![Hammersmith Ghost](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Hammersmith_Ghost.PNG)
A ghost is the
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
or spirit of a dead
person
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
or
animal
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...
that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In
ghostlore
Ghostlore or ghost-lore is a genre of folklore concerning ghosts. Ghostlore occurs throughout recorded history, including contemporary contexts.
History
The first known recorded story to feature a haunted house is often regarded by folklore sch ...
, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic, lifelike forms. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a deceased person is known as
necromancy
Necromancy () is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions, or by resurrection for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future events; ...
, or in
spiritism
Spiritism (French: ''spiritisme''; Portuguese: ''espiritismo'') is a spiritualist, religious, and philosophical doctrine established in France in the 1850s by the French teacher, educational writer, and translator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Riva ...
as a ''
séance
A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French ''seoir'', "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, spe ...
''. Other terms associated with it are apparition, haunt, phantom, poltergeist, shade, specter or spectre, spirit, spook, wraith, demon, and ghoul.
The belief in the existence of an
afterlife
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...
, as well as manifestations of the spirits of the dead, is widespread, dating back to
animism
Animism (from Latin: ' meaning 'breath, Soul, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct Spirituality, spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—Animal, animals, Plant, plants, Ro ...
or
ancestor worship
The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of t ...
in pre-literate cultures. Certain religious practices—funeral rites,
exorcism
Exorcism () is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons, jinns, or other malevolent spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to be possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be ...
s, and some practices of
spiritualism
Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) ...
and
ritual magic
Ceremonial magic (ritual magic, high magic or learned magic) encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic. The works included are characterized by ceremony and numerous requisite accessories to aid the practitioner. It can be seen as an e ...
—are specifically designed to rest the spirits of the dead. Ghosts are generally described as solitary, human-like essences, though stories of ghostly armies and the ghosts of animals rather than humans have also been recounted. They are believed to haunt particular
locations
In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...
, objects, or people they were associated with in life. According to a 2009 study by the Pew Research Center, 18% of Americans say they have seen a ghost.
The overwhelming consensus of science is that there is no proof that ghosts exist.
[ Bunge, Mario. ]
Philosophy of Science: From Problem to Theory
'. Transaction Publishers; 1998. . p. 178–. Their existence is
impossible to falsify,
and
ghost hunting
Ghost hunting is the process of investigating locations that are reported to be haunted by ghosts. Typically, a ghost-hunting team will attempt to collect evidence supporting the existence of paranormal activity. Ghost hunters use a variety of ...
has been classified as
pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...
.
Despite centuries of investigation, there is no
scientific evidence
Scientific evidence is evidence that serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis, although scientists also use evidence in other ways, such as when applying theories to practical problems. "Discussions about empirical ev ...
that any location is inhabited by spirits of the dead.
Historically, certain toxic and
psychoactive plant
Psychoactive plants are plants, or preparations thereof, that upon ingestion induce psychotropic effects. As stated in a reference work:
Psychoactivity may include sedative, stimulant, euphoric, deliriant, and hallucinogenic effects.
Several ...
s (such as ''
datura
''Datura'' is a genus of nine species of highly poisonous, vespertine-flowering plants belonging to the nightshade family Solanaceae. They are commonly known as thornapples or jimsonweeds, but are also known as devil's trumpets (not to be conf ...
'' and ''
hyoscyamus niger
''Hyoscyamus niger'', commonly known as henbane, black henbane, or stinking nightshade, is a poisonous plant in the nightshade family Solanaceae. It is native to temperate Europe and Siberia, and naturalised in Great Britain and Ireland.
Histor ...
''), whose use has long been associated with necromancy and the
underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.
...
, have been shown to contain
anticholinergic
Anticholinergics (anticholinergic agents) are substances that block the action of the neurotransmitter called acetylcholine (ACh) at synapses in the central and peripheral nervous system.
These agents inhibit the parasympathetic nervous system ...
compounds that are pharmacologically linked to
dementia
Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...
(specifically
DLB) as well as histological patterns of
neurodegeneration
A neurodegenerative disease is caused by the progressive loss of structure or function of neurons, in the process known as neurodegeneration. Such neuronal damage may ultimately involve cell death. Neurodegenerative diseases include amyotrophic ...
.
Recent research has indicated that ghost sightings may be related to degenerative brain diseases such as
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
. Common prescription medication and
over-the-counter drugs
Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are medicines sold directly to a consumer without a requirement for a prescription from a healthcare professional, as opposed to prescription drugs, which may be supplied only to consumers possessing a valid prescr ...
(such as
sleep aids
Insomnia, also known as sleeplessness, is a sleep disorder in which people have trouble sleeping. They may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, ...
