The existence of ghosts in the real world. Ghosts among people

If you believe in ghosts, you are not alone. People all over the world believe that a person's soul goes to another world after death, but can sometimes return to earth. In fact, of all the paranormal phenomena, people most often believe in ghosts.

Belief in the otherworldly

The idea that the dead remain with us in the form of spirits is a very ancient one, appearing in countless stories, from biblical parables to Shakespeare's Macbeth. This belief even gave rise to a special folklore genre: ghost stories. Ghost stories are part of beliefs about the paranormal, including near-death experiences, life after death, and communication with spirits. It is not difficult to understand why this idea has become so widespread among people - many do not want to believe that deceased family members have left them forever, and therefore prefer to think that they can return to them from time to time.

Communication with spirits

At all times, people have tried to communicate with spirits. In Victorian England, for example, it was fashionable for ladies to hold such sessions after tea with friends. Moreover, many prestigious universities, including Cambridge and Oxford, have founded special clubs dedicated to finding evidence of the existence of ghosts. In 1882, even the most prominent organization was created called the Society for Psychical Research. Its president and first researcher was Eleanor Sidgwick. She can be called the first female ghost hunter. In the late 1800s in America, many mediums claimed they could speak to the dead, but were later exposed as frauds by skeptical researchers such as Harry Houdini.

Ghost Hunt

However, ghost hunting has become widespread throughout the world relatively recently. This is largely due to the release of the television series Ghost Hunters, which led to many imitators. Frankly, it's not hard to see why this series became so popular: it convinced millions of people that anyone could see a ghost. This means that you do not need to be a scientist or even have any training in science and research. All you need is some free time, a dark place and maybe a few gadgets from the electronics store. If you search long enough, any unexplained light or noise can be taken as evidence of ghosts.

Difficulties in studying ghosts

Why is it so difficult to study ghosts scientifically? First of all, because they are credited with many different abilities. Doors opening on their own, lost keys, unexpected cold - all this is called the work of ghosts, not to mention their ability to appear out of nowhere in the form of a blurry figure. In addition, many people, when faced with some inexplicable phenomena, do not know how to explain it. This happens especially often if these phenomena do not fit into our ideas about how a ghost should behave.

Personal experience is one thing, but scientific evidence is another matter entirely. Another difficulty in the study of ghosts lies in the fact that there is still no one universal definition of this phenomenon. Some believe that ghosts are the spirits of the dead who, for some reason, got “lost” on their way to another world, and are therefore left to wander the earth. Others claim that ghosts are telepathic entities projected into the world by our minds. Still others create their own special categories for different types of ghosts, such as poltergeists, residual ghosts, intelligent spirits, and shadows of people. Of course, trying to categorize ghosts is the same as creating different races of fairies or dragons: each person can name as many types of ghosts as he wants.

Controversies

In addition, ideas about ghosts have many contradictions. For example, whether they are material or not. Can they move through solid objects without destroying them? Or are they able to open and close the door and throw objects around the room? According to logic and the laws of physics, one contradicts the other.

If ghosts are human souls, then why do they appear dressed in supposedly soulless objects such as hats, canes and dresses? Not to mention the numerous evidence of the existence of ghosts of trains, carriages and ships.

If ghosts are the spirits of those whose deaths remained unavenged, then why are there still many unsolved murders, because it is generally accepted that these spirits can communicate with living people, which means they should have long ago sent the police on the trail of the killer. There are a lot of unanswered questions like this, and they all make us doubt the existence of ghosts.

Spirit Detection Methods

Ghost hunters use a variety of creative (and rather dubious) methods to detect the presence of spirits. Almost all of them claim to have a scientific basis for their “work”, and therefore use high-tech scientific equipment, for example, Geiger counters, electromagnetic field detectors, ion detectors, infrared cameras and sensitive microphones. However, all this equipment has never actually helped anyone detect ghosts. For centuries, people believed that candle flames turned blue in the presence of spirits. Today, few people accept this idea. Thus, it is likely that after a few decades or centuries, our methods of detecting ghosts will seem ridiculous and ridiculous to posterity.

Why do so many people continue to believe?

Most people who believe in ghosts do so because of some personal experience. For example, they grew up in a home where the existence of friendly spirits was taken for granted. The second example is that they had some kind of stressful experience in so-called “haunted houses.” However, many people believe that proof of the existence of ghosts can be found in modern physics, namely the first law of thermodynamics, which was formulated by Albert Einstein. If energy is neither created nor destroyed, but only changes its form, then what happens to the energy of our body when we die? Could she somehow manifest as a ghost?

