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We use the word ghost and spirit interchangeably but there really is a strong difference between them. Many people do not know the difference between a ghost and a spirit. Spiritualists and those who investigate what is considered “paranormal phenomena” generally have an understanding that both ghosts and spirits exist, but they are quite different entities.
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Minnie Thomas' cabin sits at 202 South Main Street. Minnie was a longtime resident of Breckenridge, arriving here in the 1890s as a young girl. She lived in this cabin for over 70 years, only leaving for a short time to get married and move to Frisco. However, her husband was a heavy drinker and when the marriage didn't work out she returned to her life here, resuming her passions for hiking and skiing. When Minnie died in 1970 following a fall that resulted in a broken hip, she didn't leave. Minnie's ghost is still said to be occupying the cabin to this day.
Jan and Scott Magnuson took over the building in 1986 and turned it into the gift store that we still know today — Creatures Great and Small — selling tasteful gifts such as bear statues and nativity scenes. When they first moved in to start their business, they felt Minnie's presence immediately. First, they were aware of the sound of footsteps coming from the attic and the smell of an old-fashioned scent like rosewater. Minnie's prized collection of photographs was kept up there and, not surprisingly, the other sound they heard resembled the sound of someone rifling through a box, desperately looking for a lost item. When plates started flying off the walls of the store but not breaking, the Magnusons were not alarmed and assumed it was Minnie passing on her displeasure at having someone take over her home.
The activity in the building lessened as the years rolled on but didn't go away. Minnie, it seems, accepts them for the way they are managing the building but she also has a sense of mischief. When visiting the attic for stock, Scott is often tricked by the simple alarm system the couple uses to call them back down to the store. Of course when he rushes down to assist, the shop is empty!
A psychic who recently visited the store remarked that Minnie was a playful character and she saw her watching us, curiously. Soon a man with hob-nailed boots joined Minnie and the smell of beer was obvious. Had her ex-husband come back to visit and taunt her?
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Ghosts are similar to psychotic human beings, incapable of reasoning for themselves. … Spirits on the other hand are the surviving personalities of all of us who pass through the door of death in a relatively normal fashion. A spirit, or an energy that contains the fully conscious soul of a person. You are a spirit, here and now, and when your physical body dies your spirit is what moves on into the afterlife. A medium communicates with the spirit of the person who has passed over. A ghost is like a residual energetic impression that is left behind in the energetic matrix of physical matter.
It is often related to being caused by strong emotions expressed by a person in that space or potentially by a person repeating the same action over and over again in that space. This is commonly referred to as the “Stone Tape Theory” on ghosts. This was first put forward in the West by Lethbridge, (1961). In this way, there is a bit of a ghost of us everywhere we have been.
Mediums can connect psychically to this energy. I could walk into a building and connect to the energy within that building and tell you things that happened in the building from the past. I would be picking up on the energetic imprint that is left behind. Some imprints, for the reasons just mentioned, are stronger than others.
Hollywood has been keen to relate to ghosts as a spirit of a person who has not moved over to heaven or some sort of afterlife away from Earth. This is simply not true. A spirit, who has not moved over to heaven and stays around Earth and this physical dimension, would be classified as just exactly that. A medium can’t form a two-way communication with a ghost, ask it questions, and get replies, etc., as it does not have a human level of consciousness. It is like a picture or a film of something that was once there, one that a medium can also pick up feelings from as well.
A medium can, of course, communicate with a spirit, ask it questions and receive answers back, etc. Other cultures have different names for different energetic entities, which can translate to mean various things in English. Often the language is so different and the closest word in English may be ghost, but it doesn’t mean what the other people mean as exactly what we think of a ghost as being. From my perspective, the way I have described is the best way to define, separate and categorize these two very different entities.
Its been discovered that ghosts are tied to the location of their death, usually a sudden or tragic one, and they often don't realize that they are dead. In most cases, they have "unfinished business" as the deceased person does not accept the way in which they died. The simplest form of unfinished business can be as innocent as a person being attached so strongly to their home that they cannot leave it behind and pass over. They are known as "caretakers" and want to stay to make sure the building is being taken care of properly by future owners and also to their approval. At the end of the scale, unfinished business can take the form of dark energy when a person's death is extremely violent and unexpected.
Surprisingly, only a small percentage of paranormal sightings are true ghosts. The majority of them are really sightings of what we call "residual energy" — when an emotional event is replayed over and over again, at the same spot, and at the same time.
Spirits, on the other hand, are not tied to one place. It is believed that spirits are discarnate entities, meaning that they are the soul that has survived when a person dies and no longer has a physical body in which to reside. They are free to move from one dimension to another and can return to us at free will. Often it is just a genuine, emotional tie to a loved one, such as wanting a family member to know that a deceased relative is okay, that can be the cause of a visit by a spirit.
