Has Living In Thailand Made You More Willing To Believe In Ghosts?

[Jet Gorgon]

Ghosts, ghouls, spirits, demons, apparitions, whatever you want to call them; they're everywhere. Most folks do not have the abilities to sense these phenomena, and no machine can scientifically monitor them. It's useless trying to explain activities in this other dimension to the young souls who do not have the extra-sensory gift/curse.

[wilko]

NO!

And I have problems with people who do...why can't people accept that there are many things still unexplainable and to try and label the unknown using mumbo-jumbo is at best a waste of time....it's also a great way of keeping the bootless and un-horsed in their place!

[Jet Gorgon]

You probably believed the world was flat in a past incarnation, too. 555

[wilko]

It's precisely the fact that what was held as an unsubstatiated belief was proved wrong by rational thought....the opposite of believing in ghosts....an idea debunked several hundred years ago by "heretics" but even now held by a few who cling to some magical explanation for why we're all here!

[cm-happy]

Typical know it all farang that I am. A rational thinker possitive in my belief that there is no such thing as ghosts or pi........UNTIL!

Last year on a trip to Kalasin to visit my b/f's brother who is a Chow Wat(abbot) at a small country side Wat. Stayed there a few nights in an unoccupied Kuti.

One evening after both of use had gone to sleep, heard stange noise outside. Someone or something was banging a chair against the kuti door.

Caustiously opened the door. AND THERE IT WAS!! Scared the bejesus out of me. Started hitting b/f over the head with pillow and told him.

We both ran to the Chow Wat's kuti and told him of the event. We all went to the Bote where special prayers were said. Seems the Pi is a regular inhabitant of the Wat, well know to the Chow Wat who beleives that, the Pi is a former Monk at the wat that was protecting the Wat from the devil farang.

Have returned several times since without incident.

after all this am no longer a skeptic, but yes a believer.

[cmsally]

Although I believe in these unexplained things because basically I have seen them, heard them etc, I don't have a problem with anyone who does not believe in them. I also disagree that it is something you should fear or use to make people afraid. It is just simply a phenomenon, an energy or whatever you want to call it.

Some people seem to be receptive and others not. But trying to explain it to people who have never experienced it can be like trying to explain different colours to a person blind from birth.

[wilko]

Believing what one sees would indicate that one has little appreciation of how our perceptive senses work, in most countires now eye witnesses have little or no weight in courts.

Edited May 24, 2007 by wilko

[correct]

i saw a ghost in Chiang Rai.

[Etrigan]

For sure I've seen things that defy logical explanation, in UK and Thailand, but I wouldn't go as far to say that they were ghosts. Just unexplainable. Other people have concluded that I've seen ghosts, but I don't agree.

[DirkGently]

I had this very conversation with 5 femail Thai insurance staff last week. when I told them that I don't belive in ghosts they looked at me as if I had just clamied to not belive in dogs. One of them went so far as to re-phrase the question as she presumed that I had misunderstood.

Living in Thailand has made me doubt the people that belive in ghosts.

At the end of the day children are quick to belive in ghosts/santa/tooth fairy/pixies/god/ghosts and Thais are rather child like. So they are quick to belive in any hocus-pocus.

Edited May 24, 2007 by DirkGently

[correct]

I had this very conversation with 5 femail Thai insurance staff last week. when I told them that I don't belive in ghosts they looked at me as if I had just clamied to not belive in dogs. One of them went so far as to re-phrase the question as she presumed that I had misunderstood.

Living in Thailand has made me doubt the people that belive in ghosts.

At the end of the day children are quick to belive in ghosts/santa/tooth fairy/pixies/god/ghosts and Thais are rather child like. So they are quick to belive in any hocus-pocus.

your attitude comes from the fact that you have never seen a ghost, where as i have.

[DirkGently]

My attitude comes from the fact that I belive you think you saw a ghost, but in fact, you are mistaken.

[larvidchr]

i saw a ghost in Chiang Rai.

