Haunted by trauma, tsunami survivors in Japan turn to exorcists

http://dawn.com/2013/03/05/haunted-by-trauma-tsunami-survivors-in-japan-turn-to-exorcists/

In a society wary of admitting to mental problems, many are turning to exorcists for help.

Tales of spectral figures lined up at shops where now there is only rubble are what psychiatrists say is a reaction to fear after the March 11, 2011, the disaster in which nearly 19,000 people were killed.

“The places where people say they see ghosts are largely those areas completely swept away by the tsunami,” said Keizo Hara, a psychiatrist in the city of Ishinomaki, one of the areas worst-hit by the waves touched off by an offshore earthquake.

“We think phenomena like ghost sightings are perhaps a mental projection of the terror and worries associated with those places.”...

This is a either mass PTSD or something weird is happening in Japan.

Well, unlike we in the States, they embrace their spirit culture. There's a spirit for practically everything there, kind of like American Indians but x100.

I think they are probably really seeing them. They mainly practice Kami-no-Michi, or spirit way/path, also known as Shinto-ism.

Quote :

Kami are defined in English as "spirits", "essences" or "deities", that are associated with many understood formats; in some cases being human-like, in others being animistic, and others being associated with more abstract "natural" forces in the world (mountains, rivers, lightning, wind, waves, trees, rocks). Kami and people are not separate; they exist within the same world and share its interrelated complexity.

Fact books and statistics typically list some 80 to 90% of Japanese people as Shintoist

You know how the saying goes, "if you build it they will come" Throw some Buddhism in there and you have a country rife with welcomed spirits.

That's very interesting, Delfi. I find it more believable that they are seeing something than that there is some sort of mass hallucination.

I can't figure it out, I know demons masquerade as ghosts, maybe this is what's happening. I can't figure out how the spirits of people get stuck on these places. It has to be demons. The bible says the spirits either go to hell or to Jesus. It makes me sad that a culture I love so much has this pantheism culture.