Mediums can connect psychically to this energy. I could walk into a building and connect to the energy within that building and tell you things that happened in the building from the past. I would be picking up on the energetic imprint that is left behind. Some imprints, for the reasons just mentioned, are stronger than others.
Hollywood has been keen to relate to ghosts as a spirit of a person who has not moved over to heaven or some sort of afterlife away from Earth. This is simply not true. A spirit, who has not moved over to heaven and stays around Earth and this physical dimension, would be classified as just exactly that. A medium can’t form a two-way communication with a ghost, ask it questions, and get replies, etc., as it does not have a human level of consciousness. It is like a picture or a film of something that was once there, one that a medium can also pick up feelings from as well.
A medium can, of course, communicate with a spirit, ask it questions and receive answers back, etc. Other cultures have different names for different energetic entities, which can translate to mean various things in English. Often the language is so different and the closest word in English may be ghost, but it doesn’t mean what the other people mean as exactly what we think of a ghost as being. From my perspective, the way I have described is the best way to define, separate and categorize these two very different entities.
Its been discovered that ghosts are tied to the location of their death, usually a sudden or tragic one, and they often don't realize that they are dead. In most cases, they have "unfinished business" as the deceased person does not accept the way in which they died. The simplest form of unfinished business can be as innocent as a person being attached so strongly to their home that they cannot leave it behind and pass over. They are known as "caretakers" and want to stay to make sure the building is being taken care of properly by future owners and also to their approval. At the end of the scale, unfinished business can take the form of dark energy when a person's death is extremely violent and unexpected.
Surprisingly, only a small percentage of paranormal sightings are true ghosts. The majority of them are really sightings of what we call "residual energy" — when an emotional event is replayed over and over again, at the same spot, and at the same time.
Spirits, on the other hand, are not tied to one place. It is believed that spirits are discarnate entities, meaning that they are the soul that has survived when a person dies and no longer has a physical body in which to reside. They are free to move from one dimension to another and can return to us at free will. Often it is just a genuine, emotional tie to a loved one, such as wanting a family member to know that a deceased relative is okay, that can be the cause of a visit by a spirit.
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Sworn True Ghost Stories of Today
Here is a story about a "caretaker" ghost, from the book "Haunted Breckenridge."
Minnie Thomas' cabin sits at 202 South Main Street. Minnie was a longtime resident of Breckenridge, arriving here in the 1890s as a young girl. She lived in this cabin for over 70 years, only leaving for a short time to get married and move to Frisco. However, her husband was a heavy drinker and when the marriage didn't work out she returned to her life here, resuming her passions for hiking and skiing. When Minnie died in 1970 following a fall that resulted in a broken hip, she didn't leave. Minnie's ghost is still said to be occupying the cabin to this day.
Jan and Scott Magnuson took over the building in 1986 and turned it into the gift store that we still know today — Creatures Great and Small — selling tasteful gifts such as bear statues and nativity scenes. When they first moved in to start their business, they felt Minnie's presence immediately. First, they were aware of the sound of footsteps coming from the attic and the smell of an old-fashioned scent like rosewater. Minnie's prized collection of photographs was kept up there and, not surprisingly, the other sound they heard resembled the sound of someone rifling through a box, desperately looking for a lost item. When plates started flying off the walls of the store but not breaking, the Magnusons were not alarmed and assumed it was Minnie passing on her displeasure at having someone take over her home.
The activity in the building lessened as the years rolled on but didn't go away. Minnie, it seems, accepts them for the way they are managing the building but she also has a sense of mischief. When visiting the attic for stock, Scott is often tricked by the simple alarm system the couple uses to call them back down to the store. Of course when he rushes down to assist, the shop is empty!
A psychic who recently visited the store remarked that Minnie was a playful character and she saw her watching us, curiously. Soon a man with hob-nailed boots joined Minnie and the smell of beer was obvious. Had her ex-husband come back to visit and taunt her?
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The Wandering Soul Tapes
In Vietnamese culture, it is essential to properly bury a loved one in their home land so as to ensure their contentment in the afterlife. If not, the belief is that the deceased’s soul will wander aimlessly as it tries to find its way home.
During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were aware that the conflict would take many fighting far from their home villages, meaning that if they died, they most certainly would end up as wandering souls. U.S. forces exploited these beliefs as a psychological scare tactic.
North American troops created a tape of disembodied, tormented voices and played it on loudspeakers as they flew planes over the jungle. Known as “Ghost tape number ten,” the fear tactic had been specifically created by sound engineers who drew from methods used for spooky television and radio broadcasts.
The voices — some of them children — called out to the Vietnamese warning them to flee, lest they end up damned to hell.
