Do you believe in ghosts/demons?

I personally think that there is an unseen presence in certain buildings, especially abandoned buildings. I consider most of them to be demons or jinns. They are there to hurt you -- not to help you. Do you guys believe in them?

nope. not at all. I have never seen anything I would consider paranormal.

However, here are my only 2 instances of what some people may consider paranormal and what i believe are the reasons for these instances:

i have a friend that does believe in ghosts because of something he saw when he was a kid, which was a dark figure watching him from the side of his bed plus the feeling that someone was sitting on his chest. However, what he described perfectly matches the descriptions of what people perceive in the midst of what's called 'sleep paralysis'.

in my old apartment, the bedroom door would sometimes slam shut on its own. not close gently, but an actual slam. however, this only happened on a windy day when both the balcony and hallway doors were open. so that explains it.

I work with a lot of machinery and automation, I definitely believe in "gremlins". I'm not too superstitious but it's kind of fun to play-believe in that stuff.

I think to believe in demons and ghosts you need to believe in an afterlife, however, and I definitely do not believe in that. I believe once we die, that's it. I don't know if I could tolerate the idea of something going on forever.

Makes for fun reading and I do enjoy mythology. So demons, sure...ghosts, not so much.

No.

Supernatural phenomena can essentially always be explained by overactive caveman instincts and physics that you can't understand in that immediate moment. A door creaking open is just a bad hinge and poor balance. A sound in the wind is just the natural ebb and flow of a fluid system. The "presence" is just your mind on high alert because you are in a space with safety concerns and darkness.

And this is neither here nor there, but while the culture around ghosts and spirits is mostly harmless, sometimes it exploits those who feel emotionally distraught or frighten easier by playing into their vulnerabilities, leading to distress or financial harm. As such I prefer not to provide any credence to these concepts.

I agree about 90% but those "caveman" instincts can still help out. For example, people are very creeped out by "vaguely human shaped" creatures; it's why things like Slenderman are such a pop phenom, and a lot of horror monsters are humanoid but have elongated limbs.

The reason for this they say is that caveman instinct trained us that if we see a decomposed human body, or a bloated body, it's probably not safe to be around. These are humans but the proportions are off; they're too large from being bloated or too thin from wasting away. That's why we feel that fear in the back of our mind when we see vaguely humanoid forms like ghosts and demons.

I agree though the supernatural aspect is bullshit. It can be fun, though, to indulge it.

In my own ways, I do, but not in a religious way.

I was highly skeptical, and then I witnessed an apparition one morning. It was not of a human, but of an animal, and identical in appearance to a marker I'd taken to the pound a few months prior. I also witnessed it in the presence of two other animals (my two cats), both of whom where watching it and reacted by bolting out of the room when it evaporated into thin air, so I have trouble writing it off to my own subjective experience or a hallucination.

I still don't believe in the popular portrayal of spirits and demons, nothing that is conscious, nefarious or malevolent. But I do believe that there may be some form of energy that imprints itself onto reality and can manifest if the right conditions present themselves.

I'm not so confident as I once was that "supernatural" phenomenon doesn't exist.

Definitely. I can’t explain why, I have no proof.

But I feel as if demons and ghosts exist in other dimensions.

You taking the piss??

I wish there were demons and ghosts. The world is just boring as it is, office work, profits, social competition, grinding for money or status. I wish there was more.

@MirkoS77: which animal?

I see no conclusive evidence for them, so no. Human perception is very easy to fool, which is why the scientific method exists. Show me a peer-reviewed published paper, and we'll talk.

Fun fact: the word "demon" comes from Greek daemon which were spirits and lesser gods, and had no inherent malevolent connotation. In fact, angels (from Greek angelos, a literal translation of Hebrew malak, meaning "messenger") are derived from more benevolent daemons of Greek mythology.

No, boringly enough. Would probably be fun walking around thinking magic is real.

No, but I believe in the Eastern bunny.

Yes. They exist. proven scientifically.

Magic is real. its not that its work like in fantasy movies or harry potter. it work like you don't even know what happened.

Demands yes. I do. They're called humans.

I do not believe in ghosts, but demons yes. Why not ghosts? Because if my source of the spiritual world is the Bible, which is an assortment of many scrolls put into one book for our modern day conveniences, then I would have to say that ghosts do not exist, because the Word of God says that all spirits return to the LORD.

