Is it possible to communicate with those who have died?
A local paper once reported of a restaurant which claimed to be the home of three ghosts. At a dinner-divination to hold communication with the departed, the following message was received: "Now do you believe? Elizabeth." This was the name of one of the persons who was believed to have died in the 1920s.1
Was Elizabeth speaking to these people 70 years later in 1990? The Bible tells us of life after death as part of the Christian's hope. Was this just a manifestation of this giving support to the Bible?
Job asked the question "If a man dies, shall he live again? ..." Job 14:14. And many people have asked this question since. To find the answer to this question we need to find out how man was created and how he would die. We find the answers in the following verses:
then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
Genesis 2:7.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Genesis 2:7 KJV.
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Genesis 3:19.
Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
Psalms 146:3, 4 KJV.
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his dust; in that very day his thoughts perish.
Psalms 146:4 JPS.
and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 RSV.
and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes 12:7.
This tells us that:
- The dust of the ground plus the breath of life from God made man a living soul.
- At death, man returns to the ground and the breath of life returns to God.
Elsewhere the Bible refers to man as dust and with days like grass:
For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.
As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
Psalms 103:14-16.
That is, here one day and gone tomorrow. Fair enough. But don't we have an immortal soul that continues on after death and knows what's going on? This is the usual accepted view. But there are a couple of problems with this view.
Firstly, we read before that "in that very day (when a person dies) his thoughts perish." Can we think without thoughts? Similarly we are told:
The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost.
Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished; never again will they have any share in all that happens under the sun.
Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10.
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.
Ecclesiastes 9:10 NKJV.
The dead do not praise the LORD, nor do any that go down into silence.
Psalms 115:17.
Well, if there is no thinking in the grave--can dead people communicate with the living, or know what's going on?
As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, So he who goes down to the grave does not come up.
He shall never return to his house, Nor shall his place know him anymore.
Job 7:9, 10 NKJV.
Their children come to honor, and they do not know it; they are brought low, and it goes unnoticed.
Job 14:21.
Secondly, the Bible does not mention that we have an immortal soul. From Genesis we read that "man became a living soul."
Zedekiah told Jeremiah that ".. As the LORD liveth, that made us this soul, I will not put thee to death, .." Jeremiah 38:16 KJV. Jeremiah's reply was that ".. If thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live, .." verse 17. But Zedekiah was not obedient to the command of God, and the Babylonians "... put him in prison until the day of his death." Jeremiah 52:11. His soul (he himself) died. "The soul that sins shall die. ..." Ezekiel 18:20 RSV.
Not only are we told that a soul can die, but that it is "... the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is he alone who has immortality ..." 1 Timothy 6:15, 16.
Only God has immortality. There is no such thing as an immortal soul. At this point in our study it should be quite obvious that we now have a problem with the three-ghost-story previously mentioned. From what we have read above, we now know that:
- the dead do not come back to visit people. Job 7:10.
- they do not know what is going on (with their relatives, etc.) or anything! Job 14:21.
So just who or what gave the message, claiming to be "Elizabeth"? The message was "Now do you believe?" Believe what? That a dead person was communicating with them. Or in other words, that the dead are not really dead at all, but just some-place else. From the Bible we have found that this is not correct.
But what about those who channel the spirits to communicate with the dead? From what we have read above this should not be possible but people do claim to do this. Just what is going on? One person who found his life completely entangled in this area was a well known UFO investigator.
John Keel, author of UFO's Operation Trojan Horse, spent 4 years investigating the UFO phenomenon in the 1960s. He travelled across many states in the USA interviewing thousands of people who claimed to have seen something or who had received messages from the ufonauts (the entities claiming to be the space aliens flying the UFOs). At first John wanted to find support for the hypothesis that UFOs were extraterrestrial vehicles bringing space aliens to this planet. But he abandoned this theory in 1967 after finding so much evidence pointing in a different direction.
For John, the turning point probably came while investigating the prediction of a disaster that would happen in December of 1967. He found that not only were the warning messages being received by UFO contactees all around the world, but that mediums, telepaths, and sensitives were also receiving the same identical messages. Spirit entities were talking through Ouija boards giving the same messages. These messages were all phrased similarly, whichever language was used:
Meanwhile, mediums, telepaths, sensitives, and UFO contactees throughout the world were all reporting identical messages. There was definitely going to be an unprecedented event on December 24, 1967. Ashtar was talking through Ouija boards to people who had never before heard the name. Another busy entity named Orlon was spreading the word. The curious thing about these messages was that they were all phrased in the same manner, no matter what language was being used. They all carried the same warning.
Many predictions of the December twenty-fourth disaster had been documented well in advance of that date. These messages came through in many different countries, from people who had no knowledge of or communication with one another. The UFO contactees received the same identical messages as the trance mediums communing with spirits. A link had been established. It was now clear (to me anyway) that all of these people were tuned into a central source. My earlier speculations seemed true—the UFO entities and the spirit entities were part of the same gigantic system. ... Some of the entities were evil liars.OTH, pp. 282, 283.
