Encyclopedia
A
ghost is an alleged non-corporeal manifestation of a dead person . It is often claimed to be a manifestation of the spirit or soul of a person which has remained on
Earth after
death. According to some beliefs, a ghost may be the personality of a person after his or her death, and not directly tied to the soul or spirit. Many cultures throughout the world carry stories about ghosts, though they often disagree as to what ghosts are and whether they are just figments of imagination or a part of reality. There is much debate on whether ghosts are spirits of deceased people or just spirits or a naturally occurring phenomenon. Some people believe that ghostly images and sounds occur as a result of the natural environment "playing back" past events in a manner similar to that of a tape recorder.
Beliefs
Ghosts, or
phantoms, are often depicted of a human size and shape , but they are often described as not visually striking. Usually these depictions suggest that the ghost does not consist of solid matter. The "typical" ghost in the West is semi-transparent, and does not directly interact with physical objects. They walk through walls, float above the ground, and so forth. Ghosts are often said to behave as if they were mindlessly following a particular routine or itinerary. Other ghosts are described as being solid, interacting with their environment, and generally behaving much like other people. In some ghost stories, especially in the Caribbean and Africa, the figure is only identified as a ghost because an acquaintance knows that the person is already dead.
In the West, those who believe in ghosts sometimes hold them to be souls that could not find rest after death, and so linger on Earth. This inability to find rest is often explained as unfinished business, such as a victim seeking justice or revenge after death. Criminals sometimes supposedly linger to avoid Purgatory or Hell. It is sometimes held that ghosts reside in
Limbo or
Purgatory. Although this view was once propounded by some Catholic theologians, it is no longer believed according to the
Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is worth noting that while many mainstream Protestants and Evangelical Christians believe in the existence of
principalities, they do not believe in ghosts and would generally attribute more violent ghosts, such as poltergeists, to the actions of
demons.
Some ghost researchers approach the possibility of ghosts from a more scientific standpoint , seeking to find correlations and causal relationships between recordable phenomena and the supposed presence of ghosts. Those who follow this approach most often believe that ghosts are not actual disembodied souls or spirits, but rather they are impressions of psychic energy left behind by a deceased person. They assert that traumatic events cause mental energy of some kind to be released into the world, where it may be experienced by other people who are sensitive to its presence. Parapsychologists refer to the "substance" of which ghosts and other spirits are made as "
ectoplasm." This way of thinking classifies ghosts in the same category of preternatural unexplained phenomena as poltergeists/telekinesis, ESP, and telepathy. Theories from this approach often encounter difficulties in explaining ghosts that appear to be sentient, such as those which appear to answer questions or react to specific actions from people present. However, it is claimed as a possibility that enough of a dead person's psyche might be imprinted on an environment so as to give the likeness of thought or autonomy.
There is also at least one religion,
Spiritism, that tends to use scientific-looking elements when explaining ghosts. According to Spiritists, ghosts are the deceased continuing to live in one or more parallel dimensions of sorts, existing in different "frequencies" from our own dimension. Those parallel ghost realities would have all sorts of ghost creatures, plants, objects - even whole "ghost cities". One example of ghost city would be Nosso Lar , which allegedly exists 500 meters above the physical city of Rio de Janeiro, though in a different "frequency". In fact, extrapolating the descriptions supplied by Spiritists, they are apparently talking of whole "Ghost Earths" coexisting in the same space of our physical Earth. It seems that occasionally portions of those dimensions would overlap with ours, causing ghost sightings. And there would also be living people - mediums or psychics - with the ability to see, hear and speak through the dimensional barriers. The Others is a movie that explores these concepts of overlap and breached barriers between the living and the dead. This approach however does not clarify the process by which a living being leaves a "double" at one of those ghostly dimensions at the moment of his/her/its death, or during dreaming. However,
Spiritism does assert that it is the physical body that is short-term, while the spiritual one is eternal and constantly learning and growing through impermanent physical manifestations. The spiritual life is the gel that holds together the acquired information and lessons from various physical manifestations through the process of
reincarnation.