This seems like a reasonable assumption, but only if you don't understand basic physics. The answer is very simple, and it is not at all mysterious. After a person dies, the energy from his body goes to the same place where the energy of all organisms is directed after death: into the environment. It is released as heat, and the body is processed by the animals that eat it (that is, wild animals if the person was left unburied, or, most often, worms and bacteria if the body was buried), and plants that absorb these remains. Thus, there is no bodily "energy" that remains after a person's death that can be detected using devices popular among ghost hunters.

Believe it or not?

If ghosts are real and are some kind of as yet unknown energy or entity, then their existence will (like all other scientific discoveries) be confirmed and tested by scientists through controlled experiments. After all, despite mountains of controversial photographs, audio and video, modern evidence for the existence of ghosts is no better than it was a year, ten or even a hundred years ago. There are two good explanations for this.

First, ghosts do not exist, and evidence of their appearance can be explained by psychology, mistakes and hoaxes. The second option is that they do exist, but ghost hunters are not competent enough to bring more science to their search.

It's up to you to decide which of these explanations you want to believe.

Communication with spirits

Ghost Hunt

Difficulties in studying ghosts

Controversies

Spirit Detection Methods

Why do so many people continue to believe?

Believe it or not?

It's up to you to decide which of these explanations you want to believe.

Who are ghosts? If we talk about ghosts, many people mean the souls of previously deceased people who come to our world in visible form. Some people believe that ghosts exist, while others, on the contrary, categorically do not want to believe in the existence of such a phenomenon. People who, by their own statements, have seen ghosts say that they are pale images that have unclear outlines. And it is still not completely known whether ghosts really exist. Everyone has the right to believe only what he himself hears or sees. Many people can see ghosts after they find out

Many legends that have come to us since time immemorial talk about ghosts, whose appearance is directly related to the completion of a specific task or a specific assignment.

Some ghosts come with the goal of carrying out some kind of retribution, or to reveal a criminal who is guilty of committing a murder.

Other ghosts may return to correct some mistakes or injustices that were committed against those living today.

Ghosts may also appear to correct their own guilt for some misdeeds they committed during their lifetime.

There are several types of ghosts, namely:

Resident ghosts - these include ghosts that appear before different people, but it will always be the same ghost living in a given place. In such cases, it may seem that they are absolutely not interested in people. They, in turn, are attracted only by the place they come to. It should be said that these are not only ghosts of people, but also of animals.

Ghost messengers - these include ghosts who visit a person for a specific purpose. Such ghosts are called the souls of dead people who come back into the world in order to bring some message or warning; as a rule, they come to the family of the deceased or to his friends. In this case, ghosts rarely speak; they mainly point to some object or thing, or convey their messages using various gestures.

Souls of the living. Strange as it may seem, many accounts of ghosts are directly linked to the appearance of the souls of living people. At some point, eyewitnesses may see in front of them the ghost of a friend or relative who is in trouble or is on the verge of life and death. And this person himself may well be very far away at this moment. Castings of this type, as a rule, come only once.

Returners are a type of ghost that returns to this world for various reasons. Such ghosts use living people to achieve their goals.

Poltergeist. The appearance of this particular type of ghost is very often blamed for various very unpleasant acts of supernatural forces, for example, plates or cups floating through the air, and so on. Many people believe that ghosts themselves cause poltergeists, but they behave completely differently from ordinary ghosts. Objects moving through poltergeists begin to acquire very strange qualities. In turn, they can heat up to such a level that it is simply impossible to touch them. They also have the ability to penetrate through closed windows or doors. And the strangest thing is their ability to suddenly appear out of thin air.

The first evidence of the activity of ghosts that has survived to this day is considered to be the Epic of Gilgamash - ancient Babylonian tales that were recorded approximately 2000 BC. These legends are recorded on clay tablets. They talk about a fairy-tale hero named Gilgamesh, as well as the ghost of his deceased friend, who came to him in the form of a human figure.

The ancient Egyptians also believed that ghosts existed. Their ghosts appeared with the head of a bird, and were named khu, and they, in turn, represented the souls of dead people. It was generally believed that these were evil spirits that spread various diseases and were able to inhabit various animals, at the same time instilling rabies in them.

