THE GHOST KNOWS YOUR NAME. THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT'S GRANDMA.
What If Some Paranormal Encounters Aren’t the Dead Returning—but Something Else Wearing the Dead Like a Costume?
A WickedDarkness commentary for GraveFreak.com about ghosts, demons, the Witch of Endor, the resurrection of the dead—and why Christians might want to think twice before asking whatever is in the dark to answer them.
You bought the recorder.
You downloaded the ghost-hunting app.
You walked into the old house.
You turned off the lights.
You asked the question.
“Is anybody here?”
And then something answered.
Maybe it knew your name.
Maybe it knew who lived there seventy years ago.
Maybe it knew Grandma’s nickname.
Maybe the voice sounded almost human.
So naturally the next conclusion is:
IT MUST BE A DEAD PERSON.
Really?
How did we establish that?
Because whatever answered said so?
That may be the first problem.
Because if you take the Bible seriously, the supernatural world contains something considerably more dangerous than ghosts.
LIARS.
I BELIEVE SATAN IS REAL
I’m a Christian, so I’ll tell you where I’m coming from.
I don’t believe Satan is a metaphor. I believe he is a real spiritual entity.
The Bible describes an adversary who deceives, tempts and accuses. Paul calls Satan the “god of this world,” and Revelation says he “deceiveth the whole world.”
And here’s a description that matters if we’re going ghost hunting:
“Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.”
— 2 Corinthians 11:14
THE BIBLE’S BAD GUY DOESN’T ALWAYS LOOK LIKE THE BAD GUY.
That’s the point of deception.
Satan isn’t very effective if he walks into the room wearing a red Halloween costume and says:
“Hello. I’m Lucifer. I’m here to destroy your life.”
😂
No. If deception is his business, appearing trustworthy matters.
Which raises a Grave Freak question:
IF A DECEPTIVE SPIRIT WANTED YOU TO TRUST IT, WHAT WOULD IT LOOK LIKE?
Maybe something terrifying. But maybe not.
Maybe your mother. Your grandfather. A confused little girl. An old man who supposedly died in the house.
Maybe somebody you desperately want to hear from again.
BUT ARE DEAD PEOPLE WALKING AROUND?
Christians have argued about what happens immediately after death for a very long time.
Hebrews says:
“It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”
Paul says he would rather be:
“Absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”
The Bible also uses the imagery of death as sleep and points forward to:
THE RESURRECTION.
So Christians disagree about the state between death and resurrection. Are the dead consciously present with God? Asleep awaiting resurrection? How do soul, spirit and body relate?
Interesting questions—but we don’t have to settle them here.
Because there is another question:
WHERE DOES THE BIBLE TEACH THAT GRANDMA SPENDS TUESDAY NIGHT KNOCKING OVER CUPS IN YOUR KITCHEN?
JESUS’ DISCIPLES APPARENTLY KNEW WHAT A GHOST WAS
Here’s one of my favorite strange little details in the Bible.
Jesus comes walking across the water.
His disciples see Him.
And what is their immediate reaction?
They think He’s a spirit.
The King James Version says:
“It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.”
Jesus responds:
“Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.”
Now don’t make that verse say more than it says.
Jesus does not stop walking across the water and deliver a forty-minute seminar titled:
GHOSTS ARE REAL: FIVE THINGS THE DISCIPLES NEED TO KNOW.
😂
Their reaction could simply reflect a common belief in spirits.
Jesus’ response establishes that they were wrong about Him.
It doesn’t necessarily establish whether dead humans regularly appear as ghosts.
But then something even more interesting happens after His resurrection.
“A SPIRIT HATH NOT FLESH AND BONES”
After Jesus rises from the dead, His disciples see Him again.
They are terrified because they think they are seeing a spirit.
This time Jesus gives them something more concrete:
“Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”
— Luke 24:39
Then Thomas gets his own demonstration.
Jesus tells him to examine the wounds.
Touch the hands.
Reach toward His side.
This isn’t somebody’s ghost floating around Jerusalem.
CHRISTIANITY CLAIMS A BODY CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE.
That matters.
But notice something else.
Jesus distinguishes His resurrected physical body from what His disciples thought was a spirit.
He doesn’t say:
“You idiots. Spirits don’t exist.”
He says, essentially:
LOOK AT ME. TOUCH ME. THAT ISN’T WHAT I AM.
Does that prove ghosts are dead humans?
No.
But it certainly leaves us with an interesting biblical supernatural world.
