On Ghosts

Watching the DVD, Hollywoodland, was interesting but also a bit depressing. I was 15 when the papers told us George Reeves, who had played the television Superman, had shot himself to death in his Hollywood home. I was not a big fan of the show but did know who that was. I remember it seemed surprising to me that a big star would commit suicide. At the time, to me, anybody who had had a television series had to be a big star.

The movie, starring Adrien Brody, Diane Lane, and Ben Affleck, goes into the complicated facts about Reeves' life and death, bringing up various theories for what happened from possible murderers and motives to it being a suicide as it was officially declared.

One of the nice things about the Internet is when you finish a film or book, you can go to a search engine for more information. Although Hollywoodland was not about ghosts, I was curious if there had been any ghost stories connected to Reeves. Often when there appear to be hauntings, they are connected to someone who died violently or didn't accept their death for whatever reason. A person who was a suicide would be prime for this, but so would someone who was murdered and had acquired the false reputation of being a suicide. Anyway, I found this link which was rather interesting-- George Reeves' ghost .

As with the Reeves' home, there is a house on the way into a nearby town that rumor says is haunted. I don't know anything about the potential story for why it might be, but I do know nobody lives there for long. It's a lovely, stately, older home; sits out in the country with pastures and trees surrounding it. People move in, several have torn out all the inside walls in remodeling, but pretty soon it's up for sale again.

I have never personally seen a ghost although I did see an apparition once which I cannot explain. Abruptly awakened in the middle of the night by the phone ringing, I reached for it at the same time I turned on the light. Something brown seemed to dart across the top of my field of view and disappear quickly from sight. It was not a form like a person but rather vaguely like a spiritual shape. It didn't appear particularly large, no defining features, and was very fast. My husband later told me he felt it was some kind of eye phenomena which might well be, but I had never seen anything like it before nor since. What it felt like to me was something that didn't want to be seen.

Because I have personally known many people who have seen what they believed were ghosts, very definite figures, some of people they had known, but in other cases a human shape but definitely not one of flesh and blood, I believe something is there, but what is more difficult to decide.

Some say the appearances of ghosts are energy phenomena, like spirit imprints left behind from what occurred there. That could explain battlefields, but I know those who have seen relatives and not where anything particularly was connected to their deaths. I have also been told of where spirit beings interacted with the one meeting up with them-- sometimes in funny ways but other times threateningly.

Besides seances, there are churches, such as the Spiritualist Church, who regularly invite spirits to their services. According to a friend of mine, who belonged to such a group, the spirits come and show their presence by making sounds, playing a musical instrument or raising something up-- just whatever it takes to make their presences known. Although I haven't seen that as particularly wrong to do, I also have not seen a purpose in doing it. I have had no desire to be in such a group. Nor would I ask someone from the 'other' side to answer questions for me.

A few years back, an acquaintance of mine told me this story. She managed a restaurant that was in an older Southern Arizona building. The building had several ghosts, and she, among others, regularly saw them. Eventually one became a problem, began misbehaving in mischievous but also distracting ways; so one night several of them got together and had an exorcism of the building, asking the spirit, who if I remember right appeared as an old woman, to leave. They felt it was successful ; but she said that night when she got home to her significant other, she sprinkled salt around their bed to make sure that the spirit wouldn't come there and haunt them next.

For me whether there are ghosts or not is one of those mysteries of life that I am content to leave a mystery. If ghosts are real, I would feel sorry for those spirits who might feel unwilling or unable to go on. I have thought sometimes perhaps they are those who do not have spiritual connections, be they spirit guides, angels, friends or ancestors, on the other side to show them the way.

One of my feelings about old age is, if we haven't done it before, it's a time to connect ourselves to what we believe spiritually, be open to what comes to us through dreams or intuitions, increase our sensitivity and awareness to what might be 'over' there. When our body dies, it's either all done for us, or there is a new adventure awaiting-- one for which we can have prepared our souls for the transition.