Do ghosts exist?

The question surrounding the existence of ghosts is as old as curiosity itself. At a certain point in my life I became extremely fascinated by the possibility of their existence. First, there was the case of my big sister who "saw" ghosts, then, the case of my young brother who had strange sensations and finally, the matter of my cousin-sister Elinah, a witch-doctor.

Other people who seek an answer to this strange question do so for reasons I may not be able to provide in this short article. Mine was a pressing desire to understand a dimension of life and of our existence that remained in the shadows, undocumented. Our family seemed to criss-cross ghost experiences! I wanted to be able to stand in front of other people and speak about ghosts in the same way as we speak about worms - unfettered by the unknown, unimpeded by the strange phenomenon surrounding occurrences of ghosts.

Why should the common man not talk about such interesting creatures if they truly exist? Why did they remain in the shadows if indeed they existed. Why were ghosts in our culture almost always related in terms of the haunted places? These and many other questions should occupy the common man whose only true desire is to live and be bothered with nothing more.

SjambokMy sister Ellie indeed 'saw' ghosts. Every time they approached our home she would rise up as one in a trance and begin to chase them. My father learned to arm her with a sjambok. With it she ran around the house, chasing invisible beings while saying "go away from here," and lashing out with the weapon in her hand. This happened mostly in day time. She just got up and said, "Dad, those people are coming." Dad knew the invisible beings were coming.

Ellie heard them, she sensed them when they were still afar off. She got up and started to chase them away.

As soon as the beings left she too calmed down and returned to her normal senses. I never could understand. I watched her do this over many years growing up at Hakwambwa Primary School. 

My sister died a few months before my wedding, in 1988. I was at her bedside when she breathed her last. She knew I loved her dearly. I know she loved me too. Her conversion took place in Chingola nearly one year before her death. This is how it happened.

In those days I was praying for her salvation. I went to visit her in her house in Chingola. I found her sickly and her two little babies with her - Mwelwa and Fridah. I stayed for a week in all. On the day of my arrival she gave me a room to use. I put down my weapon - the Bible - and anointed the house and the room where I would spend my days. I always did that because different houses are dedicated to different gods other than the Living God of Abraham.

On the first night I could not sleep. I wondered what the problem might be. So, I knelt down in earnest prayer to the Living God and pleaded the blood of Jesus for an answer. The LORD heard my prayer and answered. He showed me that the house was filled with enemy spirits. I saw in my dream that the very room where I was sleeping was a base of operations. I woke up after the vision. The time was just after 2 AM.

I knocked on Ellie's bedroom and asked her to the sitting room where I opened the scripture and explained the cross of Jesus and the new life found in Jesus. I explained that the enemy had set up camp in her house and I intended to stand on her side to fight them out. She agreed. She was terrified at first, but after my assurances that everything would be alright she calmed down. I prayed for her and laid my hands upon her head in prayer.

I asked her to bring every herb, concoction, root, or paraphernalia any witch-doctor or healer gave her. She brought everything and filled the floor of the room in which I had spread my bed. I received everything in the name of the LORD Jesus. I asked her to acknowledge her wrong doing to the LORD God of Abraham. She did asking for forgiveness.

I gave her a basin of tap water to wash her hands while she asked the LORD to cleanse her hands, feet, ears, eyes and heart. By 3:30 AM she was ready to return to her room. I prayed and went to sleep too. 

In a dream I received confirmation that the battle was thoroughly won. I thanked the LORD.

I saw her in the morning before she went for work. She was looking better than the day before, happier and refreshed. Still more, I wondered what she thought about our night activity. I did not ask her. I encouraged her to go to a local Pentecostal Assemblies church which then was led by a man of God I knew personally. She said she would try.

I left Chingola after a week of intense prayer in her home. I also assured her that she would be on my prayer list all of the days I was away in Lusaka. 

I never asked her what she did with her faith in God. I knew that when it happened, whatever the LORD did in her life, she would reach out to me as a valued brother, friend, and helper who stood with her during the most difficult times of her life.

Monday, March 9, 1987, I reported for work as usual at 7:30 AM. I was a lecturer at Evelyn Hone College. Just as I was leaving the staff room for the laboratory I received a call redirected from the departmental switchboard. This was a long distance call, I was told.

"Halo, this is MacDonald." I responded.

The voice of my sister on the other side was alarming to me.

"Mac, I hope I can talk to you for a moment." She inquired, "Are you in a place you can take my call or should I call you later?"

"No, no, I am in a good place," I said, putting down the papers and keys I was holding in my hand. I pulled a chair and prepared myself for a bombshell.

"I have just come out of the bathroom, Mac, and I am so overwhelmed with what I experienced in there." She said excitedly, sounding as though she would begin crying.

"What happened, tell me everything." I encouraged her.

"As I lay back in the warm water of the bath something like a cloud descended upon me. I entered it involuntarily like someone traveling through a place. I was in the cloud no sooner. I saw many beautiful sights and heard music never sang on earth. I heard so much wonderful sounds in my ears. While I was in there I started to break apart with the pain of joy. I could not contain the joy in my body. When that happened the cloud began to draw back and I was alone in the bath room." She cried. I did not know what to do other than urge her to continue to the end because I was still listening and interested in what she was telling me.

