My 'strange comparison' was originally made by Bertrand Russell...

The point is that just 'knowing' something to be so doesn't cause it to be so - it is in fact an admission that there is no reason to believe it is so.

"My 'strange comparison' was originally made by Bertrand Russell..."

Well, good for Bertrand, but it doesn't make it any less of a strange comparison.

Of course some things are tangible....but when intangible things are experienced it's very confusing and difficult to explain, especially when they happen to someone who likes to makes sense of things, but can't. I don't claim to be anything other than fairly questioning, reasonably intelligent middle aged woman who loved her old Mum and had a deep bond with her.

I cannot explain what happened, I merely recounted the tale because it was an amazing experience, which opened my mind to there being 'more'.

I also appreciate how easy it is to scoff (a normal reaction?) unless you are part of such a strange set of experiences.

I do believe in Angels, and have seen a Ghost and experienced dreams that have came true. I will look out for your Book :-)

Bert knew whereof he wrote... I don't see what is so strange about it. The comparison is between someone who 'just knew' something which turned out to be wrong, and someone who 'just knows' something about something supernatural. Neither case is proved by saying 'I just know it'.

I believe that Angels are there to help us in times of distress, The Angels come from the normal spiritual world,here then go through a period of training after their earth life forms are discarded,
They have been argued about for centuries! There are plenty of tales of these Spiritual "people"in most cultures! It is said, but my quotation maybe inaccurate, -" He that hath eyes,let him see and he that hath ears let him hear" , I think that each of us experiences some form of "supernatural"
feeling over our lifetime, The quest is an individual one!

I believe that morphine makes ill and dying people hallucinate.

I married an angel.

As far as the spiritual kind of angels go ...
Why not?
Angels have a track record across many cultures and there are lots of 'my encounter with angels' type books on the market.
Even if angels don't exist it does us no harm at all to think that perhaps they do.

approx. 30/40 miniutes before DH died, he looked up at the right hand corner of the bedroom up near the ceiling, his eyes wide open and staring for a about 20 seconds,like there was something there, he then half closed them, I asked him could he hear me? he nodded, he then sort of winced a little and held his right hand side of his chest, I said "are you in pain" but he didn't answer, then about 15 minutes later even though he was so weak he lifted his arm and waved towards the bottom of the bed, (there was no one else there only myself at that time and I was sat at his right hand side up near the top of the bed) he did this two more times, three in all, he died about 20 minutes later, I just wish I knew what he had seen and who he was waving to! it gets very frustrating, he didn't say anything only a little mutter now and then as he had a Morphine patch on. I just wish I knew what he saw and who he was waving to.

bikergran It sounds like someone came for him. Who would you think it was?

My grandad called us all to his house, I'd be about 22. He told us that his mum had come for him. He was 63. He said he woke up, she was at the bottom of his bed, she walked round to my grandma's side, tucked the blankets in and then walked back. He told us he was about to go and gave us all envelopes containing money. It was what he wanted to leave us. A couple of weeks later they went on holiday, a coach trip with Shearings to Scarborough. He had just had a dance on the dance floor, first night, my grandma had sat back down, he asked her did she want a drink. She said no, he went to the bar, bought a brandy and sat down. He slumped forward. He had had a massive heart attack and had died. He had told my grandma that the tucking the bedclothes in meant that she would be ok. She lived until she was 88, another 25 years. Very strange.

I do know that when I got divorced 13 years ago, I had a very comforting and distinct feeling that I was being "carried" by someone. It lasted about 3 months over the time I moved out of the marital home and into my council house and got it organised. When I was settled and away from my abusive ex husband the presence left me.

I've had a similar experience coming into this house, although not feeling carried the same, just that there was someone with a hand helping me getting this place. I put my bid in for this house in July. I came 6th on the list. I thought no more of it. In September I got phoned up telling me I was being offered it, five other people, for whatever reason didn't get it. It was the one house I had dreamt of getting when I bid. When I looked on the map it is in the middle of a triangle of where my Auntie had lived all her married life. I had found a wedding photo of her a few months before July and framed it and put it up. I do hope she had something to do with it, the house now makes me feel like I have come home to where she was.