Despite the fact that the inhabitants of ancient China treated the deceased with great respect and even held holidays in their honor, they were very afraid of the spirits of the murdered, who were considered directly dangerous and very evil. Such a ghost, according to Chinese beliefs, came in the same attire that he was wearing during his lifetime. His appearance looked very impressive. First, a kind of shapeless cloud was shown, from which the legs and head of a ghost then grew. And only then did the body itself appear, which was surrounded by a shimmering green cloud.

The British capital has long been, and not without reason, considered a world center where various kinds of spirits and ghosts are concentrated.

For more than seventy years, Londoners have retold the story of how, on a July evening in 1930, about 8,000 people came to one of the most luxurious concert halls, the Royal Albert Hall, to attend a gala event held in honor of the famous Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a writer and by the well-known detective named Sherlock Holmes.

Dressed in a tailcoat, the hero of the occasion entered the room shortly before the start of the concert and sat down in a place of honor with his wife Jean, and remained there until the end of the event.

But the most unusual thing in this story is that the writer died 6 days before the start of the mentioned concert, which was dedicated precisely to his memory.

The writer's widow worried in advance and ordered an entrance ticket along with a place of honor for the deceased. This woman was famous for being considered a talented medium and able to contact the souls of the deceased and organize visits for them to the world of living people. It turns out that she knew about the arrival of the phantom of the late Sir Arthur in the concert hall. All the spectators present at the concert, who knew Conan Doyle by sight, perceived his arrival at the Albert Hall very calmly and coolly, which is characteristic of the British and since it took place in London, where meeting with a ghost is not considered something rare and supernatural.

In some cases, ghosts can help scientists compare facts, thanks to which they restore true pictures from the past, and the truth of the details suggested by ghosts is subsequently proven by researchers or found documents. The most famous example of this is the death of the second wife of the British monarch Henry VIII, the famous Anne Boleyn, who was executed in 1536 because she was accused of cheating on her husband. Previously, historians believed that the process of Anna’s execution was ordinary for that time, namely, the victim was laid with her head on the block, and the executioner cut her neck with an ax. However, it later turned out that with Anna everything was different.

The thing is that in 1972 there was a tour of the Tower Castle, which included a young girl with her parents. And while inspecting the place where the executions took place - the Green Tower - the girl saw everything that took place in this very place more than four centuries ago. This is what she saw: Queen Anne was on her knees, leaning slightly forward. Her executioner with a sword (not an ax) approached her from behind absolutely silently, since he was not wearing shoes. It is quite possible that he first took off his boots so that Anna could not hear him approaching, and so that mortal fear would not take possession of her ahead of time. Anne Boleyn didn't even have time to make a move before the executioner cut off her head with one stroke. And a second later he lifted the severed head by the hair and showed it to the audience. And the crowd saw a dead face, disfigured by a grimace of horror.

All those present took the girl’s story with a grain of salt, since other tourists did not see the execution scene. However, just two months later, several historians confirmed that, indeed, the execution of Queen Anne took place exactly as the girl had dreamed it. In addition, scientists have established that the sentence was carried out by an executioner known for his very delicate treatment of his victims, who was invited from France specifically for this purpose.

It is also necessary to mention that terrible and inexplicable events within the walls of the Tower still occur today. Once it happened that one guard was making a routine tour of the territory. And at the moment when he passed near St. Peter's Chapel, a strong desire arose in him to look out the window.

The man put a ladder against the wall, stood up and looked inside. He almost fainted from what he saw there.

In the middle of the chapel, several historical figures were slowly walking, who were familiar to the guard from the portraits hanging in the castle. A young black-haired woman very similar to Anne Boleyn walked ahead. She was followed by Thomas More, who was a statesman and, being accused of treason, was executed in 1535. Next came the Duchess of Salisbury, as well as Jane Gray, arm in arm with her husband, Lord Dudley. At the end of the procession followed the participants of the 1745 Buna. All these people were beheaded in the Green Tower, and made a terrible impression with their appearance: all of them had red bloody stripes on their necks, and their faces were deathly pale, bluish in color, and their eyes burned like coals.

It quite logically begs the question why ghosts are most often shown to people in London. One version claims that this is directly because in the British capital a large number of children are born at midnight. It is widely believed in mediumship circles that such people are able to see and feel ghosts, and even communicate directly with them. However, this hypothesis cannot explain why the ghosts of London also appear to visiting tourists from all over the world.

