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Re: Ghosts
Posted By: Dave, on host 208.234.219.180
Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2001, at 11:02:35
In Reply To: Re: Ghosts posted by Wolfspirit on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, at 03:45:59:

> C'mon. You ask people for their personal
>experiences, including danny's, but when he
>finally tells you what you want, it's "Yeah
>yeah. Thanks for the story, anyway"?

I asked people for personal experiences and what I got read like a poorly remembered episode of "Outer Limits" paraphrased by a person for whom English is not his native language and who nevertheless was trying overly hard to dramatize a situation that SHOULDN'T need any added drama.

I don't personally have any experiences, but my cousin had one he swears to. When our grandmother died, he elected not to go to the wake, instead staying behind at our grandparents house to wait for everyone else to come back. However, while he was there, he says he saw our dead grandmother walk into the kitchen and out the (closed) front door. This obviously freaked him out to no end, and when my mother showed up late looking for my father (who had already left for the wake) he insisted on coming with her. He was very visibly shaken and wouldn't talk about it for quite awhile.

THAT is how you tell a "true" ghost story, especially if you want people to believe you and not believe that you're just trying your best to make up something dramatic.

>
> I don't doubt that what danny saw and felt was
>real. True, perhaps the "ghost" or "evil
>spirit" was not objectively present by any
>measure, but nevertheless, the fear that he and
>Peeples' family felt was surely real. Are you
>telling him that what he *experienced* never
>happened?

The only reason *I* doubt it is because, like I said, it sounds like a poorly paraphrased episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits instead of a "true" story. Also the whole 8th grade ninja thing.

> So I'm not so sure you're
>requesting "extraordinary examples" of the
>supernatural, as you are expressing a desire for
>Transcendence over the banality of the mundane.
>But what do I know? I tend to find that
>examples of miracles abound all over... in the
>rosy warmth of the sun at dawn, in the soft
>touch of a child's hand, even in the shimmering
>coating of ice that coats the tree branches in
>the winter. These aren't "supernatural," but
>they're still magical. Brunnen-G's description
>of that movie theatre (in "Atmosphere,
>atmosphere") was of similar nature. There are
>any number of people who would've looked at that
>theatre with jaded eyes and called it the
>ultimate "deprepit piece of ratty crap." How we
>see things determines the experience of how we
>interact with the world.

Yeah yeah. I studied Buddhism, Taoism, and TM for awhile too. Thanks for the story, anyway.

-- Dave