Are Ghosts Real?

Can We Tell if There is an Invisible Spirit in an Empty Room? 

Is The Soul of the Argument Real? 

6 min read 

What’s the difference between an invisible, intelligent, non-material, non-verifiable presence, and an invisible, intelligent, non-material, non-verifiable presence that has decided to pop out for a bit of fresh air? Nothing, they are indistinguishable to us. 

Identify the Problem

There could be something beyond our human scope, but no human could detect this type of presence anyway, right? People do aimlessly debate the claims of such invisible, undetectable, non-material presences until the cows come home—there’s no proof, they’re undetectable! Undetectable, indeed; until the gifted or the ordained claim to see the presences, which nullifies what the spirit is supposed to be! Any analytical atheist would agree, that the simplest explanation is most likely the case, as with Ockham's Razor. Why bother trying to communicate with an empty room?

What authority has set the invisible, intelligent, non-material, non-verifiable presence, 'breed standard'? The answer needs no mentioning. This spirit in the room resonates with Carl Jungs archetypes of both the Shadow and the Anima/Animus, the latter emerges in dreams, visions, or inner experiences influencing perceptions, taking on an almost 'other' quality​. Similarly, the Shadow is repressed within all of us, we have our own. A dark influencing force, almost ghostly or paranormal that also provides that sense of 'other' that we can't fully explain. Now, we should consider what paranormal activity everyday people have claimed to have experienced.

Anecdotal Reports

People have been experiencing strange presences, ghosts, elves and poltergeists (that we often call the paranormal now) since the dawn of history—in doing so, suggests these presences cannot be invisible, intelligent, non-material, and non-verifiable. Only a week ago, my boy said the rocking chair started rocking by itself, so he filmed it. The kitchen is a tad odd during the evenings; we have no idea why things have unnaturaly fallen off the kitchen surface or what makes noise in there. 

In other parts of the house, family members have seen strange shadow people, and shadow insects, that bear no religious or spiritual significance to anything. As well as that, we’ve noticed unexpected smells of tobacco and aftershave—we don’t smoke. I won't get into the ghost stories told by the extended family about their houses. Many of us tend to rationalise a creepy incident away as an over active imagination or we ignore it, because these things don't follow logic. My point is; any moaning ghost will need a voice box to moan, just as our rocking chair poltergeist will require both energy and matter to rock it—the breed standard is all wrong!

Science and the Paranormal 

The absence of scientific evidence for a spirit signifies very little; every culture across the globe has its own criteria for what their spooks are supposed to be, a djinn, a fetch, a banshee, poltergeist or a dybbuk—Japan and China have countless types of ghosts! 

When dogmas emerge, people start to expect their spirits to behave like a class X, Y or Z, but the paranormal isn’t like that, it’s defined as unexpected, not predictable or explainable. There is no stream of constant paranormal evidence that science can readily study. You can’t do it. These weird happenings aren't timetabled like the number nine bus. It's similar to ball lightning or England winning the world cup.

How We See Things

Stephen Hawking could not see his black holes; a problem with detectability existed for him. Perhaps a similar situation exists with spirits; you see, in the end, Hawking saw the gravitational effect of a black hole moving the cosmic bodies that surrounded them, maybe occultists do something similar with presences? Like the cosmic community, many people have been affected by unseen forces of a paranormal kind.

Any discrepancies between an invisible, intelligent, non-material, non-verifiable presence, and one that has buggered off somewhere, comes down to choice; self trickery, possibly a deliberate decision to join a collective of believers. 

To Wrap it Up

Now, on the other hand: what is the difference between an invisible, intelligent, non-material, non-verifiable presence, and a direct experience of an unexplained phenomena shared with a co-worker? Witness accounts often involve seeing, hearing, smelling, as well as feeling presences or ghosts, a physicalism, which not always invisible, can they hold a substantial presence. The spirit in the room is the most compelling character of all!