I had a conversation with a colleague who claimed he could see people in a room who no one else can see. I did a little research on the question: “Is there scientific proof ghosts exist?” An article that appeared in the Voice of America News, “Neuroscientists awaken ‘ghosts’ in brain” (https://www.voanews.com/a/neuroscientists-awaken-ghosts-in-brain/2510807.html) suggests that the feeling of presence (FoP) may be a neurological phenomenon.

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne studied the brains of patients who regularly feel a ‘presence’. Using MRI, they found interferences in three areas of the brain involved in self-awareness, movement, and position in space. They hypothesized that the FoP resulted from an interference between our sense of movement and our position in space.

To test the idea, they seated healthy, blindfolded participants alone in a room. The researchers instructed the subjects to move a lever in front of them. A robot reproduced the subject’s movements exactly by touching the subject’s back. The subjects then felt that they were touching their own backs.

Then the researchers introduced a time delay between the subject’s and the robot’s movements. Even a slight delay caused a subject to feel that someone else was touching his back. Subjects felt the presence of up to four ‘ghosts’ in the room. Some felt it so strongly they asked to stop the experiment.

The FoP can be explained as a brain activity.

But what about ‘seeing’ ghosts? It has been shown that visions can be caused by slight vibrations of the eyeball when exposed to low frequency sounds at 18 khz; or by the cellular arrangements that make our peripheral vision very sensitive to motion; or by the tendency of the mind to see patterns where there are none (e.g., bunnies in clouds, face of Jesus on a toast, etc.); to neuronal sensitivity to electromagnetic fields from electronic devices. When a Ghostbuster detects an electromagnetic disturbance, it is the latter that causes the ghost, not the other way around.

We can also conjure ghostly visions to cope with stress or grief. Or we have a brain lesion.

As to hearing voices, this is another phenomenon with a scientific basis, which I will write about later.

These studies do not prove spirits do not exist, only that most of what we think are spirits are not. Some phenomena for which we have indisputable eyewitness accounts and recordings have no medical or physical explanation. I think that many sensible people like St. Bernadette of Lourdes and the Children of Fatima saw something, someone. The Catholic Church rigorously tests these accounts, and even where the Church says they are legitimate spiritual phenomena, she does not require the faithful to believe in them.

‘Demonic’ possessions for which there are no scientific explanations, are another example; they are relatively rare, too. Also hard to explain are demonic infestations, e.g., ‘poltergeists’, and demonic obsessions. I believe the devil is real. But, I think he does his best work in the shadows, where he is not seen, preferring to destroy us by temptation. He works less on fear, more on weaknesses of character, preferring especially those who are gloomy, vengeful, hateful, lustful. Also those depressed and bored. He does not mind if mental disease is credited instead of him.

I do not think there is a third eye. But I will listen for insight. No pun intended.