) may also, in rare instances, cause ghost-like hallucinations, particularly
zolpidem
Zolpidem, sold under the brand name Ambien, among others, is a medication primarily used for the short-term treatment of sleeping problems. Guidelines recommend that it be used only after cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and behaviora ...
and
diphenhydramine
Diphenhydramine (DPH) is an antihistamine and sedative mainly used to treat allergies, insomnia, and symptoms of the common cold. It is also less commonly used for tremor in parkinsonism, and nausea. It is taken by mouth, injected into a vein ...
.
Older reports linked
carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simple ...
poisoning to ghost-like hallucinations.
In
folklore studies
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
, ghosts fall within the
motif index
The ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'' is a six volume catalogue of motifs, granular elements of folklore, composed by American folklorist Stith Thompson (1932–1936, revised and expanded 1955–1958). Often referred to as Thompson's motif-index ...
designation E200–E599 ("Ghosts and other revenants").
Terminology
The English word ''
ghost
A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...
'' continues
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
''
gāst''. Stemming from
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
''
*gaistaz'', it is
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
with
Old Frisian
Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Friesl ...
''gāst'',
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It i ...
''gēst'',
Old Dutch
In linguistics, Old Dutch (Dutch: Oudnederlands) or Old Low Franconian (Dutch: Oudnederfrankisch) is the set of Franconian dialects (i.e. dialects that evolved from Frankish) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from aroun ...
''gēst'', and
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
''geist''. Although this form is not attested in
North Germanic
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...
and
East Germanic
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
languages (the equivalent word in
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
is ''ahma'',
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
has ''andi'' m., ''önd'' f.), it appears to be a
dental suffix derivative of
pre-Germanic ''*ghois-d-oz'' ('fury, anger'), which is comparable to
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
''héḍas'' ('anger') and
Avestan
Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...
''zōižda''- ('terrible, ugly'). The prior
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
form is reconstructed as ', from the root'' '', which is reflected in Old Norse ''geisa'' ('to rage') and ''*geiski'' ('fear'; cf. ''geiskafullr'' 'full of fear'), in Gothic ''usgaisjan'' ('to terrify') and ''usgaisnan'' ('to be terrified'), as well as in Avestan ''zōiš-'' (cf. ''zōišnu'' 'shivering, trembling').
[, s.v. ghost, n.]
The Germanic word is recorded as masculine only, but likely continues a neuter ''s''-stem. The original meaning of the Germanic word would thus have been an animating principle of the
mind
The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...
, in particular capable of excitation and fury (compare ''
óðr
In Norse mythology, Óðr (; Old Norse for the "Divine Madness, frantic, furious, vehement, eager", as a noun "mind, feeling" and also "song, poetry"; Orchard (1997) gives "the frenzied one"Orchard (1997:121).) or Óð, sometimes anglicized as Od ...
''). In
Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germ ...
, "
Germanic Mercury
Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, ...
", and the later
Odin
Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered Æsir, god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, v ...
, was at the same time the
conductor of the dead
Psychopomps (from the Greek word , , literally meaning the 'guide of souls') are supernatural creatures, spirits, entities, angels, demons or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afte ...
and the "lord of fury" leading the
Wild Hunt
The Wild Hunt is a folklore motif (Motif E501 in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature) that occurs in the folklore of various northern European cultures. Wild Hunts typically involve a chase led by a mythological figure escorted by ...
.
Besides denoting the human spirit or soul, both of the living and the deceased, the Old English word is used as a synonym of Latin ''spiritus'' also in the meaning of "breath" or "blast" from the earliest attestations (9th century). It could also denote any good or evil spirit, such as angels and demons; the
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
gospel refers to the
demonic possession
Spirit possession is an unusual or altered state of consciousness and associated behaviors purportedly caused by the control of a human body by spirits, ghosts, demons, or gods. The concept of spirit possession exists in many cultures and reli ...
of Matthew 12:43 as ''se unclæna gast''. Also from the Old English period, the word could denote the spirit of God, viz. the "
Holy Ghost
For the majority of Christian denominations, the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, is believed to be the third person of the Trinity, a Triune God manifested as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each entity itself being God.Grud ...
".
The now-prevailing sense of "the soul of a deceased person, spoken of as appearing in a visible form" only emerges in
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
(14th century). The modern noun does, however, retain a wider field of application, extending on one hand to "soul", "spirit", "
vital principle
Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Wher ...
", "
mind
The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...
", or "
psyche
Psyche (''Psyché'' in French) is the Greek term for "soul" (ψυχή).
Psyche may also refer to:
Psychology
* Psyche (psychology), the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious
* ''Psyche'', an 1846 book about the unconscious by Car ...
", the seat of feeling, thought, and moral judgement; on the other hand used figuratively of any shadowy outline, or fuzzy or unsubstantial image; in optics,
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...
, and cinematography especially, a flare, secondary image, or spurious signal.
