in bed, and lay awake waiting for sleep to come. Unlike some people, it has always taken me a good 20 minutes to go to sleep and I have never been able to drop off without realizing it. So I was wide awake and suddenly I became afraid. Although I couldn't see it, I felt there was something at the foot of my bed. As I considered this, my fear grew to an unprecedented level, growing still until it felt like something physical that enveloped me and coursed through me. I became literally paralyzed -- not "too scared to move," but literally physically, paralyzed -- and I felt completely weightless. My memory is that my vision went dark or entered some fuzziness; I could see nothing. All I know for sure is that I was in some other state in which it seemed sheer horror had manifested itself as an entity that physically possessed me. After what was probably a few seconds of this feeling, in which I lay in a state of terror and paralysis, the feeling left. I felt my weight again, I could move again, and I bolted out of my room. I crashed in my parent's room for the rest of night.

In discussing these things with my parents, I learned that they too had felt uneasy in the house. A couple that had visited one week reported something bumping against the bed in the night. We never knew what was wrong with the house, and fortunately, we did not stay there long.

Ghosts

I believe in them. I hesitate to talk to many Christians about them because so many Christians dismiss them as demonic. However, there is no Biblical basis (that I know of) for that theory. Here is a passage from Luke 24: “While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.” Scott Maruna, who wrote the article found on the link below, makes such an excellent argument for ghosts from a Christian perspective that I cannot add much more to it. http://www.occult.be/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=30 (Link is now dead -- sorry.) One thing he points out is that Jesus would not "waste words" talking about what a ghost does or does not have if they didn't exist. It would be like telling a kid not to worry because "the boogieman does not have sharp claws."

Ghosts do not have to be incompatible with Heaven and Hell. We know so little of what happens in the afterlife, especially immediately after death. And it is likely different for different people. Regardless even of my spiritual beliefs, the evidence for ghosts cannot all be explained away as hallucinations OR demonic activity. I believe the spirit world is every bit as complex as this world, and to give any one phenomenon a blanket answer is to assert a knowledge that a being of this world cannot possess.