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    Ghosts: An Exploration of the Spirit World, From Apparitions to Haunted Places
    Ghosts: An Exploration of the Spirit World, From Apparitions to Haunted Places
    Ghosts: An Exploration of the Spirit World, From Apparitions to Haunted Places
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    Ghosts: An Exploration of the Spirit World, From Apparitions to Haunted Places

    By Paul Roland

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    About this ebook

    'No one can deny Paul Roland is a complete master of his subject.'
    Colin Wilson, author of The Outsider

    Ghosts and spirits inhabit the world around us. We can hear and see them if we are only sensitive - or psychic - enough to be aware of them.

    Re-examining a fascinating assortment of recorded sightings from as far back as Roman times, the author presents a serious look at ghosts, not as chain-rattling spooks, but as actual entities with which we share a greater reality.

    Nor does he accept that ghosts are merely the spirits of departed people, or energies left behind. Uniquely, Paul Roland provides self-tested evidence on the idea of spirits as the manifestation of people still living, proving that out-of-body experiences are not as rare - or as impossible - as some people might think.

    The result is a profoundly fascinating, thought-provoking book that will challenge your beliefs as never before.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcturus Publishing
    Release dateJul 24, 2012
    ISBN9781848589582
    Ghosts: An Exploration of the Spirit World, From Apparitions to Haunted Places

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      Book preview

      Ghosts - Paul Roland

      Introduction

      ‘The spirit world shuts not its gates; Your heart is closed, your senses sleep’

      Goethe

      This book is different from the usual collection of ‘true’ ghost stories. Although it offers a comprehensive history of spectral sightings from ancient times to the present day and covers apparitions in every conceivable setting, it does not argue the case for or against the existence of ghosts, but accepts apparitions as a natural phenomenon. Ghosts are a fact, but not all ghosts are discarnate spirits of the departed. The distinction is important and, as will be clear from the examples given in the following pages, goes to the core of explaining the nature of the phenomenon.

      The reason for my unqualified conviction is not blind faith or wishful thinking, but personal experience. Since childhood I have had involuntary out-of-body experiences that are distinctly different from the most lucid of dreams and these have convinced me that our physical world is not the only reality. It was self-evident to me that we are, in essence, spiritual beings inhabiting a physical body and that we can be temporarily released from this shell when we attain a state of deep relaxation, during sleep, when under anaesthetic or at moments of extreme physical or emotional crisis.

      I have had the privilege of working with many gifted ‘sensitives’ in my psychic development workshops. I have witnessed several remarkable demonstrations of medium-ship at first hand by well known and highly respected personalities such as Derek Acorah, Colin Fry, ‘psychic detective’ Chris Robinson and psychic surgeon Stephen Turoff. I have also interviewed many gifted individuals such as the healer Betty Shine and American ‘psychic spy’ Major David Morehouse, all of whom added to my understanding.

      As I have explored the world of the supernatural I have become increasingly fascinated by what these phenomena reveal about our true nature and the greater reality of which we are a part, rather than by the phenomena themselves. What I hope distinguishes this book from others on the subject is an understanding that ghosts are not the chain-rattling spooks of lurid supernatural fiction, but something far more interesting. It will become evident from the many intriguing cases described in these pages that ghosts are not a single, specific phenomenon but cover a wide range of paranormal activity, each revealing another aspect of our latent psychic faculties and cultural conditioning.

      We are naturally inclined to disbelieve anything outside our personal experience unless a case can be made for its existence on rational grounds. The root of Western scepticism towards all aspects of the supernatural is based on a fallacy expressed in the empiricist philosophy of David Hume (1711–76) who argued that only that which can be perceived through the senses should be accepted as real. He denied the possibility of miracles, for example, by loading the question even more cynically than might a modern politician. He asked whether it was more likely that witnesses would lie, or that the laws of nature would be violated? Hume failed to understand that paranormal phenomena do not violate or contradict nature; the supernatural is an extension of the natural world and conforms to universal laws.

      Those who deny the evidence of such phenomena on principle would do well to consider the view of Carl Jung, the founding father of modern analytical psychology who expressed his belief in spirits in a letter to a friend:

      ‘I once discussed the proof of identity for a long time with a friend of William James, Professor Hyslop in New York. He admitted that all things considered, all these metaphysic phenomena could be explained better by the hypothesis of spirits than by the qualities and peculiarities of the unconscious. And here, on the basis of my own experience, I am bound to concede he is right. In each individual case I must of necessity be sceptical, but in the long run I have to admit that the spirit hypothesis yields better results in practice than any other.’

      In this book, I hope you will find answers to the most persistent questions regarding the nature of spirits rather than the vague and inconclusive statements which have tainted many previous investigations. I am not concerned here with the age-old argument for or against the existence of life after death as surely only the most stubborn sceptic would argue against the wealth of compelling experiential evidence on offer here and elsewhere. The more pressing question is whether we can shrug off the negative image we have of ghosts as malevolent entities created by centuries of superstition and lurid horror fiction and instead accept them simply as discarnate personalities on the other side of life. If this volume can contribute to a more commonsense approach to the supernatural and encourage even one person to lose their fear of the unknown then it will have served its purpose.

