Your Opinions on the Paranormal?

i would like to belive in the paranormal and i am very interested in it, also i more belive in enrgy rather than ghosts. i also like to belive in magick but it seems to have been lost now

Nice topic. Where does the human soul go when the organic matter that holds it ceases to function? This perhaps could be a thought into the presence of supernatural phenomenon......

As for werewolves and vampires, these are nothing more than folklore, Dracula being based on Vlad the Impaler (correct me if I'm wrong here folks) and other vampire stories are based on other (not so pleasant)warriors from days of yore, passed through generations of story tellers, exaggerated a little like chinese whispers every time they're told.

Now as for other paranormal activity I thought I might offer this thought for discussion (full credit to my lecturer for this one):

If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand its workings, then we would be too simple to understand it.

Any other thoughts?

I think in straight lines. At my (fundementalist christian) high school I copped massive flack from my classmates (only covertly by the teachers) by refusing to believe the world was created within 7 days. (not even the bible says that, but we won't go there)

But I can't argue with some of the things I've seen and experienced. The presence in my bedroom, which I see about once a month.

Watching (apparently sane) friends cycle through three separate personalities in one night, never to see these personalities again. They told me specific and frightening things that this person would never have known about me.

I keep an open mind about things. I don't want to believe, I don't want to disbelieve.

The human mind is a strange thing. The world is a strange place. Sometimes things defy explanation.. until we find one.

Haven't followed this thread thus far, so just stating MHO:

Human mind tries to explain the obvious, lack of information and experience... whooops, the image of Go(o)d comes up and naturally (the d)evil has to counter and balance it.

"We created God after our own image" Someone of this board stated this somewhere and I find this a very accurate assumption...

If there are angels, there must be demons (where there is light there must be shadow) - it's a natural law.

The appearance of said "ghosts" is connected to one's own imagination (much as everyone fears something different)... I perceive them to be bodyless manifestations of energy, can't really say whether they are "higher" or "lower" beings - just is as it is.

Certainly one can train her/himself in perceiving said spirits and forces - question is: why bother? Certainly one can commit onesself in serving or commanding said spirits, again: why bother?

But at the end of the day (to me) it's clear: the more meaning and control handed to them spirits, the bigger they grow. This is certainly not healthy to the own mind and can lead into consitions called: scizophrenic, paranoid, psychosis...

To me a healthy mind and way of dealing with forces beyond is to acknowledge that they are there and to deal with them in a nonchalance way, meaning not to take it TOO serious...

I used to hang out with the center of pestilence. Way too much AC

does that count?

93 93/93

I believe in it... partly because I used to work in a haunted pub and I heard so many stories and kept noticing things and stuff like that

I also believe Ive seen my guardian angel... I woke up one night to see a guy stood by my bedroom door with blonde hair and dressed in a black leather coat... I felt so comfortable with him being there it was like Ive known him all my life so I just said Hi then rolled over... a second later I thought to myself "thats not right" but when I looked again he was gone

and Im blaming ghosts for the fact that I lost a balloon last night and Ive no idea how... it vanished out of a room with windows and doors closed and I havent found any bits of it like it had burst... spooky

Chellybean, Dracula was based on Vlad the Impaler (well, stories of him) and also on the Countess of Bath. However, there are psychological disorders which qualify as these.

FireTom: That quote about God is actually famous and quite old. Your theory on Angels and Demons having to both exsist if one does is interesting, however is also plays upon the belief in angel and demon supporting faith. For me, personally, Angels are more of a Christian idea, and since I do not subscribe to the Christian God, then I do not believe in Angels. If, as you say they can not exsist alone, then I also do not believe in Demons. This one seems highly tied up in faith rather than theory for me.

Regarding angels and demons...

I think that there are spiritual presences about that are enduring. I think that in a lot of cultures and religions, they are given minor deity status, such as "Angel" "Demon", "Djinn" etc.

Christian dogma has categorised these entities into "good" and "evil" in much the same way as it codifies all human behaviour. But I believe that good and evil aren't the best adjectives for them - some look after people, some don't, some don't care, some like causing havoc, some attatch themselves to a person/place and protect them. If I have a guardian spirit which looks after me, but (for example) hurts you, I don't see that it is either good or evil.. Just a presence.

