One Group that Believes in Ghosts

“To be truly educated you must be able to catch and understand nuances.”

The above is my quote. I firmly believe that one must be able to see more than the obvious in every situation.

I recently read a long-winded opinion piece that asked the question, “Why do some people see ghosts and others don’t?”

Within the first sentence this writer states that people who see ghosts are actually not seeing them.

Her reasons for this included: lying, visual and auditory pareidolia, mistakes, and hallucinating. She continued by stating that people who claim they see ghosts are just wishful thinkers, or are just seeking attention--because “they need to feel special.”

She then jumps to the conclusion that people believe in ghosts because of “spooky stories, opinions, hoaxes, or outright lies by people.”

In the middle of her piece she presents a 240+ word diatribe about how the Scientific Method works. She concludes that since ghosts have not been proven to exist--the only “intelligent and responsible” decision for a person to make is that they “do not exist.”

This writer also draws the conclusions that “believers” are under-educated, superstitious, or just young and naïve.

At the end of her piece she does a complete turn about and announces that people who are more “open-minded” see ghosts.

Do More Research

It is always a good idea to do more research.

In 2006, two researchers, Byran Farha at Oklahoma City University and Gary Stewart at the University of Central Oklahoma conducted a survey with surprising results.

Based upon a 2001 Gallup Poll that reflected “younger Americans” were more likely to believe in the paranormal these two researchers set out to prove that educated Americans would be much more skeptical toward the paranormal.

After polling many college students they were shocked to find the exact opposite is true. In fact, college seniors and graduate students were actually more likely to believe in: haunted houses, ghosts, telepathy, spirit channeling, and other paranormal phenomena.

One interesting sideline is the Skeptical Inquirer magazine--the place for true unbelievers published Farha and Stewart’s findings.

Here are Farha and Stewart’s results as well as several other recent studies that show: “Higher education supports a belief in the paranormal.”