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ORIGINAL: RJR_fan

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i know of people who have had encounters with such things . How does the bible explain this?

The most devastating family of apparitions involve the most famous woman in history, the mother of Jesus. I don't know how many millions of souls have been led into eternal damnation by this demonic, but lovely, apparition, which offers an alternate means of salvation, and alternate source of revelation, and an alternate deity (target for our prayers).

In this case (Marian apparitions), the Biblically literate saint sees the literal example of how Satan can appear "as an angel of light."

And yes, these apparitions appear with convincing signs, like mass hallucinations that fall upon tens of thousands of people simultaneously.

"But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet."

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ORIGINAL: RJR_fan

Towards the end of I Samuel, the Witch of Endor summons up the ghost of Samuel, and gets more than she expected. This is, as far as I know, the only true "ghost story" in the Bible.

The pagan vision of the afterlife is, quite literally, an after-life. The shades are half-alive, half-aware. They resent, hold will ill towards, those who are still on "the clean side of the dirt." Hence, are to be feared. This is quite a contrast to the Christian expectation that "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." We open our eyes on incandescent bliss, after "falling asleep" to this world.