Supernatural experiences - do you believe?

I want to warn that, when people die, they don’t suddenly become sweet angels. If they were angelic on earth then their souls will go that angelic plain. That’s what is meant by Jesus when he talks about many mansions. There are some ‘not so nice’ people who pass over, so best not to mess with the occult. Sons who died in WWI often found ways to let their parents know they were still existing. Anyway I try to be good so I’ll go to a nice mansion. I pray for my forgiveness and try to do better. I know it sounds childish, but unless ye become as little children...... that means childlike...not childish. Hold fast to that which is good! Xx

When my grandmother died suddenly 40 years ago my heart was broken and has never really mended. I have always wondered why she hasn't come back to me to tell me she's okay not to be sad but it hasn't happened. Even though I think there's more to life than we know I just want to see her once more and then my sadness might go.

About 2 years after the death of my mother I was at a family event. I'd gone into the kitchen to put the kettle on when I had the strangest feeling... the only way I can describe it was like standing over a draught, like the famous Monroe scene!
As it happened I believed that I could 'smell' my mum, she had a very distinct scent.
I pulled myself together because I thought it was just me..perhaps wishful thinking/grief etc, but on returning to the other's, they could smell it too...it was all over me. The scent lasted for about an hour and then completely disappeared.
I'm not religious or spiritual and I have no explanation for it whatsoever.

Helen: My father was a strong atheist but he always said to me that if when he died there was an afterlife

What has belief in life after death to do with belief in God?

My “paranormal” experiences have mostly involved smells!
My father was a strong atheist but he always said to me that if when he died there was an afterlife he would let me know somehow. A night or two after he died I was lying on my bed, obviously upset when what seemed to be a shooting star zoomed right across the window.
In the following months on three separate occasions when I was sitting quietly not doing anything in particular the room was filled with a really strong smell. The first time it was hops which I immediately associated with Dad as he had always brewed his own beer. The second time it was sage, and again I thought of him as that was his Christmas lunch duty, making homemade sage and onion stuffing. The last time it happened it was tobacco smoke; he used to smoke a pipe as a young man.
The same thing happened years later after my mother in law died, on two occasions the room was filled with the most beautiful scent of roses and her garden was her passion. On one of these occasions my husband was standing right next to me but he couldn’t smell a thing!
Wishful thinking quite possibly, but I genuinely do believe these were signs from loved ones.

My first husband and his parents had had a falling out over another sibling, hadn't spoken for a long time. We then lived over 12000 miles from them. One day I had the overwhelming knowledge that he had to speak to his dad and make peace. I have never known such a strong, persistent feeling before or since. I begged my husband to phone his dad until he did so - very grudgingly. He rang, they put things right between them. Less than two weeks later his dad died suddenly.

Blue Daisy:
What makes us think we are so superior that we are all that’s here and all there is

We don't think that's all there is. However we do (and other animals do) seek causes for events. If an event has no known cause that doesn't mean it's a supernatural event. It means we don't know the cause.

When you take away all the instances where imagination, dreams, coincidences may have played apart you are still left with many unexplained events. I do think that a majority of mediums are charlatans who deceive people for their own means but I also believe that there are genuine ones. For me there are enough cases to make me a believer in such things.

Don’t believe in God, spirits, witches etc etc. There’s no proof any of them exist so as far as I’m concerned it’s all bunkum!

Your last sentence is interesting JaneD666 , and absolutely right of course!! Also, interesting username!

Without a doubt I’m a believer had literally dozens of psychic experiences since young, and still ongoing. But I will say there are people claiming to be mediums out there, who certainly pray on the bereaved. But also lots of mediums who are genuine, while I can understand there are many skeptics I would be myself if I hadn’t had so many experiences. I feel truly blessed and totally in awe of everything I’ve witnessed in the past and present, it’s very comforting

I had a similar experience attending a spiritualist church. We were asked if we were new, never having gone before, I raised my hand. One other raised their's too. The man said someone was coming through who had experienced severe pain in their lower back before they died. I said my partner had died of cancer and suffered terribly from this. The man then said he was hearing something that made no sense to him at all but might make sense to me. He said he was being told that you only get out of life what you put in and the person who was coming through was likening this to throwing coins in a fountain but there is no water. I was aghast! My partner and I had planned to visit Rome to throw coins in the Trevi fountain but he died before we could do this. I decided to make the trip alone but on the coach travelling to the hotel, we were told that renovations were in place and the Trevi fountain had been drained of water. When I visited it, the fountain was empty but I threw our coins in anyway. So yes, I believe.

My dad was terminally ill and was sleeping in a different room to mum to help them both sleep.
One night my mum felt him get into bed next to her and dozed back off without turning, she remembers this because she felt a bit guilty not turning but she was snuggled and comfortable and he said nothing so she dozed off again. Next morning he was in his own bed - she asked him if he’d been in her during the night and he said no.
Later that morning my mums widowed sister knocked on the door, pure white and shaken and before mum saud anything she was slightly hysterical saying that her (deceased) husband had got into her bed last night. She could feel him, the right weight, length, everything, she’d shared a bed with him for 40 years and knew how it ‘felt’ when he got in.
She turned and he wasn’t there.
Only then did my mum tell her that she had had exactly the same experience at the same time. Dad died a few weeks later.

