Ever Seen A Ghost In Thailand?

[girlx]

QUOTE (girlx @ 2008-01-21 01:38:56)

... i think when we are dead we're dead.

Try thinking that after you've had an out of body experience...absolutely impossible to continue thinking this way, as I once did.

yes well obviously you weren't dead...

[chicowoodduck]

Has anyone ever seen a ghost?

i have never seen any but i read postings of ghosts in TV-Forum every day. hence i can confirm that ghosts do exist

My GF has a family home up near Udon that she swears has a ghost (her father) roaming around inside. NONE of the family has been in the house for years and it is up for sale. One family stories goes that the ghost trip my GF's "ex" and he broke his leg while staying in the house. Shades of Ripley's, but I'm not one to challange the reports or sightings!

[AlexLah]

Dear all,

The body will just not function anymore due to some virus, cancer or whatever.

The body will stop functioning.

The spirit will remain.

It is all about the preservation of energy.

When the body stops functioning the spirit/soul will leave and will search for a place, waiting to enter another body.

The moment a spirit/soul leaves a body it will be able to communicate for 7 days, just like I had that experience.

Peace all, you might think I am crazy but I had an experience that cannot be explained.

The one Milliion reward that is offered, I do not want.

[bendix]

I think the truly scientifically minded person will have to be undecided about ghosts until proof is found which may well happen as science improves. There have been too many reported ghost sightings in history to discount them totally because hard proof has not be found yet.

Well, yes, ok. But that's turning the Karl Popper argument of falsification completely on its head.

Remain open minded, yes, but surely a more rational / scientific / philosophical approach is to retain disbelief until science has advanced far enough to prove one way or the other, rather than to retain belief in something so esoteric and . . well . . bogus.

Your argument is akin to saying we should still believe in Father Christmas until it's proven beyond doubt that he doesnt exist.

[CarlBkk]

I think the truly scientifically minded person will have to be undecided about ghosts until proof is found which may well happen as science improves. There have been too many reported ghost sightings in history to discount them totally because hard proof has not be found yet.

Well, yes, ok. But that's turning the Karl Popper argument of falsification completely on its head.

Remain open minded, yes, but surely a more rational / scientific / philosophical approach is to retain disbelief until science has advanced far enough to prove one way or the other, rather than to retain belief in something so esoteric and . . well . . bogus.

Your argument is akin to saying we should still believe in Father Christmas until it's proven beyond doubt that he doesnt exist.

No sane person has ever claimed to see Father Christmas. Millions of sane people (plus a fair few insane ones!) have claimed to see ghosts now and throughout history.

[RueFang]

QUOTE (girlx @ 2008-01-21 01:38:56)

... i think when we are dead we're dead.

Try thinking that after you've had an out of body experience...absolutely impossible to continue thinking this way, as I once did.

yes well obviously you weren't dead...

Missing the point just slightly. When you experience your body as seperate from the part that makes you you (soul, spirit, whatever) you know without doubt that the body is a temporary shell and that "you" don't actually die. It's impossible to explain to someone who thinks that their body is all there is. I'm not pushing my belief on anyone, but this really happened to me and it literally changed the direction of life.

How does this relate to the topic..ghosts are the spirit, soul, whatever you call it still hanging around or briefly appearing..I've never seen any, just felt the energy of them.

[burman]

^^ Exactly.

Thanks for pointing out the rather obvious flaw in the father christmas theory, didn't think we would have to go to that level myself.

Edited January 21, 2008 by burman

[Neeranam]

I think the truly scientifically minded person will have to be undecided about ghosts until proof is found which may well happen as science improves. There have been too many reported ghost sightings in history to discount them totally because hard proof has not be found yet.

Well, yes, ok. But that's turning the Karl Popper argument of falsification completely on its head.

Remain open minded, yes, but surely a more rational / scientific / philosophical approach is to retain disbelief until science has advanced far enough to prove one way or the other, rather than to retain belief in something so esoteric and . . well . . bogus.

Your argument is akin to saying we should still believe in Father Christmas until it's proven beyond doubt that he doesnt exist.

Science, by its very nature, is never capable of proving the non-existence of anything.

[girlx]

yes well obviously you weren't dead...

Missing the point just slightly. When you experience your body as seperate from the part that makes you you (soul, spirit, whatever) you know without doubt that the body is a temporary shell and that "you" don't actually die. It's impossible to explain to someone who thinks that their body is all there is. I'm not pushing my belief on anyone, but this really happened to me and it literally changed the direction of life.

How does this relate to the topic..ghosts are the spirit, soul, whatever you call it still hanging around or briefly appearing..I've never seen any, just felt the energy of them.

well, my point actually was that if you were not actually dead then presumably you still had access to your 5 senses via your body... so an "experience" could have been hallucinated, dreamt, whatever. i am not totally opposed to the existence of out of body experiences, but i do not believe if your energy actually leaves your body you would be able to experience things in the same way you do now (ie. via smells, sight, touch etc.)... therefore, whether there is remaining energy or not after you die, it seems irrelevant because without your body and brain to process the experience it would be nothing like ours is now as alive people .

