by Editor
on December 7, 2014
The Ghosts Of Pets And Other Animals
Acording to scientific surveys of people who have experienced ghosts, more than four fifths of all apparitions are of men, women, and children who have died. However, somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of disembodied spirits reported to British researchers were manifestations of animals.
The ghosts of pets are the non-human spirits that most frequently make themselves known to people. In fact, visits by dead pets to their former owners seem to be a fairly common occurrence. People who responded to two surveys taken by Britain’s Institute of Psychophysical Research reported more apparitions of cats than of any other animal. Ghost dogs were next, followed by the spirits of horses.
Other ghost animals that popped up either in the British survey or in other types of reports including the media include bears, pigs, poultry, hares, deer, and birds. In his 2012 book, Ghosts—A Natural History: 500 Years of Searching for Proof, author Roger Clarke mentions “a couple of phantom bears in London,” a 17th century preacher in Cornwall, England, who supposedly returned in the form of a “demonic black rooster,” and a white bird that purportedly appears to the inhabitants of Arundel Castle in Sussex, England, when one of them is about to die. Clarke adds that headless dogs and horses were a frequent theme of 19th century ghost stories. [continue reading…]
by Editor
on December 6, 2014
Arapaho Ghost Dance. Illustrated By An Unknown Artist Around 1900 And Based On Photographs Taken By Anthropologist James Mooney.
Marathon Dancing To Bring Back The Dead
The Ghost Dance was a short-lived religious movement that swept through Western Native American cultures during the years that straddled the final two decades of the 1800s. The Movement came along following an extended period of disease, displacement, starvation, and genocide visited on the Indian tribes as a result of the relentless westward expansion of white settlers backed by the deadly force of the U.S. Army. Native American spiritual leaders told their followers that the Ghost Dance would reunite them with the spirits of their dead, bring back the buffalo, which had been slaughtered to the point of near extinction by European Americans, and usher in a new era of prosperity, cooperation among the tribes, and an end to European-American encroachment.
The ritual, which involved ceremonial dances that lasted for five days, originated around 1870 among the Paiute tribe of what is now Nevada. In the late 1880s, preached and promoted by Paiute holy man Wovoka, the Ghost Dance began catching on rapidly among Native groups from Oklahoma to California. The ceremonial movements themselves were based on the circle dances that many groups had performed since prehistoric times. [continue reading…]
by Editor
on December 5, 2014
Hounds Howl At A Ghost. Illustration: Henryk Weyssenhoff 1893
People Who Sense Ghosts Don’t Always See Them
Although most people who have had a paranormal experience report visual contact with one or more disembodied spirits, a significant minority say they sensed a ghost with faculties other than their eyes.
Out of 1,800 people who told British researchers they had encountered ghosts, 84 percent said they had seen the ghost or ghosts. However, 34 percent said they had heard a ghost speak or make some other sound—and of these, only 14 percent said they’d seen it at the same time. [continue reading…]
by Editor
on December 4, 2014
Illustration For Washington Irving’s The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow. Artist: Frederick Simpson Coburn (1871-1960.)
Can A Ghost Touch You—And What Does If Feel Like?
Are ghosts able, as in the illustration above, to put a hand on your shoulder and make you feel their icy grip? Or maybe we’re assuming too much, and their grip really isn’t so icy. . . .
Researchers Cecilia Green and Charles McCreery report in their scholarly book, Apparitions, that of 1,800 people surveyed concerning their paranormal experiences, 15 percent said that a ghost had touched them. And while in some of these cases interviewees claimed an apparition had placed cold hands on them, others told investigators that the touch had been warm and comforting. A number said a ghost’s clothes had brushed against them, and that they felt like ordinary clothing. [continue reading…]