The synonym ''
spook
Spook is a synonym for ghost. Spook or spooks may also refer to:
People
* Spook (nickname), shared by several notable people
* Per Spook (born 1939), Norwegian fashion designer
* a ghostwriter
* a racial slur referring to a black person
* an unde ...
'' is a
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
loanword, akin to
Low German
:
:
:
:
:
(70,000)
(30,000)
(8,000)
, familycolor = Indo-European
, fam2 = Germanic
, fam3 = West Germanic
, fam4 = North Sea Germanic
, ancestor = Old Saxon
, ancestor2 = Middle L ...
''spôk'' (of uncertain etymology); it entered the English language via
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
in the 19th century. Alternative words in modern usage include ''spectre'' (altn. ''specter''; from Latin ''spectrum''), the Scottish ''wraith'' (of obscure origin), ''phantom'' (via French ultimately from Greek ''phantasma'', compare ''
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
'') and ''apparition''. The term ''
shade'' in
classical mythology
Classical mythology, Greco-Roman mythology, or Greek and Roman mythology is both the body of and the study of myths from the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans as they are used or transformed by cultural reception. Along with philosophy and polit ...
translates Greek σκιά, or Latin ''umbra'', in reference to the notion of spirits in the
Greek underworld
In mythology, the Greek underworld, or Hades, is a distinct realm (one of the three realms that makes up the cosmos) where an individual goes after death. The earliest idea of afterlife in Greek myth is that, at the moment of death, an individ ...
. The term ''
poltergeist
In ghostlore, a poltergeist ( or ; German for "rumbling ghost" or "noisy spirit") is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. Most claims or fictional descr ...
'' is a German word, literally a "noisy ghost", for a spirit said to manifest itself by invisibly moving and influencing objects.
''
Wraith'' is a
Scots word for ''ghost'', ''spectre'', or ''apparition''. It appeared in Scottish Romanticist literature, and acquired the more general or figurative sense of ''portent'' or ''
omen
An omen (also called ''portent'') is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. It was commonly believed in ancient times, and still believed by some today, that omens bring divine messages fr ...
''. In 18th- to 19th-century Scottish literature, it also applied to aquatic spirits. The word has no commonly accepted etymology; the ''
OED
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' notes "of obscure origin" only. An association with the verb ''
writhe
In knot theory, there are several competing notions of the quantity writhe, or \operatorname. In one sense, it is purely a property of an oriented link diagram and assumes integer values. In another sense, it is a quantity that describes the amou ...
'' was the etymology favored by
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...
. Tolkien's use of the word in the naming of the creatures known as the
Ringwraiths has influenced later usage in fantasy literature.
Bogey or ''
bogy/bogie'' is a term for a ghost, and appears in Scottish poet
John Mayne
John Mayne (1759–1836) was a Scottish printer, journalist and poet born in Dumfries. In 1780, his poem ''The Siller Gun'' appeared in its original form in ''Ruddiman's Magazine'', published by Walter Ruddiman in Edinburgh. 's ''Hallowe'en'' in 1780.
A ''
revenant
In folklore, a revenant is an animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living. The word ''revenant'' is derived from the Old French word, ''revenant'', the "returning" (see also the related French language, F ...
'' is a deceased person returning from the dead to haunt the living, either as a disembodied ghost or alternatively as an animated ("
undead
The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if alive. Most commonly the term refers to corporeal forms of formerly-alive humans, such as mummies, vampires, and zombies, who have been reanimated by super ...
") corpse. Also related is the concept of a
fetch
Fetch may refer to:
Books
* ''Fetch'', a 2012 book by Alan MacDonald and David Roberts
* ''The Fetch'', a 2006 book by Chris Humphreys
* ''The Fetch'', a 2009 book by Laura Whitcomb
* ''The Fetch'', a 1991 book by Robert Holdstock
* ''Fazbear Fr ...
, the visible ghost or spirit of a person yet alive.
Typology
Anthropological context
A notion of the
transcendent,
supernatural
Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
, or
numinous
Numinous () is a term derived from the Latin ''numen'', meaning "arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring."Collins English Dictionary -7th ed. - 2005 The term was given its present sense by the German theologian and ph ...
, usually involving entities like ghosts,
demon
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, ani ...
s, or
deities
A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...
, is a
cultural universal
A cultural universal (also called an anthropological universal or human universal) is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all known human cultures worldwide. Taken together, the whole body of cultural universals is known ...
. In pre-literate
folk religion
In religious studies and folkloristics, folk religion, popular religion, traditional religion or vernacular religion comprises various forms and expressions of religion that are distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized re ...
s, these beliefs are often summarized under
animism
Animism (from Latin: ' meaning 'breath, Soul, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct Spirituality, spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—Animal, animals, Plant, plants, Ro ...
and
ancestor worship
The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of t ...
