By Vinshu Jain and Akanksha Thareja
“नजायतेम्रियतेवाकदाचिन्नायंभूत्वाभवितावानभूयः
अजोनित्यःशाश्व्तोयंपुराणोनहन्यतेहन्यमानेशरीरे”
According to this Bhagwad Gita Shloka, “The soul is never born and never dies at any time nor does it come into being again when the body is created. The soul is birth less, eternal, imperishable and timeless.”
As per the Hindu mythology, every specie traverses 84 lakh birth cycles again and again unless it gets ‘mukti’. The ‘aatma’ does not perish away, but keeps on changing bodies. Many humans believe that the ‘aatma’ which has left its body and more importantly had its body killed by some unforeseen circumstances, is free and is in a wanton of some other physical body.
There are believers in every country, who believe that there exists a world other than physical. Different countries of the world have different beliefs and stories about spirits and ghosts. But it all boils down to a fact that ghosts are considered as evil entities in most of the societies of the world.
SHADOW PEOPLE
Frightened witnesses all over the world have seen the shadow people. These dark beings are glimpsed out of the corner of the eye only to vanish when confronted. Many believe them to be demons, some think they’re astral bodies, and some say they’re time travelers, here for a second and gone.
However, the research tells that such shadows are created merely due to stimulation of brain. By interfering with the temporoparietal junction, the part of the brain that defines the idea of self that helps us tell the difference between ourselves and others, we can affect the brain’s ability to understand its own body, thus leading to the creation of a shadow person.
OUIJA BOARD:
The Spiritualist movement was pretty big in the 1840s and 1850s. It provided a way for people to talk to their dead loved ones. One method of communication was the Ouija board. Still popular today, the board was covered in letters, numbers, and simple words (like “yes” or “no”). People would then place their hands on a wooden piece called a planchette and ask the spirits a question. A ghost would respond by moving the planchette from letter to letter, spelling out a response (or unleashing Captain Howdy).
Con men were definitely involved in some of these incidents, but were all these encounters frauds? Renowned physicist Michael Faraday wanted to find out. Through clever experimentation, Faraday discovered that the tables were often moving thanks to the ideomotor effect. This is when the power of suggestion causes our muscles to move unconsciously. It’s our own muscles that are doing the spelling, not the spirits.
SPOOKY SOUNDS:
Have you ever experienced swishy, creepy, haunting noises in your bedroom at night? If not, you must have had it experienced in a 3D horror movie. These ghostly sounds are actually vibrations that haunt you.
Humans can hear sounds up to 20,000 Hertz, but we’re unable to detect anything lower than 20 Hz. These “silent” noises are called infrasound, and while we can’t hear them, we can feel them in the form of vibrations. Dr. Richard Wiseman says we can feel these waves, especially in our stomachs, and this can create either a positive feeling (such as awe) or a negative feeling (such as unease). In the right surroundings (see “creepy house”), this might create a sense of panic. Infrasound can be produced by storms, wind, weather patterns, and even everyday appliances. So beware, your PC next to you might be the next to haunt you.
POSSESSION OF BODY BY A SPIRIT
Channeling has been one of mankind’s oldest attempts to reach out to the spirit world. The idea is to clear the mind, connect with some sort of cosmic consciousness and let a centuries-old spirit possess your body (automatism).
Automatism is an “altered state of consciousness” where people say things and think things they’re not aware of. So when a psychic clears his mind, he starts searching for a friendly spirit guide. The spirit guide is supposed to enter his body and then provide secret knowledge about the universe. When the psychic clears his mind, random ideas and images start popping up in his head, and the medium assumes these thoughts are coming from another entity. However, these ideas are just coming from his mind. Our brains are capable of coming up with all kinds of crazy stuff without any conscious effort on our part.
So, going by the research, next time you hear a spooky sound or see a shadow ghost near your bed, rather than calling the Ghostbusters, call a Scientist.
Having seen both sides of the coin, we come to the conclusion that it will be quite a revelation but is quite possible that a parallel world exists which is inhabited by ghosts, spirits, zombies and other supernatural beings which are, to put it quite simply, natural but not yet understood. The existence of such a parallel universe depends entirely through what perspective we view the possibility and to what extent we are willing to extend our imagination.
Needless to say, everything is not what it seems and the veil separating reality from fiction is very thin.
Everything depends totally on your ‘Belief’. If you believe that ghosts exist, you’ll be haunted by every other strange thing happening around you. But if you do not, then you are the future researcher!
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