      ‘Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads or you shall learn nothing.’

      Thomas Henry Huxley on the duty of a scientist, 1860

      Chapter 1 : Belief In The Soul

      The belief in an immortal human soul and its survival after death dates back to prehistoric times and is common to almost every culture around the world.

      Evidence for a belief in immortality can be found in ancient burial customs which reveal that our ancestors had an expectation of an afterlife and a respect for the memory of the dead. This reverence for the departed, which dates back to the Stone Age and possibly beyond, is the clearest evidence that primitive man possessed self-awareness long before he had formed the means of expressing it in words. Prehistoric cave paintings from Africa to Australia support the belief that early man had a strong intuitive link with the spirit world and attempted to communicate both with his ancestors and with animals through tribal elders, shamans, medicine men and, later, the high priests of the first civilizations. Despite, by present standards, the inherent cruelty and comparative lack of sophistication of these early societies, it is evident that they all shared a belief in spirits long before the concept of good and evil found expression in orthodox religion.

      Cults of the Dead

      The ancient Egyptians were so preoccupied with the prospect of an afterlife that their entire civilization was founded on the cult of the dead. Their custom of placing mummified corpses into sarcophagi of increasing refinement resulted from their belief that there are three non-physical components within the human body, (the ka, ba and akh) which equate with the etheric, astral or dream body of the Western esoteric tradition, the mind and the immortal soul. The etheric body is the non-physical counterpart that is effectively a blueprint for the form which our body takes on entering this material dimension.

      Many believe that the pyramids may have been built not only as tombs for their pharaohs, who were venerated as living descendants of the Gods, but also as the means of initiation into the mysteries of life and death. According to this interpretation, their alignment with specific constellations was chosen to provide a path through the sky for the ascending spirit of the pharaoh to journey back to the heavens, specifically the Sirius constellation in the Milky Way whose river-like pattern of stars appeared to be a celestial reflection of the Nile. It is also feasible that the empty stone sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid at Giza was used to stimulate the conscious separation of the soul in order for the High Priests to be able to commune with the Gods. The structural shape of the pyramids was believed to have both a mystical significance and a practical purpose, focusing the Earth’s magnetic energies to a specific point and to such effect that the initiate would be unable to resist the force drawing their etheric body out of its physical home. Earth energies are stronger near water which suggests one explanation of why the pyramids were built near the Nile. The theory was tested in the 1930s by English occultist Dr Paul Brunton who spent the night in the King’s Chamber and there experienced an involuntary astral journey.

      ‘ . . . all my muscles became taut, after which a paralysing lethargy began to creep over my limbs. My entire body became heavy and numb . . . The feeling developed into a kind of iciness . . . All sensation in the lower limbs was numb. I appeared next to pass into a semi-somnolent condition . . .

      I felt myself sinking inwards in consciousness to some central point within my brain, while my breathing became weaker and weaker . . . There was a final mad whirl within my brain. I had the sensation of being caught up in a tropical whirlwind and seemed to pass upwards through a narrow hole; then there was the momentary dread of being launched into infinite space . . . I had gone ghost-like out of my earthly body.’

      The Egyptian belief in the three spirit elements is significant because it has its equivalent in many cultures around the world which are different in virtually every other respect. It cannot be coincidence that the Greeks wrote of the significance of the psyche, the pneuma and the nous; the Muslims spoke of the sirr, ruh and nafs; the Hindus acknowledged the atman, jiva and pranamayakosha; while the Jewish mystics contemplated the nature of the neshamah, the ruah and the nefash which the Christians assimilated and externalized in the concept of the Holy Trinity.

      Belief in a spirit double which can free itself from the body during sleep and exist separate from the body also gave rise to the Roman larva, the Tibetan delok, the German doppelgänger, the English fetch, the Norwegian vardoger and the Scottish taslach.

      Today belief in a spirit double is shared by cultures as diverse as the Azande in Africa, the Inuit of Alaska and the Bacairis in South America as well as the major religions and philosophies of the East. Clearly there must be a basis in fact for this shared belief. It seems unlikely that mere wishful thinking or the desire to deny our own mortality could account for the consistency of such beliefs.

      shutterstock_491716.tif

      ‘[The ancient Egyptians’] custom of placing mummified corpses into sarcophagi of increasing refinement resulted from their belief that there are three non-physical components within the human body…’

      Sacred Spirits

      In many parts of the world, ghosts are not considered to be a creation of local folklore, but a fact of life. In China the dead are understood to co-exist with the living, a belief which gave rise to the practice of ancestor worship, while in South America the deceased are honoured with annual festivals known as the Day of the Dead which suggests that the material world and the spirit world might not be as distinct as we might like to believe. In the Eastern and Asiatic religions it is believed that death is not the end, but simply a transition from one state of being to another. The Hindu Upanishads, for example, liken each human soul to a lump of salt taken from the ocean which must ultimately return to the source.

      ‘All the diverse elements, in the end, go back to the source and are absorbed in it, as all waters are finally absorbed in the ocean . . . A lump of salt may be produced by separating it from the water of the ocean. But when it is dropped into the ocean, it becomes one with the ocean and cannot be separated again.’

