Power of suggestion?

[Doctor Kyrie]

Is it possible that all "ghosts" are simply power of suggestion. A place that is haunted is scary because we were told it was haunted?

Discuss, also please note if you'd like to be anonymous if I use the text in a film.

[pallidin]

I believe in the paranormal, and I believe in ghosts.

I also believe that, as you suggested, the human mind can "trick" us, or "scare" us, depending on our expectations.

[Professor T]

Is it possible that all "ghosts" are simply power of suggestion. A place that is haunted is scary because we were told it was haunted?

Discuss, also please note if you'd like to be anonymous if I use the text in a film.

No I don't think it's possible that all ghosts are from the power of suggestion..

I saw someone I once knew, walking down the street like a regular scene on a regular day..

Later that day I learned that that same person had died some months earler..

So, no, there's no way that event was suggested to me..

Have also seen one or two other ghostly forms, at random, completely non-suggested..

I think many are suggested though, expecially when a place/area has a repulation grown about such things...

[Brian Topp]

Same thing about mediums

[Rafterman]

Is it possible that all "ghosts" are simply power of suggestion. A place that is haunted is scary because we were told it was haunted?

Discuss, also please note if you'd like to be anonymous if I use the text in a film.

You raise a good point.

Someone with a strong belief in the supernatural will hear an unexplained noise or see a digital artifact in a photograph and immediately think - GHOST! Someone who isn't predisposed (like myself) will think "damn, those squirrels are back in the attic again" or "sorry, don't see anything."

My secretary loves to break into old abandoned places and photograph them. She does some really cool work and I'm planning to accompany her on some upcoming trips. But she is constantly showing me things and saying "look, there's the ghost" and I"m like, "I don't really see anything".

[SHaYap]

depends on what kind of ghost you're looking for :

if its anything like the 'ghosts' being suggested to in movies or paintings/drawings then yes, those are 'inherited' creatively presented but still a 'suggested' idea

actually anything that can be 'caught' on recorded devices, audio or visual is nothing but suggestive incidences. Yes I mean nothing

Those are not ghosts, those are our ghosts. Everyone has their own version of ghosts.

Try an experiment, go taking random snapshots through out the day or night, just snap along where you're going, not at anything in particular, just random pics.

Then look through them, you'll be finding a lot of ghosts or things that makes you think of ghosts.

Or place a strong magnet in some corner of your work place, in a half year you'll be hearing a lot of strange stories about some strange place in the workplace.

In my case it was a new power supply unit, gave out a lot of magnetic activity. The office next door behind the wall the unit was backed up against became the 'haunted room' because 'strange' things were happening. As soon as the unit was moved back downstairs after the renovation works, the stories stopped.

Ghosts are not what you think or other people say it is. You'll know when you meet one but you'll never tell anyone about it.

[Keel M.]

I'd say 99% of all hauntings are through the power of suggestion.

[Odd Requiem]

I think power of suggestion plays a big part in many cases.

A lot of people tend to be openly weak minded and will believe they started out as a squirrel wearing a top hat if you talk long enough.

People will believe what they want to believe.

Through a few personal experiences, I'm a believer in other worldly beings.

But I choose to keep it to myself instead of validating my experiences with discussing them with others.

If that's all over the map and makes no conclusive sense, I apologize.

I love lamp.