"...and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." Ecclesiastes 12:7. The letter to the Romans also tells us, "For it has been appointed for man to die once, then after that comes the judgement..." The Bible also tells me that the devil "disguises himself as an angel of light." Basically, the devil can make himself appear to be good, when in actuality, the devils whole purpose is to bring people to hell with him. The bible says in Revelation that hell was created for the devil and his angels to suffer torment, not designed for humans. Satan will not rule hell, but will be tortured. And those who end up there with him, the bible says they will scoff at him, saying, "Was this whom we all feared? Now he is like us."

As a Christian I believe that demons can posses humans to make them do evil things. Some people may say “hold on, science has revealed it’s all just electric signals and chemicals in the brain doing that stuff, not demons”, but has anybody thought that if demons have the capability to make us do evil things, they can probably play around with our brain chemistry and electrical signals too. So there is no contradiction between belief in demons and belief in brain chemistry.

I am not mentally ill, nor am I a religious nut job....so no.

All the monsters are just humans.

I definitely believe in demons and ghosts. Also, in other paranormal/supernatural stuff. I'm very religious and spiritual, as are a lot of people in my family.

Well, I'm happy that y'all haven't experienced any magic. But trust me, it's literally not fun. Seeing ghosts are scary. Having rats just flatten in a space, with no blood coming out of anything is unsettling. Being put under a love spell is traumatizing, along with any other malicious spell. Seeing spirits was not fun, especially ghost and/or malicious ones. Or an experience where the Ouija board cracks your ceiling. Or hearing foot steps and seeing nothing, but having your dogs just snarl at something you can't see. My dogs ears were raised and they were doing that very nasty snarling and growling, where even spit was coming up. Yet, my dad couldn't see a thing. And my sister definitely doesn't like predicting tragic events, even down to the death of someone. Or that time my brother saw a ghost while that same ghost appeared in my dream. I snapped awake and was scared.

Though magic can be sort of useful... Like my sister using astrology and tarot cards to find keys that my mom and dad lost. A funny moment was my sister drawing "The Lovers" tarot card when she asked for the lost keys, and we ended up finding them in my parents bedroom. 😂 Though other than moments like that, magic and paranormal isn't fun.

A cat. Meow!

Thing is, I’d taken him to the pound. I suspect he was euthanized, and gave me a little residual haunting for it.

No. Whenever such things are tested, the conclusion ends up being some kind of infrasound, vibrations, magnetism and other crap that negatively affects the subconscious in a way that your brain interprets as a threat. Your own attitude when visiting a traditionally creepy place like an abandoned building is also messing with your perceptions.

After all, none of our tools can detect any direct evidence of this stuff, while out brains are just reality interpretation devices and glitch all the time, especially in peripheral vision.

I like a good ghost story and can get the heebie-jeebies, but haven't experience any of it myself since childhood, when I was still inclined to believe the religious and supernatural stuff is real.

I believe in personal demons.

I'm not. To see anything paranormal would be all forms of amazing to me, it would change my world. If anything you wrote was true, would be very cool.

Been on this world for 36 years, never seen or heard anything weird like that. There's been instances where you go "maybe it was a ghost O.O", but it's always more likely to be something that exists. Just a bunch of people saying things that they can never show to others. Their mind playing tricks is so extremely more likely than there actually being ghosts.

What I wrote is true, but it's my experience along with my family. And I didn't even write about everything they experienced.

And magic is not fun when it's spell magic that takes away the will of someone. The things I saw and the stories I've read... Even a hot mess of a woman putting a love spell on a man to trap him, and that man's family retaliating by taking a pair of her panties and placing a curse that gave her heavy bleeding and prevented kids. 😕

@luxuryheart: Whoa, she should tell someone about her love spells.

If that was remotely real, she'd make billions from perfume companies, and then tens of billions from weapons manufacturers.

I work with one of those new age spiritual people and they believe things like negative energies and bad thoughts can attract demons. It is so bizarre as you always have to walk on egg shells because saying something slightly negative will really upset them.

My sister doesn't make love spells, and love spells backfire tremendously. I've known from the stories I've read and have been told, plus they add to your karmic debt. Even if you don't care for karmic debt, they backfire and make your life worse. Like the woman who put a love spell on a guy that made him kidnap her and force her to have sex for 15 hours straight (he only stopped every once in a while to pee). Or the guys who became so obsessed that they attacked the woman when she went out with friends. But if you think you can make a billion dollars off of that, then be my guest...