By Martin Carey
It was a frosty night in December, and the house was finally quiet. My sisters had settled down and Mom had gone to her room. A big silvery moon was shining through the naked trees, casting strange shadows on the walls of my bedroom. As I lay quietly in bed, my restless eight-year-old imagination wouldn’t stop, and that old spooky feeling came creeping back. Looking around the room, I got a sudden chill. Over by the bedroom door loomed a tall, dark shape. It might only be something my mom hung up and nothing more. Or, it could be an evil someone patiently waiting for me to fall asleep. Had I done something wrong to invite this evil guest?
The tall, dark shape didn’t move, and the room was deathly quiet. Cringing under the covers just made my fears grow, so I whispered, “Dear Jesus, please send your angels to protect me!” Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I leapt up to turn on the light. Sure enough, over by the door hung my wet jacket and pants, just where Mom left them. Relieved, I turned off the light and crawled back under the covers for some sleep.
Dark rooms were frightening for one reason—ghosts! Ghost stories told us of the spirits of dead people who were not necessarily evil, but unpredictable. They haunted the living to avenge an injustice done to them, to relieve their loneliness, or maybe to help someone they loved. Hauntings, I understood, involved unfinished business that bound the departed spirits to people and places.
That idea was scary enough, but the ghosts I feared most weren’t the typical spooks that floated around in haunted houses; they were more sinister. We Adventists were taught that there were no spirits of the dead. A ghost was really an evil angel, and that knowledge didn’t lessen my fears; it only made them worse.
We grew up hearing blood-chilling stories about Satan. When people tried to contact spirits of the dead, played with Ouija boards, or even spoke certain phrases, bad things happened. Even if we never played with the occult, we learned that disobedient children can drive away their guardian angels and invite Satan in. Those children could expect evil spirits to come and visit them as ghosts to terrify them, deceive them, or to come and claim them.
Universal fear
The fear of ghosts is universal, and children from around the world report seeing things that appeared to be the spirits of dead relatives. Secular psychology often attributes encounters with ghosts as grief reactions, hallucinations, or as wish-fulfillment. In other words, ghost “experiences” only reflect psychological needs and human evolution. As a Christian professional I have listened to many stories of ghostly encounters, and I have learned that fear of ghosts can be complicated. As Christians we see a larger reality than the purely physical world of neurons and animal drives. There are “principalities and powers,” unseen evil spirits that work for our ultimate destruction. As frail humans with sin, wisdom and compassion are needed. Sometimes, that wisdom comes from unexpected places.
Recently we watched the 1999 film, Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense,” starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment. Not quite a horror film, this insightful psychological thriller is haunted with creepy ghosts and a surprise ending. Whatever you think of Shyamalan’s other films, this one has something significant to say about the human condition.
Willis plays Dr. Crowe, a brilliant child psychologist who won acclaim for his ability to understand and help troubled children. Crowe has not always succeeded, as we learn in a tragic encounter with a tormented former patient, Vincent Grey. Grey waits for Crowe in his apartment one night and shoots him in the stomach before killing himself. Crowe wants to redeem that failure, and later meets his greatest therapy challenge in Cole, a little boy with a big secret. Cole hides his secret from everyone, until he finally confides to Dr. Crowe; “I see dead people.” He sees restless ghosts everywhere, day and night, and some of them come looking for him. He doesn’t play with the occult and never wanted this terrifying gift. He wants to be a normal kid, not the scared little freak that others see.
At first, Crowe diagnoses Cole’s ghosts as hallucinations, a symptom of severe mental illness. Cole knows Crowe doesn’t believe him and guards his dark secret. Despite using his best therapeutic techniques, Crowe isn’t making any progress with his troubled patient. The psychologist is struggling with his own troubled marriage, unable to communicate with his wife who has become strangely distant. Cole asks him one day, “Are you a good psychologist?” The doctor answers, “I used to be.” As his life deteriorates around him, his failures drive his obsession to understand Cole’s ghosts. Crowe’s own problems are much deeper than he knows, and his darkest secret isn’t revealed until the end of the film.
The ghosts are very busy chasing their delusions. As Cole begins to trust his psychologist, he shares some insightful details about the dead. “They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see.” Most intriguing of all, “They don’t know they’re dead.” The dead walk about in a false reality relentlessly driven by their passions. Obsessed with unfulfilled desires and tragic memories, they busy themselves with useless attempts to right wrongs and find vindication. That is why they seek out frightened little Cole, the one person who perceives their plight. Cole becomes a little therapist for troubled ghosts, looking for some resolution to their torments to give them peace.
Who are the dead?
At this point, you might ask, “Why do you recommend that movie about ghosts? Christians should stay away from anything that promotes spiritualism.” Both the Old and New Testaments forbid us from attempting communication with the dead. Deuteronomy 18 says all occult and spiritualistic activities are an “abomination to the Lord.” The dead “have no more share in all that is done under the sun” (Eccl. 9:6). Occult activity is linked with the sin of idolatry in 1Samuel 15:23; and listed with the sins of “the flesh” in Galatians 5:20.
There are circumstances when we are asked to speak with the dead, according to Scripture. The Bible also tells that the dead walk among us, and we must encounter them. The fact is that without the Spirit’s regenerating power, we are all dead. Until God miraculously shines the light of His gospel and speaks into us, “Let light shine out of darkness,” we are among the walking dead. We all have lived in a false reality driven by our passions. Lost souls cannot resolve their issues, for our problems have a spiritual root. Spiritual death is our natural state until the Spirit shines the gospel life into us.
Without Christ we are the walking dead, and we don’t know we’re dead. Our perceptions of ultimate reality are false, and like Cole’s ghosts, we tend to see only what we want to see. The spiritually dead are cursed to pursue satisfaction through their insatiable passions and resentments, a slavish and futile quest:
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1-3).
It is not a zombie apocalypse or the vengeful ghosts in our attic we need to fear. Satan doesn’t need an invitation into the lives and homes of those who don’t know Jesus. The best trick of the dark side is not to haunt us with some frightening apparition, but to make us comfortable while fulfilling our dreams of self-sufficiency. It is true, Satan may harass us or make a grandly deceptive appearance, but he is not the one we are to fear. Rather, we fear the One who can destroy both body and soul in hell (Matthew 10:28). Successful people who live upstanding lives can be as lost and spiritually dead as the mass murderer.
Some of you reading these words feel very alive as you calmly read this, aware of your heart beating and your mind thinking, and yet, you are among the spiritually dead. We are all comfortably dead before the true light comes to shine in our dead souls. I remember being annoyed at religious people who implied that I was missing something in my soul. I was a psychotherapist and I understood my issues, thank you very much. What I was missing, however, was ultimate life, the Person that gave His life for comfortably ruined people. To be alive is to see and know Him. Those who are alive love His glory, revealed in His life, death, and rising.
Ghost stories remind us of the ultimate questions of living and dying, as misinformed as they may be. They tell us of how futile and hopeless our plight is in stark terms. They can also spark meaningful conversations with non-Christians who are thinking about their mortality. Everyone has those quiet moments when we wonder where we go when we die.
“He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
For that reason, we must not be afraid to speak with the dead walking among us; they need the living to listen to their pain and show them the way to true life. †
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