. Some people believe the ghost or spirit never leaves Earth until there is no-one left to remember the one who died.
[Encyclopedia of Occultism and ]Parapsychology
Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...
edited by J. Gordon Melton
John Gordon Melton (born September 19, 1942) is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is currently the Distinguished Professor of American Religious History with the Ins ...
, Gale Group
Gale is a global provider of research and digital learning resources. The company is based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007.
The company, formerly known as Gale Research and the Gale Gro ...
,
In many cultures, malignant,
restless ghosts
In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit of a dead person who returns from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel, unnatural or unjust death. In certain cultures where funeral and burial or c ...
are distinguished from the more benign spirits involved in ancestor worship.
Ancestor worship typically involves rites intended to prevent
revenant
In folklore, a revenant is an animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living. The word ''revenant'' is derived from the Old French word, ''revenant'', the "returning" (see also the related French language, F ...
s,
vengeful spirit
In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit of a dead person who returns from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel, unnatural or unjust death. In certain cultures where funeral and burial or crem ...
s of the dead, imagined as starving and envious of the living. Strategies for preventing revenants may either include
sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exi ...
, i.e., giving the dead food and drink to pacify them, or magical banishment of the deceased to force them not to return. Ritual feeding of the dead is performed in traditions like the Chinese
Ghost Festival
The Ghost Festival, also known as the Zhongyuan Festival (traditional Chinese: 中元節; simplified Chinese: ) in Taoism and Yulanpen Festival () in Buddhism, is a traditional Taoist and Buddhist festival held in certain East Asian countrie ...
or the Western
All Souls' Day
All Souls' Day, also called ''The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed'', is a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed, observed by certain Christian denominations on 2 November. Through prayer, intercessions, alms and ...
. Magical banishment of the dead is present in many of the world's
burial custom
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, plac ...
s. The bodies found in many
tumuli
A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones buil ...
(
kurgan
A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into much of Central Asi ...
) had been ritually bound before burial, and the custom of binding the dead persists, for example, in rural
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
.
Nineteenth-century anthropologist
James Frazer
Sir James George Frazer (; 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion.
Personal life
He was born on 1 Janua ...
stated in his classic work ''
The Golden Bough
''The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion'' (retitled ''The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion'' in its second edition) is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir ...
'' that
souls
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
were seen as the creature within that animated the body.
["If a man lives and moves, it can only be because he has a little man or animal inside, who moves him. The animal inside the animal, the man inside the man, is the soul. And as the activity of an animal or man is explained by the presence of the soul, so the repose of sleep or death is explained by its absence; sleep or trance being the temporary, death being the permanent absence of the soul... ]
The Golden Bough
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."
It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...
. Retrieved January 16, 2007.
Ghosts and the afterlife
Although the human soul was sometimes symbolically or literally depicted in ancient cultures as a bird or other animal, it appears to have been widely held that the soul was an exact reproduction of the body in every feature, even down to clothing the person wore. This is depicted in artwork from various ancient cultures, including such works as the Egyptian ''
Book of the Dead
The ''Book of the Dead'' ( egy, 𓂋𓏤𓈒𓈒𓈒𓏌𓏤𓉐𓂋𓏏𓂻𓅓𓉔𓂋𓅱𓇳𓏤, ''rw n(y)w prt m hrw(w)'') is an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom ...
'', which shows deceased people in the afterlife appearing much as they did before death, including the style of dress.
Fear of ghosts
![Suushi Yurei](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Suushi_Yurei.jpg)
While deceased ancestors are
universally regarded as venerable, and often believed to have a continued presence in some form of
afterlife
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...
, the spirit of a deceased person that persists in the material world (a ghost) is regarded as an unnatural or undesirable state of affairs and the idea of ghosts or
revenant
In folklore, a revenant is an animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living. The word ''revenant'' is derived from the Old French word, ''revenant'', the "returning" (see also the related French language, F ...
s is associated with a reaction of fear. This is universally the case in pre-modern folk cultures, but fear of ghosts also remains an integral aspect of the modern
ghost story
A ghost story is any piece of fiction, or drama, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them."Ghost Stories" in Margaret Drabble (ed.), ''Oxford Companion to English Literature'' ...
,
Gothic horror
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...
, and other
horror fiction
Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J ...
dealing with the supernatural.
Common attributes
Another widespread belief concerning ghosts is that they are composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material.
Anthropologists
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and v ...
link this idea to early beliefs that ghosts were the person within the person (the person's spirit), most noticeable in ancient cultures as a person's breath, which upon exhaling in colder climates appears visibly as a white mist.
This belief may have also fostered the metaphorical meaning of "breath" in certain languages, such as the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''spiritus'' and the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
''
pneuma
''Pneuma'' () is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for "spirit" or "soul". It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is a ...