If that is you driving that motorbike, you will be one to, very soon

Kind regards

[quiksilva]

I was watching a show a month back I think where they conducted experiments on human test subjects with electro magnetic frequencies that brought on hallucinations. These appeared to different people as different things dependant upon their background and culture, e.g. aliens, angels, ghosts, energy forms, unearthly presences and the like.

Apparently these EM frequencies are not just found in the lab but can be generated all over place to varying degrees of strength and funnily enough these areas tend to have more paranormal sightings than normal.

It was a good show, I think it was on Discovery Channel.

[chinthee]

I had this very conversation with 5 femail Thai insurance staff last week. when I told them that I don't belive in ghosts they looked at me as if I had just clamied to not belive in dogs. One of them went so far as to re-phrase the question as she presumed that I had misunderstood.

Living in Thailand has made me doubt the people that belive in ghosts.

At the end of the day children are quick to belive in ghosts/santa/tooth fairy/pixies/god/ghosts and Thais are rather child like. So they are quick to belive in any hocus-pocus.

This is a sensible answer, and child-like is one way to look at it, as is conformist and afraid to question convention wisdom. I've seen extreme examples of Thais believing in ghosts, where a certain property is believed to be haunted, and it becomes legendary in the community and nobody will stay there. Closer to home, even though my wife is educated and a business woman, I recently bought a new black car against her protests. Seems a fortune teller had told her years ago that black was unlucky and somehow mystically bad for her. Simple solution: we wrote a hex-buster phrase in decal on the back of the car in Thai, that translated to English is "this car's true soul is red." Jinx broken, and she is happy to drive it now.

[wilko]

I had this very conversation with 5 femail Thai insurance staff last week. when I told them that I don't belive in ghosts they looked at me as if I had just clamied to not belive in dogs. One of them went so far as to re-phrase the question as she presumed that I had misunderstood.

Living in Thailand has made me doubt the people that belive in ghosts.

At the end of the day children are quick to belive in ghosts/santa/tooth fairy/pixies/god/ghosts and Thais are rather child like. So they are quick to belive in any hocus-pocus.

your attitude comes from the fact that you have never seen a ghost, where as i have.

and I expect you think your atavar was real too!

[cmsally]

I think ghost is definitely a misleading word, with connotations towards the Casper variety.

There is a very broad spectrum of experiences. I have experienced everything from noises, to sights of definite shapes/forms, to sights of not a definite form (but definitely something strange), to movement of objects, to sudden unleashing of energy leading to breakages. I don't know know whether they come from the same cause/explanation, but I am willing to just acknowledge and coexist, doesn't bother me.

I have also had very definite premonitions and almost daily have experiences of "seeing" people before they turn up without warning about 5mins later.

I have given up trying to explain anything.

[correct]

I had this very conversation with 5 femail Thai insurance staff last week. when I told them that I don't belive in ghosts they looked at me as if I had just clamied to not belive in dogs. One of them went so far as to re-phrase the question as she presumed that I had misunderstood.

Living in Thailand has made me doubt the people that belive in ghosts.

At the end of the day children are quick to belive in ghosts/santa/tooth fairy/pixies/god/ghosts and Thais are rather child like. So they are quick to belive in any hocus-pocus.

your attitude comes from the fact that you have never seen a ghost, where as i have.

and I expect you think your atavar was real too!

my avatar is not real, it is from the matrix, but the ghost was real.

[torito]

....... the ghost was real.

Never seen a ghost. My logic says that I should not beleive in it, but my experience tells me to doubt my logic..

So the question is for those who have seen one.....how can be stated that it was real?

[correct]

....... the ghost was real.

Never seen a ghost. My logic says that I should not beleive in it, but my experience tells me to doubt my logic..

So the question is for those who have seen one.....how can be stated that it was real?

i don't like to talk about my experience for the simple reason that i either

1) get ridiculed or

2) people don't believe me

so therefore i have nothing to gain by sharing and everything to lose

[wilko]

I had this very conversation with 5 femail Thai insurance staff last week. when I told them that I don't belive in ghosts they looked at me as if I had just clamied to not belive in dogs. One of them went so far as to re-phrase the question as she presumed that I had misunderstood.

Living in Thailand has made me doubt the people that belive in ghosts.