[GuestHouse]

I think the truly scientifically minded person will have to be undecided about ghosts until proof is found which may well happen as science improves.

Well as a man of science once demonstrated "Cogito ergo sum"

And by that unassailable argument, absolutely nothing else in Science is Proven, or for that matter disproven.

[meemiathai]

I think the truly scientifically minded person will have to be undecided about ghosts until proof is found which may well happen as science improves. There have been too many reported ghost sightings in history to discount them totally because hard proof has not be found yet.

Well, yes, ok. But that's turning the Karl Popper argument of falsification completely on its head.

Remain open minded, yes, but surely a more rational / scientific / philosophical approach is to retain disbelief until science has advanced far enough to prove one way or the other, rather than to retain belief in something so esoteric and . . well . . bogus.

Your argument is akin to saying we should still believe in Father Christmas until it's proven beyond doubt that he doesnt exist.

Is it possible that we are actually living inside a sphere instead of on top of it and that science is just not capable of proving it yet?

[tutsiwarrior]

whassamatta wid you guys?...just 'cause ye can't see 'em don't mean they ain't there...ghosts and demonisation in general exists in all cultures; a control device that moms and dads and the likes of George Bush find quite handy...'if you ain't a righteous american Osama is gonna eat yer children...' and etc, etc...

boogymen in general comprise a lot of our daily ritual...dying is as natural as taking a shit but there is something wrong with not being afraid of death...hence the ritual that surrounds the event. Not that it's that terrible; families need an excuse to congregate and insult each other on occasion...

we can all become immortal by enshrining our own personal absurdity on the internet...'ghosts?...death?...be not proud...'

[neion2000]

Several of my sleeping partners in the past experienced phi am, a ghost sitting on their chest. But this is a universal phenomenon attributed to sleep paralysis. In the West it's called an incubus.

Thanks for posting this info... I had no idea that the problem I had been experiencing for the past 20 years was sleep paralysis... The times I'd wake up and can't move, it was pretty scary the first few times it happened, but now I just do my best to left my body out of it.. I normally sleep on my stomach, so I don't have the feeling of someone sitting on my chest, but can imagine that's how it would feel like..

About the ghost stories... About 5 years ago, I stayed at a hotel in Bangkok with my TGF... I woke up during the night and felt like someone was in the room, I did not see anything but felt the presence of something.. The next morning, I went to take a shower and still felt that presence that someone was there.. I spoke to my TGF about it.. She told me that she woke up and there was a woman sitting on the corner of the bed.. She said she put the covers over her head, then eventually went back to sleep.. 30 mins later we were packed up/checked-out and moved to another hotel..

[torrenova]

Thai people believe in ghosts because they believe all that mumbo jumbo entwined with religion and stories passed down from elderly relatives. What a croc of shit. There are no ghosts just like there is no "next life".

[jazzbo]

... but this Topic we have proven the non-non-existence if IDIOTS

[jazzbo]

The way scientific method proves the non-existence of something is called reductio ad absurdum ... but this Topic has proven the existence of (see above)... so now one of you can start a Topic to proclaim the existence of phlogiston.

[seonai]

I agree with you Rue Fang, people who have not experienced it cannot talk about it. True to Buddhism there is an energy that lives on after the physical body dies and that is what perpetuates the life cycle of that 'energy' again and again.

Ghosts I would suggest are 'lost' energies that for whatever reason haven't found their next place/body.

By the way everyone, it's not a great idea to sleep on your back... much easier for sleep paralysis

[RueFang]

yes well obviously you weren't dead...

Missing the point just slightly. When you experience your body as seperate from the part that makes you you (soul, spirit, whatever) you know without doubt that the body is a temporary shell and that "you" don't actually die. It's impossible to explain to someone who thinks that their body is all there is. I'm not pushing my belief on anyone, but this really happened to me and it literally changed the direction of life.

How does this relate to the topic..ghosts are the spirit, soul, whatever you call it still hanging around or briefly appearing..I've never seen any, just felt the energy of them.

well, my point actually was that if you were not actually dead then presumably you still had access to your 5 senses via your body... so an "experience" could have been hallucinated, dreamt, whatever. i am not totally opposed to the existence of out of body experiences, but i do not believe if your energy actually leaves your body you would be able to experience things in the same way you do now (ie. via smells, sight, touch etc.)... therefore, whether there is remaining energy or not after you die, it seems irrelevant because without your body and brain to process the experience it would be nothing like ours is now as alive people .