'', which by
analogy
Analogy (from Greek ''analogia'', "proportion", from ''ana-'' "upon, according to" lso "against", "anew"+ ''logos'' "ratio" lso "word, speech, reckoning" is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject ( ...
became extended to mean the soul. In the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
,
God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
is depicted as synthesising
Adam
Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
, as a living soul, from the dust of the Earth and the breath of God.
In many traditional accounts, ghosts were often thought to be deceased people looking for vengeance (
vengeful ghost
In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit of a dead person who returns from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel, unnatural or unjust death. In certain cultures where funeral and burial or crema ...
s), or imprisoned on earth for bad things they did during life. The appearance of a ghost has often been regarded as an omen or portent of death. Seeing one's own ghostly double or "
fetch
Fetch may refer to:
Books
* ''Fetch'', a 2012 book by Alan MacDonald and David Roberts
* ''The Fetch'', a 2006 book by Chris Humphreys
* ''The Fetch'', a 2009 book by Laura Whitcomb
* ''The Fetch'', a 1991 book by Robert Holdstock
* ''Fazbear Fr ...
" is a related omen of death.
White ladies were reported to appear in many rural areas, and supposed to have died tragically or suffered trauma in life. White Lady legends are found around the world. Common to many of them is the theme of losing a child or husband and a sense of purity, as opposed to the
Lady in Red ghost that is mostly attributed to a jilted lover or prostitute. The White Lady ghost is often associated with an individual family line or regarded as a harbinger of death similar to a
banshee
A banshee ( ; Modern Irish , from sga, ben síde , "woman of the fairy mound" or "fairy woman") is a female spirit in Irish folklore who heralds the death of a family member, usually by screaming, wailing, shrieking, or keening. Her name is c ...
.
Legends of ghost ships have existed since the 18th century; most notable of these is the ''
Flying Dutchman
The ''Flying Dutchman'' ( nl, De Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship, allegedly never able to make port, but doomed to sail the seven seas forever. The myth is likely to have originated from the 17th-century Golden Age of the Dut ...
''. This theme has been used in literature in ''
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (originally ''The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere'') is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–1798 and published in 1798 in the first edition of ''Lyrical Ballad ...
'' by Coleridge.
Ghosts are often depicted as being covered in a shroud and/or dragging chains.
Locale
A place where ghosts are reported is described as
haunted
Haunted or The Haunted may refer to:
Books
* ''Haunted'' (Armstrong novel), by Kelley Armstrong, 2005
* ''Haunted'' (Cabot novel), by Meg Cabot, 2004
* ''Haunted'' (Palahniuk novel), by Chuck Palahniuk, 2005
* ''Haunted'' (Angel novel), a 200 ...
, and often seen as being inhabited by
spirits
Spirit or spirits may refer to:
Liquor and other volatile liquids
* Spirits, a.k.a. liquor, distilled alcoholic drinks
* Spirit or tincture, an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol
* Volatile (especially flammable) liquids, ...
of deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property. Supernatural activity inside homes is said to be mainly associated with violent or tragic events in the building's past such as murder, accidental death, or suicide—sometimes in the recent or ancient past. However, not all hauntings are at a place of a violent death, or even on violent grounds. Many cultures and religions believe the essence of a being, such as the '
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
', continues to exist. Some religious views argue that the 'spirits' of those who have died have not 'passed over' and are trapped inside the property where their memories and energy are strong.
History
Ancient Near East and Egypt
There are many references to
ghosts in Mesopotamian religions There are many references to ghosts in ancient Mesopotamian religion – the religions of Sumer, Babylon, Assyria and other early states in Mesopotamia. Traces of these beliefs survive in the later Abrahamic religions that came to dominate the regio ...
– the religions of
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...
,
Babylon
''Bābili(m)''
* sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠
* arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel''
* syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel''
* grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn''
* he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel''
* peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru''
* elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
,
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
, and other early states in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
. Traces of these beliefs survive in the later
Abrahamic religion
The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and the Quran.
Jewish tradition ...
s that came to dominate the region.
Ghosts were thought to be created at time of death, taking on the memory and personality of the dead person. They traveled to the netherworld, where they were assigned a position, and led an existence similar in some ways to that of the living.
Relatives of the dead were expected to make offerings of food and drink to the dead to ease their conditions. If they did not, the ghosts could inflict misfortune and illness on the living. Traditional healing practices ascribed a variety of illnesses to the action of ghosts, while others were caused by gods or demons.
![Akh glyph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Akh_glyph.svg)
There was widespread belief in
ghosts in ancient Egyptian culture
The ancient Egyptians believed that a soul ( kꜣ and bꜣ; Egypt. pron. ka/ba) was made up of many parts. In addition to these components of the soul, there was the human body (called the ''ḥꜥ'', occasionally a plural '' ḥꜥw'', meani ...
