12 replies to this topic

[sb05191]

For an English class at my college, we were required to research certain pseudosciences, and I chose to research ghosts and haunted houses. For one of our papers, we had to interview someone who believed in our topic. I interviewed my cousin, a 19-year-old college freshman, and she stated her belief:

"I think that ghosts are demons, masked with people that we love, or know, or are famous or something, because we’ve become more vulnerable to it. Because if demons were to show themselves, they’d be scary, and we wouldn’t want to see that, and so we wouldn’t be vulnerable to it."

I found this to be an interesting belief. I am curious as to what all of your thoughts on this claim might be.

Thanks for your input!

[Vlawde]

I've always thought it possible that some communications supposedly from dead friends or relatives could possibly be an entity mimicking that person. I'm not sure about them being demons tho

[moiraesfate]

I think the idea that ghosts are demons simply comes from fear and nothing more. The only demons in this world are people when they decide to be nasty.

[Tantric Kitten]

That's what several people I know believe.

That is not my experience, nor is it my belief.

There are nasty things that will mimic more innocent things (little kids... children are almost never children) but the lie shows in what they want you to do -- our loved ones would only have our best interests at heart.  Dark?  Not so much.

[the entity]

My thought is that if a spirit where aware of your religious beliefs maybe if that spirit were kind of a jerk in his life perhaps that spirit might use that information against you to scare you.

[Es_En_Ce]

Maybe that is why the Bible says to discern the spirits

[Ghuoest]

The statement is influenced by her religion.

[Zeph]

I personally dont have that belief, mainly because I dont believe in demons. But I do believe in ghosts and I dont think that they are all here to do us harm

[spineofsnake]

Yes, that is a Christian belief. In the Bible all human souls immediately meet their eternal judgment after death, and have neither the ability nor the interest to come back and haunt the living. The only entities who can and want to communicate with humans that way are demons, and they also like to lie and pretend they're people's dead grandmas. That's the general theory.

My belief is that what we see as a "ghost" is just an astral body without a physical body. What it is, how it got there and what it wants probably differs from situation to situation. What we see as demons may just be hallucinations, or they may be other life forms from a different plane of existence. It's important to keep an open mind - there's so much we don't know about the universe, I always roll my eyes slightly when someone acts like they know what these things are.

[moiraesfate]

spineofsnake, on 08 May 2012 - 08:05 AM, said:

Yes, that is a Christian belief. In the Bible all human souls immediately meet their eternal judgment after death, and have neither the ability nor the interest to come back and haunt the living. The only entities who can and want to communicate with humans that way are demons, and they also like to lie and pretend they're people's dead grandmas. That's the general theory.

My belief is that what we see as a "ghost" is just an astral body without a physical body. What it is, how it got there and what it wants probably differs from situation to situation. What we see as demons may just be hallucinations, or they may be other life forms from a different plane of existence. It's important to keep an open mind - there's so much we don't know about the universe, I always roll my eyes slightly when someone acts like they know what these things are.

That may be the Protestant belief, but I was brought up by my Catholic family to believe that Purgatory is where souls wait until judgement day to be judged worthy of heaven or hell. So no, not all Christian belief.

[spineofsnake]

moiraesfate, on 09 May 2012 - 05:30 AM, said:

That may be the Protestant belief, but I was brought up by my Catholic family to believe that Purgatory is where souls wait until judgement day to be judged worthy of heaven or hell. So no, not all Christian belief.

Yes, I was raised Catholic too. According to both doctrines souls leave the earth immediately after death to be judged - whether now or on Judgment day, my point was that the Christian doctrine doesn't support the idea of souls remaining on the earth after death. Hence the idea that ghosts can only be demons.

[1 Samuel 28]

spineofsnake, on 11 May 2012 - 05:22 AM, said:

Yes, I was raised Catholic too. According to both doctrines souls leave the earth immediately after death to be judged - whether now or on Judgment day, my point was that the Christian doctrine doesn't support the idea of souls remaining on the earth after death. Hence the idea that ghosts can only be demons.

Totally agree...  However there is the Christian cult Seventh Day Adventists, that believe in something called soul sleep.  Soul sleep is the belief that when someone dies their soul rests in  the ground until the resurrection of the body and the Final Day of Judgment.  Personally I don't really believe in ghosts in the traditional sense and pretty much agree that ghosts are demons.  But I have always thought that if there were such a thing as ghosts that might coincide with Christian doctrine, soul sleep might be it...  of course this would also be irreconcilable with the rest of Scripture.

[salizander]

Didn't the Vatican retract their belief a few years ago about purgatory? Now they say that there isn't one....

Regardless, I think people believing that ghosts are demons reflects more on someone's religious beliefs than on what a ghost may or may not be....