Here John Keel clearly links UFO entities and spirit entities as all part of the same group. So the spirit entities and UFO entities are the same entities that are channeled by people who attempt to communicate with the dead. John states that some of the entities are evil liars. And he has more to say on this method of communication:
The trance phenomenon deserves extensive study because so many aspects of it are directly related to the contactee phenomenon. The contactees have been told a hundred different stories of what life is like on other planets. If you review the descriptions of heaven produced at the thousands of possibly genuine seances, you will find the same contradictions. The entities will lie transparently at one point in the seance, and a few moments later will come up with astounding information which could not be based upon simple trickery.
The mediums themselves have always been aware of their controls' mischievous sense of humor. They speak of false shades and malevolent spirits who perform outrageous hoaxes. ...
The fact that a control can imitate George Bernard Shaw does not necessarily mean that GBS is doing the speaking from the spirit world.OTH pp. 243, 244.
And just to drive this point home, John has clearly stated:
Some of the entities were evil liars.
The thousands of contacts with the entities indicate that they are liars and put-on artists. OTH, pp. 283, 299.
So what we are dealing with here is a deception, a lie. The first lie recorded in the Bible actually has to do with this point:
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;
but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'"
But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die;Genesis 3:2-4 (emphasis supplied).
Satan, the enemy of God, worked through the serpent to deceive Eve, and he has been known as a serpent ever since. So we read in Revelation 12:9, "... that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world ..."
Speaking to the Jews who could not understand Him, Jesus said:
You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:44.
So there we have it. The origin of this deception, or lie, is Satan, the enemy of God. But could Satan deceive people? The answer is in 2 Corinthians 11:13,14, "... deceitful workers, ... And no wonder! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light." Note that before we also read that he is "the deceiver of the whole world". And he is not alone in this struggle. Matthew 25:41 refers to the devil and his angels. So the only conclusion we could come to is that these ghostly manifestations (not including fakes here) are the working of Satan and his fallen angels in an attempt to deceive the whole world. This leaves the question, Why?
The apostle Paul wrote about
... the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders,
and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.2 Thessalonians 2:9, 10.
So if Satan can deceive people, they may be lost.
Why would understanding where people go when they die make all the difference? The Bible does speak of life after death--but it is not immediate on dying. In Job 14 we find
so mortals lie down and do not rise again; until the heavens are no more, they will not awake or be roused out of their sleep.
verse 12.
When will the heavens be no more?
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, ...
2 Peter 3:10.
And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.Revelation 6:14 KJV.
Evidently a time is coming when the heavens will be no more. Then something is supposed to happen to those that have died. What did Job expect?
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.Job 19:25-27.
The prophet Isaiah also spoke of this event:
Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.
Isaiah 26:19.
Also when Lazarus had been dead four days--We have the discussion between Jesus and Martha, Lazarus' sister in John 11:
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,John 11:23-25.
As proof that He was God, Jesus gave Lazarus a special resurrection right then and there.
Also Jesus Himself, rose from the dead:
Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.a
Luke 24:5.
a Other ancient authorities lack He is not here, but has risen.
as spoken by the angels to the ones who had come to the tomb of Jesus early on the morning of Sunday, the first day of the week.
Finally we come to that great day, when
... the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
1 Thessalonians 4:16.
This is the truth of the matter. The dead in Christ rest in the
grave until the resurrection at the last day when the Lord descends
from heaven to gather His people to be with Him forever. Where does
Satan's lie lead to then? If the dead are not really dead, then what
need is there of a resurrection?
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised;
If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
Then those also who have died in Christ have perished.1 Corinthians 15:13,17,18.
Let us not be caught out by Satan's lie, but believe Jesus when He said
I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,
John 11:25.
References:
1. Associated Press. News Archive. July 23 1990. "Ghost Hunters Say Spirits Thrive at North Texas Restaurant."
John A. Keel, OPERATION TROJAN HORSE: An exhaustive study of unidentified flying objects - revealing their source and the forces that control them,* 1973, Abacus.
* Note: the front cover has name: U.F.O.s OPERATION TROJAN HORSE
The O and s have the s superimposed over the O to the top and the right
and above the period.
The side spine gives: UFO's: OPERATION TROJAN HORSE John A. Keel ABACUS
This is a paperback copy identical to one I purchased back in the 1970s before
I became a Christian.
Bible texts from:
New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, 1989.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, 1971.
Jewish Publication Society Bible.
The King James Version of the Bible.
The New King James Version of the Bible.
Note: NRSV used if no version referenced.
Stephen Buckley
E-mail:
Last revised: 1 Nov 2019.
First construction: possibly sometime around 18 Sep 1997.
Companion pages:
Here are some real gems from John
Keel's book UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse. These quotations, taken as a sum, show the true nature of the phenomenon.
Flying Saucers Ufonauts Extraterrestrials Space Aliens
UPDATED AND EXPANDED July 2011. More John Keel quotes. Some small
cosmetic changes in text. Completely new POSTSCRIPT section added.
- Just what is the REAL story behind UFOs? Why do ghosts and strange phenomenon keep cropping up together with UFO activities?
- UFO entities' hidden agenda for Earth finally revealed! Hidden in some UFO communications a message has been found that reveals their true hidden agenda for the Earth planet!
Why is this movie anti-religion and pro-Evolution? Actual UFO communications do not support the sentiments promulgated in this movie!
A challenge for those who want to believe in the UFO extraterrestrial theory. View these images and deny any relationship between demonology and space aliens!