The
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
contains few references to ghosts, associating spiritism with forbidden occult activities cf.
Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy ( grc, Δευτερονόμιον, Deuteronómion, second law) is the fifth and last book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called (Hebrew: hbo, , Dəḇārīm, hewords Moses.html"_;"title="f_Moses">f_Moseslabel=none)_and_th ...
18:11. The most notable reference is in the First
Book of Samuel
The Book of Samuel (, ''Sefer Shmuel'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the narrative history of Ancient Israel called the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Joshu ...
(I Samuel 28:3–19 KJV), in which a disguised
King Saul
Saul (; he, , ; , ; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel. His reign, traditionally placed in the late 11th century BCE, supposedly marked the transition of Israel and Judah from a scattered tr ...
has the
Witch of Endor
The Witch of Endor ( he, ''baʿălaṯ-ʾōḇ bəʿĒyn Dōr'', "she who owns the ''ʾōḇ'' of Endor") is a woman who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was consulted by Saul to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel. Saul wished to receive ad ...
summon the spirit or ghost of
Samuel
Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bibl ...
.
The
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
and spirit were believed to exist after death, with the ability to assist or harm the living, and the possibility of a second death. Over a period of more than 2,500 years, Egyptian beliefs about the nature of the afterlife evolved constantly. Many of these beliefs were recorded in
hieroglyph
A hieroglyph ( Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatoni ...
inscriptions, papyrus scrolls and tomb paintings. The Egyptian ''
Book of the Dead
The ''Book of the Dead'' ( egy, 𓂋𓏤𓈒𓈒𓈒𓏌𓏤𓉐𓂋𓏏𓂻𓅓𓉔𓂋𓅱𓇳𓏤, ''rw n(y)w prt m hrw(w)'') is an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom ...
'' compiles some of the beliefs from different periods of ancient Egyptian history.
In modern times, the fanciful concept of a mummy coming back to life and wreaking vengeance when disturbed has spawned a whole genre of horror stories and films.
Classical Antiquity
Archaic and Classical Greece
![Klytaimnestra Erinyes Louvre Cp710](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Klytaimnestra_Erinyes_Louvre_Cp710.jpg)
Ghosts appeared in
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
's ''
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...
'' and ''
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odysse ...
'', in which they were described as vanishing "as a vapor, gibbering and whining into the earth". Homer's ghosts had little interaction with the world of the living. Periodically they were called upon to provide advice or prophecy, but they do not appear to be particularly feared. Ghosts in the classical world often appeared in the form of vapor or smoke, but at other times they were described as being substantial, appearing as they had been at the time of death, complete with the wounds that killed them.
By the 5th century BC,
classical Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
ghosts had become haunting, frightening creatures who could work to either good or evil purposes. The spirit of the dead was believed to hover near the resting place of the corpse, and cemeteries were places the living avoided. The dead were to be ritually mourned through public ceremony, sacrifice, and libations, or else they might return to haunt their families. The ancient Greeks held annual feasts to honor and placate the spirits of the dead, to which the family ghosts were invited, and after which they were "firmly invited to leave until the same time next year."
The 5th-century BC play ''
Oresteia
The ''Oresteia'' ( grc, Ὀρέστεια) is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BCE, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end of th ...
'' includes an appearance of the ghost of
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra (; grc-gre, Κλυταιμνήστρα, ''Klytaimnḗstrā'', ), in Greek mythology, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and the twin sister of Helen of Troy. In Aeschylus' ''Oresteia'', she murders Agamemnon – said by Eu ...
, one of the first ghosts to appear in a work of fiction.
Roman Empire and Late Antiquity
![Athenodorus - The Greek Stoic Philosopher Athenodorus Rents a Haunted House](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Athenodorus_-_The_Greek_Stoic_Philosopher_Athenodorus_Rents_a_Haunted_House.jpg)
The
ancient Romans
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom ...
believed a ghost could be used to exact revenge on an enemy by scratching a curse on a piece of lead or pottery and placing it into a grave.
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''P ...
, in the 1st century AD, described the haunting of the baths at
Chaeronea
Chaeronea (English: or ; el, Χαιρώνεια , ) is a village and a former municipality in Boeotia, Greece, located about 35 kilometers east of Delphi. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Livadeia, of which ...
by the ghost of a murdered man. The ghost's loud and frightful groans caused the people of the town to seal up the doors of the building. Another celebrated account of a haunted house from the ancient classical world is given by
Pliny the Younger
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo (61 – c. 113), better known as Pliny the Younger (), was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate ...