And then we get to one of the weirdest stories in the Old Testament.
THE WITCH OF ENDOR
Yes.
The Bible has a witch.
More precisely, the King James Version describes a woman at Endor who had a familiar spirit.
King Saul is desperate.
God isn’t answering him.
So Saul does something God had forbidden.
He disguises himself and goes looking for a woman who communicates with the dead.
And then Saul asks her to bring up Samuel.
Samuel is dead.
The woman performs her ritual.
And the text proceeds to describe Samuel speaking to Saul.
Christians have argued about this passage forever.
Was this genuinely Samuel, specially permitted by God?
Was it some sort of vision?
Was the medium normally fraudulent and suddenly confronted with something real?
Was another spirit involved?
There are different interpretations.
But here’s what the passage absolutely does not do:
IT DOESN’T TURN NECROMANCY INTO A CHRISTIAN HOBBY.
Saul isn’t presented as somebody discovering a cool spiritual technique.
He’s a failed king doing something he was explicitly forbidden to do.
The Old Testament warns against seeking mediums, familiar spirits and necromancers.
That should probably tell a Christian something before buying a Ouija board.
BUT WE PUT BATTERIES IN IT, SO NOW IT’S SCIENCE
This is where modern culture gets funny.
A witch communicates with spirits: Occult.
A medium communicates with spirits: Occult.
A séance communicates with spirits: Occult.
But put LEDs on a box, carry a digital recorder and call yourself a paranormal investigator:
SCIENCE!
😂
I’m joking. There are serious paranormal investigators genuinely trying to understand unexplained phenomena.
And plenty of supposed paranormal activity has ordinary explanations: creaking buildings, moving pipes, hoaxes, ambiguous audio, bad memories or our tendency to find patterns.
Sometimes the ghost is probably the plumbing.
But I’m asking about something else:
WHAT IF SOMETHING REALLY DOES ANSWER?
THE ENFIELD POLTERGEIST
Consider one of the most famous alleged paranormal cases in modern history.
In 1977, strange events were reported at the Hodgson family’s house in Enfield, England, centered largely around a young girl named Janet Hodgson.
Investigators recorded voices, knocking and other alleged phenomena. The case remains disputed: supporters believed some events were unexplained, while skeptics pointed to trickery, and Janet acknowledged that some incidents were faked.
Apple later produced the documentary series The Enfield Poltergeist, built partly around original recordings from the investigation.
And then there was Bill.
An elderly male voice apparently coming through Janet identified itself as Bill Wilkins, claimed it had lived in the house, and described dying in a chair downstairs. Investigators later connected those claims with a former resident named Wilkins.
That leaves three broad possibilities.
OPTION ONE: IT WAS JANET.
A clever girl producing the voice. Some deliberate trickery is documented, so that’s possible.
OPTION TWO: BILL WILKINS WAS ACTUALLY TALKING.
The dead former resident somehow remained around the house and communicated through a child.
OPTION THREE:
Something knew about Bill, could imitate him, and wanted everybody to believe it was Bill Wilkins.
That’s a very different proposition.
AND THEN THERE’S THIS STRANGE LITTLE CEMETERY CONNECTION
One other Enfield detail caught my attention. In a published transcript attributed to “Bill,” the voice reportedly says:
“I come from out the grave.”
Now compare that with one of the Bible’s clearest demonic encounters. The man possessed by Legion “had his dwelling among the tombs” and was there night and day.
So one modern paranormal voice claiming to be a dead man says it came “out the grave.” In Mark 5, a demon-possessed man lives among the graves.
Coincidence? Maybe.
I’m not building doctrine around it. But in an article asking whether some “ghosts” could be deceptive spirits, it’s an interesting connection.
WHAT IF GRANDMA IS A COSTUME?
That’s the question behind the image at the top of this Parking Spot.
The investigator thinks she found Grandma.
But what if Grandma isn’t the thing standing in front of her?
What if something else simply knows what Grandma looked like?
What if it knows her voice?
What if it knows things Grandma knew?
Would that prove anything?
Think about the logic.
If Christians believe spiritual beings exist…
and Christians believe some of those beings are deceptive…
and Christians believe those beings have observed humanity…
then:
“IT KNEW SOMETHING ONLY GRANDMA WOULD KNOW”
may not be the slam-dunk proof people think it is.
Because how do you know who else was watching?
SATAN’S ENTIRE BUSINESS MODEL IS DECEPTION
This is what I think gets missed.