"Then, suddenly, again, the cloud descended on me and I was in the cloud. In there I lost myself completely. I felt like a new person altogether. So much peace, so much joy, so much music, so much happiness!" She continued to sob.

"I did not want to leave the place of so much happiness. But the cloud began slowly to draw away again." Then she stopped and cried loudly so that I could hear her attempts to control herself.

"Here I am now and I am telling you this. If it happened two times I would have found it hard to explain what happened. But for the third time, while my eyes were wide open and I could feel myself, the cloud descended on me in my bathroom. This time I heard a voice saying to me, 'I love you.'" She was totally out of control now. She was crying loudly at this point.

Now that I am here and it happened less than an hour ago, I know what I am telling you is the truth and I remember every detail as I have told you."

"I am listening," I assured her, "and I will remember every detail you told me."

"What does it mean Mac, will I live? Am I dying?" She inquired.

"No, you are not dying; you are not dying Ellie. That was the LORD God of Abraham showing you what awaits you in heaven. You just visited your future home in heaven. Remember what the Bible says, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" Rev 21:4.

I spoke to my sister for longer than thirty minutes on that day. Never before, nor ever again did I have a chance such as that to speak to my dear sister Ellie on the phone.

Ellie was a guardian angel to us, she saw the invisible. She warned the family of them and fought them. She was equipped with eyes to see through the mist, and to hear through the waves of the air. Did she see ghosts? Do ghosts exist?

This brings me to the case of my young brother Leonard. He was my best friend. Leonard knew I loved him very dearly. Although I was his elder brother we grew up together, sharing spaces and facilities in home. Our parents cared for us equally and saw us up to the time we were in high school where this story began to happen.

One day Leonard was sitting in a chair by the table. He said, "Dad, someone is blowing cold air at my leg." Was my brother suffering from malaria? What was it?

Air was coming into the house, it was hard to understand a person saying 'someone' was blowing air at their legs. But my brother insisted, "Dad, the air is increasing, please stop them." Then I knew we were facing something invisible. Ellie was long gone from home, she lived alone with her friends in a town far from home.

Without Ellie we were like a lost ship, blown with the wind, unprotected and unsecured.

Then my brother said, "Dad, I am feeling very cold, please give me a blanket." One blanket, then two and finally three. He was still feeling cold. The night air was warm, how could anyone feel cold on a night like this? It had to be something else, someone invisible to the eyes.

I never understood how Leonard was healed of this all the time we lived together. From time to time the invisible air blower would be at it again. From time to time Leonard felt unnaturally cold when the air in the room was actually very warm. Was it ghosts? Do ghosts exist? Do they do tings like this?

My sister Elinah rarely visited anyone. She was a witch-doctor. Her life was guided by spirits; she only went where she was directed to go. So, it gave me the greatest pleasure that one day she came to our home to visit. 

To many people Elinah was a BIG person who did marvelous things and dealt in important matters of life and death. And indeed that was so. She was a true witch-doctor who worked by the spirit. However she was home with us. This gave her a certain sense of love and protection she lacked elsewhere.

I was young and impressionable and I did not have a personal faith in the LORD Jesus. That is the phase of this encounter with her. I loved Elinah very much and she knew it. She loved me too very much and I knew it. When we met we stayed together. We looked out for each other. I looked out for Elinah and she did the same for me. I had not met her husband although I saw him in pictures. I was yet to meet their two children.

So many things had happened and I was grown up, so I could ask her to explain the mysteries to me. 

One day, while speaking with her, I turned to her and asked Elinah, "Do ghosts exist? Have you ever seen a ghost."

To say she turned white is not an accurate statement. But she changed momentarily. I cannot explain what happened to my sister, the witch-doctor. She was avoiding eye contact with me. This was entirely unusual.

I tried again, "Elinah, can you tell me if ghosts exist or if you have seen one? What do ghost look like?"

Finally, I got a glimpse of her eyes. I was not speaking to my sister! I was speaking to a stranger! I knew I was on shaky ground. 

She never said a word about ghosts.

Later, when Elinah went to the market, I narrated my failed conversation about ghosts to my mother. My mother had many stories of ghosts, none of them was first hand, and failed my validity test for a real ghost story. Well, when Elinah returned from the market she called me to the side and lovingly told me she heard me speaking to my mother about our earlier conversation. I never opened the subject with Elinah again. Until the day she died she loved and respected me and feared my God greatly and I in trun loved my sister deeply and prayed for her salvation and release from satanic bondage of witch-craft.

Do ghosts exist? Yes they do. They are not quite what people think they are. For instance, they are not shadows or shells of people who died. Furthermore, there are no good ghosts. Ghosts are actually demons, fallen angels who followed Lucifer in the fall out of Heaven, of which the LORD Jesus speaks in Luke 10:18, "And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."

Demons do not have physical or earthly bodies and they desire to have bodies. My sister Elinah would have told me to be careful what I ask. In the last days of her life she tried to turn to the LORD. To the extent that she pleaded for his forgiveness my sister probably received God's forgiveness but the enemy does not forgive and it is likely she lost everything in the process and died of a broken heart. Her husband died first, her two children died in a short space of time one after the other. She lost her property and returned to her village a broken woman with nothing in her hands. He is a bad devil. Jesus is our good God.

Do ghosts exist? They do; they are demons and they are already angry, out to kill, steal, and destroy. Jesus has come that we may have life and have it in all fullness" John 10:10.