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Apparition Types: "Post Mortem"

Started by PPI Tracy, April 22, 2010, 04:27:09 PM

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PPI Tracy

(reposted from "Public Parapsychology")
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The term apparition, from the Latin word apparere (meaning ?to show oneself?), may be formally defined as:

An experience, usually visual but sometimes in other sense-modalities, in which there appears to be present a person or animal (deceased or living) ... who/which is in fact out of the sensory range of the [witness]? (Thalbourne, 2003).

In other words, it is the experience of the presence of a person or animal ? living or dead ? that is not actually there, which seems to occur primarily through sight, but at times can seem to occur through the other senses (sound, smell, taste, and touch). This term is a bit broader than the more popular term ghost (from the German word geist for ?mind? or ?spirit?), which refers to the apparition of a deceased person, usually in connection with a haunting. 

There are actually several known types of apparitions that have been documented by psychical researchers and parapsychologists since the late 19th century.
They include: crisis apparitions, post-mortem apparitions, deathbed visions, haunting apparitions, and apparitions of the bystander-type. 

Post-mortem:
As implied by its name, a post-mortem apparition appears after a person?s death, anywhere from several hours to several years after. 

About four months after her son Tommy had been tragically murdered, a woman was out walking Tommy?s dog in the daytime and they were passing by the parking lot where Tommy had kept his Jeep when the dog began barking and pulling on the leash. Looking up, the woman saw a young man standing in a blue outfit about 30 feet away, although she could not see him clearly because she was not wearing her glasses. When finally put them on, she recognized Tommy standing there on the sidewalk and smiling at her, wearing a blue outfit he had bought but never got to wear before he died. She immediately called out to him, and she and the dog began running toward him. But then, the image of Tommy seemed to slowly turn around and glide away, his feet being about an inch off the pavement. Despite how fast they ran, the woman and the dog could not catch up to him, even after pursuing him for three blocks. Then, the woman?s sight of her son was abruptly obstructed by some passing schoolgirls, and when she looked up again, the figure of Tommy was gone.

This case has two other interesting aspects to it. Similar to the crisis case, the apparition in this case was apparently witnessed not only by the woman, but also by the dog. It also seemed to suggest an optical effect, as the woman needed her glasses to see the apparition clearly.

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Let's discuss.  Your thoughts?  {8I



PPI Tracy

In 1990, my father passed away suddenly. He was 65 years old.  A few days after the funeral, I was sitting in my living room. I was home alone.  Out of the corner of my eye in the kitchen, I saw movement.  I looked and there was a man with salt and pepper hair, a red flannel shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots, walking across the threshold of the open doorway.  It was my father.  It was only for a split second, but I saw him. 

A few days later, I was sitting on the edge of my couch, talking about my Dad to my husband.  I felt my husband put his arm around my shoulders to comfort me.  I turned to hug him.  My husband was still sitting at his computer, 10 feet away.  I guess you wouldn't call this an "apparition" but I felt he was there, just the same.