Probably every resident of Foggy Albion, in the depths of their souls, is already ready to meet a ghost, although they are unlikely to ever admit it.

A programmer at Coventry University named Vic Tandy also thought that all these ghost stories were complete nonsense and not worthy of attention. But one evening, while he was working, he broke out in an icy sweat. He quite clearly felt that someone was looking at him intently, and there was something sinister in that gaze. Then something materialized into an incomprehensible and shapeless mass that had an ash-gray color, ran across the room and came very close to the scientist. In the blurred contours one could still see arms and legs, and in the place of the head there was fog, and in the center there was a dark spot that resembled a mouth. And a few seconds later the vision disappeared into thin air without a trace.

However, despite the terrible horror he experienced, he began to act like a real scientist, that is, to try to find the cause of an incomprehensible phenomenon. The easiest way was to attribute such a vision to hallucinations. However, where could they come from, because the programmer did not drink alcohol or drugs. Well, speaking about otherworldly forces, the scientist simply did not believe in them. So he decided that it was necessary to look for simple physical factors.

And it must be said that Tendi found them, although this happened quite by accident. To some extent, his hobby - fencing - came to his aid. Some time after the encounter with the ghost, the scientist took the sword home to prepare it for an upcoming competition in which he intended to take part. And suddenly the blade, which was clamped in a vice, began to vibrate more and more, as if someone was touching it.

Someone else might have thought this way. However, this fact prompted the scientist to think about resonant vibrations, which are to some extent similar to the vibrations caused by sound waves. For example, while loud music is playing, dishes in the cupboard may begin to rattle. However, strangely enough, there was silence in the laboratory. And the scientist immediately measured the sound background using special equipment. And here it turned out that there was incredible noise in the room, but it was not audible because the waves had a rather low frequency that the human ear could not hear. And it was ordinary infrasound. After briefly searching for the source of the sound, he found it, as it turned out, it was a recently installed air conditioning fan. After the scientist turned it off, the “spirit” disappeared and the sword stopped vibrating.

It is also worth saying that infrasound is a thing that carries a considerable number of surprises. For many decades, sailors were haunted by the mystery of the “flying Dutchmen” - ships wandering the seas without a crew. But at the same time, the ships were in perfect order, but where did the sailors go? The last "flying Dutchman" was a superb schooner called the Mary Celeste, which was one day spotted on the ocean by another ship.

Approaching the schooner, and then disembarking, the sailors of the other ship could not understand anything: there was still hot food in the ship’s galley, the ink used by the captain had not yet dried in the magazine, and there was no one there. Everyone has disappeared. For many years, this story haunted people until it was finally solved. As it turned out, the culprit was infrasound, which has a frequency of 7 hertz, which under certain conditions is directly created by ocean waves. And in people this sound is capable of feeling unimaginable horror. Often people can go crazy and are thrown overboard to escape.

The scientist decided to find out if there was a connection between infrasound and his nightmare. Measurements of the infrasound frequency in the laboratory yielded 18.98 hertz, which practically corresponds to the frequency when the human eyeball begins to resonate. Based on this, we conclude that the sound waves caused Tendi's eyeballs to vibrate, and thus caused a visual illusion, that is, he saw a figure that actually did not exist.

Further research proved that under normal conditions, waves with such a low frequency can be formed very often. For example, infrasound can occur when strong gusts of wind collide with towers or chimneys. Most often, such sound waves can rumble in long corridors that are directly shaped like a tunnel. For this reason, there is nothing accidental in the fact that very often people meet ghosts in exactly the same kind of corridors that exist in old castles.

Vic Tendi published the results of his research in one of the scientific journals belonging to the Society for Physical Research. And this society was founded back in 1822 and unites British specialists in parapsychology and natural sciences. The task of this society is to find a reasonable explanation for paranormal phenomena. So, you shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that ghost hunting experts supported Tendi’s ideas with great enthusiasm. So one of the most famous parapsychologists named Tony Cornell believes that thanks to these ideas it will be possible to explain a considerable number of mysterious phenomena.

If we talk about other scientists, they question this theory. Physicists who directly study the influence of infrasound waves on the human body say that people directly involved in experiments complain of considerable fatigue, great pressure in the ears or eyes, but with regard to hallucinations, especially in the form of ghosts, no one has experienced such . Car drivers also experience absolutely no optical illusion, and it is well known that at the moment when a car overcomes air resistance at high speed, the level of infrasound inside the cabin is very high.

