Ghost

Comments

• jehan

  October 2023 edited October 2023

  Someone please reply
• jehan

  October 2023

  Today I was at target & I wanted to try on some clothes but a lady was in the dressing room, there was only one room at the end of a very small corridor & I waited right in front of it. A middle aged man in jeans & a track top, came & just opened the door & went in , I didn’t hear any talking or even any movement except the ordinary sounds of changing clothes & hangers falling on the ground , so I thought he must be her husband, otherwise she would have yelled. Anyway a few minutes later the lady came out, I asked isn’t the man with coming out? She replied “what man, im on my own “
  then I went into the dressing room and taped all 4 walls and ensured that there was no hidden exit. What on earth was that all about? Was he a ghost? Do we Copts believe in this kind of ghosts. Someone please please explain
• mabsoota

  October 2023

  hi jehan.

  pagans (who worship lots of different spirits) think that when a person dies, that person's spirit becomes a 'ghost' that can wander around the earth and scare people.

  
  

  but this is not true. Christians do not believe in ghosts.

  what really happens is that when someone dies, the spirit goes to paradise or hades (place of the dead) and it is not allowed to wander around anywhere.

  God sometimes allows exceptions and people might occasionally see departed (dead) saints, but the spirits of the bad people in hades are never allowed to wander around.

  it is rare to see departed saints and it is more common for people to think have seen them when they have just imagined it or when a demon (evil spirit) has deceived them. 

  
  

  e.g. once i thought i saw angelic light when i was praying, but it was just my telephone looking for satellite signal and flashing a light!

  :O

  
  

  when pagans say they see ghosts, the things they actually see are evil spirits pretending to be dead people, in order to scare them and confuse them. evil spirits can also try to confuse Christians, but we should not be confused by them, but rather we should ignore them.

  
  

  so if someone thinks that he or she saw a dead person (or anyone who seemed to disappear afterwards), there are 3 common reasons:

  
  

  1. the person saw a real person and was not paying full attention to what happened next when the normal persom walked away normally

  2. the person was hallucinating (maybe too hungry or had a reaction to medication)

  3. (less common) it was a demon

  
  

  this is the sort of thing that you should mention in confession (if you don't confess, it is good to join an orthodox church and then confess).

  then if you have a tendency to not pay attention, you can get good advice (e.g. getting rid of the smart phone and getting a simple phone that you only look at a few times a day).

  and if you are hallucinating, you can get advice about seeing a doctor or not missing medication

  and if you saw a demon, the priest can tell you not to worry about it and check with you if you are doing anything to make that more likely (like reading horoscope, celebrating halloween or getting interested in telling the future or other things involving spirits).

  
  

  in the orthodox church, people don't talk about evil spirits a lot, because they don't deserve the attention. saint paul says (in the letter to the philippians); 'whatever is good, whatever is noble ... think on these things'.

  so it is better to read the Bible, or pray, or read spiritual books and stories of the saints, then to find out stories of people who had experiences with evil spirits.

  on the suscopts.org website and on other orthodox websites, you can find the Bible readings for each day and read the synaxarion (lives of the saints).

  here for example:

  http://www.copticchurch.net

   

  may God give you peace and grace,

  mabsoota