RE: Esoterica, Magic, and other Unknown or perhaps Occulted concepts...
I believe in ghosts simply from personal experience and observations. I also can easily debunk many ghost stories. What and how ghosts work there are many hypothesis on.
Have you heard of the God Helmet?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet
Most reports from Persinger's lab consist of people sensing "presences"; people often interpreted these to be that of angels, a deceased being known to the subject, or a group of beings of some kind. There have also been reports in which the participant has experienced what they perceive as God.[35] Persinger reports that "at least" 80 percent of his participants experience a presence beside them in the room,[36] whilst about one percent report an experience of "God",[37][self-published source?] and others report less evocative experiences of "another consciousness or sentient being".
If manipulating the mind to have these experiences is possible, then that means to me that it is just a function of the brain due to either external/internal factors when people experience a ghost, a spirit, or another sort of entity. It's merely their brains.
Occam's razor agreed with this sentiment beforehand anyways ;)
On Esoteric Knowledge - I agree. Totally possible that they knew stuff in the past that we haven't yet ourselves. This could be herbal remedies, technologies, etc. Plausible, and worth keeping an eye out for.
On Energy - Again, perhaps. Studies would be nice on this, but I don't think that people with faith are tapping into any higher energy. It's excessively probable that there will be a physiological answer as to why certain people overcome incredible odds in the future when we have to tools to quantify it. Until then, just another hypothesis with no substance other than anecdotal, IMO.
Comfortable? - Very! My dad has a million ghosts stories and I always loved hearing them as a kid. Even as an atheist, they still excite me, even ones I've heard a bunch. XD
Yes there is definitely a great deal of that. I have actually ruled out most experiences I had as stuff like that. I throw it out. The ones that remain are ones where I ended up learning something I couldn't possibly know and then years later finding about it. One audio recording, and the other was second hand but my friend described seeing something neither of us would hear about in history until two decades later. I plan to blog on some of these. I loved ghost stories when I was younger. :)
Energy - as I spoke to @lukestokes above I am curious if this might have anything to do with how quantum particles can change their state based on observation. Interesting stuff. I also put this energy stuff FIRMLY in my realm of speculation. It is something I believe there may be something to it, but it is my own speculation so I have zero doubt it is somewhat, or perhaps even completely flawed. :)
I can believe these things by the way WITHOUT believing in religion.
I am atheist / deist. I literally do not believe a single written religion. Yet Deism simply says "There was a creator, he/she/it may have left, now use reason" and doesn't believe in revelation, prophecy, etc. I can't prove there was or was not a creator. So atheism and deism BOTH work for me I just take the use REASON part.
Yet I don't have to agree with a religion to see strange things happen and wonder about them. :)
No doubt brother. I totally respect your atheist/deist perspective and I love speculating about this stuff as well.
I think quantum physics are just mind boggling. I've read the basic stuff, like Brian Green, Michio, etc... but I also realize that I know basically nothing about the field. I do know that in time, our minds will perpetually be blown with what we uncover.
In the meantime, I see stuff happening in the quantum world as something we don't experience in our world. Non-experience does not mean non-existence, it just means it's irrelevant until we experience it on our level. 11+ dimensions, infinite multiverse, quantum entanglement, etc. have yet to prove a direct effect on our existence, as far as I can tell. Again, I could be completely wrong on that assessment, but that's how I personally think about it.
One of my favorite books is Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. Although it calls for massive government funding for space exploration, his passion for the limitless possibilities for our species just blew my mind. I am always ready to have those moments again. :)
Can't wait to read the blogs you got coming up. Certainly sound spooky as all hell. Don't tell me the message was "mine bitcoin in 20 years" in 1989 XD