True story number ONE. My former boss and his wife have two daughters. At the time he told me this story, their youngest was only three or four years old. It was past midnight when their little girl came to their room, climbed on their bed and claimed that she had heard someone crying. My boss's wife quickly went to the girls' bedroom to check in on their older daughter. Seeing their eldest was fast asleep, she went back to assure the young one that nobody was crying. But the little girl shook her head and pointed to the bedroom door. "She's sad," she said and called out an old woman's name. The old woman happened to be their neighbour who had been fond of this little girl, and who had passed away just a week or so earlier. My boss said at the mention of the woman's name, he had jumped off the bed so quickly he had almost bumped his head on the ceiling. He then pleaded to the invisible woman to leave their girls alone, that while he knew she had loved them dearly it was time for her to move on, and that he and his wife would never let any harm come to their girls.

Ghost? Or a little girl's dream?

True story number TWO. Days before my maternal grandmother passed away, she had told my aunts and uncles that her parents, a daughter who had passed away, and her husband (my grandfather) were standing at the foot of her bed and inviting her to join them. Same thing happened with my father-in-law. Days before he passed away, he had told my mother-in-law that his elder siblings who had gone before him surrounded his bed waving at him. A colleague of mine had an uncle who, before passing away, claimed that his parents and cousins who had died years ago were present in the hospital room.

Ghosts? Or hallucinations of the dying?

It should be noted that all three of us - my former boss, my colleague, and I - belong to different cultural backgrounds and different religions, and yet shared similar experiences.

Are ghosts just our parents and grandparents' scare tactic for our bad behaviour? Or are they what those stories tell us - ethereal forms walking through solid walls and hovering over our unsuspecting sleeping forms?

"Soul. Spirit. Consciousness. Essence. Whatever name it assumed, Michael and his kind were tasked to guide it to cross the threshold, that line which separated the mortal world from the afterlife." -The Soul Shepherd and the Threshold.

Belief, or lack thereof, in the existence of ghosts naturally lead to unspoken beliefs (or non-beliefs) of other principles.

If we believe in ghosts then the consequent question is: are ghosts souls of our dearly departed? If they are, do souls equal consciousness? If yes, then souls, i.e., consciousness, like the Johnny Depp movie, could, sometime in the far (or near) future, be transferred over to a machine (computer or robot).

If souls do NOT equal consciousness, then it's something higher. If it is, then it means there is life after death.

If there is life after death, what is it? Where is this life after death - heaven, hell, or somewhere in-between?

And why can't everyone see ghosts - or souls - if they do exist? Why choose the very young, the dying, or non-humans (e.g. cats and dogs) to reveal their existence?

Science, religion and philosophy have wrestled on explaining (in some cases, disproving) this phenomenon. But we are closer to it than we dare to think. With the exponential advancement in technology, scientists are uncovering the existence of smaller and smaller particles (sub-atomic particles in their parlance - think neutrinos, Higgs Boson), and one can only guess where it may lead.

"What would Emma say if she were to learn that those colorful gases in the universe were nothing more than souls, energy or essence, on their journey home—wherever “home” was? - The Soul Shepherd and the Threshold.

So, do you believe in ghosts?