Do ghosts exist?

[Dorothy Thompson]

I'm wondering if there is anyone out there who believes in the existence of ghosts?

[Ron Kruger]

I have an unusual insight to contribute to this discussion. My book, A Higher Good, is about a profound death experience (later to be known as an NDE) I had back in the early 1960s.
During the first part of this experience (the part where you’re floating around near the ceiling), the spirit that is you still has free will:

“...As I hovered, I felt a wonderful force beckoning from above. I was going home. All I had to do was will it and follow the force, or, rather, let it draw me up. I thought about my brothers, my sister, my mother, and my father. I knew there pain, their problems, their confusion. I knew the simple solutions for each. But I also knew they would have to find their own way. Happiness is empty if someone simply hands it to you or leads you to it blindly.
So, I turned my attention and my will toward the force and started to rise...”

The point is that if I had wanted to stay, I could have hovered around and maybe figured out how to get some attention, so I don’t discount the possibility of lingering spirits, or ghosts. On the other hand, the “wonderful force beckoning from above” was so infinitely loving and perfect, the place I was being beckoned to was so secure, peaceful and wonderful, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to stick around this comparative hell hole.
Nevertheless, from other accounts I’ve read, not everyone realizes the profound bliss of their destination, and some people maintain such close ties to their earthly existence (children and such) that they might choose to come back to life before they go very far into the other realm, or they may stick around in the spirit form for various reasons.
One of the reasons I wrote my account was that I obviously went further into this other realm than the now numerous accounts I’ve read.
It’s been 45 years since my death experience, and even though I know from experience that God and a spirit world exists, I’ve had no earthly encounters with ghosts. Some years ago, I began to think this was strange, so I went to places reported to be haunted and even lived in an old house for a couple of years that everyone was so sure was haunted, no one would set foot in the place. I wasn’t visited by any ghosts, either, not even the poor fellow who committed suicide in the living room to start all the rumors.
Finally I realized the reason I don’t see ghosts is because I don’t have any fear of the afterlife or the other dimension. I also say in my book: “...Had I not died and known a total absence of fear, I would not have realized how vastly this emotion infects and influences every part of our existence...”
In fact, I have a whole chapter about this titled “The Fear Factor.” Realized and unrealized fears literally shape our reality, and the main purpose of my book is to dispel some of the fears of this life and the afterlife.
Without a fear of the spirit world, what I’ve invariably found (so far) is that things that go bump in the night really are “things” that go bump in the night.
But as humans, we sure do love our ghost stories. Hollywood wants us to be afraid, to be very afraid, but my message from actual experience is that you have nothing to fear.