Ghosts galore

[Sriram]

Hi everyone

Many ghosts have been spotted by the British royal family at the Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and so on. Wonder if any of you have ever been inside these places and experienced any such things.....  Britain is well known for its ghosts.

https://in.yahoo.com/news/queen-elizabeth-ii-allegedly-spotted-214200992.html

Cheers.

Sriram

[jeremyp]

Hi everyone

Many ghosts have been spotted by the British royal family at the Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and so on. Wonder if any of you have ever been inside these places and experienced any such things.....  Britain is well known for its ghosts.

https://in.yahoo.com/news/queen-elizabeth-ii-allegedly-spotted-214200992.html

Cheers.

Sriram

Nope.

I've been inside ancient stately homes and experienced creepiness but never anything that could be described as a ghost.

[Enki]

Been to many stately homes. Near me, the city of York actually do ghost tours. Many years ago I went on one. Also, in the 70s, I and two others decided to investigate local ghost stories which appeared in the local press. One of these involved staying the night alone on Christman Eve in a working men's club which had once been a set of police cells in Victorian times.

[BeRational]

It's easy to tell if a place is haunted.

It isn't.

[Spud]

They are folk who have perished while trying to fold fitted sheets.

[Maeght]

Been to lots of old places. No ghosts.

[Sriram]

You people don't trust the word of your queen?!

[Outrider]

You people don't trust the word of your queen?!

She's human, and as liable to misattributing any number of stimuli to supernatural causes as anyone; arguably, as someone with (reportedly) a strong personal faith she's already in a self-selecting group of people more likely to believe in supernatural causes for events that can't immediately be explained.

At the end of the day, though, the Queen is just an elderly lady in an unfortunate position of intense scrutiny - she's as liable to be wrong about things as anyone else.

O.

[Aruntraveller]

You people don't trust the word of your queen?!

Why should I?

She's an hereditary figurehead who comes from a long line of people who have devoted considerable violence and cunning to maintain their position. I don't even trust her genes.

[Enki]

You people don't trust the word of your queen?!

You aren't being serious are you?

Why on earth should I trust the word of another human being simply because they have the title of 'Queen'?

Should I have trusted the words of George III if I had lived at that time, when he said:

"A traitor is everyone who does not agree with me."

Just because he had the title 'King'?

I think not.

[Maeght]

You people don't trust the word of your queen?!

Why would we?

[Steve H]

I don't think that ghosts are the disembodied spirits of the dead, but there's far too much evidence for them, especially haunting ghosts, to dismiss them altogether, although the usual suspects on here do so with all the blind dogmaticism they accuse believers of. The phenomena must have some basis in fact, whatever the truth behind them.

[Nearly Sane]

I don't think that ghosts are the disembodied spirits of the dead, but there's far too much evidence for them, especially haunting ghosts, to dismiss them altogether, although the usual suspects on here do so with all the blind dogmaticism they accuse believers of. The phenomena must have some basis in fact, whatever the truth behind them.

What phenomena? The problem with even referring to ghosts is that it is begging the question. You may have a number of unexplained incidents but it is not clear to me to say that they are related, or indeed how you might show that they were.

[Sriram]

I don't think that ghosts are the disembodied spirits of the dead, but there's far too much evidence for them, especially haunting ghosts, to dismiss them altogether, although the usual suspects on here do so with all the blind dogmaticism they accuse believers of. The phenomena must have some basis in fact, whatever the truth behind them.

No one has any definitive idea of what ghosts are.

Sometimes they behave like live people...communicating, caring, passing on information etc. Sometimes they are harmful and frightening. Sometimes they just float around without any interaction. Sometimes they are just visions of objects like houses and trains.

Maybe each of these is a different phenomenon and has different causes.  I have never so far encountered a ghost.   

[Outrider]

No one has any definitive idea of what ghosts are.

Noone has any definitive idea IF ghosts are, let alone what.

Sometimes that behave like live people...communicating, caring, passing on information etc. Sometimes that are harmful and frightening. Sometimes they just float around without any interaction. Sometimes they are just visions of objects like houses and trains.

It's almost as though they are a vague phenomenon, if they exist at all, onto which people project something about themselves.

Maybe each of these is a different phenomenon and has different causes.

Or maybe they aren't there at all, and what people claim tells us more about them than anything else.

I have never so far encountered a ghost.

I suspect neither has anyone else.

O.

[Steve H]

From Wikipedia. Make of it what you will. ('Strange Meeting' is Wikipedia being uncharacteristically allusive; that is the title of WO's greatest poem.)

Strange meeting
During the First World War, Harold Owen was an officer on board the British cruiser, HMS Astraea. In the weeks following the armistice, whilst the ship was at anchor of the coast of Cameroons, Owen fell ill with malaria. It was during this time that Owen claims he had "an extraordinary and inexplicable experience":

I had gone down to my cabin thinking to write some letters. I drew aside the door curtain and stepped inside and to my amazement I saw Wilfred sitting in my chair. I felt shock run through me with appalling force and with it I could feel the blood draining away from my face. I did not rush towards him but walked jerkily into the cabin--all my limbs stiff and slow to respond. I did not sit down but looking at him I spoke quietly: "Wilfred, how did you get here?"

He did not rise and I saw that he was involuntarily immobile, but his eyes which had never left mine were alive with the familiar look of trying to make me understand; when I spoke his whole face broke into his sweetest and most endearing dark smile. I felt not fear--I had none when I first drew my door curtain and saw him there--only exquisite mental pleasure at thus beholding him. He was in uniform and I remember thinking how out of place the khaki looked amongst the cabin furnishings. With this thought I must have turned my eyes away from him; when I looked back my cabin chair was empty . . .

