Are Tsunami victims returning as ghosts?

Story link for original with pictures

Haunted by trauma, tsunami survivors in Japan turn to exorcists

By Ruairidh Villar and Sophie Knight | Reuters – Tue, Mar 5, 2013

0

 

HIGASHI-MATSUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - The tsunami that engulfed northeastern Japan two years ago has left some survivors believing they are seeing ghosts.

In a society wary of admitting to mental problems, many are turning to exorcists for help.
Tales of spectral figures lined up at shops where now there is only rubble are what psychiatrists say is a reaction to fear after the March 11, 2011, disaster in which nearly 19,000 people were killed.
"The places where people say they see ghosts are largely those areas completely swept away by the tsunami," said Keizo Hara, a psychiatrist in the city of Ishinomaki, one of the areas worst-hit by the waves touched off by an offshore earthquake.
"We think phenomena like ghost sightings are perhaps a mental projection of the terror and worries associated with those places."
Hara said post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) might only now be emerging in many people, and the country could be facing a wave of stress-related problems.
"It will take time for PTSD to emerge for many people in temporary housing for whom nothing has changed since the quake," he said.
Shinichi Yamada escaped the waves that destroyed his home and later salvaged two Buddhist statues from the wreckage. But when he brought them back to the temporary housing where he lived, he said strange things began to happen.
His two children suddenly got sick and an inexplicable chill seemed to follow the family through the house, he said.
"A couple of times when I was lying in bed, I felt something walking across me, stepping across my chest," Yamada told Reuters.
Many people in Japan hold on to ancient superstitions despite its ultra-modern image.
Yamada, like many other people in the area, turned to exorcist Kansho Aizawa for help.
Aizawa, 56, dressed in a black sweater and trousers and with dangling pearl earrings, said in an interview in her home that she had seen numerous ghosts.
"There are headless ghosts, and some missing hands or legs. Others are completely cut in half," she said. "People were killed in so many different ways during the disaster and they were left like that in limbo. So it takes a heavy toll on us, we see them as they were when they died."
In some places destroyed by the tsunami, people have reported seeing ghostly apparitions queuing outside supermarkets which are now only rubble. Taxi drivers said they avoided the worst-hit districts for fear of picking up phantom passengers.
"At first, people came here wanting to find the bodies of their family members. Then they wanted to find out exactly how that person died, and if their spirit was at peace," Aizawa said.
As time passed, people's requests changed.
"They've started wanting to transmit their own messages to the dead," Aizawa said.
Shinichi Yamada said life had improved since he put the two Buddhist statues in a shrine and prayed. He still believes the statues are haunted, but now thinks their spirits are at peace.

Kids and The Paranormal

The news story below originally was posted on Discovery News

Does Fear Drive Kid's Paranormal Experiences?
By  Benjamin Radford       

Night terrors and bad dreams are common among young children, and a new study found that that some preschoolers who suffer from nighttime phobias have difficulty telling the difference between fantasy and reality.

Children are often said to be more sensitive, or “open,” to psychic and paranormal experiences. The idea is that there is wisdom in the ignorance and inexperience of youth and that adults rarely see entities or have such experiences because their minds have been closed off by logic and skepticism to the magic and wonder of the world.  Or, to use another analogy, it’s like in Warner Bros. cartoons when Wile E. Coyote or Elmer Fudd walks off a cliff but doesn’t fall until they are told that they’re not on land.

Why Children See Ghosts

The trope of supernaturally-sensitive children is staple of countless depictions in the media and popular culture. Ghosts and monsters usually make their presence known to young children. We see this in countless horror films such as “The Exorcist” (demons possess a young girl); “Poltergeist” (evil spirits contact a young girl through television static, causing her to famously announce their arrival with the creepy sing-song phrase “They’re heeere!”); and the film “Mama,” currently in theaters, which features two young sisters who communicate with an evil ghost the adults don’t see.

Real children reporting ghostly experiences (often at night) were also a staple of the popular, long-running television show “Unsolved Mysteries.” Though some parents were initially skeptical, they soon came to believe that their child’s accounts of seeing and interacting with ghosts and monsters were real and not merely imagination. “Why would a child make up something like that?” they often ask.

Of course children make up stories for any number of reasons, including seeking attention and avoiding punishment, and often for no reason at all. But new research suggests that some kids think their nightmares are completely real.

When a genuinely terrified and wide-awake child tells his mother or father that she saw a scary, shadowy man outside her door or window, there’s a good chance that they might take it seriously, especially if they are among the nearly 40 percent of Americans who believe in haunted houses. This, of course, only feeds and reinforces the child’s fears.

Seeing Monsters

A new study may help explain why some kids report seeing imaginary monsters in real life.

It involved 80 children between four and six who experienced severe nighttime fears and compared them to 32 children who did not. The researchers assessed the children’s fears, using reports from both the kids and their parents. Children viewed images of imaginary figures (such as fairies or Bob the Builder) and were asked whether they could occur in real life, for example, could they go visit a fairy in person. The study found that children with nighttime fears demonstrated more fantasy-reality confusion than the control group (those without fears) and those fears were more dramatic in the younger children.

The more children understood the difference between fantasy and reality, the less fearful they were.

The study also found “that children with nighttime fears suffer from higher levels of general fears and more behavior problems… thus suggesting that nighttime fears may reflect a broader vulnerability to general fears, anxiety and internalizing disorders” and that “a less developed ability to distinguish fantasy from reality may contribute to the emergence and persistence of children’s fears… . Children’s uncertainty regarding the existence of magical entities such as witches, ghosts and monsters may generate and maintain fears of these creatures.”

The study, “Nighttime Fears and Fantasy–Reality Differentiation in Preschool Children,” conducted by researchers Tamar Zisenwine, Michal Kaplan, Jonathan Kushnir, and Avi Sadeh, appears in the February 2013 Child Psychiatry & Human Development journal.

 

So what's it like on the other side?

Whenever we go on investigations my mind sometimes thinks of crazy things that the spirits we encounter might be doing.  Sometimes I think of crazy stuff from funny to scary. One time Tim and I were at an old cemetery and I pictured all these spirits coming out of their graves and surrounding me. I know it's silly but in all seriousness I do wonder what it is like for them. Below are two old Disney cartoons that depict the funny side of a haunted house and a cemetery. Hmmm wonder if this is what its like???   Enjoy!

-Lindsay


Mickey Mouse Cartoon "Haunted House"



Silly Symphony "skeleton dance"

2012 in Review

We had an extremely productive year in 2012 so I thought I would post some of the top highlights.

• We started the year with 3 Team Members and now have 12 official and a few still pending
• We have had 10 Investigations since coming to Utah.
• Tim and I took a Ghost buster class through Granite Peaks which brought us to two more locations.
• We have been able to help 5 families find answers to events in their homes.
• In our first year we had two Newspaper Articles written about two of our investigations and Tim and I  were on a Paranormal Radio Show.

We are so blessed and want to thank our Team and everyone who supports us!
2013 will be a great year :)


-Lindsay