As we have already said, there are a lot of theories about ghosts. As an example, let’s take the theory of Vladimir Vitvitsky, head of the information technology department of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum. This scientist has been studying optical deceptions and illusions for a long time; he believes that most of the strange visions can be explained by simple laws of physics. He believes that in this case, it's all about the properties of light. In his personal opinion, the human eye does not perceive the objects themselves as such, but only the light reflected from them.

After this, with the help of the retina, light and at the same time dark spots with the presence of halftones are translated into a digital code, or, to put it simply, into electrical impulses, which then enter the human brain. After this, the brain deciphers them and, based on the results of the data obtained, forms an image of objects in the human mind. This is a completely standard, usual scheme for the formation of what people consider to be a picture of the real world. However, it should be noted that it can be violated, which is done in the following way: the light must be reflected not according to the principles to which the human eye and brain are accustomed.

Consequently, many tricks that illusionists perform in the circus are built on this principle. The easiest way to do this is with the help of mirror systems, which redirect the light streams that are reflected from real objects to some other point, where they will thus be produced and appear before the viewer.

Mother Nature is also capable of performing such tricks. We all know what a mirage is - and so they are the most famous phenomenon in this category. Often travelers can see a lake in the middle of the desert, or even an entire city, they head towards it, but in the end it turns out that this is just an optical illusion. According to physicists, in reality a lake or city exists, but they are located somewhere far beyond the horizon, perhaps even a thousand miles away. And of course, it’s impossible to see the city from such a distance.

However, air at different altitudes has different densities, this directly depends on the distribution of humidity and temperature. Scientists have found that light will be reflected from a denser layer as if from a mirror surface. There can be a lot of mirrors of this type at a particular moment, so they take the images of the lake very far from its actual location, and then simply fix it in some other place.

However, unfortunately, not everything is possible only with the help of physical properties. Yuri Sivolap, a professor at the Moscow Medical Academy, said that in some cases illusions can arise in a person’s mind. But at the same time, from a psychiatric point of view, a supernatural phenomenon can arise due to two components: lack of information, as well as a person’s imagination. With all this, people’s readiness to perceive objects can play a very important role. People are simply expecting a miracle, and those who wait will almost always see what they want, Yuri Sivolap is sure. Such phenomena can quite often occur in people with a creative mind, or in those who are overly keen on the study of paranormal phenomena.

It also happens that people do not want to see something, only out of fear. And in this state, for example, they will walk through a cemetery at night, and suddenly, instead of a cross, they may see some mystical figure, which, in addition to everything else, will begin to approach them. However, normal people will not be able to see the details of the ghost. According to the professor, this requires either self-hypnosis or illness. Among other things, the main difference between a hallucination and an illusion is that an illusion cannot arise out of nothing; it appears as a result of a distorted vision of other objects. But hallucination is, in turn, the fruit of a painful consciousness.

However, it is not only special impressionability that forces a person to see something that does not actually exist. According to Yuri Sivolap, people have experienced states when dreams literally penetrate into their seemingly awake consciousness. For example, during very long long-distance travel, a tired human brain may well enter a state that lies between sleep and reality. Using this method, people can see some objects when their eyes are open, after which the data is transmitted to the brain, where the sleep mechanism starts in parallel, and the image from there can be superimposed on reality.

It would seem that, on the one hand, the solution to the appearance of ghosts has been found, but on the other hand, a considerable number of questions remain for which there are no answers. Well, as for ghosts, they still continue to be found, and not only on the shores of Foggy Albion. It is very difficult to categorically assert that this is an optical illusion or that they are truly guests from another world. Believing in the existence of ghosts or denying their existence is a personal matter for everyone.

You can hear many stories about the existence of ghosts or other anomalous creatures living within the astral plane of the earth. It turns out that most of these stories are true.

Why do ghosts linger on earth?

It is a known fact that they exist. Many people have encountered inexplicable phenomena in their lives. However, not every one of them believes in the existence of an afterlife. Some people, after coming into contact with ghosts, refer to the fact that they imagined this vision against the background of nervous overstrain. However, in this world there are also people who have a hypersensitive energy field. They are called psychics or mediums. They are often forced to encounter the inhabitants of the other world, so they are amused by ridiculous skeptical beliefs. Many psychics claim that anyone can communicate with ghosts, if only they develop their abilities.

But why do ghosts linger on the earthly plane? In fact, these are the souls of the departed who, for various reasons, refuse to leave the earth. Most often this is due to unfinished earthly affairs.

