Talking to the dead

by Kep 42 Replies latest jw friends

  • lydia
    lydia

    I have no doupt that the dead can speak to us.
    ...and show themselves at times..
    ..I have had some experiences with it..
    ... and my sister did too
    A few months ago she had a baby
    - and one night she awaoke to see her husband standing holding the child....
    .Only when she spoke to him he did not respond..
    ... she went to get up and realized her Husband was still in bed with her..
    ...It had been her father-in-law who died years before.
    It freaked her out for a bit...
    But then she calmed down ...
    Just my thoughts..
    Lyd

  • Sirona
    Sirona

    I believe they continue living and that we can get communications. I've had it happen to me.

    Sirona

  • Xander
    Xander

    There is definately something else beyond what we can see. We've had things happen, to, that were a little weird. The last one I can clearly attribute something unnatural to was a number of years ago when my wife brought a book home she had bought at work (it was a very old book, antique-ish looking, used in displays). Anyway, that night, when we turned out the lights, all our music boxes started playing. Turned them on, they stopped. Thought it was a fluke, turned out the light again. Again, the music boxes started. Light on, off they go.

    Now, we were hardcore JWs at the time, and the thought of demons in our house terrified us, so we tore through everything we brought home that day, wife thought of the book. We chucked it outside, no more problems!

    Now that I know the bible is fiction, I've started thinking about that incident...if it really WAS a demon, we were hardcore JWs...why the hell did it play the music boxes? What could it possibly have hoped to accomplish by doing that? Why not have daggers fly across the room at us? Or just voices whisper in our ear to plant subconscious thoughts?

    But, since I know the JWs are wrong, what if they are wrong about death, too? What if this WASN'T a demon? The book was Victorian era, IIRC. What if it was just a lingering memory of a person who left this world some time ago? Someone who just liked music boxes?

    I honestly don't even know what to believe about this. It just seems that when you stop making assumptions based on what you are told is the reason for things, a lot of possibilities open up.

    (One thing, though, this and other experiences I've had - and many the posts here, it seems - seem to corraborate the thought that, if anything does survive after death, it is still only able to communicate with someone or to something that had special meaning to him/her when alive.)

    Xander F
    (Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America - Ohio order)

    A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
    --George Santayana

  • Mulan
    Mulan

    I am very interested and involved in my genealogy research. I have found lots of photos going back to the mid 1800's (there weren't any before that), but was kind of obsessed for awhile wanting to know what they ancestors before then, looked like. One night I had a very vivid dream that I was in a house in Maine (where the original ancestors came, from England in the mid 1700's) and a large family was bustling about the house, several young children, and some teenagers too, all dressed in dark blue clothing........or black, with some white trim. Their faces were vivid in the dream. I can still see old great-great-great-grandfather, Josiah, (not old in the dream) with his full beard talking about the sea. His wife (Nancy) was a tiny woman, who wore a cap in the house. Since that dream, I learned that Nancy, the wife, was very tiny, and old Josiah was a sea captain, who went from the East Coast to France frequently. He is said to have crossed the Atlantic ocean 44 times and on one occasion to have been taken prisoner by the French. The family were Quakers and had 10 children between 1802 and 1826. (I knew they were Quakers though) It was a dream, but now I feel like I know what they looked like. Their house still exists, in Casco Maine.

    Marilyn (aka Mulan)
    "No one can take advantage of you, without your permission." Ann Landers

  • funkyderek
    funkyderek

    If dead people do communicate, they're generally not very good at it. Why don't they just say hello, instead of dimming lights and knocking books off shelves?
    Personally, I find it difficult to believe that there is a spirit doppelganger of our physical selves which separates from the body at death but somehow keeps the personality and memories of the person, especially when all the available evidence suggests that mind, personality and memory are functions of the physical brain, and suffer damage when the brain is damaged. There are many cases of people whose personalities have radically changed due to brain damage. When they die, do they have their original personality or the new one?

    --
    Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine, 354-430

  • Pierced Angel
    Pierced Angel

    But, like, if they could just talk to us, what would be the difference from being dead or alive?
    I haven't had anything specific happen that caused me to believe in an aferlife, but I sure hope there is because it's been so ingrained in my head about living forever. I want to see or talk to my brother again someday.

    I guess we'll find out in our own time.

  • Xander
    Xander

    Why don't they just say hello, instead of dimming lights and knocking books off shelves

    And why doesn't your cat just tell you 'hey, the litter box needs changed' instead of peeing in the corner? Because, that is not a valid method of communication for your cat. Similarly, spirits, if they do exist, obviously don't have mouths. They don't even appear to be able to even move things very much. And, for all we know, they might see as much of our world as we see of theirs - IE., NOTHING. They get the same echoes or feelings of a presence of us as we do of them.