In Asian cultures, such as
China, there are some people who hold a belief in
reincarnation. Ghosts are those souls that refused to be "recycled" because they have unfinished business, similar to those in the West.
Exorcists can either help a ghost to be driven away or reincarnated. In Chinese tradition, apart from being reincarnated, a ghost can also become immortal and become a demigod, or it can go to hell and suffer for eternity, or it can die again and become "ghost of ghost". The Chinese also believe that some ghosts, especially those who died of drowning, kill people in order to rob them of their rights to reincarnation. The victims of such paranormal "murders" are called těsígui , literally "substitute death ghost" or "substitute devil" which in Chinese is a synonym for
scapegoat. Also in China, particularly in the
Guangzhou area, the Chinese people usually hold a Chinese version of the
Day of the Dead ritual for their ancestors in autumn. The ritual consists of burning
Hell Bank Notes and other luxury items made of paper mache as well as pouring wine three times on their grave and leaving food. An older ritual is for the living family to prepare a grand feast for their dead relatives "returning" home. During the time of feast, those relatives amongst the living are not allowed to leave their bedrooms regardless of how much noise the ghost makes.
Very detailed information about ghosts is given in
Garuda Purana, a scripture from Vedic tradition. According to this Purana, humans who perform sins during their lifetime will be reborn as ghosts. This is an excerpt from the coversation between a Brahmana and a group of ghosts as mentioned in Garuda Purana.
The brahmana said:'You have told us facts about your names; now let us know about your way of life as ghosts as well as your food.'
The ghosts said:'We stay where people do not follow the Vedas, where there is no feeling of shame for falsehood, no faith in religion, no sense of discipline, no inclination for forgiveness, no patience and no knowledge.
We trouble the person who does not perform Sraddha or Tarpana. We eat his flesh and suck his blood. Now hear about our food which is most despicable in the world. Something of this you have already seen. We shall now tell you something unknown to you. Vomiting, waste, cough, urine and tears - these we eat and drink. Do not ask us further, O brahmana, we are ashamed to tell you about our food. We are ignorant, in dark, fools and puzzled. Suddenly have we remembered about our previous births.
We are neither humble, nor wild and we know nothing.'
How ghosts fit into this worldview is shown .
Buddhist Samsara includes the concept of the hungry ghost realm. Sentient beings in that realm are referred to as "hungry ghosts" because of their attachment to this world. Asuras are also referred to as "fighting ghosts".
Both the West and the East share some fundamental beliefs about ghosts. They may wander around places they frequented when alive or where they died. Such places are known as "haunted"; the rounds they go on are known as "hauntings". They often wear the sort of clothing in which they would have been seen when alive.
Types of distress caused by ghosts
Most cultures believe that ghosts trouble mankind in different ways.
- 'Being affected by ghosts' is when the physical, mental, intellectual or spiritual functioning of a person or any combination thereof is affected or altered by the ghosts entirely through the use of their energy. There is no direct intervention by the ghosts and there is no controlling of the mind and intellect of the affected person. Ghosts with their energy can either stimulate or cloud the faculties of the affected person. In a way, this is indirect control over the person.
- 'Spiritual possession' is when ghosts control the mind and intellect of a person. As a result, they also control the person’s actions. The ghosts possessing a person may reside inside the body of the affected person or control him/her from outside. .
Skeptical analysis
While some accept ghosts as a reality, many others are skeptical of the existence of ghosts. For example, the vast majority of the scientific community believes that ghosts, as well as other
supernatural and paranormal entities, do not exist.
Skeptics often explain ghost sightings with the principle of
Occam's razor, which argues that explanations should maximize parsimony with the rest of our
knowledge. They may suggest that, since few to none of us have ever had an interpersonal relationship with a ghost, but most or all of us have had an experience of self-delusion or have attributed a false cause to an event, that these options should be preferred in the absence of a great abundance of evidence. They are also keen to note that most ghost sightings happen when our senses are impaired, and that the evidence is unreliable because it doesn't occur when we have full use of our faculties.