Supporters of many religions are convinced that people who commit crimes should bear earthly punishment in the form of imprisonment. The priests believe that criminals cannot be deprived of their lives by , as this is contrary to the laws of God. And this also has a certain meaning. Psychics claim that death is not a punishment for the soul. In reality, physical death is liberation from earthly suffering. Also, priests have a very negative attitude towards suicide. In their opinion, God gave life to man, and he will take it away. If a person dares to end his own life, then this is considered a grave sin. It’s not for nothing that suicides used to be buried outside cemeteries. Mediums and psychics believe that a person should not commit suicide, because by doing so he ends his karmic program, which he must successfully work out. Therefore, the souls of suicides often reside in lower energy layers. They realize that they have not completed their earthly destiny. Therefore, now they are forced to be reborn again in order to work out their karmic task, but in more difficult living conditions, as a result of committing suicide.

In general, the premature death of the physical body due to murder, accident or suicide is accompanied by obstacles that prevent the soul from leaving the astral plane of earth peacefully.

In addition to the physical shell, a person has mental and astral projections. When a person dies, the energy body separates from the physical body. For three days, the invisible part of the subtle body dwells near its decaying flesh. After three days, the etheric body is disconnected from the physical shell. This is the ghost of a deceased person. That's why some people see ghosts in cemeteries. After this, the etheric body can remain on the earthly level for nine days. And after about a month and nine days, the spirit frees itself from the astral shell and moves to a higher mental level. The souls of the dead call this place their home. This is where they stay until their next reincarnation on earth.

This process is typical for a soul that has experienced natural death, since by this time the energy body has already been partially destroyed. In this case, the soul is already ready for the transition and therefore does not experience suffering.

But what happens to souls if they leave this world prematurely? The ethereal shell of the soul is not yet ready for the transition to a higher plane. Therefore, she hangs on the lower astral levels. Such souls are ghosts.

Unfortunately, people who commit suicide do not free themselves from earthly suffering. They reside at the lower levels of the astral plane. These souls do not find peace, as they constantly experience visions of their suicide and realize that they have only worsened their situation.

Ghost visit

In general, ghosts are harmless entities. They only scare people with their appearance. However, there are ghosts that can harm a living person. This is due to the fact that during life they harbored aggression towards other people. Sometimes, due to premature death, ghosts retain negative traits. In this case, a person should not feel fear, since aggressive ghosts will be fueled by his emotions. They are powerless in the face of humor. Try to imagine how a harmful ghost was enveloped in a huge transparent ball filled with water. Then this ball bursts, and the ghost is all wet. Use your imagination. Make it really funny. Humor helps drive away the invisible guest. However, many individuals become frightened when a ghost appears in their field of vision.

If the ghost of a deceased person is not aggressive towards the person, but on the contrary is trying to make friends with him, then you should not drive him away. Perhaps a person will be able to acquire an ally in the person of an invisible guest.

Most often, ghosts live in cemeteries or hospitals. They are strongly attached to these places, so they do not want to leave them.

Ghosts really are close to people. Therefore, there is no need to be afraid of them. Unfortunately, these unfortunate souls are capable of hanging for centuries on lower astral levels. Perhaps the compassion of a living person will help them move faster to a higher plane.

Since ancient times. Some describe them as visions and strange light, the feeling of someone's presence in the room, noises, or a sudden drop in temperature.

Others smelled the deceased person's favorite food, heard their favorite song, or saw objects begin to fall from shelves and doors open and close on their own.

For many of them, such an experience is irrefutable proof of the existence of ghosts. But scientists found several possible explanations phenomena that are often attributed to ghosts.

Do ghosts exist?

1. Electrical brain stimulation

Frightened eyewitnesses from different parts of the world say that see people's shadows. These dark entities, which are noticed out of the corner of the eye, disappear immediately after a person comes face to face with them.

Many believe that these are demons, others that they are astral bodies, and still others claim that they are time travelers. But some researchers have proposed another unexpected version.

When Swiss scientists used electricity stimulated the brains of epileptics, the result was somewhat creepy.

One patient spoke about the shadow of a man who sat behind her and copied her every move. If the patient sat down, the shadow sat down with her; if she bent over and grabbed her knee, the shadow tried to hold her. When the doctors asked the woman to read from the card, the shadow tried to take it away.