At the end of the day children are quick to belive in ghosts/santa/tooth fairy/pixies/god/ghosts and Thais are rather child like. So they are quick to belive in any hocus-pocus.

your attitude comes from the fact that you have never seen a ghost, where as i have.

and I expect you think your atavar was real too!

my avatar is not real, it is from the matrix, but the ghost was real.

No it wasn't! How come you had to come to Thailand to see one anyway?

[chanchao]

At the end of the day children are quick to belive in ghosts/santa/tooth fairy/pixies/god/ghosts and Thais are rather child like. So they are quick to belive in any hocus-pocus.

Ok... Explain the very mature men in the Vatican then and the hocus-pocus they purvey.

[correct]

I had this very conversation with 5 femail Thai insurance staff last week. when I told them that I don't belive in ghosts they looked at me as if I had just clamied to not belive in dogs. One of them went so far as to re-phrase the question as she presumed that I had misunderstood.

Living in Thailand has made me doubt the people that belive in ghosts.

At the end of the day children are quick to belive in ghosts/santa/tooth fairy/pixies/god/ghosts and Thais are rather child like. So they are quick to belive in any hocus-pocus.

your attitude comes from the fact that you have never seen a ghost, where as i have.

and I expect you think your atavar was real too!

my avatar is not real, it is from the matrix, but the ghost was real.

No it wasn't! How come you had to come to Thailand to see one anyway?

i didn't come to Thailand to see a ghost and before i came here i did not believe in them, and i wish i had never seen it as it was not an enjoyable experience. I was not alone when it happened , i have a witness, one other person saw 'it' too.

[chanchao]

I think ghost is definitely a misleading word, with connotations towards the Casper variety.

There is a very broad spectrum of experiences. I have experienced everything from noises, to sights of definite shapes/forms, to sights of not a definite form (but definitely something strange), to movement of objects, to sudden unleashing of energy leading to breakages.

Yeah, I used to live in a place with a similar electrical system.

But even when it's not your electrical system, I'd be inclined to seek the cause elsewhere (not necessarily with myself).

I do realize many (Western) people do see ghosts in Thailand. I however haven't, no matter how drunk I was.

I have also had very definite premonitions and almost daily have experiences of

"seeing" people before they turn up without warning about 5mins later.

Oh, that's not something I'd be inclined to doubt. But we're talking GHOSTS here.

............

.........

......

.....

..

.

"Who ya gonna call?

There, I just put an 80's song in your head for the remainder of the afternoon. From miles and miles away.

Cheers,

Chanchao

Edited May 24, 2007 by chanchao

[wilko]

OK - put it another way....has it not crossed your mind why you haven't seen ghosts anywhere else?

Edited May 24, 2007 by wilko

[correct]

OK - put it another way....has it not crossed your mind why you haven't seen ghosts anywhere else?

i have only seen one once, it just so happened it was in North Thailand.

[kmart]

I was always cynical about ghosts and dismissed ghost stories and such as mere fodder for upcountry simpletons to scare each other with, until quite recently...

My purchasing manageress at work is very religious and a devout Buddhist. She tries to get around the country travelling to various temples during her time off, and last time she went to some place in Udon Thani that is populated by female monks (Mae Chii). She brought a few photos back with her, and in a lot of the (daylight) photographs there are what I can only describe as balls of light over the heads of several of the nuns. Look a bit like faint starburst fireworks in fact.

In good faith, I'll ask her for a few of them to post here. See what TV people think...

[NaiGreg]

Most peoples of the world believe in the existance of "spirits/ghosts" ... they are spiritual people by definition.

There are also a lot of people who are religious but only the occasional crackpot claims to have seen/heard Jesus [or insert your favorite prophet or God, here]

The issue for Thais is how to reconcile the [apparant] fact that there are so many more ghosts/spirits per square meter in Thailand compared to other places.

-NG

[correct]

There is alot I believe in Northern Thailand, that's where I saw one, scary

[GuestHouse]

Back when I used to go for an early morning jog along the Pattaya beach front, I often came across horrible apparitions hiding behind the palm trees.

Jogging past at increased speed, I often heard them offering to put the willies up me.