KNOWING GHOSTS VS BELIEVING IN THEM – AN OPINION
By MoonJoey
Since the early 19th Century people have increasingly become enamored by the idea of spirit contact, yet the divide between believers and skeptics remains as wide now, if not more, then at its beginnings. While the methodologies have changed over the years, the results have not. Where are the ghosts? We are no closer to answers than when we started amping up ghost hunting in the last 10-20 years. The hypotheses & theories increase in number with no empirical results. Don’t even get me started on the ridiculous paranormal TV shows.
Paranormal investigating today is by and large a working class pursuit. Those attempting contact out of serious research or even just for fun are still, for lack of a better term, “on the outside looking in.” Using everything from spiritualism to electronic devices doing environmental monitoring, or taking the skeptical side with its disbelief without factual proof, there simply has been nothing to definitively quantify the claims of either camp of contention. And why is that? It might be simply that knowing ghosts and believing in ghosts are two different things.
With the increase of technology devices that claim to assist in revealing the presence of the afterlife, when it comes to spirit contact, one important facet continues to be left out of such research… “geography WITH cultural involvement.” Sure, people might dress up in period costume or do reenactments trying to mimic the activities of the time when these ghosts were still corporeal like us, however it is not the same as being actively part of the spirit’s former life culture itself.
Spirit contact was part of the culture of Indigenous peoples long before the 19th Century. They didn’t pursue the answers to the afterlife as a hobby or curiousity. It was already ingrained as a part of their lives. This alone makes them closer to the paranormal and/or supernatural and the thinning of the veil separating our world from the next. The advantage they possess with the most important differences from most of us is they live a life connected and related to all things of the earth, and all people on the earth…. “Mitakuye Oyasin.” This means all living things on this planet have a dependence on each other. Not enough of us have slowed ourselves down to “stop and smell the roses.”
By no means do I discount the personal experiences that many have had, but I would be willing to bet that the majority of those encounters were unsolicited.
In our arrogance and presumptuous attitudes, organizations have been created to explain just about everything that seems unnatural. These include MUFON, BFRO and the countless paranormal groups. Scientists and Pseudoscientists alike continue to do their research into the paranormal while ignoring the stories of the original experiencers, who are closer to the truth than anything purportedly achieved in our present time. If you are to believe in the possibility of contact with the paranormal and supernatural, one must not ignore the Indigenous peoples, the ones who are the real contactees, and the Oracles and Shaman who work directly with these entities. It is counter-productive to achieving results to ignore their guidance of direction to understanding the rewards and dangers of such pursuits (“those who walk on all fours” is a perfect example). Making use of this particular knowledge, perhaps science can not only prove the paranormal but also how that proof benefits others, instead of the result being the manipulation of the discovery by a current dominant culture intent on bending nature to its will for the purpose of power and money.
Knowing Ghosts vs Believing In Them – An Opinion
Gail Hodson Shirk
KNOWING GHOSTS VS BELIEVING IN THEM – AN OPINION
By MoonJoey
Since the early 19th Century people have increasingly become enamored by the idea of spirit contact, yet the divide between believers and skeptics remains as wide now, if not more, then at its beginnings. While the methodologies have changed over the years, the results have not. Where are the ghosts? We are no closer to answers than when we started amping up ghost hunting in the last 10-20 years. The hypotheses & theories increase in number with no empirical results. Don’t even get me started on the ridiculous paranormal TV shows.
Paranormal investigating today is by and large a working class pursuit. Those attempting contact out of serious research or even just for fun are still, for lack of a better term, “on the outside looking in.” Using everything from spiritualism to electronic devices doing environmental monitoring, or taking the skeptical side with its disbelief without factual proof, there simply has been nothing to definitively quantify the claims of either camp of contention. And why is that? It might be simply that knowing ghosts and believing in ghosts are two different things.
With the increase of technology devices that claim to assist in revealing the presence of the afterlife, when it comes to spirit contact, one important facet continues to be left out of such research… “geography WITH cultural involvement.” Sure, people might dress up in period costume or do reenactments trying to mimic the activities of the time when these ghosts were still corporeal like us, however it is not the same as being actively part of the spirit’s former life culture itself.
Spirit contact was part of the culture of Indigenous peoples long before the 19th Century. They didn’t pursue the answers to the afterlife as a hobby or curiousity. It was already ingrained as a part of their lives. This alone makes them closer to the paranormal and/or supernatural and the thinning of the veil separating our world from the next. The advantage they possess with the most important differences from most of us is they live a life connected and related to all things of the earth, and all people on the earth…. “Mitakuye Oyasin.” This means all living things on this planet have a dependence on each other. Not enough of us have slowed ourselves down to “stop and smell the roses.”
By no means do I discount the personal experiences that many have had, but I would be willing to bet that the majority of those encounters were unsolicited.
In our arrogance and presumptuous attitudes, organizations have been created to explain just about everything that seems unnatural. These include MUFON, BFRO and the countless paranormal groups. Scientists and Pseudoscientists alike continue to do their research into the paranormal while ignoring the stories of the original experiencers, who are closer to the truth than anything purportedly achieved in our present time. If you are to believe in the possibility of contact with the paranormal and supernatural, one must not ignore the Indigenous peoples, the ones who are the real contactees, and the Oracles and Shaman who work directly with these entities. It is counter-productive to achieving results to ignore their guidance of direction to understanding the rewards and dangers of such pursuits (“those who walk on all fours” is a perfect example). Making use of this particular knowledge, perhaps science can not only prove the paranormal but also how that proof benefits others, instead of the result being the manipulation of the discovery by a current dominant culture intent on bending nature to its will for the purpose of power and money.