    I mean, if you went into a room and 'felt a presence', how would you communicate? You couldn't do much, because you have no frame of reference in their world.

    a spirit doppelganger

    Myself, I don't think there is. As I mentioned, I think of it more as echoes or imprints left behind. Because of that, only strong feelings could survive.

    There are many cases of people whose personalities have radically changed due to brain damage

    But, something with special meaning to them before continues to have special meaning now. By finding such things is generally how personalities can be partially restored. I just think very powerful emotions can be passed on in some way.

    In any case, I may be completely wrong, and it's just some funny breed of invisible space alien or something screwing with my head. But, there have been several times, when something very strange, DEFINATELY DID HAPPEN.

    Xander F
    (Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America - Ohio order)

    A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
    --George Santayana

  • Double Edge
    Double Edge

    Adonai:

    I find your response somewhat COLD (one of the reasons events like this are seldom shared), but in any event, it is your opinion. It seems that you are comparing apples and oranges. First of all you quote scripture out of the old testament...a group of people coming from all sorts of situations which included certain pagan religions (talking to the dead). Heck, even 'godly' Saul went wacko and chose to consult a witch rather than God.

    I don't think this applies at all. There's a big difference in consulting with and putting your trust in "spirits". It is reasonable to believe that a loving Heavenly Father would want us to be comforted from the grief of the death of a loved one and I think that is done in various ways, including a "dream/visit" of the one who has passed on.

  • home_and_dry
    home_and_dry

    I am in two minds as to what I believe on this subject. I had a couple of experiences myself and although they were very puzzling, I never knew what to make of them because I suppose there is a big part of me that still has the JW 'Demons' theory stuck in my head.

    There were two incidents which both centre on my daughter (now six years old)

    Shortly after she was born I decided to buy her a musical mobile thing to hang over her cot. It had a clockwork mechanism so you just wound it up and it would play a tune and would rotate with all these little teddy bears hanging off it. It wasn't second hand, I bought it brand new from a shop.

    Anyway, one night, a few days after I had bought it, I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night. You know how it is when you suddenly wake up and your heart is pounding. Anyway, for a few seconds I just lay there trying to work out what had woken me up then I heard my daughters mobile playing its tune from her cot on the other side of the bedroom. It kinda freaked me out a bit but I just assumed the mechanism had gotten stuck and it hadnt wound down properly. I thought no more of it and went back to sleep.

    But then the same thing happened night after night. It went on for about a week. I kept trying to put it down to a dodgy mechanism but I don't see how it could have been. The weird thing was, the tune it played was on a loop, and when you wound it up, it would start playing from wherever it left off after it had previously wound down. So it would usually start and finish in the middle of the tune. And the tune would slow right down at the end as it was winding down.

    But everytime it played during the night, it would start at the beginning of the tune and finish at the end of it. there was no slowing down, or starting up and finishing in the middle of the tune. it would just play the tune once from start to finish and then stop.

    After messing around with it for days on end, trying to work it all out, I just couldn't come up with an explanation for it. It really did freak me out, some people said it was someone looking over my baby, my JW relatives decided my mobile was possesed by demons. I gave it away. The person I gave it too knew all about it but she never had any experiences like mine with it.

    The second experience was when my daughter was about two years old. She was in bed asleep and I had the baby monitor on so I could keep an ear out for her if she woke up (which she tended to do alot).

    I was on my own in the house with her and I was happily watching TV when I heard her wake up. She started to whinge a bit and I could hear her tossing and turning in her bed. Then she called out for me so I was just about to go upstairs to see her when I heard a male voice say 'It's alright sweetheart, just go back to sleep. sweet dreams.'

    Well I almost died on the spot. I eventually plucked up the courage to go up and see her and she was fast asleep. There was obviously no one else in her room or in the rest of the house. I tried to rationalise that maybe it wasn't her at all that I heard, maybe I had picked up the sound of another child in a house close by as baby monitors can do that sometimes. But I know it was her, because she had called out to me and any mother knows their own childs voice.

    So although I can't be sure, I do think maybe that someone was watching over her but I can't say that I am sure it was a dead relative or anything like that. I just don't know.

    We all make a mess of our lives from time to time
    It's part of the process that you stumble as you climb

  • Double Edge
    Double Edge

    home and dry:

    Thought your post was very intriguing. Almost gave me chills, but I think what happened was on the positive side, not negative. I think we are being watched over more than we know.

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