Life After Death - Mediums, Ghosts, Heaven or Nothing?

I believe in life after death and I believe in ‘ghosts’. I have not visited a medium. I believe there are genuine mediums but there are also charlatans who prey on the bereaved.

We lived in a very haunted house, it dated from around 1650 but had some Georgian and Victorian additions.

We think our ghost was a girl of 14-16, she was mischievous and knew how to wind us up.

I have also had a visitation dream from a good friend who died suddenly, she was with me, it was so strong, it left me feeling very comforted.

I want to believe in life after death, it was very much in keeping with my upbringing, but it's a hope rather than a blind faith. I have an open mind about ghosts, from the testaments I've read I think there are some unexplained supernatural presences.

Such beliefs are personal, I would never challenge anyone else as to what they believe or don't believe. We all reach our own conclusions about such matters.

As much as I'd like to believe in some kind of 'life after death', I don't. I wouldn't mock anyone who does believe, but I've seen at first hand how some so-called mediums operate, and how easily people can be taken in by them. My late father was a great sceptic and always said that if there was any kind of afterlife, he'd be sure to let me know - and he hasn't.

I don’t believe in ghosts, fairies or unicorns
I would like to believe in an after life I really really would but I find it hard to, I try but it doesn’t really come easily to me so maybe I don’t try hard enough

Nothing.

My science background and logic always told me there is no such thing as ghosts
I firmly believed this until in the eighties we moved into a house built in 1969 on the site of a Victorian house on the site of a seventeenth century Croft
It was an upside down house that we turned to the conventional way
The spare bathroom had been part of the kitchen and as it was clear glass had a net curtain. The room was only used by visitors and the window shut firmly
On numerous occasions on returning from the morning school run the window would be open and the curtain billowing out
One winters night I was reading in bed when my husband came out of the bathroom and looked shocked to see me in bed he disappeared off calling son who was still downstairs watching football
He returned to me and told me he had seen a woman walking down the corridor towards son’s bedroom wearing what looked like my dressing gown with a blanket round her shoulders but smaller than me. No he had not had anything to drink he seemed quite shaken
We did not say anything to the kids at the time but years later both lads said they had seen a similar figure sat in the corner of their room they did not share a room
A colleague of husbands visited and had not been told anything and one of her first comments was to ask who else lived here but added it was friendly and she got no witchy twitches
Along side our fields ran a hollow way (medieval road ) and a lay line that runs through Chester cathedral
Who knows ❓

I have had two instances when I think I saw ghosts; my Dad died suddenly when I was 15. A couple of days after he died, while I was just waking up, I was sure I saw him at the foot of my bed.
The second instance was more recently. The people from whom we bought our house had a son who died tragically, at only 18, in a road accident. Our bedrom had been his. One night, I was shutting the door in the dark (not to wake DH) and, when I turned round, there was a "shadowy figure" behind me. It made me jump and, at first, I thought DH had got up but he was still snoring. Neither event felt threatening, just startling, initially.

Matter cannot be destroyed so there is something after death. I tend to think of it as modified molecules/elements which do indeed carry on. I don't think that's usually what's meant by life after death though I suppose some of the elements that make us will help make more living matter.

Wasn't it Carl Sagan who said we are made of "star stuff"? "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself."

I have visited a medium several times and always been told things that only myself could have known and shortly after one of my parents died I 'sensed a presence in my kitchen' as I prepared lunch. It wasn't scary at all, lasted only a few seconds but left me with an overwhelming sense of comfort.

An acquaintance of a niece is a medium, and on two occasions has told her some extraordinary things that she couldn’t possibly have guessed.

These were on more or less ad hoc occasions, neither booked nor pre planned, and the person doesn’t charge.

The only thing I’ve ever experienced was a very strong sense of my lovely MiL’s presence in our house, very soon after she died (too young). I could almost ‘see’ her sitting on the sofa.

Of course I put it down entirely to my imagination and when my father died only 6 months later, I fully expected to ‘imagine’ the same, either at our house, or at my mother’s. But there was absolutely nothing. Zilch.

I have an open mind about such things but would dearly love my father to present himself to me in some form. He died 17 years ago, but we left a lot of things unsaid,at least I did 😪
I was estranged from him for over 10 years because he didn’t like my lifestyle (alcoholic beenin recovery now for quite a few years)
I do think he would’ve gone to his grave without speaking to me again. If my brother hasn’t got cancer and subsequently died. He did contact me when Jimmy was very ill and for three years before his own death, we did have some sort of relationship.
I very often sit here and say “dad I need to speak to you”, but nothing happens 😪

I’m not convinced by mediums. I believe they can glean pieces of information and use that along with educated guesswork to convince people they are contacting the deceased.

I do believe in an afterlife, and I definitely believe I saw my brother the night of the day he had died - I’ve never seen him since, and of course, it could have been my young mind playing tricks, but it was so clear and so real to me, and remains clear in my minds eye to this day.