Biblical deception is more sophisticated than somebody telling a stupid lie.
Paul says Satan can present himself as an angel of light. Revelation says he deceives the world.
HE DECEIVES IT.
Something terrifying makes you run. Something comforting makes you listen.
Imagine losing your mother. Then something appears, sounds like Mom, says things Mom would say and tells you she’s happy.
Then slowly it starts telling you things about God. Jesus. Death. What happens afterward. Maybe how none of that old Bible stuff really matters.
Now ask yourself:
IF SATAN REALLY IS A DECEIVER, WHICH PART OF THAT SCENARIO WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND?
NOW WE GET TO THE REALLY WEIRD PART
In Wicked Darkness: Johnny’s Survival Guide to the End Times, I discuss an ancient explanation for demons that most Christians never hear in Sunday school.
Genesis 6 describes the Nephilim.
One ancient Jewish interpretation—preserved explicitly in 1 Enoch—held that the giants produced through the Watchers and human women died physically, but their spirits remained on earth as evil spirits.
In other words:
DEMONS WERE UNDERSTOOD AS THE DISEMBODIED SPIRITS OF THE GIANTS.
That idea is genuinely ancient; 1 Enoch 15 describes the spirits of the dead giants becoming evil spirits upon the earth. But it is important to distinguish that ancient interpretation from settled Christian doctrine: 1 Enoch is not biblical canon for most Christian traditions, and Christians disagree about the origin and identity of demons.
That’s why in my book I present it as an interpretation.
But it produces an interesting possibility.
WHY DO DEMONS WANT BODIES?
Look at the demons Jesus encounters.
In Luke 8, Jesus confronts the demonic presence called Legion.
The demons beg Him not to send them into the abyss.
The KJV calls it “the deep.” Whatever precisely that place of confinement is, they clearly don’t want to go there.
Then they ask permission to enter something else.
Pigs.
Jesus permits it.
They leave the man.
They enter the animals.
The herd runs into the water.
Regardless of which theory you accept about the origin of demons, that story presents spiritual entities showing an interest in embodiment.
A human host.
Then animals.
Anything rather than the abyss.
And if the ancient Enochic interpretation is correct—that these are disembodied spirits that once possessed large bodies themselves—it becomes even stranger.
As I wrote in Wicked Darkness:
“Their bodies destroyed. Their spirits—homeless. Not human. Not angel. Not welcome in Heaven or on Earth. Awaiting judgment. Roaming. Deceiving. Hunting for a body to call home. A doorway. A vessel. A willing host.”
That’s my interpretation.
I’m not asking you to accept it simply because I wrote it.
I’m asking you to think about the possibility.
MAYBE THE GHOST ISN’T LOST
One of the most common paranormal stories goes something like this:
There’s a spirit in the house.
- It seems confused.
- It doesn’t know it’s dead.
- It needs help.
- It needs somebody to communicate with it.
- It needs somebody to acknowledge it.
- Maybe it needs somebody to help it “cross over.”
That’s certainly convenient.
Because now the human being approaches the entity.
- Talks to it.
- Invites communication.
- Asks questions.
- Returns repeatedly.
- Builds trust.
Maybe starts using a Ouija board.
Maybe starts consulting a medium.
Maybe starts addressing the entity directly.
And what began as curiosity becomes a relationship.
From a biblical Christian perspective, that’s where I think the giant red warning light should start flashing.
MAYBE IT ISN’T LOST.
MAYBE IT FOUND YOU.
THE BIBLE DOESN’T SAY “TRY IT AND SEE”
This is another point worth considering.
The biblical prohibition against mediums and familiar spirits is not:
“Don’t consult them because nothing will happen.”
The warning is:
DON’T CONSULT THEM.
Deuteronomy explicitly prohibits consulting familiar spirits and necromancers. Leviticus tells Israel not to seek after people with familiar spirits.
That distinction fascinates me.
The Bible isn’t primarily warning people that the supernatural is fake.
It’s warning them about where they’re looking for answers.
AND THEN WE TURNED IT INTO ENTERTAINMENT
Ghost hunting is entertainment now.
- Television shows.
- YouTube channels.
- TikTok clips.
- Haunted hotels.
- Ghost tours.
- Spirit-box sessions.
- Apps.
- Ouija boards.
- Paranormal conventions.
People deliberately walk into places where terrible things allegedly happened and announce:
“If there’s something here, give us a sign.”
If the biblical worldview is complete nonsense, maybe it’s just spooky entertainment.