I wondered if I had been dreaming but looking down I saw that I was still standing. Suddenly I felt terribly tired and moving to my bunk I lay down; instantly I went into a deep oblivious sleep. When I woke up I knew with absolute certainty that Wilfred was dead.[4]

Harold learned only later that his brother had been killed a week before this experience occurred.

[Enki]

Anybody listened to the recent abridged account of the curious case of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale recently on BBC 4? (you can still hear it on BBCI Player). It describes the investigation by Nandor Fodor(parapsychologist, psychoanalyst) into the case of the Croydon Poltergeist in the 1930s. The 1920s and 30s seemed to be a high point of spiritual/ghostly happenings and investigations. The whole series is quite entertaining.

[Steve H]

The 1920s and 30s seemed to be a high point of spiritual/ghostly happenings and investigations. The whole series is quite entertaining.

There was also an upsurge of interest in spiritualism  then, largely because of the huge numbers of young men killed in WW1, which may also account for the increased interest in ghosts.

[Sriram]

Noone has any definitive idea IF ghosts are, let alone what.

It's almost as though they are a vague phenomenon, if they exist at all, onto which people project something about themselves.

Or maybe they aren't there at all, and what people claim tells us more about them than anything else.

I suspect neither has anyone else.

O.

All of you seem to be well trained in denial.   

[Aruntraveller]

All of you seem to be well trained in denial.   

As well trained as you are in fantasy 

[Outrider]

All of you seem to be well trained in denial.   

What's to deny - even the story you paraphrase as 'members of the royal family have seen' is actually tltled "Queen Elizabeth II allegedly spotted...".  You've gone from a Yahoo repost of a 'House Beautiful' allegation (who are 'House Beautiful'?) to 'therefore ghosts are real'... that doesn't need a denial, it needs a face-palm emoji but the board doesn't have one of those.

O.

[Sriram]

What's to deny - even the story you paraphrase as 'members of the royal family have seen' is actually tltled "Queen Elizabeth II allegedly spotted...".  You've gone from a Yahoo repost of a 'House Beautiful' allegation (who are 'House Beautiful'?) to 'therefore ghosts are real'... that doesn't need a denial, it needs a face-palm emoji but the board doesn't have one of those.

O.

We are not sure of many things in this world, even those that we observe through microscopes and telescopes.  Such phenomena as ghosts and NDE's and ESP are bound to be difficult to observe and analyse.  For one thing they don't happen when we are ready and want them to happen. Secondly they are very subtle and difficult to observe through standard instruments and methods. 

But once many people have actually observed these phenomena and experienced them over the centuries and in different cultures, different social groups and different age groups, the possibility of these phenomena being real should be acknowledged. It is tiresome to keep coming up against the same wall of dismissal and scorn every single time.

It shows a lack of intellectual honesty and a 'boxed in' thinking that is regressive.   

[Aruntraveller]

It shows a lack of intellectual honesty and a 'boxed in' thinking that is regressive.   

And you show a lack of intellectual honesty and a "wishful" thinking which is regressive.

[Steve H]

We are not sure of many things in this world, even those that we observe through microscopes and telescopes.  Such phenomena as ghosts and NDE's and ESP are bound to be difficult to observe and analyse.  For one thing they don't happen when we are ready and want them to happen. Secondly they are very subtle and difficult to observe through standard instruments and methods. 

But once many people have actually observed these phenomena and experienced them over the centuries and in different cultures, different social groups and different age groups, the possibility of these phenomena being real should be acknowledged. It is tiresome to keep coming up against the same wall of dismissal and scorn every single time.

It shows a lack of intellectual honesty and a 'boxed in' thinking that is regressive.

The phenomena undoubtedly exist, but they may not be what they purport, or are assumed, to be.

[Outrider]

We are not sure of many things in this world, even those that we observe through microscopes and telescopes.

We don't have absolute knowledge, certainly, but to depict everything as a blanket level of uncertainty is an oversimplification.

Such phenomena as ghosts and NDE's and ESP are bound to be difficult to observe and analyse.

For the same reasons as unicorns and leprechauns, or for the same reason as Higgs Bosons, or for the same reasons as magnetars?

For one thing they don't happen when we are ready and want them to happen.

You're presuming here that they happen at all - it's not just that we don't have any proof, we also don't have any understandable mechanism by which they might occur, and if they were to happen they would massively contradict well established principles from other investigations into the world.

Secondly they are very subtle and difficult to observe through standard instruments and methods.

So are goblins.

But once many people have actually observed these phenomena and experienced them over the centuries and in different cultures, different social groups and different age groups, the possibility of these phenomena being real should be acknowledged.

People haven't observed these phenomena, necessarily.  People have had experiences they can't explain, and they have put it down to this, but that's not been confirmed.  Different cultures and social groups have vastly different experiences which have been loosely gathered together under a single umbrella, but when they're investigated there are so few common elements you'd presume they were different phenomena unless you were desperate for the validation of larger numbers.  The possibility is acknowledged, but it's vanishingly remote.

It is tiresome to keep coming up against the same wall of dismissal and scorn every single time.

It's tiresome to have superstition put on an equal footing with valid predictions purely on the basis that neither has been definitively proven or disproven, but this is the life we live in.

It shows a lack of intellectual honesty and a 'boxed in' thinking that is regressive.

On the contrary, it shows an intellectual honesty; in the face of persistent pre-enlightenment myth being repurposed in an age of science to try to validate mysticism we continue to differentiate between the grades of uncertainty.  Intellectual dishonesty is saying 'well it hasn't been disproven' and 'lots of people believe' and thinking that should merit all arguments being dropped.

O.