Morphine produces hallucinations!-- Of course it does, so do many other things. Mendicants of both legal and illegal variety, A number of field and garden plants can cause hallucinations. but that does neither prove or disprove the existence of a spiritual nature!

Mendicants? Beggars? You must have predictive text turned on.

gramps! Where have you been? Welcome back! (mendicants allowing, of course)

My sister a recently retired minister of religion has sat at the bedside of many people as they were about to die. Many times she had been called to sit with people on their deathbed because their families couldn't be there and in some cases couldn't be bothered.

When my father was dying he was also looking at a particular spot in the room. Dad kept looking over and at one stage he stretched his arms up as though about to hug someone. My sister said she had seen this sort of thing happen many times.

When my sister conducted her first funeral it was sadly for a twenty two year old who was killed in an accident. I remember her saying how devastated the family were at the time. While we were sitting with dad she told us how the father of the 22 year old had recently died and his daughter had been sitting with him during his last days. The daughter had told my sister that not long before her father died he said her brother (the one who had died at 22) and her grandfather and her grandfather's brother were standing at the end of his bed. Later that day she went out for a cigarette, when she came back her father had just died.

My father died at a hospice and while there I sometimes I spoke to another woman while we happened to be in the kitchen at the same time. Her brother, in his seventies, had been there for three weeks. She said he had been doing it tough and there was only his partner and her with him. Before I left the hospice I saw her again and told her my father had just died. Her brother had also died around the same time and she said he had been calling out to their parents and watching something just before he died.

Interesting how it is always deceased family and friends people appear to see. If they were hallucinating I imagine they would see all sorts of things.

I also had things happen rubylady when I was about to leave my ex partner. He was very violent, my DDs feared for my safety. Lots of other unexplained things happened around that time. One time the large sliding door of our huge shed started loudly banging. I could see it moving upwards and then slamming down. No one except us was on the property, there was no wind either. Ex ran outside thinking the fifty year old pine tree had crashed down on the roof. It was a very strange thing to happen, we could think of no explanation.

I believe people will come to their own conclusions, often from their experiences. No one really knows or has all the answers.

Some very comforting incidents here Faye. Thank you.

Last year on returning from a long trip away from home I misplaced my car keys; my car was outside on a single track road waiting to be unloaded. An angry person drew up behind it in his car bellowing at me to move the car. I was frantic, searching for my spare keys which I had hidden so carefully two weeks previously but just couldn't uncover. Just then the phone went and it was a Brazilian friend who believes our ancestors are always ready to help us, but that we have to ask them first; she told me to close my eyes and ask my mother where I had hidden my spare keys. "That's ridiculous," I replied, "she died in 1988." I was desperate so I did it. Immediately my eyes popped open; I went straight to the china cupboard, unstacked a pile of vegetable dishes and voila, my keys.

"Neither case is proved by saying 'I just know it'."

Well, I agree feetlebaum.

I know nothing. (Was that a line from 'Ello,'Ello?)

I wish I did.

I can't prove anything either, but the fact that I witnessed all these incredible happenings before my Mum died has taught me to keep an open mind. That's the lesson I learned from it.

It is of course consoling to imagine our loved ones are leaving us for another realm - one we know nothing of - and that relatives who have gone before might be there waiting for them. It is some small comfort when we lose someone. We want to believe they've left suffering behind for something better, but of course wanting it doesn't make it so.

All I know is, my mind wasn't playing tricks and I saw what I saw. I've analysed it and discussed it. I don't KNOW anything, but I do now wonder if death is maybe a stage we pass through when we cast off our earthly bodies.

Who knows? I certainly don't.

"Knowing" - and sure it doesn't prove anything - can be a sixth sense (or should that be "sixth sense"). Moments before I was the victim of a mugging, I "knew" something wasn't right, but there was no apparent reason for me to feel that way. I just knew.

Sorry bit off topic.

Or you heard and saw marginal things that you didn't notice at a conscious level... I'm pretty sure that's how 'intuition' works.

So perhaps intuition is a form of knowing and we can dispense with the inverted commas ...

