Nightmare. Ghosts and Christians.

Is it possible to present an intriguing, convincing and entertaining story about ghosts while staying within an acceptable Christian framework? Can a genre usually associated with fear and horror, dealing with unknowns about life after death, be compatible with a faith that is supposed to have strong, established certainties regarding the “afterlife”?

I had a strong interest in the “ghost story”. I read a lot of them in the past. I also tried adding to the genre by writing my own stories. My interest wasn’t restricted to fictional ghosts, I read a lot of “true life” accounts and I participated on an internet mailing list of a group called “Ghostwatch.
This wasn’t merely for entertainment or academic reasons; I had some personal ghostly experiences: seeing an apparition in my Sydney home (seen by my wife as well) and also seeing shadowy human figures in a motel room two nights in a row.

A successful Christian ghost story would need to maintain the recognised conventions of the genre without compromising biblical theology. One of the major obstacles would be finding a plausible reason for the existence of ghosts. Does biblical truth allow for the continuing presence of the dead on earth? If not, then what kind of apparent force or intelligence is behind a haunting?

Not only do we have to address the major problem mentioned above, there is also the matter of intent. What reason is there behind the story? Traditionally the ghost story has been associated with fear – giving the reader a scare. Is that kind of aim compatible with a Christian outlook? Should the Christian writer intentionally set out with the primary aim of creating fear in the reader?

Robin Parish’s Nightmare did nothing to change my suspicion that the two are incompatible. While most of the book deals adequately with the “ghostly” side of the equation, the “Christian” side fails: presenting a mixture of superstition, and vague pop-theology in place of a biblically supportable view of life after death and the spiritual conflict between good and evil.

College student Maia Peters is the daughter of famous paranormal investigators (ghost hunters). Despite her desire to be free from the effects of her parents’ celebrity status, she is offered significant financial rewards to help wealthy fellow student Jordin Cole to have a genuine paranormal experience. Maia takes Jordin on a tour of several haunted sites around America and they witness an extraordinarily high level of strange events.

Jordin later goes missing and her fiancée Derek suspects Jordin’s paranormal dabbling with Maia is to blame. When the two try to find out what happened to Jordin they stumble across an occult conspiracy which seems to have Maia herself in its sights.

Parish maintains interest in the parts of the book devoted to the investigations, but when it comes to bringing it all together the story flounders. The climax brings in elements of Science fiction that didn’t really work for me personally, and its depiction of the demonic owed more to fantasy fiction than anything gleaned from scripture.

As a ghost story I found Nightmare was adequately entertaining but as a “Christian” influenced ghost story I thought it failed to deliver biblical consistency, a feature which surely MUST be the foundation of anything published with a Christian world view in mind.

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Since I mentioned my own ghost experiences some might want to know what I think I saw.

I believe that ghosts are a distraction – or a diversion. They are a deception, offering a false alternative to the truth of the “after life” as revealed through the bible.

Something is Out There

Something is Out There by Julie Miller and Grant Osborn is a very accessible introduction to some of the best known cases of Australian mysteries.

Miller and Osborn take the reader through a variety of haunted locations and UFO “hotspots”, introducing some of the people whose lives have been affected by strange personal encounters with the unexplained.

These phenomena can be annoyingly elusive, rarely (if ever) leaving convincing, tangible evidence. Mostly the only evidence available is the testimony of witnesses both past and present.

This book is divided into three main sections in which Miller and Osborn look at Ghosts (Supernatural), UFOs (Ufology) and Strange Creatures (Cryptozoology) with a mix of anecdotes, folklore and personal experience.

The book combines material gleaned from other sources with some of the authors’ own investigations. Their personal investigations include interviews with witnesses and researchers, and their experiences on some of the increasingly popular commercial ghost tours in various parts of the country, from Port Arthur in Tasmania to Picton NSW.

I’ve had my own experiences with strange phenomena. Those experiences don’t fit a rational, scientific worldview but I know they happened. But even from this “insiders” perspective I still maintain a distinct desire for accountability when it comes to extraordinary claims. Too often in these matters subjective experience and personal opinion are presented as fact, with little or no justification.

In parts I felt Miller and Osborn were a bit too accepting of some of the testimonies they presented. I am particularly sceptical of the testimony they give of “psychics” in researching haunted sites. Their subjective impressions help to pad out the lack of real experience or evidence, overshadowing and replacing genuine, though rare, ghostly activity at a particular location.

The only exceptions I can recall to this open acceptance are mild allusions of suspicion directed towards the number of Rex Gilroy’s* claimed sightings of anomalous creatures, and a couple of doubts expressed about the validity of “orbs” in photos. Although, regarding the latter, their doubts didn’t prevent them from illustrating the book with their own photos of “orbs”.

“…while we are sceptical about orbs as a manifestation of spiritual entities, we can’t help but ponder the size, brightness and intensity of these particular anomalies. Did we capture the little boy ghosts at play?”

A lot of what is covered in Something is Out There has been dealt with more extensively by others, but newcomers to these mysteries are given plenty to increase their appetite. Extensive bibliography and end notes provide more than enough leads to seek out more for themselves.



NOTE:
* Rex Gilroy is one of major characters in Australian cryptozoology. Credited with being the first to bring attention to the Yowie, the Australian cousin of Bigfoot, Yeti and Sasquatch. His early work inspired many of todays investigators.

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I thank the publishers Allen & Unwin for providing a review copy of this book.
For further details see:

Something is Out There



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