(Part 2) Top products from r/paranormal

I applaud your skepticism! I do take issue with a few statements:

>My younger brother (19), however, is a hardcore skeptic. He claims to have seen a cup levitate and move in front of him in the bathroom one night, and [...] I know that he is definitely not the type of person to do any investigating whatsoever and will just automatically assume that it was a ghost.

Your brother is not a skeptic.

>I always ridicule him for his insane belief.

That's not very nice.

>As an atheist, I can't help but look down upon people who hold religious beliefs because it all seems so absurd to me.

That doesn't help foster communication. I think you might benefit greatly from this half-hour talk from "bad astronomer" Phil Plait. The general idea behind the talk is: when have you ever changed your beliefs just because someone told you that they were stupid? Instead of helping your case, you are hurting it. You'll only cause them to reinforce their beliefs, even if your confirmed evidence directly disproves their beliefs.

>me being the logical person I am, I choose the side of "you're crazy and you imagined it", while he takes the "it was definitely a ghost" side.

You two should work on your communication, because this approach is going to go nowhere.

>It took my brother a little longer to come around to the fact that there is no god.

It is not a fact that there is no god.

>I consider myself atheist while I consider him to be agnostic.

It's a common misconception, but that's not how it works.

If you found confirmation bias [edit: interesting] (and all of the other names we have for the ways our brains will innately fool us), I'd highly recommend that you read Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Dark. I would suggest that you read it first, in private. Then I would suggest lending it to your brother to read, and asking him to recommend that you read a book of his recommendation. Afterwards, talk about your thoughts together.

Don't be mean to him, or dismissive. Sometimes, critical thinking has to be taught, or self-learned after experience. It's not a slight on my aunt's intelligence, for instance, that she believes that some forms of homeopathy is effective. I could tell her all day that we know that homeopathy doesn't work. I could give her thousands of pages of scientific journals explaining, in great and meticulous detail, why this is the case. She would likely dismiss "mainstream science," though, because it isn't supporting her worldview and/or belief system. That doesn't mean my aunt is a moron. It means, more than anything else, that she doesn't understand what a useful standard of evidence is in order to determine truths about our world.

>I don't believe in ghosts. Please tell me some experiences, give insight and opinions. Try to help me understand.

I've made similar posts searching for similar truths, like:

• Addressing The Most Common Paranormal Claims
  
• Considering how easy it is to fake photo/video/audio footage, can they still be accepted as forms of paranormal evidence?
  
• Carl Sagan said "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - What are your thoughts on this?
  
  From my own observations, what it really seems to come down to is a combination of: the person's standards of evidence, their relationship with their pre-existing beliefs, their upbringing, and a near-complete misunderstanding of what science is and how science works. I see examples of these four issues every day on /r/Paranormal, as well as /r/UFOs, which I've also probed for truths:
  
  
• Why attribute ancient structures and complex crop circles to extraterrestrials?
  
• My thoughts on Ancient Aliens (TV), Erich von Däniken, and Zecharia Sitchin. What are yours?
  
• UFO experience from one of your resident subscribing skeptics
  
  The bottom line is: there is no proof of ghosts like what you are looking for. The best thing we have, so far, isn't from a digital photograph or an EVP. We've got neuroscience. We're getting better and better at watching the brain work. We can watch brain activity related to our consciousness happen, and we can do it all the time, every time. We've also noticed that once a human body is dead, there is no activity related to our consciousness or anything else occurring within our brains. So, based on the evidence so far, consciousness seems to die with the body. This, more than anything else, speaks to the existence of ghosts, if the belief is, in fact, that ghosts are the souls/consciousness/manifestation of dead people.
  
  But that says nothing about the experience a person goes through when they believe that they've seen a ghost. The experience is real, even if self-deception is involved. That includes your brother. I wish you the very best of luck. Try to be more tolerant of him!

I wouldn't be able to do the topic much justice through a reddit post, but I'll reccomend you some great books on the topic

The encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology

The Dictionary of Demons: Names of the damned

The Vengeful Djinn: Unveiling the Hidden Agenda of Genies

The book of Yokai: Mysterious creatures of Japanese folklore

That oughta be a good start, because believe me the topic is as interesting as it is detailed.

> Around Halloween, it would turn on by itself and play this strange medley of growling, children singing, piano music, etc. It was usually at full volume and would turn off on its own. One time I was able to ask, “Alexa, what’s playing right now?” And the response was that it was “Creepy Halloween Sounds.”

Could be a software "easter egg" (a secret feature put in a piece of software just to amuse people), or an app such as this one (I don't have one of these devices so cannot test if the sounds in this app match what you describe), or even just an ordinary sound file playing. Highly unlikely that this is anything paranormal as the sounds described are very cliche.

> I theorized that maybe a neighbor was playing these sounds at their house nearby (on their porch, or for a Halloween party, etc) and that ours somehow picked up the signal.

This is not technically possible with devices of this kind. This kind of thing used to happen with analog radios, two-way radios, wireless microphones or headphones, and so on. Digital systems such as modern cellphones and WiFi and bluetooth devices cannot "interfere" like this.

