Ghost stories have been told for thousands of years in countries and cultures all over the world, and they always find an eager audience.

So this means we can accept that people have seen, felt or had interactions with what they term as ghosts over a vast period of time, being recorded in ancient times in Mesopotamia and Egypt. These encounters of course can range from strange noises through to fully fledged apparitions. Ghosts are still to be found haunting old buildings, castles, domestic houses, prisons and just about any place of human habitation you can imagine. There are even many recorded stories of ghosts in the White House in Washington. The 16th US President Abe Lincoln has been seen by several presidents and first ladies and also by prominent visitors to the residence.

“Grace Coolidge, wife of President Calvin Coolidge (1923-29), was the first person to say she had actually seen Lincoln’s ghost. According to her, the lanky former president was standing looking out a window of the Oval Office, across the Potomac to the former Civil War battlefields beyond. Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Johnson (1963-69), reportedly felt Lincoln’s presence one night while watching a television program about his death. During her visit to the White House, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands heard a knock on her bedroom door in the night; when she answered it, she reportedly saw Lincoln’s ghost, wearing his top hat, and fainted dead away. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who visited the White House more than once during World War 11, told a story of emerging naked from his evening bath smoking his customary cigar, only to find a ghostly Lincoln sitting by the fireplace in his room”.

There are many explanations for these ghostly visitations, from earthbound spirits afraid to cross over to the afterlife, to residual energy patterns remaining from a very strong individual or group.  In my experience there is no one explanation to cover every situation. I have had personal visitations from the afterlife from my mother who was sitting on the end of my bed, as well as my grandfather who in the middle of the night, announced himself with a strong whiff of tobacco smoke from his favourite ‘roll your own’ cigarettes that he smoked all his life. I regularly sense the presence of my late partner Judy, who inspired my first book “Afterlife”, and then as I was researching and writing my latest book “No Goodbyes”. 

There has also been frequent contact during my research around 3am by spirits who wish to contact me in the stillness of the early morning with an important message. Sometimes it is not easy to get back to sleep after these downloads of information.

Over the years I have spoken to many people who have had contact with the spirits of departed loved ones, whether it is just a sense of a spiritual presence or a more direct experience. Sadly they are all too often afraid to speak about their visitations, because they fear being ridiculed.

In April this year my partner Anne and I enjoyed a river cruise in Holland, Belgium and northern parts of France, where amongst other places we visited certain World War 1 battlefields. The cruise was run by Captain’s Choice, and included the leadership and expert knowledge of retired Lt. General Ken Gillespie, the former Head of the Australian Army. Ken’s knowledge and overall empathy with the Australian and New Zealand forces who were in France on the Western Front from 1916 – 1918 is awe inspiring.

We fully expected his expert analysis of several key battles in areas we visited, but in a talk one night he surprised everyone when he concluded his presentation with a special tribute to the “ANZAC Spirit”. The ANZAC legend started at Gallipoli in 2015 when the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) suffered great losses against the Turks before then being shipped to France in 1916 to help fight the Germans in bloody trench warfare. Approximately 80,000 Australians and New Zealanders perished in the war, and many war cemeteries in France and Belgium bear grim testimony to this with their rows and rows of stark white crosses. From this bloody carnage the legend of the Anzac Spirit emerged.

However Ken Gillespie took this Spirit of the Anzacs to a whole new level as he told us about the spirit energies he senses every time he visits these battle sites and war graves. I interviewed Ken for my radio program on RadioOutThere.com and his very sensitive description of his feelings left me in no doubt he does connect with the spirits of these deceased soldiers and airmen. He told me that he is certain their spirits appreciate the recognition that we give them when we visit these cemeteries.

His quiet, sincere words left me in no doubt that Ken is a very spiritual man who, unlike many generals during that ghastly war, is able to recognise that soldiers are people and not just cannon fodder and pawns in a chess game. He accepts that life does continue after the body perishes and that the power of the spirit world is open to anyone who chooses, or cares to open their minds and most importantly, their hearts.

If a famous army general can accept and understand the bonds between us and the world of spirit, I have to wonder why there are still so many skeptics still sneering about life after death. 

Perhaps they are so disillusioned about the lives they are living they will be quite happy to sink into oblivion when it is all over for them. They don’t frustrate me with their cynicism, I feel sorry for them.