How do your own religious beliefs impact on your interest in the paranormal?

Question

Red Heron: May I ask what religion you are a part of?

Answer 1

it does not have any impact

Answer 2

Believing in the Great Spirit allows a lot of room for other spiritual activity, including ghosts. I'm very cautious, and don't get caught up in things that don't feel Godly. As I've said before, there is a h**l, and no one wants to go there. If you hear yourself scoffing, get ready for a warm retirement. Stay close to good and obey God. Happy Eternity!

( I'm a Baptist every day of the week.)

Answer 3

I would have to say that my experience with  the paranormal has altered my religious beliefs, the other way around.   I used to blindly believe everything I was told at church.   Now I form my own beliefs.

Answer 4

i am pagan :) used to practice wicca i know for a fact paranormal is real because i have had many things happen to me.  i have had a candle holder thrown at me and i saw the whole thing also right after all my lights fell off my walls in my room (had something like Christmas lights) and also banging on my mothers room walls. after that it scared the h**l out of me and i ran into my kitchen with my cat at the time and turned on the light and it EXPLODED and i saw some kind of shape that jumped towards me while the light went bang. so i ran out of my house and sat outside with my cat staring in for quite a while. plus in the same house all my friends felt watched and heard banging on the walls. after i was told one of my great uncles died in the kitchen right where i saw the shape that jumped at me! freaky!

plus my friend always had man like feet walk across her basement window and everyone who has been down there has seen it. but her yard was fenced in plus an alarm system. and you could see it while people where upstairs (where you can see the backyard)

Answer 5

My wife, an ordained minister, was called by a neighbor to bless her house - which was said to have an evil spirit.  She was about to give the line - "I bless people, not things", but she heard the woman's story instead.  Here it goes:

The woman's live-in boy friend had committed suicide by hanging himself in the bedroom. She was too poor to move out.  The constant reminders were driving her crazy.

"OK, a house blessing it is", said my wife.

I have no problem with any of this.  This is what i signed up for.

Answer 6

Mutually Exclusive. In Church I know the tenents of the Religion. In the Open Field I know phenomena and know my own strengths and limits. Sure it helps that I was an altar boy, but it also credits Gnosis to have been initiated in the Miami Temple or the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC... and other orgs like the Mayans and such. I even have vol 1, no 1 of the ARE Journal. Edgar Cace stuff.

Amazingly most of the the paranormal, personally, happens internally. The Other Tells may be an instance of the wizard behind the Curtain.

The interest may be bilateral so I assume there is support for the Other.

Answer 7

I do not know that there Are Any Religious Beliefs that do not Support the Paranormal. Re-incarnation, Heaven or h**l, The Native American " Great White Spirit", Christianity, Islam, Hindu......... ALL support a Strong Belief in the Spirit World and I am a Christian that Firmly Believes in the Paranormal. Death, to me, is Not " The End", It is the " Beginning".

Answer 8

As clergy in my religion, I'm actually called upon to deal with the paranormal. In general, it turns out to be nothing, and I give them a gentle reassurance and go home.

In all honesty, I'd have to say that for me, it's the other way around. I became clergy because my religion's beliefs openly accept the ideas that there are ghosts, aliens, or even unexplainable things in the universe, and that it's our job to learn about and explain them.

I became clergy because the religion itself accepts what I had experienced and already found that I could believe, and one of the clergy's duties is to find the truth regarding the causes of things like this and deal with it. We also tend to use Occam's razor a lot, too, my favorite expression of which is by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle: "If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

I also have a group of paranormal investigators in my fellow clergy members who are all eager to help me if I don't know something paranormal, and while we don't proselytize, we also don't limit our free services to those of our religion. Anyone who would want our services would be free to receive them.

The down side is, I've become suddenly ill this year, and so I can't actually go out into the field and do the "hunting" part any more, but I can actually do the research part of things and give someone else a chance at debunking a haunting. I'd hazard a guess that about 20% of the time, though, there's something valid for them to report. But in general, ghosts are fairly benign.

Answer 9

Raised Presbyterian, but don't really go to church except Catholic with my family sometimes - I would have to say I am interested in all aspects of the paranormal except anything to do with witchcraft, channeling or anything on the dark side. I know people can be psychic because I have had psychic experiences. I know spirits of dead people can contact us in dreams but I don't try to contact them. I think you can open yourself up to evil spirits coming through if you do something like use a ouija board, so I stay away from anything like that. I feel like I have lived before and pretty much believe in reincarnation but that's not something I would tell a lot of people.  I have had people of different Christian denominations tell me they think they have lived before. You feel what you feel.  You aren't supposed to believe that as a Christian though.

Answer 10

I'm Catholic and I have to say that they don't really interfere. I believe in God, and go to church, but I also believe in ghosts and unexplained types of kinesis. As long as I don't worship any of that stuff, and sill acknowledge that God is supreme over all of us, then I've been told it's ok.

Answer 11

I am a Christian. Born Again even. But I am liberal in a way that I believe there are many paths to the same destination.

I had my first preminission when I was 13, it was a huge one!

I rarely share it with anyone. and no I will not share it here.

In my 20's my talent was very active. It was so active that I called the first pastor who I could find and he said no, he couldn't come over and I talked him into it.

I was completely suprised by his thoughts. He was a conservitive Baptist pastor. He told me that there is a vail between the physical world and the spiritual world and there are some people who are gifted or sensitive to it. And that I should view it as a Gift from God. If I felt it was evil or I used it for evil, then it would be evil.

I was so relieved. I didn't want to be connected to something that was unGodly.

I believe in paranormal more than ever. My 21 yr old son died six years ago. He sends me messges in a bit of a comical way. True to his playful personality.

My paranormal self is in tune with my spiritual and religious self.

I don't share it with everyone. Just when it seems right.

Answer 12

Ever since I was 10 I never really was very religious. It just seemed... routine I guess.

I have always maintain spiritual interests. Not in any one particular area. I like to keep an open mind, explore possibilities, challenge my personal beliefs. I believe my liberal attitude towards spirituality as benefited me greatly. As far as its impact on the paranormal, I'd say my beliefs and the paranormal go hand in hand. Without one I'd probably have little interest in the other. I think if a person is to approach the paranormal with a serious, not completely skeptical point of view, then they need to have some kind of belief in some kind of force(s) beyong the realm of current science.

Answer 13

I believe in everything and nothing. Im going to say it helps me.