> The very last incident was a bit different. My grandma passed away around that time. A couple of days after her passing, the Echo turned on (when I was alone) and started playing “Mandy,” by Boston. I had never heard that song before and had never played it on the Echo. My grandma was the only one who called me Mandy.

That could've been your grandmother, if the paranormal is real. These devices are very sensitive and don't require a loud voice, just a clear one (Google Now on an Android phone can actually be triggered with an electrical signal corresponding to a sound volume that would normally be inaudible, if you give it the right signal), so I imagine that it would be quite easy for spirits to talk to the device (similar to an EVP recorder).

Yes! For those interested, it's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. She has several others out (6 books and one compilation). Gulp might be my favorite but I really enjoyed Packing for Mars and Bonk. This sub would also really appreciate Spook!

The term for meaningful coincidence is synchronicity. There are psychologists such as Carl Jung who give the concept psychological validity, as well as authors who explore a deeper connection.

The two linked books both keep one foot grounded in modern thought. You're sure to find more mystical explanations as well. But I wanted you to know that there are serious professionals who believe that it is not unhealthy to experience synchronicities as valued facets of our experience.

Going by OP's description The Book of Oberon sunds like it has some similar content - or at least similar aims.

Grimorim Verum is a pretty famous 'black magic' book.

The Lesser Key of Solomon is probably the most well known.

I'd expect there would be some parallels to thing in Agrippa as well.

As r/Jack_Shid said, there are just too many ways to create video/audio/images to trust anything online.

However, there are a few books that opened me up to a much broader view of existence, that I can recommend:

Will Storr Vs the Supernatural by Will Storr -

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0061132195/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1457993127&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=will+storr+vs+the+supernatural&dpPl=1&dpID=51GD2%2B3MgfL&ref=plSrch

A great look into ghosts. Some of it is funny, some of it is cringey, but there are quite a few moments that give you pause. A great read.

Fringeology by Steve Volk -

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0061857726/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1457993301&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=fringeology&dpPl=1&dpID=41%2BFB2uuB6L&ref=plSrch

A journalist investigates the paranormal as a whole and finds some suprising things. Changed the way I looked at quite a few things, especially when it comes to what drives people to believe the things that they do.

Spoiler: "Logical" people are just as open to bias, ignoring evidence, and being zealots as anyone else.

I found this book many years ago. It provided many answers to questions I had regarding spirits that attached and attract to people. It's a good read and informative, writen by a psychologist.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Unquiet-Dead-Psychologist-Possession/dp/0345460871

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Try /r/tipofmytongue :)

In my opinion, the best place to start review of the evidence for reincarnation is with Dr. Jim Tucker's Life before Life. He's got more recent books. And you'll eventually want to go to the source, his mentor Dr. Ian Stevenson's seminal research. But start with Tucker's balanced review of the evidence and arguments. Don't prejudge it with assumptions about what is "keerazzy" or what does or does not exist. Just look at the data and draw your own conclusion.

It looks like the daughter wrote a book.

Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms: Who and What You See Before You Die

Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife

Not quite "paranormal" but Fingerprints of the Gods is a very interesting read.

Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum is my favorite book on any paranormal subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Hunters-William-Search-Scientific/dp/0143038958

Related: Carol Bowman's books on children talking about past lives: http://www.amazon.com/Childrens-Past-Lives-Memories-Affect/dp/055357485X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452956781&sr=8-1&keywords=carol+bowman

http://www.amazon.com/Return-Heaven-Beloved-Relatives-Reincarnated/dp/0061030449/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1452956781&sr=8-2&keywords=carol+bowman

unknown man

This.

You should really read this book.

You'll find a lot of experiences resembling your friend's in here.

If I recall, she's really big into John Keel's Window Areas and something she dubbed "Time Storms" where certain areas of the world can suffer from a thinner veil to an alternate dimension or time period allowing anyone caught in the "storm" or "window area" to see bizarre cryptoids and phenomenon.

Given this, it makes some sense that the world around you in the contemporary time/dimension would have it's audible sounds fade out as the storm rolls over you or the window area opens up or however those things would function.

Plausible and documented. Look up the work of Dr. Wade Davis. In his book "The Serpent and the Rainbow" (not to be confused with the film of the same name) he discusses the use of pufferfish and toad toxins by Bokor (Voudin witch-doctors) to create a death-like coma.

The victim is then buried, the Bokor (or more accurately their apprentice) would dig the body up later that evening, and the Bokor awakens the "corpse" and administers a heavy dose of a Jimson weed paste which creates a very compliant and suggestible state in the victim. They are told that they are dead and that the Bokor has their soul. Then they are set to work, usually by the cover of night, in the Bokor's fields.

There is the case of Clairvius Narcisse who had been taken by a Bokor to a sugar plantaion. The Bokor died, thus ending the regular dosing of Jimson weed, and eventually the effects wore off. Clairvius simply remembered who he was and went home.