Occasionally, the sincerity and motive of the claimant will be questioned. They might make up a haunting for a personal reason. For example, lingering of ghosts is typically associated with seeking justice or revenge. Ascribing such motives and powers to dead people could be interpreted as a scare tactic. Also, a person might claim a haunting for personal popularity and income.
Human physiology may make us more susceptible to ghost sightings. Ghosts are often associated with a chilling sensation, but a natural animal response to fear is hair raising, which can be mistaken for chill. Also, the peripheral vision is very sensitive to motion, but does not contain much color or focused shapes. Any random motion outside the focused view can create a strong illusion of an eerie figure. Also,
sound waves with
frequencies lower than 20 hertz are called infrasound; they are formally inaudible, but British scientists Richard Lord and Richard Wiseman have concluded that infrasound can cause humans to feel a "presence" in the room, or unexplained feelings of anxiety or dread.
Sometimes ghosts are associated with electromagnetic disturbances, which suggests that they might be attributable to the electromagnetic field and not to a presently dead person. Often, videos of paranormal investigators will show them using
E-field or
B-field detectors and finding "ghostly" results near wall outlets and electrical appliances.
Psychological factors may also relate to ghost sightings. Many people exaggerate their interpretation of their own perceptions, either when visiting a place they believe to be haunted, or when visiting a site which they know has seen unpleasant historical events. Certain images such as paintings and movies might "program" a person to automatically associate a certain structure or area as haunted because of what they have seen in the movies. As well, the psychological phenomenon of
pareidolia may cause people to perceive human-like faces or figures in the otherwise mundane surroundings of their environments, particularly in conditions where vision is partly obscured, as in a dark corridor or at night.
The earliest literature to rationally discuss the issue comes from the Chinese philosopher, Mo Tzu
"Since we must understand whether ghosts and spirits exist or not, how can we find out? Mo Tzu said: The way to find out whether anything exists or not is to depend on the testimony of the ears and eyes of the multitude. If some have heard it or some have seen it then we have to say it exists. If no one has heard it and no one has seen it then we have to say it does not exist. So, then, why not go to some village or some district and inquire? If from antiquity to the present, and since the beginning of man, there are men who have seen the bodies of ghosts and spirits and heard their voices, how can we say that they do not exist? If none have heard them and none have seen them, then how can we say they do? But those who deny the existence of the spirits say: "Many in the world have heard and seen something of ghosts and spirits. Since they vary in testimony, who are to be accepted as really having heard and seen them? Mo Tzu said: As we are to rely on what many have jointly seen and what many have jointly heard, the case of Tu Po is to be accepted. " — Taken from Chapter 31, translated by Yi-pao Mei
Notable ghosts
Ghost stories date back to before even the Common Era. Perhaps one of the earliest known ghost "sightings" took place in
Athens, Greece. Pliny the Younger described it in a letter to Sura: Athenodoros Cananites , a
Stoic philosopher, decided to rent a large, Athenian house, to investigate widespread rumours that it was haunted. Athenodoros staked out at the house that night, and, sure enough, a dishevelled, aged spectre, bound at feet and hands with rattling chains, eventually "appeared". The spirit then beckoned for Athenodoros to follow him; Athenodoros complied, but the ghost soon vanished. The philosopher marked the spot where the old man had disappeared, and, on the next day, advised the magistrates to dig there. The man's shackled bones were reportedly uncovered when this was done. After a proper burial, the hauntings ceased.
It seems likely that the building with the most distinguished ghosts as rumored tenants is the
Tower of London, which is reported to be haunted by:
Several other ghosts are said to make the Tower their home; phantom troops of soldiers reportedly appear there, as well as a lady in
mourning with no face.