However, I think there’s a lot more to “time” than we really understand - I don’t believe it is purely linear (we humans created time as we know it, split into seconds, minutes, hours, days, etc). So, when we “see” visions it might be that we are somehow, briefly, slipping into the time they were or will be alive.

I know dreams have had impossible to know things come true for me. I will always believe in something more being out there. But also very aware and wary of charlatans.

I've had things happen to me that i cannot explain

I hope for the best and prepare for the worst, but I cannot decide what is the best - an afterlife or oblivion or what is he worst - oblivion or an afterlife.

I dont believe in any of it, there used to be someone, american, that offered a million dollars to any mediums that could prove they were genuine, nobody received the million dollars.

My lovely deceased husband was a police officer for 30 years and was a straightforward no nonsense type of man. Everything had to have evidence and reasoning. Definitely a sceptic with no religious leanings whatsoever.

He had been battling stage 4+ colon cancer for 6 years at the time, with horrendous side effects from repeated chemo and surgeries. He was still able to shower etc and dress himself but it took ages and then he would come downstairs and rest as it completely wore him out.

One morning he came down beaming. Such a look of peace and light on his face. I was shocked and trying not to show it asked how he was.

He said “my grandad just spoke to me. He told me it will be alright Paulie, I’ll be waiting for you”. The voice came out of nowhere. My husband said he hadn’t thought of him in years so was really shocked.

His grandad had died 40 years before. Due to a crappy family situation his grandad was the only one who loved and was loved by my husband.

Whatever happened it lifted my husband’s soul and when he died a year later I too found it comforting.

TerriBull

I want to believe in life after death, it was very much in keeping with my upbringing, but it's a hope rather than a blind faith. I have an open mind about ghosts, from the testaments I've read I think there are some unexplained supernatural presences.

Such beliefs are personal, I would never challenge anyone else as to what they believe or don't believe. We all reach our own conclusions about such matters.

I agree with what you say.
On the subject of mediums tho, I don’t believe they know anymore than we do.Some may genuinely believe they are in touch with the other side and the others view it as a moneymaking enterprise.

Infra sound is often associated with ghost occurrences The research suggested that an infrasonic signal of 19 Hz might be responsible for some ghost sightings. This is below normal human hearing it has been detected in many places that supposedly are haunted
I think it might be likely that some people are more receptive than others
I was at a friends friends house in north London. Friend had popped up to toilet and I saw something out of the corner of my eye and startled. Oh you can see it too came the comment What said first friend. As she returned Her friend winked at me and said a mouse never did get to discuss it

There are fake mediums yes, and they can use trickery to glean information from their clients. But there are also genuine mediums, although their abilities vary.

Communicating with the spirit world has been described like tuning a radio and hearing the channels come and go until you get a good signal. Some may pick up a good signal and a clear message, others may get a poor signal and a garbled message with names unclear. Hence the inability to get the right name sometimes. It depends on the clarity of the signal and the ability of the medium.

So don't think of them as all being fakes. Some are just better than others, just as some musicians are better than others. Someone learning the piano would not be able to play in a concert.

Also, some people in general have a sixth sense and may see or feel a presence, whilst others see or feel nothing because their 'psychic eye' is not open, and I'm one of those although I believe totally in spirits. There are far too many unexplained things in the world.

As a practising Christian I still manage to believe in a life after this one.

I do not know what form it takes, nor does anyone else. And the gospels do not record the risen Christ having described it, either. If you don't believe, you will probably see this as a confirmation that there is no life after death, and that the disciples either were hallucinating or lying. If you do believe, then you probably like me, feel that we obviously are not supposed to concern ourselves with the details of it - just accept the Lord's words "I am the Resurrection and the Life"

Down through the ages, various people, both saints and quite ordinary people have believed they had been vouchsafed visions of heaven, hell or pugatory. Whether these were genuine, wishful thinking or fantasies, I cannot pretend to say,

My knowlege of the Bible includes the warnings against trying to forsee the future, which has satisfactorily stopped me from ever wanting to consult a medium.

If there is a life after this one, then it is not unbelievable that ghosts, whatever they are, do exist. I grew up in a house that had a "presence" that could be called a ghost, and have as an adult lived in a flat that had a completely harmless little ghost - a black cat, seen by many others than myself, and I had not mentioned to any of them that I knew she was there.

I’ve been to some a amazing mediums
They’ve helped me immensely

I definitely believe in life after death. I have been to several different medium events. I go with two friends who are both desperate to hear from their deceased loved ones but it’s always me who gets picked out wherever we go.

Last summer we went to one and honestly the stuff he told me was so accurate I was blown away. My Mum came through so clearly and said she was so upset when her mind went because she knew what she wanted to say but couldn’t get it out. She said she is her old self again now and looking after 2 babies. There was no way he could have known Mum got dementia or that I had lost stillborn twins many years ago. I found it very comforting.