What Is A Ghost?

That's the question for today. Simply put a ghost is the spirit of someone who has died.

We are all made up of energy and I can prove it. Hold out your hands. Now shake them. Next rub them together palm to palm very fast. Stop. Shake them out and rub them together very fast again. Do this a third time. Now hold your hands about three inches apart palm to palm. What do you feel?

If you feel a small vibrational energy that seems to be pushing your hands apart, you did this exercise right. This shows that we human beings are not only made up of body, we are made up of energy. Some people even call it spirit. 

As a minister I have been present at the moment of death and there is always, at that very last moment, a push of energy through the air. Sometimes it's very subtle, at others it's very strong. The scientific part of me says that is simply the body expelling the last bit of air from the lungs, the parapsychologist/minister in me says that is the spirit energy leaving the body.

So for the sake of this blog, let's say we all have a spirit and when we die it leaves our body. When it leaves where does it go? That's the eternal question. It all depends on your belief system. Some believe that it is simply the end of life and there is nothing beyond it. A lot of people believe that our spirit goes somewhere whether it be heaven — or a similar differently named place — or a location to await reincarnation.

It is thought by many, ghost hunters included, that the spirit goes home and that it is a journey. Spirits can complete this journey and still sometimes come back and forth between the veil that may exist between the living and the dead. Have you ever suddenly smelled something that reminded you of someone who has passed, has the thought of them suddenly sprung to mind or you felt a touch, felt as if someone was there, but when you looked around you were alone? 

A lot of people have had these kind of experiences and most put them down to imagination. We have a wonderful way of rationalizing things that don't make sense — like seeing your dead grandmother. That's what happened to me when I was 21 years old. My paternal grandmother died suddenly in Buffalo. We went to the wake, the funeral and I was there when they buried her. Yet two weeks after we returned to Massachusetts I saw her plain as day, as solid as could be, looking out the picture window of our home. I was ready to run in and hug her, but when I looked again she was gone. Many years later I found out my brothers had the same experience of seeing her for just a moment — and they don't believe in ghosts. I believe she appeared just to say goodbye and let us know she was alright.

Here at CMPS and in my Holistic Healing counseling practice, a lot of the calls we get are from people whose loved one has passed and they see them suddenly but briefly. It depends on what hat I'm wearing when I receive the call what I say. CMPS hat — it's possibly their loved one coming to say goodbye and let them know they are okay. But the counselor in me, wearing the other hat, might say that they are missing their loved one and the desire to see them was so deep, that they imagined it.

This is a topic of discussion that could go on forever, round and round and never be resolved. People who truly don't believe in ghosts are not likely to ever experience anything paranormal and if they do, they will find a rational explanation for it. People who do believe and are open to the possibility, will likely have experiences.  One of the reasons that CMPS exists is to try and prove, through the use of scientific evidence that cannot be refuted, that ghosts do exist. It's one thing for a psychic medium to say it, it's quite another to prove it scientifically. And in the upcoming weeks, I will be posting a picture that we took at one of our investigations that no one has ever been able to debunk, including a police forensic photographer.

It is also believed that spirits or ghost come back to, or remain on the earthly plain, for different reasons. Some are stuck here and if we find out why we can help them cross over. Some are here because they want to be, have no interest in going anywhere and you can't get rid of them no matter what you do. That's the topic of our next discussion: Why are ghosts here? Why do they return when they could simply go "home"?

In the meantime, if you've had a paranormal experience, thought you've seen a ghost or want to join the round and round discussion of whether they exist, I hope you'll post your comments, experiences and questions. 

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