Dealing with ghosts Pt.2- How Do You Know If One Is There?

Photo by pxhere.com

As previously stated in Pt.1, 99% of phenomenon in hauntings and ghost hunting vigils are everyday experiences within buildings heightened by excitement, imagination, and expectation of something happening.

But what about that 1%?

How do you know if there is something there?

Well, chances are if something is definitely there, it will make itself known.

The Physical With my physical senses, I have heard footsteps, voices and felt hands upon my shoulder. Each of these was in different locations was ultimately quite ordinary until I realised with a “Did that just happen!?” The touching was in a seance and there was definitely no physical person behind me.

With my own eyes I have seen things I cannot explain, each time was very unlike a Hollywood ghostly encounter. If anything, they were so ordinary, that at first I just assumed they were either a customer or a colleague, or even my own mother (see below). But in all cases, they seemed as solid as you and me, which is why I discounted them until I realised there was no one actually there. And each time, they were slightly blurred, a bit like when I’m looking at someone without my glasses or contact lenses. It was as though I could see them, but wasn’t able to see them properly…. perhaps wasn’t supposed to see them, but at those points my perception must have changed. The examples I gave in the first post were other things I had seen and experienced, all occurred when I wasn’t looking for anything, I wasn’t even thinking about such things. Except for when I was in a seance.

One, which stands out, was from childhood. When we were kids, me and my brother shared a bedroom and slept with the light on. Yes, I was I scared of the dark….. anyway, I awoke one night and heard my brother stirring and my eyes were drawn to the figure of my mother standing at the doorway, she wore her green and blue jumper and her hair was long in those days and because of the way it fell, her face was in the dark. I turned to my brother and told him it’s ok, Mum was there. I asked her the next day why she was standing at the doorway and she claimed she didn’t. Mum was never one for sleep walking, and even if she did, she never went to bed wearing a jumper, especially in spring. So who or what did I see? Year’s later, Mum confided that many years ago, she awoke to see a little boy and a little girl dressed in turn of the century (early 20th Century) clothing standing at the end of her bed. Even if these are descriptions of being in a hypnogogic state, I still get chills thinking about the apparition at the doorway.

Another way, would be for a spirit to do things, open cupboards, move objects, slam doors, throw objects. I can’t say I’ve encountered these, except that one time my hole-puncher decided to leap from the back of a shelf and to the floor for no reason, but I know others who have….. especially when one of them (best mate, very down to earth fella, not one for making things up) lived alone in his grandmother’s flat (she had died a few years previously) and he came home to find all his cupboards wide open. Years later, back in 2016, I was visiting as we were doing a show together and I praised him for having a self boiling kettle…. turns out it didn’t self boil and had never had a history of switching itself on….. I made sure I thanked his gran and made myself a cuppa. Might as well.

The Psychic

Sometimes you walk into a place and it just feels odd. I’m a big believer in emotional resonance and that if an emotional reaction is strong enough, it can stay in that particular room. The rest of a building might feel placid, whereas one room might make you feel sad, afraid, angry etc for no reason whatsoever. Sometimes whole places feel like this, be it a building or even an outdoor space.

Though you might not see any spirits, you might get any of the following. Please bear in mind this is not an exhaustive list and I’m only going on what I have experienced myself:

• Hairs standing on end and the feeling of not being alone.
• Feeling emotional in one particular place, even though you were feeling fine and focused seconds before.
• Images, faces, names, dates repeating themselves over and over and over again.
• Voices in your mind that are not your internal monologue.
• Your aura and personal space being “touched” despite no physical thing being there.

I’m sure there are plenty more ways to detect a spirit of some kind, you might have found your own ‘sensors’ in different ways.

A Note On Psychics: I would never go so far to say that I am a psychic. The genuine ones, or at least the ones I have met, tend to be very quiet about being such. And some of those people can’t switch it off, they live with it and carry on with life as best as they can. Others, have some ability of varying degrees and can sense some things, but even then only when something is being active (I would class myself in this category). Then there are those who want to stand out and be special and declare to the world about how they see spirits all the time and how they see “orbs” left, right and centre, yet are strangely quiet when someone needs help of a spiritual kind.

I believe the quiet, respect the unassuming and have no time for the loud.

Click here for Pt.3