Is it normal for people to just spontaneously hallucinate when they have no history of it and are wide awake sitting in their bedroom? My body actually did not have control of its 5 senses... My senses were experienced from the part of me that was a few metres above my body. I had a heightened sense of vision and hearing (everything was so loud!), I didn't try to touch anything because I was so scared I was just concentrating on getting back into my body and as much as I tried to (make my body) talk, I could not. I could think just as I do now, but as I said, I was freaking out about the seperation, so didn't go flying round the neighbourhood to experiment with it ! I felt the infamous astral cord connected from the me that was a few metres up and the me sitting on the floor but everything I "experienced" was not from my body on the floor. I have a scientific background also and don't blindly believe everything I hear, but after living it, knowing I was not hallucinating or dreaming, you don't need to have arguements trying to prove it, because it's reality. I'm not asking you to believe me, I don't care, I'm just sharing what happened to me.

[Jeff1]

The only time I have seen a Thai ghost was when the check was given to me and I passed it across the table to one of them.

[bendix]

This has to be the most intellectually assinine debate ever on thaivisa.

But let's sum up. There is absolutely no documented proof of the existence of an after life or ghosts (and, no, personalised accounts of out of body experiences do NOT count - all they prove is the amazing power of the human mind and imagination).

Even if I experienced such an experience or saw what I might initially feel to be a ghost, I would put it down to my imagination UNTIL such time that its existence seperate from me can be verified.

But questions concerning existence have baffled the likes of Kant, Descartes, Berkeley and Popper long before me; I doubt the collected discussions of bendix and Neeranam will add much to that particular body of knowledge.

[Neeranam]

Thai people believe in ghosts because they believe all that mumbo jumbo entwined with religion and stories passed down from elderly relatives. What a croc of shit. There are no ghosts just like there is no "next life".

When I was studying Buddhism in Daramsama, home of HH the Dalai Lama, in North India a top Lama( who had never met a Westerner) came to speak to a bunch of us. A translator told him that most Westerners don't believe in reincarnation. I've never seen anyone laugh as much - he had never heard of such an absurd notion. I now find it absurd too.

But questions concerning existence have baffled the likes of Kant, Descartes, Berkeley and Popper long before me; I doubt the collected discussions of bendix and Neeranam will add much to that particular body of knowledge.

Quite, but it's interesting.

[bendix]

Thai people believe in ghosts because they believe all that mumbo jumbo entwined with religion and stories passed down from elderly relatives. What a croc of shit. There are no ghosts just like there is no "next life".

When I was studying Buddhism in Daramsama, home of HH the Dalai Lama, in North India a top Lama( who had never met a Westerner) came to speak to a bunch of us. A translator told him that most Westerners don't believe in reincarnation. I've never seen anyone laugh as much - he had never heard of such an absurd notion. I now find it absurd too.

Did he laugh in the same way as African tribesman thought the souls of people lived in in wooden boxes, the first time they saw televisions?

Let's not confuse ignorance with wisdom . . .

[Neeranam]

Thai people believe in ghosts because they believe all that mumbo jumbo entwined with religion and stories passed down from elderly relatives. What a croc of shit. There are no ghosts just like there is no "next life".

When I was studying Buddhism in Daramsama, home of HH the Dalai Lama, in North India a top Lama( who had never met a Westerner) came to speak to a bunch of us. A translator told him that most Westerners don't believe in reincarnation. I've never seen anyone laugh as much - he had never heard of such an absurd notion. I now find it absurd too.

Did he laugh in the same way as African tribesman thought the souls of people lived in in wooden boxes, the first time they saw televisions?

Let's not confuse ignorance with wisdom . . .

At this same place an Israeeli girl said that the monks were like pigs because they ate meat. Twenty minutes later, during a 5 min meditation, she fell asleep and started snoring like a pig,and extremely loudly. I wonder who was the most ignorant.

I'd loved to have studied Philosophy instead of engineering. However, my engineering studies helped me understand reincarnation - Newtons Laws, entropy etc. Energy cannot be created or destroyed.

I think that if The laws of Darwin are taught at schools then so should the laws of reincarnation. The latter is much more believable to me.

[sonnyJ]

whassamatta wid you guys?...just 'cause ye can't see 'em don't mean they ain't there...ghosts and demonisation in general exists in all cultures; a control device that moms and dads and the likes of George Bush find quite handy...'if you ain't a righteous american Osama is gonna eat yer children...' and etc, etc...

boogymen in general comprise a lot of our daily ritual...dying is as natural as taking a shit but there is something wrong with not being afraid of death...hence the ritual that surrounds the event. Not that it's that terrible; families need an excuse to congregate and insult each other on occasion...

we can all become immortal by enshrining our own personal absurdity on the internet...'ghosts?...death?...be not proud...'

The common explanation by social anthropologists is that man needs to fulfill his basic needs for food, shelter, clothes, community, leader and a belief system (religion). It happens in every culture known to man.