( 50 AD). Pliny describes the haunting of a house in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, which was bought by the
Stoic
Stoic may refer to:
* An adherent of Stoicism; one whose moral quality is associated with that school of philosophy
*STOIC, a programming language
* ''Stoic'' (film), a 2009 film by Uwe Boll
* ''Stoic'' (mixtape), a 2012 mixtape by rapper T-Pain
*' ...
philosopher
Athenodorus, who lived about 100 years before Pliny. Knowing that the house was supposedly haunted, Athenodorus intentionally set up his writing desk in the room where the apparition was said to appear and sat there writing until late at night when he was disturbed by a ghost bound in chains. He followed the ghost outside where it indicated a spot on the ground. When Athenodorus later excavated the area, a shackled skeleton was unearthed. The haunting ceased when the skeleton was given a proper reburial. The writers
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the gen ...
and
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer
Pamphleteer is a historical term for someone who creates or distributes pamphlets, unbound (and therefore ...
also wrote stories about haunted houses.
In the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
, according to
Luke
People
*Luke (given name), a masculine given name (including a list of people and characters with the name)
*Luke (surname) (including a list of people and characters with the name)
*Luke the Evangelist, author of the Gospel of Luke. Also known as ...
24:37–39, following his
resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, which ...
,
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
was forced to persuade the
Disciples that he was not a ghost (some versions of the Bible, such as the KJV and NKJV, use the term "spirit"). Similarly, Jesus' followers at first believed he was a ghost (spirit) when they saw him
walking on water.
One of the first persons to express disbelief in ghosts was
Lucian of Samosata
Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstiti ...
in the 2nd century AD. In his satirical novel ''
The Lover of Lies'' (circa 150 AD), he relates how
Democritus
Democritus (; el, Δημόκριτος, ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. No ...
"the learned man from
Abdera in
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to t ...
" lived in a tomb outside the
city gate
A city gate is a gate which is, or was, set within a city wall. It is a type of fortified gateway.
Uses
City gates were traditionally built to provide a point of controlled access to and departure from a walled city for people, vehicles, goods ...
s to prove that cemeteries were not haunted by the spirits of the departed. Lucian relates how he persisted in his disbelief despite
practical joke
A practical joke, or prank, is a mischievous trick played on someone, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.Marsh, Moira. 2015. ''Practically Joking''. Logan: Utah State University Press. ...
s perpetrated by "some young men of Abdera" who dressed up in black robes with skull masks to frighten him. This account by Lucian notes something about the popular classical expectation of how a ghost should look.
In the 5th century AD, the Christian priest
Constantius of Lyon Constantius of Lyon (fl. c. AD 480) was a cleric from what is now the Auvergne in modern-day France, who wrote the ''Vita Germani'', or Life of Germanus, a hagiography of Germanus of Auxerre. The hagiography was written some time during the second h ...
recorded an instance of the recurring theme of the improperly buried dead who come back to haunt the living, and who can only cease their haunting when their bones have been discovered and properly reburied.
Middle Ages
Ghosts reported in
medieval Europe
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
tended to fall into two categories: the souls of the dead, or demons. The souls of the dead returned for a specific purpose. Demonic ghosts existed only to torment or tempt the living. The living could tell them apart by demanding their purpose in the name of Jesus Christ. The soul of a dead person would divulge its mission, while a demonic ghost would be banished at the sound of the Holy Name.
Most ghosts were souls assigned to
Purgatory
Purgatory (, borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French) is, according to the belief of some Christian denominations (mostly Catholic), an intermediate state after physical death for expiatory purification. The process of purgatory ...
, condemned for a specific period to atone for their transgressions in life. Their penance was generally related to their sin. For example, the ghost of a man who had been abusive to his servants was condemned to tear off and swallow bits of his own tongue; the ghost of another man, who had neglected to leave his cloak to the poor, was condemned to wear the cloak, now "heavy as a church tower". These ghosts appeared to the living to ask for prayers to end their suffering. Other dead souls returned to urge the living to confess their sins before their own deaths.
Medieval European ghosts were more substantial than ghosts described in the
Victorian age
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...
, and there are accounts of ghosts being wrestled with and physically restrained until a priest could arrive to hear its confession. Some were less solid, and could move through walls. Often they were described as paler and sadder versions of the person they had been while alive, and dressed in tattered gray rags. The vast majority of reported sightings were male.
There were some reported cases of ghostly armies, fighting battles at night in the forest, or in the remains of an
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
hillfort, as at
Wandlebury
Wandlebury Hill () is a peak in the Gog Magog Hills, a ridge of low chalk hills extending for several miles to the southeast of Cambridge, England. The underlying rock is present in a number of places on the hill. At it is the same height as the ...
, near Cambridge, England. Living knights were sometimes challenged to single combat by phantom knights, which vanished when defeated.
[Finucane, pg. 79.]
From the medieval period an apparition of a ghost is recorded from 1211, at the time of the
Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown ...
.