      In Buddhism, the personality is believed to dissolve at the moment of death leaving only pure consciousness (rupa) to seek a new body unless the individual was an enlightened soul (bodhisattva) in which case it can ascend to the higher states of being and there choose when to intervene in the lives of the living as a guiding spirit. However, those individuals who are as yet unable to free themselves from earthly attachments may descend into the realm of the hungry ghosts, the Buddhist equivalent of the Christian Hell.

      It is implied that the majority of discarnate souls linger in a limbo between lives, known as the bardo, before reincarnating. The Tibetan Book of the Dead was intended to act as a guidebook for the soul which found itself in this transitional state. It was to be read over the dying and the dead who, it was thought, might be disorientated by finding themselves in this unearthly environment.

      ‘The hour has come to part with this body, composed of flesh and blood; May I know the body to be impermanent and illusory.’

      Though it was written more than 1,000 years ago, its description of the three phases of death are uncannily similar to modern accounts of the near-death experience. The first stage, called chikai bardo, occurs when consciousness is suspended at the point of separation from the physical body. At this moment the individual is unaware that they are dead. Only when they look down on their own lifeless body do they realize that this ethereal essence is their true self.

      ‘ . . . thine intellect hath been separated from thy body. Because of this inability to loiter, thou oft-times wilt feel perturbed and vexed and panic-stricken . . . ’

      The Tibetan Book of The Dead, Evans-Wentz translation

      There then follows a detailed description of the etheric body and its capabilities.

      ‘Having a body [seemingly] fleshly [resembling] the former and that to be produced, Endowed with all sense faculties and power of unimpeded motion.’

      The following passages stress the importance of letting go of all emotional attachments to people and places so that the soul may ascend into the light. But some may be unwilling, or unable, to relinquish their possessions or may harbour regrets or resentment which will effectively bind them to the earthly plane. Others may be literally haunted by their own evil deeds and they will only exorcize these memories by reliving them in a succession of hells of their own making.

      ‘O now, when the Bardo of Reality upon me is dawning! Abandoning all awe, fear, and terror of all phenomena, May I recognise whatever appears as being my own thought-forms, May I know them to be apparitions in the intermediate state’

      Having faced the consequences of his actions, the discarnate soul can then submit to the mercy of the Buddha within, his own divine essence who determines whether he can enter Nirvana or must reincarnate. Assuming that most souls will need to return to the world for further trials, the concluding prayers are intended to guide it to re-enter under the most favourable circumstances.

      ‘O procrastinating one, who thinks not of the coming of death, Devoting yourself to the useless doings of this life, Improvident are you in dissipating your great opportunity; Mistaken, indeed, will your purpose be now if you return empty-handed from this life’

      Spirits in the Scriptures

      The oldest recorded account of an encounter with a spirit in Western mythology can be traced back to the appearance of the Witch of Endor in the Old Testament who was ordered by King Saul to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel.

      Saul, the King of Israel, had condemned all occult practices as blasphemous, but when he heard that the Philistines were marching on the city of Gilboa he appealed to God for help. Receiving no answer he disguised himself and called on the witch who used a talisman to invoke the dead from the netherworld. The spirit of Samuel materialized out of the earth in the form of ‘an old man . . . wrapped in a cloak’ and complained of having been disturbed. Saul begged forgiveness and assured the spirit that he would not have disturbed him had his kingdom not been in peril to which Samuel replied that what is fated to befall men cannot be undone. The spirit then departed leaving Saul to face his enemies.

      The story is seen by some as a satire on the king who is forced to acknowledge forces greater than those at his command, and it also serves as a moral fable. Saul deceived the witch (by coming to her in disguise), but she proved to be the wiser. After the spirit departed she showed compassion for the humbled ruler, killing one of her animals to feed him. The story also underlines the Jewish belief that the soul of the deceased hovers near its body for 12 months after death before ascending to heaven.

      Communication with spirits was forbidden by the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 18:9–14), but conscious awareness of the higher worlds for the purpose of self-realization or enlightenment had been practised since biblical times by initiates of Merkabah, a forerunner of the modern Jewish mystical teaching known as Kabbalah.

      Spirits are not acknowledged explicitly in the New Testament although their existence is clearly implied, most notably in Luke 24:39, when Jesus tells his followers: ‘Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost, because ghosts don’t have bodies, as you see that I do!’

      Elsewhere, particularly in the ‘lost’ Gnostic gospels discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1947, there are several significant references to the living spirit within every human being and to the disciples’ personal experience of the astral world and altered states of awareness. In the Gospel of Philip, Jesus makes a clear distinction between ‘the real realm’ (i.e., the material world) and ‘the realm of truth’.

      ‘People cannot see anything in the real realm unless they become it. In the realm of truth it is not as [with] human beings in the world, who see the sun without being the sun . . . Rather, if you have seen any things there, you have become those things.’

      In 1 Corinthians 15:50 and 2 Peter 1:18 it is stated that flesh and blood cannot enter the celestial kingdom; in John 3:13 it is noted that heaven is for spiritual beings and that we are all spirit in essence

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