As a scientist, I agree with @harrigran. I know that life and consciousness are emergent properties of the biochemical and physiological systems, and cannot exist on their own. However, what I know and what I believe are two different things. And when you come down to it, life is pretty amazing when you think that entropy is busily breaking everything down while life alone if busily building things up. And consciousness and self-awareness are just mind-boggling. I haven't had any supernatural experiences myself (other than a vague feeling, when I was very young, that I remembered being somebody else before), but my father had, and knew sensible balanced people who also had. I keep an open mind. There are more things in heaven and earth...

When psychic mediums have been tested under lab conditions they have consistently failed, which must say something. I also wonder why they can't predict lottery numbers for instance and all become millionaires!

I find the whole subject totally fascinating, but I suppose I am a natural cynic and always want to see good evidence for beliefs.

As far as I am concerned neuroscience and psychology have come the nearest to rational explanations about why we experience supernatural phenomenon and what type of personality traits make one more susceptible to this.

I am with you completely harrigran but don't expect others to change their belief system, which is deeply ingrained.

My son at 4 years old said he used to be an old man, he died at 90 plus years old, can’t recall exact age as 33 now, and he said he did little jobs right up until the end. I did my family tree recently and a GGF died into his 90’s and did ‘little jobs’ as an Oxford University ‘College servant ‘ right to the end on Census listings so I like to think he has his soul. ? Also when he was 6, we went to a church service for his Harvest festival with his school group. He said to me did I see the man sat behind the vicar on side pews, dressed funny and why was he there. He later drew a picture of a man in jerkin like a Silas Marner type.

I once saw a medium by myself and she told me things that no person would have known, about my family. I went to see Sally Morgan with my sister and SM came out with things to a woman in the audience that my sister knew about as they both live in the same town.

I believe in God I also believe in spirits(ghosts) and have had experiences of spirit activity non being bad and some comforting and helpful he's there are people who .com you just to take your money .use your common sense to know the difference

From the original post, the sound waking you up at 4am seemed a fairly authentic psychic experience but I'd be more skeptical about the medium with that description of cards an matches. I don't think any family hasn't had a grandad who used to play cards with matches for stakes, it was quite common in my childhood.

The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing have a song about the problem of being an atheist in a "haunted" house
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNGhOskiPng

My DGM told us she saw a light that told her no one of hers would die in the war. No one did! Things often happened in her house! From a few weeks old my DS chattered to someone we could not see. Then used to sit on the stairs talking to 'His Man'. Then looking at a photo said 'thats my Man'. Used to wave to His Man while swiming in the sea. All this tied up with someone rattling the iron bars outside our flat when no one was there. Then a medium sat 3 chairs out. Told me to sit in one while she sat in the middle. Said my DF was sitting in the other. She told me so many things that she could never have known. This helped me as I had been unable to cope after he died.
We have seen my Nan many times also. So I do believe for sure! There is much more that we do not know about this world & never will. Hopefully when it is my turn I will know!

Yes I do believe in spirit as I’ve seen too much with my own eyes not to be able to believe in them even if I didn’t want to.
The reachout trust that endlessstrife mentioned is just another branch Jehovah Witnessing! If Satan (not human form) is real how can you not proof your soul comes back? Same thing if you think about it properly! Yes there are lots of ‘mediums’ around conning people out of money but there are a few good ones around that are sensitive to souls I personally think. I have had the unfortunate experience of living in ‘haunted’ houses a couple of times and I was a 12 year old child the first time and definitely not a believer but from what I and my family experienced (too long to go into on here) definitely not something that could be rationally explained nor want to experience again. The second time very similar as an adult and even my non believer husband had to put his hands in the air and say he gave in and couldn’t explain the goings on.
What makes us think we are so superior that we are all that’s here and all there is, logically no one will know until we die but if we come back, great (not for me as I don’t want too thanks) but some people might, and if it comforts people again...great if that’s what floats your boat. If you’re someone like me who doesn’t have a choice but to believe there’s ‘something’ because of what I’ve experienced, again no one has the right to diss it.

When I was 18 and engaged to a boy, I was in agony rolling about on the bed with period pains. It was worse than any other, but thought that was all it was. My beautiful fiance died later that year in an accident. I still miss him so much now. Anyway, I happened to meet a lady many years later who told me she was a medium. I wasn't really interested, but she talked anyway. She told me I had 4 children. I said no, I have 3 children. She was insistent as if she knew without a doubt. I thought no more about it until years later, I remembered the day I was in so much pain. Could it be that I lost a child that day? I'll never know.

Many years ago when I was a student at one of Oxford`s colleges, I was woken in the middle of the night by the sound of wheels on the gravel outside in the quad. It sounded like a heavy object being trundled past the building. At the same time, I heard low moaning which went on for about a minute.
Needless to say I didn`t get up to investigate but do remember reciting the Lord`s Prayer to myself! The atmosphere was strange and felt supernatural (can`t explain why, it just did) though I had never experienced any such vibes there before.

I totally believe, regarding mediums there are good genuine ones and also con artists, we have a medium heat us who is very good and has given us many messages from my parents where there is absolutely no way she could have gained the information from us as we didn't know ourselves until we investigated later but I remember going to see a "famous" medium when she came to a theatre near us, she was obviously fishing for information from audience members in fact the following night she had to be smuggled out of the theatre by the back door as people were so outraged by her. After Dad died I often felt his prescence, "his" song would play randomly in significant places, a white feather dropped on my nieces head inside a taxi on her birthday, my sister would find Polish "pennies" (Dad was Polish but we live in England), there was just too.many incidences for us not to believe he wasn't around