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The matter of ghosts

November 1, 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

It is Halloween, after all and this might be something I know a little about. 

More than you might believe, children are inclined to see the living images of those who have “passed on,” usually family members, could be wanting to watch over them. They can then be dismissed as childish imaginings. We don’t necessarily think our children are crazy for seeing things we don’t; we simply assume they are making things up: the over active fantasy world of a child, we presume.

However, if you darling pulls on you and, says, “No, mommy/daddy, I saw her really!” you might like to accept that Aunt Molly has not altogether departed.

Let me say this: anyone who believes that death is physical, yes, sad enough, but not the whole story, who recognizes that something carries on and we have lots of names for it: soul, spirit, essence, energy – lots I don’t know – but the sense is the same.

There is plenty of evidence. Historical buildings’ owners in our own burg call on investigators into the paranormal, who come with their equipment to record and measure the responses they register. Indeed, once they have gone is very often a time when strange things happen in those very buildings, as if to say, “Silly toads, of course I’m still here.”

Caught in a seance once – and I hasten to add, only once – I found myself weighed down by a miserable “thing” that seemed to speak with my voice, swearing about people who had lived there long ago, as it was from long ago. I shook it off and stood up and left but it followed me, creating ugly little moments until a person taught me how to rid myself of it. 

I never liked horror movies.

Back to the point before I go on: no matter the power and sagacity of the person: the medium, the clairvoyant and so on – no one knows (actually knows) what happens after our bodies die. We have images, sometimes messages, we see them and we speculate but that is all we can do – speculate. Like dallying with aliens from outer space, like being 300 years old. 

There are things no one can truly understand until they go there.

In frequent visits to Rome, while I was living in Europe, when staying in a hotel, I always woke up during the night to see the shade of a Roman soldier of two thousand years ago, kitted in leather for armour, a helmet on his head, sandals on his feet.

In the house I lived in London, England – and elsewhere – there were frequent sightings. I would sit up to prove to myself that I was awake but, try as I did, there was never any answer to my hailing the apparition. 

Yet, there have been times, just sitting in conversation with another person, when a spirit, if you’ll allow, comes to join us and has something to say, asking me to pass the message on. 

The proof of it for me, that it is not merely me making it up, is the evidence in speech, or a reference, a name and the specifics of what is wanted to be relayed. Ready for self doubt, anytime, am I.

Science is almost ready to “prove” that we are spiritual beings as well as physical and intellectual/emotional. They will do this with energy.

I once asked a physicist to define energy and he said, “We don’t like to define energy– we like to define what it does.” 

Like electricity, which does plenty but we can’t see it and is a product of energy.

Bringing it closer to home, every time we think, we use and send out energy, like radio waves (which we can’t see but that still do things). There is every reason to suppose that other people can hear or understand the import of those brain waves and we would call that telepathy. 

It makes perfect sense and I don’t really understand the mystique about it. We only use a very small part of our brains’ potential but, perhaps, that’s just as well. Just imagine some of the world leaders tapping into the well of their brains full capacity…

So, why wouldn’t “ghosts” simply be the energy of a person whose physical self has “given it up,” as it were. If we are prepared to believe that we are beings of energy, that all life is propelled by inner energy, we could not then deny that the energy part of us lives on indefinitely to what ultimate goal, we can only speculate…if there even is an “ultimate goal.”

No doubt, there are thousands of books written to prove and disprove all this; some of them inspire worship, the construction of huge buildings in which to gather for discussions about energy, by any other name.

My speculation is that our energy lives on and, if not the proof, I have seen evidence of that, which is comforting on cold winter nights.

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