YMMV on ghost stories in general, but I love them and for my money, any ghost story that follows roughly this formula:

-Lost faith
-Get haunted
-Rumors of witchcraft
-Ghost actually a demon
-Exorcism

Are Christian propaganda and their telling should be regarded with suspicion.

Usually these tales involve a loving family, down on their luck, until one day they move to their "dream house" and things are looking up until the hauntings begin.

Usually the generic witchcraft is subbed out for voodoo. Most often the house patriarch experiences nothing.

I've consumed many a ghost story, folks and fellows, and this is a pretty clear cookie cutter formula. You'll note the tellers of these particular tales are usually always Catholics.

In reality, believe it or not, exorcism is a legitimately difficult thing to get to. A lot of red tape and clearance is involved. It is the Catholic version of DEFCON 1.

The sheer commonality of exorcism in these tales is a major clue to their falsity.

Far more likely you will get a blessing from the local priest, if they take the story seriously enough. Usually in tales like this, the blessing rarely takes or, if it does, only temporarily and the haunting returns with much greater intensity.

Eventually extreme measures like exorcism are all that is left to be done. Usually the story ends well, the family escapes with their lives..but the haunting lingers on to terrorize the next unsuspecting family.

A warning to those who may toy with powers that are not the Church!

Very often stories exactly like these are highly published and sold as "True". Now obviously not everybody is a believer but there's always just enough doubt left to make you wonder "...could it be true?" and there's a hook for Christianity to catch on to.

An example of one I am reading now. It is a thrilling tale and I love ghost stories, but this one is following the formula to the letter.

Where might this be malicious you may ask? You'd have to ask somebody more well-versed in religious propaganda and persecution than me, I only know what I've seen widely spread in the media, like the above book....

...but a good example off the top of my head would be how often these stories villify voodoo or use dybbuks from Jewish mythology as the antagonistic entity.

All I say is: Enjoy these stories if you do like them, but be aware of what you're consuming and what it's meant to do.

Sometimes, the motivation for these stories is money too, let us not forget that time honored motivation. Face it, this story format SELLS and has for decades if not centuries.

Once again, YMMV on ghost stories and your belief in them, but isn't it interesting that this one format continues to proliferate and give Catholicism such a good image while also making it incredibly difficult to believe somebody when they tell you about a paranormal experience?

Cassandra truth, or the Boy Who Cried Wolf comes to mind. Hear enough tales that all sound alike and you're less likely to believe the more incredible ones.

Ah yes, because I just now read a passage in The Uninvited that details a character cutting themselves because of the ghosts, let us not forget how often this ghost story format demonizes, if you'll pardon the pun, mental health.

It's as constant a target as Wicca is.

"It's not because mental health is an issue effecting millions worldwide and there is no very good system in place to help them, no not at all, it's demons and witchcraft that make people depressed and self-harmful."

How very neatly this passage blames that girl's problems on Biblical demons and how easily it therefore is to dismiss them without doing anything else except BELIEVE HARDER.

If she's based on a real person, I hope she found the legit help she needed when this book was written.

Something else that comes up in these cookie cutter Christian ghost stories is, ya guessed it, misogyny.

But that's something that dates back to ghost stories immemorial because women are often characterized as "the weaker sex" and therefore much more vulnerable to spooks.

I'm sure there are a number of theories for why the patriarch of the house in these stories is immune to ghosts. My money's half on misogyny and half on not being home all the time as the women are often written to be.

I can't go on about this as much as the rest of the thread, but it's just funny to me that the victim of a haunt is usually the women and children. If the guy ever notices anything, it is always met with a "That's weird, get over it" attitude. "Just ignore it, it'll be fine."