Are ghosts real? Uncanny tales and the resurrection

Are ghosts real? In October 2022 Danny Robins, a writer and journalist, launched an investigation which became an incredibly popular podcast series, The Battersea Poltergeist.

Listeners’ response was overwhelming and many sent in their own stories of experiences with the supernatural. Robins took some of those and made another series he called Uncanny. It has become hugely popular podcast and is now a TV series.

Each programme gives someone a chance to describe their encounter with the supernatural. Two experts also share their insights. Evelyn Hollow, a paranormal investigator, serves as “team believer”; she is sympathetic to a supernatural explanation. Ciarán O’Keeffe is the opposite, “team sceptic”; he is a professional psychologist with a clear understanding of how human beings can fool themselves.

Ghost stories seem to offer the possibility of an answer to one of life’s big questions: “Is there life after death?” Uncanny, through the plausible experiences of dozens of people, gives us an answer; a definite maybe.

There are two ghost stories in the Bible. The first is in the Old Testament (1 Sam. 18:3-20) where we meet Saul, a desperate Israelite king, who engages a medium to contact his dead mentor, Samuel. Samuel appears and talks with Saul.

Or does he? If this were an episode of Uncanny, Team Believer might observe that Saul had asked the medium to “consult a spirit for him”, and the text says that she saw “a spirit coming up out of the ground”. She may suggest that this might not be Samuel, but another spirit passing itself off as the prophet. Elsewhere the text says it is Samuel but the whole passage is ambivalent; maybe it is him, but perhaps it’s not.

Team Sceptic may suggest that the whole folie à episode is a vivid description of deux, two stressed individuals losing their grip on reality and reinforcing one-another’s psychosis. “There’s nothing real in the room”, Ciarán O’Keeffe might say, “It is all going on inside their heads.”

However we interpret it, this event at the end of Saul’s life shows how harmful it is to contact the dead. You won’t ever know who you are really talking to, and it could destroy you. Just look what it did to Saul and Israel.

You will find the second story in the New Testament (Luke 24:36-43) where Jesus, having been crucified and buried, is now alive and seeking to convince His friends that He is not a ghost! “Look at my hands and my feet,” He says. “Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

I’ve listened to every episode of Uncanny and I am struck by how the witnesses’ experience of the paranormal is fleeting, indefinable, and highly subjective. The contrast with the resurrection appearances could not be greater, “Touch me!” says Jesus. There can be no ambivalence here, the only rational explanation is that it really happened.

Danny Robins is a gifted broadcaster and Uncanny is fascinating stuff, but the only real evidence for life after death is the resurrection of Jesus. Team believer is “in Christ”; that means we share in His life and will follow Him through death and into life everlasting. Everything else, from every other source, is unreliable.

You may encounter the uncanny in your life sometime. Don’t be afraid; “He that is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Simple prayer is your weapon, but don’t do it alone. Get your church to help you.

Oh yes, and don’t always assume there is a spiritual explanation. I have seen folie à deux twice in my life and it was pretty scary. Those folks needed a doctor as much as prayer.