How many people have you talked to have actually seen a ghost? Not many. In fact, everyone I've asked says they either know "someone" or just say they have never seen one. Yet there are so many people that believe in dead people whose souls are tormented to remain on earth and float around moving branches, saying 'boo' and being photographed in blurry dark images. This has got to stop.
First, I should explain the difference between ghosts and spirits. Spirits are beings that no longer exist on this plane. The have no body, you can't see them at all. Ghosts are those things people see in movies in whatever form that you can actually see or interact with in some way. Usually ghosts come from people that died and have not passed to the next world.
Lets try and look at this from a practical approach. Where do ghosts come from? Science states you can't have something from nothing. You are already breaking the laws of thermodynamics. Einstein would not approve. Leftover calories from when they were alive? You are really reaching with that one but whatever.
What about religion. I've spoken with priests, and monks, and various other authority figures of different faiths and none of them account for ghosts;
-Muslims don't have any ghosts in the Hadiths or Al-Quran. In fact, the only spirit that can be on earth is the Jinn which is an spirit that can possess people but is smaller than air so you would not even see it.
-Christians and Jewish people say your spirit leaves your body when you are dead. You no longer are you, you are something completely different. You can't describe it because you no longer consist of anything but feelings. You have no senses, no thoughts, no physical matter, just pure soul. Ghosts can't come from that.
-Buddhists believe in reincarnation. You don't spend time dead, you just go to the next body and start off a new life as a pampered cat or a fly that eats poop all day. Depends on how good you were in the last life. No ghosts there.
From what I have seen, no religion has anything to do with ghosts. Lets move on.
What about a historical approach? People say ghosts come from people who either a) have unfinished business on earth or b) were killed badly. If this is the case, There should be ghosts all over Iran and Israel and London England, and pretty much all over most of Europe and Asia. Lots of history and bloody battles all over the place. In some places, I would think there should be more ghosts wandering around than the living. Yet do we hear anything? No, it is always some home in the suburbs of the USA or in the woods away from civilization. If you are a ghost, why go there?
Now onto my own personal experiences. When I was in Belarus, I went down an abandoned man made tunnel that was 800 years old that was used many times by many thousands like when they went to hide from the Nazi's as they made their way to St Petersburgh. Many died. I went down about 3 stories with a flash light and it got really cold and dark. I suddenly pictured bodies and skulls and ghosts in my mind and and ran back up and out into the sunlight. Sure I don't believe in ghosts but I was still scared. My mind did not want me down there so it started flooding me with flight instincts and excuses like cave-ins to get me the heck out of there. I never actually saw anything but a cave.
An earlier time, when I was around 18, I was going through some tough times, (like everyone else at that age). I was sad and trying to sleep one particular night when I felt the presence of my grandfather whom had died a few years earlier. I didn't see him, I didn't hear him, I just felt him and that made me feel good inside.
In my humble opinion, I think ghosts are just a trick of the mind or an attempt to explain a noise that someone thunk they heard off in the distance. Spirits are either what happens to you when you die, or perhaps angels/demons that give you feelings about things.
