And now for something completely different ...
As a child I figured out gradually that there are basically two kinds of ghosts. There were the kind like my grandparents - a positive, loving entity who can go where they want, when they want. And then there were the kind that lived in the woods - the kind associated with Halloween, the spooky, the icky, and the scary. These ones were usually stuck someplace. Sometimes you run into a friendly one but they are still usually creepy.
Many years later in reading about spirits I learned that this is generally believed to be true. The Bible says that "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). Most people take this to mean there is no such thing as reincarnation, but I have come to understand this differently. Rather, at the end of (every) lifetime we die and face judgment. Researchers of the NDE (Near Death Experience) refer to this as the life review, where you entire life is reviewed and you understand everything that you did, said, and thought along with all of the ramifications these things had on others. So here is the process: you die, you go into The Light, and you have a life review (judgment). At that point you are "in The Light" a "clean spirit". If instead, when you die, you hang around and do not go into the light, perhaps because you think you are going to hell, or God doesn't want you, or some other such flawed idea, then you are no better off than you were when you were alive. Actually you are worse off because you are living in the physical world with no body to interact effectively with it. You are not in The Light, instead you are an "unclean spirit". And you are probably living with a lot of self imposed beliefs like "I can't leave this house" and your beliefs become your own prison, at least temporarily. I have come to believe that most earthbound spirit occurrences resolve themselves in time. Most hauntings you hear about are less than a couple hundred years old. If they were stuck here forever then the world would completely fill up with ghosts!
At this point I should interject that there is another kind of haunting known among paranormal researchers as a residual haunting. Rather than an actual entity being there, a residual haunting is an impression of energy on an object or place that is a "memory" of something that happened there once. So really it is an instance of psychometry (reading energy attached to an object) as opposed to an encounter with a spirit.
My mother and I had an interesting conversation once - when she was alive - about how often the Bible speaks of God being The Light. And we couldn't help but wonder if beyond this being true, this is mentioned repeatedly so that when people die, they will actually remember they are supposed to go into The Light.
After the long introduction here is my most recent earthbound spirit encounter. About a year ago we attended a local auction. Being antique enthusiasts we do this fairly often. This auction was different. It felt creepy the minute I walked in. Most of the furniture was really fascinating because it literally looked like it had been sitting somewhere untouched for the last 150 years. The upholstery was original and very dusty! In the back room was an entire table of Victorian toys - dolls caked with layers of dust and grime, tin toys, and other strange things. As I looked at them I felt nauseated and dizzy. There was a strange looking 19th century tricycle, kind of like this but child sized:
Out of the corner of my eye I see this little boy in knee pants sitting on this device frowning at me. At the same time I realize he is not alone - he's got his entire family with him. And they are hanging around (unseen) frowning at everyone because they are ANGRY. Big time.
By that time we'd looked at everything and I was starting to get a migraine headache. I also thought I might actually throw up if I didn't get the heck out of there. On the way out be bumped into one of the auction house employees who we happen to know. We stood and talked to him a few minutes and having the opportunity, I asked him where they heck this stuff came from. He told me, proudly, that it had all come from a big old house on Negley Avenue that had been caught up in some estate problem for decades. The house hadn't been altered or redecorated since the 19th century so all this stuff was real! None of it was restored or reupholstered! Isn't that great? Isn't that amazing?
Then I understood what was going on. This 19th century family had remained in the house in an earthbound state after death. Somehow they had managed - either by luck or being able to influence their heirs - to keep the house unchanged for a very long time. And they were content that way. Then one day a truck pulled up and some men took all their stuff! Shocked and horrified they'd followed their belongings to the auction house and well, they were not in a very good mood by that point.
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