As it turned out, scientists stimulated the left temporoparietal node - area of the brain that determines our concept of self. By interfering with this area, which helps us differentiate ourselves from other people, the doctors interfered with the patient's ability to understand her own body, and this led to the creation of a shadow of personality.

Scientists believe this will help explain why so many people, healthy and schizophrenic, encounter ghosts, aliens and other creatures.

How to summon a ghost?

2. Ideomotor effect

The Spiritualist movement gained popularity in the 1840s and 1850s and allowed people to communicate with deceased relatives. Ouija boards were used during séances, covered with letters, numbers and simple words ("yes" or "no"). People placed their hands on the tablet and asked the spirits a question. The spirit responded by moving the tablet from letter to letter, giving the answer.

Another method of communicating with spirits was swing table. During the session, people gathered around the table and placed their hands on the surface of the table. To everyone's surprise, the table began to move, tilting on one leg, rising off the ground and moving around the room.

There may have been scammers involved in many cases, but were all these sessions really nothing more than a scam? The famous physicist Michael Faraday conducted an experiment and found that the table often moved due to the so-called ideomotor effect. This effect occurs when the power of suggestion causes our muscles to move unconsciously. People expected the table to start moving, and it did.

A similar event occurred in 1853, when four doctors conducted an experimental session. When they told half the participants that the table would move to the right and half that it would move to the left, the table did not budge. When they told him that he would move in one direction, the ideomotor effect worked again. The same can be said about the Ouija board when our muscles, not spirits, point to words.

Is it a real ghost?

3. Infrasound

When British researcher Vic Tandy saw a gray ghost next to his desk one day, he thought his laboratory was haunted. But the next day the scientist made an interesting discovery.

As he was preparing for a fencing competition, he placed his sword in its holder and noticed that it vibrates on its own. He suddenly realized that what was causing his sword to shake was infrasound.

Humans are capable of hearing sounds up to 20,000 Hertz, but cannot detect sounds with frequencies below 20 Hertz. These "quiet" noises are called infrasound and, although we cannot see them, we can feel them in the form of vibrations. We can feel these waves, especially in the abdomen, and this can create a positive sensation, such as trepidation, or a negative sensation, such as anxiety. In certain environments, such as a scary house, this can lead to feelings of panic.

Thunderstorm, wind, certain weather conditions and even household utensils can produce infrasounds. As Vic Tandy watched the trembling sword, he remembered that the laboratory had installed a new fan that produced vibrations with a frequency of less than 19 Hertz. Since the resonant frequency of the eyeball is approximately 20 Hertz, the infrasound caused vibration and created images that were not there. After the fan was turned off, the ghosts no longer appeared.

Some scientists believe the vibrations explain paranormal activity in some places. So Richard Wiseman, who explored two underground places, discovered the presence of infrasound that came from traffic above.

How to see a ghost

4. Automation

Channeling– the ability of “otherworldly forces” to control the human body – was one of the oldest attempts by mankind to communicate with the worlds of spirits. The idea was to clear your mind, connect with some cosmic consciousness, and allow the ancient spirit to take over your body.

It was believed that shamans of ancient religions were able to receive information from the dead. Although modern mediums often resort to fraud, some people sincerely believe in what they do.

An explanation for this could be automaticity or altered state of consciousness when a person talks and thinks about things that he is not aware of. When a medium clears his mind, he begins to seek a spirit that enters his body and provides him with secret knowledge about the world. In fact, at this time, random ideas and thoughts begin to appear in his head, and he believes that they came to him from another reality. However ideas come from his own head, and our brain is able to generate them without any effort on the part of consciousness.

Do you remember how often something inspired you completely unexpectedly? How often have you had strange nightmares and dreams? All this is not the other world, but our wild brain.

Ghost stories

5. Drafts

Imagine walking through a scary, run-down house in the middle of the night and suddenly feeling a chill in the air. But as soon as you take a few steps left or right, the temperature returns to normal. Parapsychologists call this phenomenon " cold place" - a place of paranormal activity. They explain this by saying that the spirit needs energy, and in order to appear, it receives it from the environment, including people.

But scientists have a simpler and more boring explanation for this phenomenon. When skeptics studied haunted houses, they typically found that cool air entered the house through a chimney or window.

But, even if the room is isolated, this can be explained quite rationally. Every object has a different temperature, and some surfaces are hotter than others. To equalize room temperature, an object tries to give off heat in a process called convection.