The cities of
York and
Derby in England are also reputed to be a centre of ghostly manifestations; consequently, they both thrive on hugely successful ghost tour industries. Indeed, the presence of many centuries-old buildings has given England the reputation of the most haunted country in the world. Whether this is due to the age of the buildings, or the fact that many are still inhabited is questionable.
The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall has been "seen" quite a few times over the years. She is called the 'Brown Lady' because of the brown brocade dress that the ghost has often been seen wearing while wandering the halls and staircase of Raynham Hall. In 1849 Major Loftus and a friend named Hawkins saw the ghost one night after retiring to bed. They both saw the woman and were amazed by the old fashioned clothing that she wore. The following night the Major was lucky enough to see the figure once again, this time he took note of her empty eye-sockets. The incident resulted in several members of staff resigning and a full investigation being done of Raynham Hall involving local detectives. For more accounts and information, see:
source: Biggin Hill is also reported haunted by many ghosts, which many believe is probably because it was the site of a
World War II airbase.
The
White House in
Washington, D.C., is said to be haunted by the ghost of
Abraham Lincoln and by several lesser spectres.
The ghost of the
Roman Emperor Caligula was said to haunt the Lamian Gardens of
Rome, where his body had been hastily and unceremoniously
buried after his
assassination.
In the
Biblical account of the
Witch of Endor, King
Saul of Israel has the witch conjure up the ghost of the prophet Samuel to consult with him on his precarious situation. The prophet's spirit gives the king no assistance, but rebukes him and foretells his doom instead.
The former prison island of
Alcatraz off the coast of
San Francisco is said to be home to a number of ghosts of prisoners who died there.
Athens, Ohio is named one of the most haunted places in America, and is reputed to contain many ghosts. One oft-made claim is that, when drawing a line from each of the 5 graveyards, one creates a
pentagram; this claim is false.
Ohio University is also considered by some to be the most haunted campus in America, as it is the former state hospital, Athens State Mental Hospital .
The city of
New Orleans is sometimes called 'America's most haunted city' with numerous ghost reports, especially in the
French Quarter. New Orleans' ghosts include pirates from the 18th century, through to 20th century spectres.
Charleston, South Carolina, which has more than three centuries of recorded history under its streets, is home to ghosts of 18th century pirates and
Revolutionary War heroes, a well as many black slave ghosts, and a number of ghosts of
Civil War soldiers.
The Museum of Natural Science in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada is said to be haunted by the ghost of the Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, whose body laid there in state after his death in 1919. Many workers in the museum have noted the presence of a spirit after the museum has closed for the day.
The
Kuchisake-onna was said to have caused mass hysteria throughout
Japan during the spring and summer of 1979.
Hollywood, California has been home to many of the great stars and there are those who believe that their ghosts remain there after death, earning it the name
Haunted Hollywood.
The
ocean liner Queen Mary, now permanently moored in
Long Beach,
California, is reputed to be haunted by several ghosts. Two of the more famous hauntings are in the ship's swimming pool and in Shaft Alley, the area behind the engine room, containing the ship's propeller shafts. Recent investigations have failed to prove any presence or activity of ghosts, and most of the phenomenon has been attributed to the basic mechanical workings of the ship.
An investigation in 2005 of the Queen Mary conducted by British television series Most Haunted recorded a wet footprint leading to the former shower area on video and, using a crew member sleeping in a usually locked room where a man is said to have killed his daughter with locked off cameras, recorded the sound of the door rattling violently which awoke the crew member. After he returned to sleep the sound of a little girl asking for her daddy was heard.
Herstmonceux Castle is rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a headless drummer, which provides the name for the pub within the castle.
It should be noted that alleged ghostly phenomena is not only confined to buildings. Some battlefields have also acquired reputations for being haunted. One example is Gettysburg where one of the most famous battles of the
American Civil War took place. There have been occasional reports by visitors of seeing ghostly soldiers from both sides of the conflict and hearing the sounds of screams and fighting.