But if the biblical worldview is even remotely correct…
WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU INVITING TO GIVE YOU A SIGN?
That’s the question.
“BUT IT LOOKED LIKE MY GRANDMOTHER”
Okay.
And?
That sounds insensitive.
I don’t mean it that way.
I’m asking a serious evidentiary question.
If the Bible says deceptive spiritual beings exist, then appearance cannot establish identity.
The fact that something:
- looks familiar,
- sounds familiar,
- knows something personal,
- produces an emotional reaction,
- or claims to love you
- apparently responds to a ritual, charm or object
doesn’t necessarily tell you what it is.
Especially if the same Bible you’re using to establish a supernatural world also tells you:
SATAN CAN DISGUISE HIMSELF.
That’s the part that tends to disappear from paranormal television.
MAYBE THAT’S WHY THE SECOND IMAGE BOTHERS ME MORE
Look at that second image.
The ghost hunter isn’t standing in a cemetery anymore.
- She’s home.
- Bible open.
- Laptop running.
- Coffee sitting beside her.
- Normal life.
Except Grandma is standing behind her.
And Grandma has company.
That’s the entire point.
Maybe the danger isn’t the spooky cemetery.
Maybe the danger is believing that because something looks comforting, familiar or human…
IT MUST BE SAFE.
Maybe it followed you home.
SO ARE GHOSTS REAL?
Here’s my answer:
I DON’T KNOW WHAT EVERYBODY IS SEEING.
And neither does the guy screaming into a night-vision camera on television. 😂
Some “ghosts” are misunderstandings, hoaxes, psychological experiences or ordinary physical events.
And some reported experiences remain difficult to explain.
But as a Christian, I don’t have the luxury of saying:
“Anything supernatural must be a dead human being.”
The Bible gives me too many other possibilities.
- Angels exist.
- Demons exist.
- Satan exists.
- Spiritual deception exists.
- Familiar spirits appear in the biblical text.
- Jesus casts entities out of human beings.
- Those entities speak, recognize Him, demonstrate knowledge, beg, negotiate and seek other bodies.
So if something whispers your grandmother’s name from a dark room…
I wouldn’t immediately assume Grandma finally figured out how to operate the spirit box.
AND I’M NOT TELLING YOU THAT NOTHING HAPPENED TO YOU
I want to make something clear.
I know people have had supernatural experiences they cannot easily explain.
I’m not here to laugh at them, dismiss them or tell everybody their experience was imaginary. I’ve had several strange experiences of my own—some would make good Parking Spots right here on GraveFreak.com.
What I’m questioning isn’t necessarily whether something happened. I’m questioning how confidently we can identify what happened—or who was responsible for it.
And you don’t have to agree with me. This is my interpretation. Yours may be completely different.
YOU DO YOU.
If you’ve experienced something around death, a grave, a ghost, a haunting, a near-death experience or something you simply cannot explain, GraveFreak.com is exactly the kind of place where that story can live.
Tell people what happened, what you believe it was and why.
Sometimes a paranormal experience isn’t entertainment. It can affect a person physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually for years.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO AGREE WITH MY PARKING SPOT TO PARK YOUR OWN STORY HERE.
HERE’S THE VERDICT
I don’t think Scripture gives us enough information to confidently identify every alleged paranormal encounter.
And I’m not claiming:
EVERY GHOST STORY IS A DEMON.
I can’t prove that.
Neither can anybody else.
But I think Christianity gives us a much more serious warning:
NOT EVERYTHING IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD IS WHO IT CLAIMS TO BE.
That’s enough for me.
If something claims to be Grandma, I don’t need to investigate further.
If something whispers from the darkness, I’m not asking it another question.
If something wants an invitation…
I’M NOT OPENING THE DOOR.
Because if Satan really is the deceiver Christianity says he is, then the greatest paranormal mistake may not be believing in ghosts.
It may be assuming:
THE GHOST IS TELLING YOU THE TRUTH.
WANT TO GO DEEPER INTO THE DARKNESS?
I explore Satan, demons, the Nephilim, spiritual deception, prophecy, the supernatural world and what I believe is coming next in:
Wicked Darkness: Johnny’s Survival Guide to the End Times
Visit WickedDarkness.com to get the book and read more of my articles about the spiritual implications of this life, death, prophecy, deception and eternity.
And stay tuned here at GraveFreak.com.
There are plenty more graves, ghosts, mysteries, strange Scriptures and uncomfortable questions waiting for a Parking Spot.