It worked, and often led to Vietnamese troops running from their positions in a panic, which was precisely what the American troops had hoped for. Even after the Vietnamese soldiers figured out it was a recording played from flyovers, it was so unnerving that they would abandon their posts just to escape the eerie sounds that played on an endless loop throughout the night.
During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were aware that the conflict would take many fighting far from their home villages, meaning that if they died, they most certainly would end up as wandering souls. U.S. forces exploited these beliefs as a psychological scare tactic.
North American troops created a tape of disembodied, tormented voices and played it on loudspeakers as they flew planes over the jungle. Known as “Ghost tape number ten,” the fear tactic had been specifically created by sound engineers who drew from methods used for spooky television and radio broadcasts.
The voices — some of them children — called out to the Vietnamese warning them to flee, lest they end up damned to hell.
It worked, and often led to Vietnamese troops running from their positions in a panic, which was precisely what the American troops had hoped for. Even after the Vietnamese soldiers figured out it was a recording played from flyovers, it was so unnerving that they would abandon their posts just to escape the eerie sounds that played on an endless loop throughout the night.
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The Tucker Telephone
If you were unfortunate enough to be imprisoned at the Tucker State Prison Farm in early 1960s Arkansas, you would have had the misfortune of experiencing one of the most hellacious torture devices ever invented.
A prison physician named Dr. A.E. Rollins devised a torture device to punish unruly prisoners, which he fashioned out of an old crank telephone, an electric generator and two dry cell batteries.
For the treatment, a prisoner would be brought into a “hospital room” where they would be strapped down to a table, two wires applied to their skin. The ground wire would be wrapped around their big toe and the hot wire — through which the electricity would run — was attached to the genitals. The crank was turned and — well, the prisoner got a shock.
Particularly long sessions of torture were cheekily referred to as “long-distance calls,” but the torture was no laughing matter: in addition to permanent damage to the organs, many of the prisoners who received the treatment went completely insane.
What’s worse is that the device was used regularly until 1968.
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A prison physician named Dr. A.E. Rollins devised a torture device to punish unruly prisoners, which he fashioned out of an old crank telephone, an electric generator and two dry cell batteries.
For the treatment, a prisoner would be brought into a “hospital room” where they would be strapped down to a table, two wires applied to their skin. The ground wire would be wrapped around their big toe and the hot wire — through which the electricity would run — was attached to the genitals. The crank was turned and — well, the prisoner got a shock.
Particularly long sessions of torture were cheekily referred to as “long-distance calls,” but the torture was no laughing matter: in addition to permanent damage to the organs, many of the prisoners who received the treatment went completely insane.
What’s worse is that the device was used regularly until 1968.
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Numbers Stations
Whatever happened to good ol’ fashioned espionage? In the tech-dependent world of today, where cyber crime gets its own investigative department within the CIA and FBI, the concept of shortwave radio-based war crimes seems pretty tame. Except it’s not at all and, in fact, is one of the creepiest things to exist ever.
It began with Morse Code, but eventually casual radio listeners began hearing the unsettling tones of women and children’s voices reading out a seemingly random string of letters and/or numbers, often accompanied by various beeps and blips as “interval” noise between these “broadcasts.” It was almost immediately assumed that these were coded messages intended for Cold War spies.
While technology and time have marched forward, these numbers stations are stilled used, and it’s thought to be one of the most convenient and fool-proof methods of communicating with field agents, precisely because it seems so passe nowadays.
While Intelligence-Service-to-Agent communication is the leading theory on the existence of numbers stations, there are still some historians and researchers who think it’s all the result of an extremely well-executed and elaborate prank — but given the enormous number of radio stations and all the languages in which these messages are transmitted, it would be a billion-dollar, fifty-some-odd-year prank, which seems pretty far-fetched.
The concept of a numbers station seems to have, finally, migrated to the Internet: these Twitters behave much like their radio predecessors, but the jury’s still out on their validity.
It began with Morse Code, but eventually casual radio listeners began hearing the unsettling tones of women and children’s voices reading out a seemingly random string of letters and/or numbers, often accompanied by various beeps and blips as “interval” noise between these “broadcasts.” It was almost immediately assumed that these were coded messages intended for Cold War spies.
While technology and time have marched forward, these numbers stations are stilled used, and it’s thought to be one of the most convenient and fool-proof methods of communicating with field agents, precisely because it seems so passe nowadays.
While Intelligence-Service-to-Agent communication is the leading theory on the existence of numbers stations, there are still some historians and researchers who think it’s all the result of an extremely well-executed and elaborate prank — but given the enormous number of radio stations and all the languages in which these messages are transmitted, it would be a billion-dollar, fifty-some-odd-year prank, which seems pretty far-fetched.
The concept of a numbers station seems to have, finally, migrated to the Internet: these Twitters behave much like their radio predecessors, but the jury’s still out on their validity.