Ghosts in fiction
Ghost messengers
A popular
genre of literature from the early
Renaissance to the early twentieth century was the
Dialogues of the Dead. These were based upon the Witch of Endor story and the visions of
Hades found in both
Homer's
Odyssey is one of the two major ancient Greek [i] epic poem [i] ...
and
Virgil's
Aeneid : is a Latin [i] epic [i] written by Virgil [i] in the 1st century BC [i] th ...
.
In
Odyssey,
Odysseus travels to Hades and sees the shades of his former colleagues, including some he did not know were dead, and pours out fresh blood, which the dead hunger for, until he can find Tiresias and get guidance on his voyages. In the
Dialogues of the Dead genre, authors would somehow contrive a device for summoning the dead to a character who would then speak with them and ask them questions about
philosophy or current events. These "ghosts" were under control of a great sorcerer or otherwise compelled to speak. The genre was most popular in the 18th century, and examples were written by many.
Jonathan Swift satirized the genre in the third book of
Gulliver's Travels , officially
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, is a novel by...
by having Gulliver summon the ghosts of former kings and great conquerors and finding, instead of nobility, petty, childish, and stupid people who possessed no wisdom and who accomplished their great deeds for mean and selfish reasons. Further, he finds that the ancestors of many great lords and ladies of his day were stable boys, servants, etc.
In each of these cases, the fictional ghost offers counsel to the living and thus acts as a messenger from the implicitly greater world beyond. However, the ghost messenger can also act in a way reminiscent of the guardian angel in fiction. In some fictions, a departed relative or friend, or a deceased person whom the main character had aided by arranging for a burial, guides the living to either a moral or material benefit. Such ghosts can either act as a
deus ex machina by resolving plot points with supernatural power or as a mentor who offers sagacity to the characters with a limited point of view.
Finally, the ghost messenger features in fiction as a ghost in disguise. A character otherwise regarded as living turns out, in the fiction's denouement, to be a supernatural agent. In
folk music, there are songs featuring lovers and objects of affection who must leave before dawn because they are ghosts. Additionally, some urban legends, such as the "Hitchhiking ghost", turn upon an anonymous stranger who is revealed to be a ghost in the clinch of the story. Such a ghost in disguise usually, in fiction, offers statements or visions that are relevant to the plot, but not in a way comprehensible to the characters. Such gnomic or oracular statements reward the reader with knowledge greater than the fiction's participants.
Ghost stories
The malign ghost whose intent is either to set right an injustice or to be avenged upon the living, either in general or on a specific person, features in many fictions. In the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage, the vengeful ghost is a commonplace who sets plots in motion. However, the haunting and mystery/adversarial acts of the ghost appears later in the "ghost story". Hauntings feature in
Eyrbyggja Saga for a section of the work, but the "
Gothic novel" and later "Gothic fiction" introduced the use of ghosts for fear to literature.
Horace Walpole's 1764
The Castle of Otranto was among the first to set up the rational but malign actions of a ghost to create an atmosphere of foreboding, mystery, and fear. After
Edgar Allan Poe, the "ghost story" began an independent generic history, and today the genre of Horror continues the use of ghosts as villains in fiction.
Other uses of ghosts in fiction
In many stories, ghosts are often depicted as haunting the living until a certain desire is met or some grievance was settled by the haunted.
In ballads, as in
The Famous Flower of Serving-Men, the ghost may tell the living of a wrong, but a common motif, found in few other stories, is the betrothed ghost who must be released from his promise to marry the heroine, or he will not rest in peace .
In
Shakespeare's play
Hamlet is a tragedy [i] by William Shakespeare [i] and is one of h ...
, a ghost, taking the form of Hamlet's recently deceased father, appears to Prince Hamlet one night. The ghost says that he was, in fact, murdered by his brother Claudius, who now occupies the throne. The ghost exhorts Hamlet to take revenge on Claudius. When Hamlet sees the ghost, he is not sure if it is, in fact, his father's spirit or a
demon whose aim is to deceive him.