I have a cellar beneath my house. One day I unlocked the door and went in and was immediately sure, without knowing why, that there was a frightened animal trapped in there. I searched everywhere (It is full of junk so it took some doing) and eventually lifted an old-fashioned lawnmower to find a hedgehog hiding under it, which must have come in when the door was last open. Just before I lifted it I realised that I could smell fear. I could not have told you what terror smelt like, but I recognised it then, and I must have smelt it subliminally as soon as I entered.

Our senses are better than we realise, so some at least of these experiences of "just knowing" are due to our perceiving something and processing the information without our consciousness realising it.

Perhaps Grannyknot's mugger was perspiring with anxiety at the thought of his intentions, and releasing more adrenaline than usual, and it was detectable in his smell?

When my poor DH was seriously ill in hospital - I was sitting by his bed with two of my sons. We had been told that my DH had weeks to live.

My eldest son stood up to go - and immediately sat down again. It was as if someone or something had pushed him back. He is a non believer but the look of surprise on his face told me that it was more than just a feeling that he shouldn't leave.

My DH passed away about an hour after that.

I will always remember the force that put my son back in his chair and the look of astonishment on his face. Was it divine intervention - who can tell.

When I was leaving the hospital - feeling devastated - I saw my mum and dad standing at the end of a corridor - they were smiling and beckoning to me. Tricks of the mind - I'm still not sure.

Ruby I really would love to know..maybe his mum..

I am intuitive and have given many psychic readings to people in the past i.e.to a stewardess who I warned to leave her job because of a strong feeling of foreboding although I couldn't tell her why. She left and avoided going down with the plane - saved her but not much good to the people that died.

I used to think re-incarnation was what it was all about - but not now as I prefer, powerful, provable genetic inheritance. I have always distanced myself from what I called - The New Age movement - full of weirdos, people turning it into a religion and money grabbers and have no time for mumbo- jumbo i.e. seeing a notice on the counter of a mystical shop, saying goods cant be returned because of bad vibes - made me laugh.

It doesn't matter how pragmatic you are there are still things you cant explain - one morning recently I woke up, after sleeping alone, with three, bloodied scratch marks across my jaw - like a small fork-like instrument had been dragged across. I tried to do the same with my nails but they are too blunt - what does that tell us? that invisible things can make physical things happen, nothing new there. I had a similar experience in the past - waking up in the morning with a love-bite style bruise on my neck and on the inside of my knees on another occasion - sleeping alone (didn't expect anyone to believe me).

I used to ghost hunt and go into peoples house and sense what was happening - fascinating but not really proof of anything if I'd seen anything physical I would have run a mile - such is the normal fear factor. I still can't see why someone in ghost form would want to hang around in a house or something - maybe traumatic deaths have that effect.

As far as angels - when I was having chemo therapy I saw an angel walking along with their arm around another patients shoulder - the angel was about 7 foot tall with long fairish- red hair, straight parted in the middle, wearing a white round neck dress on the knee and huge white wings, bare legs and feet. I thought if angels were going to appear that would be a good situation. I also experienced an over-whelming urge to be able to heal people instantly, that I came across who were also going through the hell of cancer, why not, it all seemed so un-necessary - but never put it to the test.

This thing about ghosts appearing at the end of the bed - this could be because people go through the point of half awake half asleep (like when you wake up from a nightmare) and are possibly more receptive as different brain waves come into action for sleep.

I hope I am allowed to voice a personal scepticism about angels, ghosts, psychics and paranormal phenomena. No offence to those of you who have experienced unusual events and I know there are stranger things in heaven and on earth Horatio,etc etc, but no, I cannot go along with wings and haloes, particularly as this image of angels is dictated by generations of artists and has no more foundation than a white Anglo-Saxon Jesus with brown hair or God with a long white beard.

As a person dies the brain starts misfiring and along with drugs can cause the person to hallucinate. I have been with relatives in their last few days and they would stare into the distance and pluck at the air as if collecting objects. If it gives you comfort to believe in angels and ghosts coming to collect relatives then so be it but accept that the mind is a very powerful inventor, just look at dreams.