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Beliefs By Mike McDowell
Do YOU believe in ghosts? You would be surprised how often even I am asked this simple question. From uncles to grandmothers, neighbors, friends and little tikes who can barely talk. It seems everyone wants to know what everyone else believes. When I hear that statement, I can’t help but think of the cartoons I watched as a kid like Casper, the friendly ghost. The adults in the cartoon would be approached by Casper and he would ask them a question or something. The adults would always say "I’m not afraid, I don’t believe in ghosts. Now why don’t you run along ..... hey, you’re a ...... gggggggGHHHOOOOST!!!!" And off they ran as fast as they could. Many of you grew up with the same types of mental conditioning through such movies as ghost busters, or other spoofs on the ghost phenomena. What is it to really believe though? We’re often told as children to forget all of these sorts of nonsense. There is no such thing as the monster under the bed, the shadow in the closet or the dark figures that lurked near your bed at night, making you afraid to leave the safety of your blankets. Maybe you even ran into mom and/or dads room in the middle of the night to tell them that there is something in your room! They might have begrudgingly went with you back to your room to throw on the lights and say "See, nothings here! Go back to sleep!". How’s that for an "I don’t believe you?" Was there something there? It sure seemed real enough a few minutes ago didn’t it? In fact we may have believed there was indeed a boogieman ready to pounce on us if we got back up, even after mom or dad had told us there was nothing there! Over time though, this went away didn’t it? Have you ever wondered why? Just our over imagination right? Maybe.... Or maybe there was something more to it. Perhaps with all this conditioning we experience growing up, we lose sight of the least bit of impractical and improbable notions. We, in our minds, become adults and rational thinkers. If "IT" can’t be logic-a-fied (yes I made up that word), then it must not exist. Let me rephrase, if there is no rational, logical, systematic way for something to exist then by societies own unwritten standards ... it CANNOT exist! Right? You’re shaking your head here. How come? Let me go back a second. Hmmm... I must have made a mistake. We’ll I’m sure some of you believe that I’m correct. There’s the word again. We can’t get away from it can we? One of the factors we forget about is religion. I’m not saying that all of you were brought up or raised around religion but 75% of the US and Canada consider themselves to be Christians. That’s not even counting other religions who believe in a God of some sort. But what exactly is the foundation of religion? How can we believe in something we have never seen. How do we know that there is even a God BUT for our ... what? That’s right!! BELIEFS! Now I consider myself to be a Christian, but one who doesn’t get on others for their own different ideologies. I think it’s good that we all form our own beliefs. Now we as Christians trust in our faith that what the bible says is true (lets not open up that for debate gang) and that we must follow our hearts and minds to lead us to the truth, without ANY validation of anything that would be considered solid evidence. How do we know there is an afterlife? What rational evidence do we have? Similar things can be said of other religions too of course. But we knowingly trust in something, even given a lack of evidence, don’t we? Ghost Hunting is very much a belief based aspect of the lives of those who chose to do it. There is rarely anything that can be proven to provide the hard hitting evidence of ghosts. Hardcore skeptics will explain everything away as some folly of adults who want to act like children and believe something in which there is no evidence, at least in their minds. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Those of us who have been ghost hunting for a while can clue you in to an important fact. You have to BELIEVE to experience. Do you remember what your experience was like as a child at Christmas with believing in Santa Claus? Wasn’t it a magical feeling? Leaving Santa cookies, thinking about flying reindeer and so much more. What created that magic or that feeling? We did of course! Because we believed! Your own belief and that of those with you somehow helps create clear channel of communication with ghosts too. I can’t explain the why or wherefores but I can vouch for this to be true. It’s true that God may not have given us all the answers. It seems to me that he simply creates more questions and ponderings on things we don’t understand. But he gave us all the ability to believe in something. He also has shown us that just because you don’t see something doesn’t mean that it can’t exist. It would be interesting to see the skeptical societies start attacking churches for their "irrational thinking" like they attack ghost hunters. I wonder how this would be accepted. We as ghost hunters believe because we find clues. We find what we consider evidence. We experience sightings, noises, voices, cold spots, photos and thousands of usual and unexplainable stories of paranormal activity and more! Some people are even are visited by deceased relatives after they have passed, as if to say their goodbyes, or to be there for us as they are needed. Were these "ghosts" or "spirits" really there after all? If we choose not to believe it, would it have affected our experience? Maybe... maybe not. But even if we did experience something, we can chose to disbelieve it can’t we? Mike McDowell |
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