Julius Caesar's ghost appears to Brutus in Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar to warn Brutus of his impending defeat. In Shakespeare's
Macbeth, the title character believes he sees the "blood-bolter'd" ghost of his former friend
Banquo sitting in his chair during a feast. Finally, in the play
Richard III, the title character is visited by the angry ghosts of those he has killed, foretelling his doom and blessing his opponent, Richmond, later to become
Henry VII.
In the anime/manga
BLEACH, ghosts appear in two types; the first, pluses, are good ghosts, and the second, hollows, are evil ghosts which the main character
Ichigo Kurosaki has to fight.
Casper the Friendly Ghost is a cartoon character from
Harvey Comics. The good-natured Casper befriend people rather than scare them.
There are ghost
superheroes who fight for justice, such as
DC Comics'
The Spectre,
Deadman,
Ghostfreak from
Ben 10, and Nickelodeon's
Danny Phantom.
In the film
The Sixth Sense is a 1999 [i] film [i] written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan [i] that tells the ...
, actor
Bruce Willis plays the ghost of a deceased child psychologist working with a young boy who can see the spirits of the dead among the living.
In the sci-fi/comedy
Ghostbusters is a 1984 [i] sci-fi [i] comedy film [i] about three eccentric New York City [i] ...
films and television cartoon, the protagonists use special technology of their own design to hunt and capture/exile the ghosts they encounter.
In the controversial BBC film
Ghostwatch was a controversial British [i] horror [i]-mockumentary [i] television programme [i] ...
, a ghost invades the world of the living.
Ghost is
Monster in My Pocket #31.
Other famous ghosts in fiction include the Headless Horseman, who appears in
Washington Irving's
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn visit a haunted house in
Mark Twain's
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, is a famous novel about a young boy growing up in the antebellum [i] ...
. Boag-Munroe is the fictional ghosthunter from A Haunted Man by horror writer Stuart Neild. Algernon Blackwood was a British writer who is well known for writing ghost stories. Other authors in the field include
Oscar Wilde , M. R. James,
J. Sheridan Le Fanu, H. R. Wakefield, and
E. F. Benson.
Theatre productions sometimes feature ghosts. One way to make the phantom appear on stage is
Pepper's ghost technique.
In Asian horror cinema, the ghost stories often include adaptations of old oriental folklore set in a present day city. The recent Japanese movie
The Ring is a 2002 [i] American [i] remake of the 1998 Japan [i]ese film, ...
and the Hong Kong movie
The Eye are both inspired by old legends about haunting spirits.
In popular 1990 academy award winning film
Ghost, the stranded ghost of a murdered man find out more about his murder and seek revenge on his killer. With the help of a psychic medium, he contacts his wife who was still alive and he learns the truth regarding his murder.
The
Disneyland attraction,
The Haunted Mansion supposedly features 999 happy haunts with room for 1,000.
In the science fiction series
Doctor Who the 2006 finale featured "ghosts" which actually turned out to be disguised
Cybermen.
In
Harry Potter series, many ghosts appear such as Nearly Headless Nick, The Bloody Baron, The Fat Friar, the Grey Lady, and Moaning Myrtle.
Ghosts appear in the
Pokémon series of games and animation as odd, but mostly benevolent entities who behave like other Pokémon
In
Perfect Cherry Blossom, Yuyuko Saigyouji and Youmu Konpaku are both ghosts of the netherworld.
See also
References
- . . Sydney Morning Herald.
External links
- - Research into the paranormal and supernatural
- - BBC report on a scientific explanation of ghosts.
- - A research community studying ghosts, spirits, and haunting's.
- - Victorian photographic images of ghosts form the American Museum of Photography
- - People sharing their ghost experiences, also including ghost articles, pictures, famous incidents.