Well, except there was this one guy living in a barrel at the times of ancient Greek states. He had his own philosophy.

[meadish_sweetball]

you don't need to have arguements trying to prove it, because it's reality. I'm not asking you to believe me, I don't care, I'm just sharing what happened to me.

Your experience is apparently common to 1 out of 10 people at some point in their lives...

Swiss, Swedish and British scientists recently succeeded in inducing out-of-body experiences by mechanical means - through virtual reality devices.

Google "The experimental induction of out-of-body-experiences" for more info.

[Soph]

Sorry for you all non believers but here is a small clip that proofs ghost do exist.

Watch it, specially you Bendix..

http://jaspersweblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/...en-bestaan.html

Load (pause) it untill 100% and then play

Woah!! Well that just certianly woke me up! My heart is still fluttering, scary!

[TheDon]

Who knows, ive never seen or experienced any ghosts.

There is no proof that there is and there is no proof that there isnt.

Now lets all just move on

[Dustoff]

The common explanation by social anthropologists is that man needs to fulfill his basic needs for food, shelter, clothes, community, leader and a belief system (religion). It happens in every culture known to man.

Well, except there was this one guy living in a barrel at the times of ancient Greek states. He had his own philosophy.

Yeah but Diogenes was pickled - likely in his own excreta.

In the recent vegetarian thread I considered bringing up Pythagoras but thought better of it. He was the one who followed such a strict adherence to vegetarianism that, when chased by an angry mob, he let them catch and kill him rather than trample through a field of beans.

And on these forums, there are posters who seem to emulate Greek thinker Crates who would turn up uninvited at people's homes just to insult them.

Those ancient Greeks were a fun lot...

The huge majority of our own kind seem to be unable to accept that mankind's fuzzy logic is merely a function of chemical/biological interactions in the brain that simply cease activity when the body becomes comfortably dead.

IMHO, for us to insist that we are deserving, any more than a carrot, of an afterlife is mere imagination and human arrogance.

Ghost stories, same-same. When I was a young lad, I was deep in my woods in the dark of night alone when an American bobcat (Lynx rufus) screamed at a terrifying volume just meters away from where I was sitting. Since I never actually saw him, had I been superstitious I could have imagined the Horrific Ghost of the Abodes of the Shades of the Dead and scared the bejesus out of myself.. but I knew better.

I have to admit however that I did wet myself a bit...

[sonnyJ]

The common explanation by social anthropologists is that man needs to fulfill his basic needs for food, shelter, clothes, community, leader and a belief system (religion). It happens in every culture known to man.

Well, except there was this one guy living in a barrel at the times of ancient Greek states. He had his own philosophy.

Yeah but Diogenes was pickled - likely in his own excreta.

In the recent vegetarian thread I considered bringing up Pythagoras but thought better of it. He was the one who followed such a strict adherence to vegetarianism that, when chased by an angry mob, he let them catch and kill him rather than trample through a field of beans.

And on these forums, there are posters who seem to emulate Greek thinker Crates who would turn up uninvited at people's homes just to insult them.

Those ancient Greeks were a fun lot...

The huge majority of our own kind seem to be unable to accept that mankind's fuzzy logic is merely a function of chemical/biological interactions in the brain that simply cease activity when the body becomes comfortably dead.

IMHO, for us to insist that we are deserving, any more than a carrot, of an afterlife is mere imagination and human arrogance.

Ghost stories, same-same. When I was a young lad, I was deep in my woods in the dark of night alone when an American bobcat (Lynx rufus) screamed at a terrifying volume just meters away from where I was sitting. Since I never actually saw him, had I been superstitious I could have imagined the Horrific Ghost of the Abodes of the Shades of the Dead and scared the bejesus out of myself.. but I knew better.

I have to admit however that I did wet myself a bit...

All I was saying is what I don't know. I have been waiting for the ghosts to visit for sometime too.

[yorkman]

To a vaguely scientific mind, or to somebody who does not need the crutch of religion, may I suggest...

- Western religion is complete <deleted>, Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. It is simply not supportable by facts.

- Buddhism is not a religion, it is a belief system that is much more attractive than the above, but still attracts those westerners that are weak of mind, or need a crutch.

But that is still no reason to decry people who think other than you do.

My wife (obviously, being Thai) is Buddhist. It helps her in a very positive way, and for that reason I support her in this. It makes her happy, and that is all I care about.

The problem with Buddhism, as far as this forum is concerned, is that it attracts the westerners who want to argue the far end of a fart, they know more about everything, and want to take the high ground. I know more than you is the attitude. A completely non Buddhist attitude.

If they were real Buddhists we would not see a post other than a positive sentiment , or a moderated post by a buddhist who disagrees on here.

Edited January 22, 2008 by yorkman