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I know a man who did not believe in ghosts, nor was he convinced that there is any such thing as a spiritual reality. He stayed overnight in the home of a friend who said she was hearing haunted noises in her house. So the man stayed up late sitting on the sofa in the living room, where he began to doze off after a while, but remaining conscious. Suddenly he was startled by the sound of a gong being rung by a hard stick hitting it. He arose and walked into the next room where a gong was mounted on the wall with a hard mallet attached, hanging by a rope. He took the mallet and struck the gong, to find the sound it made was identical to the one he had just heard while half-awake on the couch. Then the woman appeared at the top of the stairs asking, what's going on down there?
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The man explained what he had heard, and what he had done. The woman said she had heard both gong noises; the first one awakened her, when she arose to go see, and the second one happened right when she was emerging from her bedroom. He assured her he did not strike the gong the first time, only the second time. She said, "They're here."
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Then the man went back to the couch, and the woman returned to her bedroom, and before long the man heard and saw other similar things in the house that night. All in all, he changed his outlook on ghosts and the spiritual world in one night.
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The man reported, "No longer do I question the existence of a spiritual world, nor do I say that I believe in ghosts. I have personal direct experience that has shown me firsthand that there is in fact a spiritual world and that ghosts do in fact exist. For me, it's not merely a matter of belief."
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