In this case, hot air rises and cool air falls. When dry air enters a humid room, the dry air settles on the floor and the humid air rises to the ceiling. This circulating air will feel cold on a person's skin, giving the impression of a cold place.

Ghost Photos

6. Camera

Many also claim that glowing spheres of light are the spirits of deceased people who have not completely left this world. These spheres are invisible to the eye, but can be seen in photographs.

However, skeptics are relentless and explain that when a particle of dust or a small insect is very close to the camera, it will be visible in the photographs as a fuzzy circle. Thanks to the flash, the sphere will appear glowing and can easily be mistaken for a ghost.

Even most of those who believe in ghosts are quite skeptical about the orbs in the photographs. Parapsychologist Pamela Heath believes there are several natural causes for their appearance, including fine hairs, dirty or wet lenses, lens reflection and movement during shooting. Many sites stopped accepting such photographs because there were too many fakes among them.

haunted house

7. Carbon monoxide poisoning

In 1921, ophthalmologist William Wilmer published an unusual paper in the American Journal of Ophthalmology. It told the story of the "H" family and their haunted house. The house was filled with the sounds of slamming doors, moving furniture and the sounds of footsteps in an empty room. One of the children felt something land on him, while another was attacked by a mysterious stranger.

At night, the lady of the house woke up and saw a man and a woman at the foot of the bed, who then disappeared. Family members experienced fatigue and depression, and the plants in the house began to die. And then they discovered a faulty boiler in the house, which was supposed to raise smoke to the chimney, but instead it filled the house. As it turned out, the family suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas that is very difficult to detect. It is dangerous because red blood cells absorb carbon monoxide more easily than oxygen, and oxygen deprivation leads to symptoms such as weakness, nausea, confusion, hallucinations and ultimately death, as happened in this family.

A similar incident occurred in 2005, when a woman saw a ghost in her bathroom. As it turned out, the paranormal activity was caused by a leaky water heater that filled the house with carbon monoxide.

Real events and ghosts

8. Mass hysteria

In June 2013, more than 3,000 workers went on strike at a garment factory in the city of Ghazipur in Bangladesh. They did not complain about long working hours or better wages, but asked to sort out ghost in the toilet. An angry ghost attacked workers in the women's restroom, causing widespread panic. A riot ensued and the police had to restore order.

A similar event occurred at Patong School in Phuket, where 22 students were hospitalized after seeing the ghost of an old woman.

Both workers and students became victims psychological phenomenon called mass hysteria. These collective illusions occur when people are under extreme stress, usually in an oppressive environment (a strict school or a busy work environment).

Restrained stress leads to symptoms such as headaches, nausea and severe cramps. If you add religious or cultural beliefs to the mix, other people will start to catch the same strange symptoms and they will spread like a disease.

It's interesting to note that only a few of the factory's 3,000 workers had any encounters with the ghost, and the woman who sparked the conflict saw nothing at all. She became ill and decided that it was the work of an evil spirit. The circumstances were so perfect that it caused panic.

Ghostbusters

9. Ions

Ghostbusters use ion counter, which reads the ions. An ion is an atom with an unequal number of protons and electrons. If an atom gains an electron, it becomes a negative ion, and if it loses an electron, it becomes a positive ion.

Ghost hunters believe the ions indicate a paranormal entity. They claim that the presence of a spirit interferes with the amount of ions in the atmosphere, and ghosts draw on the energy of the ions if they want to appear and scare people.

However, the presence of ions is caused by many natural phenomena, including weather, solar radiation and radon gas.

Interestingly, both positive and negative ions affect our mood. Negative ions are calming, but positive ions can cause headaches and malaise. This may explain why people who live in haunted houses often describe feelings of fatigue and tension, as well as headaches.

Ghosts and ghosts

10. Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics studies small types of matter, which has led to amazing discoveries in science. With its help, physicists are even trying to explain spirits and ghosts.

For example, Dr. Stuart Hameroff and physicist Roger Penrose believe that human consciousness is located in microturbines inside brain cells, and they are responsible for quantum information processing.

Scientists believe that during clinical death, all this quantum information leaves the brain but continues to exist. This is the reason why some people experience out-of-body experiences and see light at the end of the tunnel.

Many scientists do not agree with these theories, but there are those who support them. Thus, Dr. Henry Stapp believes that a person's personality can survive death and exist as " psychic essence"If such entities can return to the physical world, then perhaps paranormal phenomena can be explained.