My friend and I discovered that we could take very odd photo's with her digicam. When taking normal photo's, we'd notice orbs and mist like patches etc. So we headed out at night to see if we could catch anything...and we did. We took numurous photo's of orbs(which could be argued as specks of dust or moisture...which is fair enuf)but we also took many photo's of mistlike phonomena...way beyond anything that we could have faked. We even blew smoke infront of the camera, went out when it was foggy and tried all sorts of things to see if it was just a trick of light, atmosphere etc...it wasn't!!
The strange thing is, these photo's, as soon as they are taken you can see them on the cam screen, so we knew when things were there...yet with the naked eye, we couldn't see a thing.
One picture inparticular has encouraged me so much!! Yes, you can see faces in almost anything, and you can find things that may not even be there when you are looking at photo's...but the phonomena in this photo stands out more than any other. The background mist is a different colour to the foreground, it's dirty in colour, bleak...non attractive. The foreground mist is made up of white, blue and a slight pink...mainly white tho. Part of the mist in the background looks like a skull...it has that shape...it looks evil. In the foreground (90% of ppl who have see this have agreed), you can see the profile of what looks like an Angel. The hair, face, shoulders, wings...even armour. It's holding a flower!! Its facing side on and looks to be crouching down, but only the waist up is visible.
The night we took this photo, we'd gone to the local graveyard to take our photo's. Before going in I'd asked my friend to pray for us, and she'd asked the Angels to protect us (She's into angelic healing!)Giggling...we entered the yard! We'd left there having managed to freak ourselves out totally...me especially. On our way home we stopped at some local woods and got out to take some more. My friend was the one who didn't really get that freaked, whereas I was totally scared shitless...silly really. Anyway, she freaked, she said she could feel something that wasn't very nice...and for the first time ever, I felt peace...and I told her not to worry cos it couldn't hurt us. It was that same moment we took that picture. When we got them up on the pc later...we couldn't believe our eyes. It was so beautiful, but it took a while to work out what was going on in the photo. Most ppl don't see it at first, but then it just jumps out at them, and the more they look...the clearer it becomes. That's what happened to us...and we both cried!! A few ppl on this site have seen it...those close to me, but it's way too sentimental for me to share it with the entire web...
I'm not going to put the picture online, I'm not trying to prove anything, I don't need to. If you're meant to see Angels, you will...and that was ours! I know that that picture is real, and it will always be very special to me. We were being protected, and God let me have a glimpse of that world...and I know its there. I just wanted to share my experience with you.

Ok HoPpers i myself am a man of both science and faith and i reconcile this fact with with my oppinion that science is what we currently know and can prove but that by no means includes life the universe and everything. Any scientist that states that something is impossible should realise that science is incomplete, it is a work in progress and it can be wrong even Einstien was wrong, he said that it was impossible to spit the atom and boy was he wrong about that one. Many scientist dismiss the paranormal because it is something that they cannot quantify and measure but this doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

I myself am a pagan but rather than saying that the christian God is a faulse god i would prefer to say that he is an amalgmated view of all Goddess' and Gods hence i also belive in magik and a life after death at first as a spirit and when you time comes at peace in heaven or hell (it's fun but decadent more like Vegas than a torture chamber) or rebirth.

As for the rest of the paranormal it's just stuff that has managed to remain unquantifiable

"Do your beliefs stop at ghosts or do you think demons, werewolves, vampires are real?"

Ghosts, angels and deamons-yes, or at least some variation thereof, morelike positive and negative energies. Vampires and werewolves, not so much, at least not in the way they are portrayed today. I've read up on vampires quite a lot and do not doubt that there were people with bloodthirsts but find it quite hard to believe that they were supernatural rather than just a bit mental.

"What about possession?"

Yes

"UFO's and alien abductions?"

Umm, alot along the lines of what Bill Hicks said, if aliens come to this planet, and they have super intelligence (or at least intelligence greater than our own)why do they only ubduct random people from random little towns in the middle of nowhere?I don't buy it. I do think to believe that we are the only living/thinking creatures in the entire universe is probably a bit silly though.

"What about those things that people can supposedly do? Magic (real, not David Copperfield)? Telepathy? Clair/Audiovoyance?"

I believe in sensitivity. Lee and I finish each others sentances, do the same things at the same time, or just know when the other one needs you, but thats from being close,from understanding and caring about each other and picking up on subconcious triggers and signals. I don't have that with anyone else, because I'm not as close with anyone else. I belive that soem people have the ability to manipulate energy in certain ways. For example, my dad cannot wear a digital watch, it just stops in a about a day and then doesn't work again. We thought it might have something to do with teh metal plate in his arm...until teh same thing started happening to me, and I don't have any metal plates in my body. It's not where we have lived because my mother could wear them fine and they wouldn't stop. We've never really checked it out, but it's probably got something to do with magnatism.It's not something we can control, it just happens, so I think that it's possible that others have more influence with things like magnetic fiels and thus can manipulate things. I don't now, I'm not a science buff, but I just do't believe in hocus pocus magic, more like being in tune to things.

i believe.......i have had a few experiences, if u want to know then just ask me, i believe in spirits, guardians, not sure on warewolves. i believe that some people think that they are vampires, but im not sure i actually believe in the whole idea of it. i think that if there are 'good' spirits then there has to be 'bad' ones too, and im not talking about whiskey and southern comfort. i have the same thing as blu valley, i know when someone is going to call etc. but im practicing psychomatry and automatic writing (letting spirits write through the aid or yourself). like i said, if u want to know what i have experienced then just ask, but yes i believe

i believe in all of it. no i havnt watched 2 many movies. if the human mind can think it, its possible. im fully open to anything 2 do with the paranormal. i actualy knw a medium and its really interesting being with him. hope iv bn a tiny bit of help in ur research

I think there could well be a great many things, but it's in our very nature to attribute it to something that we can imagine, which in a sense fails to acknowledge a whole possible "world" of the supernatural, as our imaginations are limited to what we have experienced.

In that sense, "imagination" is a strange contradiction of itself. everything "supernatural" encountered is based on something natural, just distorted or altered a little. i think the truly supernatural things, if they are out there existing or otherwise, are beyond our comprehension or even perception. 5-sense perception anyway...