Greetings. I haven't posted in quite a while now, I have just been very busy.

Since I'm back for now I thought it would be an excellent idea to make a post about something I have been meaning to talk about for a while now:
What are spirits, for real?

Let's put the myths to the side for now, as they aren't the topic now. We have all made dozens of posts each about myths and their meanings, but I haven't seen any about personal experiences with spirituality.

By spirituality I don't mean the connection to nature, because whilst that is a perfectly valid spiritual experience and in fact is connected, I more specifically want to talk about "paranormal" stuff but I hate using that word (it's a wrong way of thinking).

So what do I, as a pagan, think about spirits/ghosts? Am I an atheist? No. Have I had any experiences with them? I would say yes and plenty, and not whilst alone. I will tell some of my experiences here in short, and I will understand any scepticism towards me.

I want to stress something important to, THIS THREAD IS NOT RELATED TO THE MYTHS. The myths are not descriptive, they aren't describing literal events and characters. They are EXPRESSIVE, describing something ELSE through SYMBOLSIM.

I however find it easier to contemplate and reflect on my experiences by using the same words and language that the myths use. They are useful symbols to describe our experiences in the world. I stress the word SYMBOLS. So if I use an old concept here, I use it linguistically.

Yeah, I think there is much truth in that. The most confusing (or at least for some people) part of all that arrives when whe question the essence of Being. What makes up a Being? When a memory like that can manifest in a way we can perceive externally through our senses...

... Does it become a being, or is it something else entirely?

Ghosts are definitely ancestor spirits, that much we know, but what *kind* of ancestor spirit I think cannot be ignored. The word draugur, at least in my area, are *lost* ancestor spirits, which is why they prefer the dark over light (unlike elves).

To elaborate, to be lost is to be in the dark, forgotten. That is the reason why they tend to be negative in both myths and anecdotes. They are not something you want to happen to you. They also tend to follow people who have done negative things.

Yeah I don't know why. In England it would seem that many people are happy with living in the old thatch roof houses, sounds comfy imo. In Iceland, I think it would be illegal to live in an old turf house because of "safety hazards," the effect of course being less preservation.

There are not many houses in Iceland older than 100-200 years, mostly because of harsh weather conditions but also because they weren't made of stone but turf instead.

So, they quickly decay and rot into the ground, many turning into almost mound like things. Strange, we always had enough stone but most still didn't use it for anything more than ground work for the walls, and then the walla were made out of turf.