Gervase of Tilbury
Gervase of Tilbury ( la, Gervasius Tilberiensis; 1150–1220) was an English canon lawyer, statesman and cleric. He enjoyed the favour of Henry II of England and later of Henry's grandson, Emperor Otto IV, for whom he wrote his best known work, t ...
, Marshal of
Arles
Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...
, wrote that the image of Guilhem, a boy recently murdered in the forest, appeared in his cousin's home in
Beaucaire, near
Avignon
Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region of So ...
. This series of "visits" lasted all of the summer. Through his cousin, who spoke for him, the boy allegedly held conversations with anyone who wished, until the local priest requested to speak to the boy directly, leading to an extended disquisition on theology. The boy narrated the trauma of death and the unhappiness of his fellow souls in
Purgatory
Purgatory (, borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French) is, according to the belief of some Christian denominations (mostly Catholic), an intermediate state after physical death for expiatory purification. The process of purgatory ...
, and reported that God was most pleased with the ongoing Crusade against the
Cathar
Catharism (; from the grc, καθαροί, katharoi, "the pure ones") was a Christian dualist or Gnostic movement between the 12th and 14th centuries which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France. Follow ...
heretics, launched three years earlier. The time of the Albigensian Crusade in southern France was marked by intense and prolonged warfare, this constant bloodshed and dislocation of populations being the context for these reported visits by the murdered boy.
Haunted houses are featured in the 9th-century ''
Arabian Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...
'' (such as the tale of ''
Ali the Cairene and the Haunted House in Baghdad'').
European Renaissance to Romanticism
Renaissance magic
Renaissance magic was a resurgence in Hermeticism and Neo-Platonic varieties of the Magic (supernatural), magical arts which arose along with Renaissance humanism in the 15th and 16th centuries CE. These magical arts (called ''#Artes magicae, art ...
took a revived interest in the
occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
, including
necromancy
Necromancy () is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions, or by resurrection for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future events; ...
. In the era of the Reformation and Counter Reformation, there was frequently a backlash against unwholesome interest in the dark arts, typified by writers such as
Thomas Erastus
Thomas Erastus (original surname Lüber, Lieber, or Liebler; 7 September 152431 December 1583) was a Swiss physician and Calvinist theologian. He wrote 100 theses (later reduced to 75) in which he argued that the sins committed by Christians shou ...
. The Swiss Reformed pastor
Ludwig Lavater
Ludwig Lavater (4 March 1527; Kyburg (castle) – 5 July 1586 in Zurich) was a Swiss Reformed theologian working in the circle of his father-in-law, Heinrich Bullinger. He served as Archdeacon at the Grossmünster in Zurich and briefly Antistes ...
supplied one of the most frequently reprinted books of the period with his ''Of Ghosts and Spirits Walking By Night.''
The
Child Ballad
The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as '' ...
"
Sweet William's Ghost
Sweet William's Ghost (Child 77, Roudbr>50 is an English Ballad and folk song which exists in many lyrical variations and musical arrangements. Early known printings of the song include Allan Ramsay's ''The Tea-Table Miscellany'' in 1740 and Tho ...
" (1868) recounts the story of a ghost returning to his fiancée begging her to free him from his promise to marry her. He cannot marry her because he is dead but her refusal would mean his damnation. This reflects a popular British belief that the dead haunted their lovers if they took up with a new love without some formal release. "
The Unquiet Grave
"The Unquiet Grave" is an English folk song in which a young man's grief over the death of his true love is so deep that it disturbs her eternal sleep. It was collected in 1868 by Francis James Child as Child Ballad number 78. One of the more comm ...
" expresses a belief even more widespread, found in various locations over Europe: ghosts can stem from the excessive grief of the living, whose mourning interferes with the dead's peaceful rest. In many folktales from around the world, the hero arranges for the burial of a dead man. Soon after, he gains a companion who aids him and, in the end, the hero's companion reveals that he is in fact the
dead man
''Dead Man'' is a 1995 American acid western film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Crispin Glover, John Hurt, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, Gabriel Byrne, Mili Avital, an ...
.
Instances of this include the Italian
fairy tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
"
Fair Brow
Fair Brow is an Italian fairy tale collected by Thomas Frederick Crane in his ''Italian Popular Tales''.
Italo Calvino included a variant from Istria in his ''Italian Folktales''. He noted that the grateful dead man was a common medieval motif.I ...
" and the Swedish "
The Bird 'Grip'
The Bird 'Grip' is a Swedish fairy tale.Andrew Lang, ''The Pink Fairy Book'',The Bird 'Grip' Andrew Lang included it in ''The Pink Fairy Book''. It is Aarne-Thompson type 550, the quest for the golden bird/firebird; other tales of this type inclu ...
".
Modern period of western culture
Spiritualist movement
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) ...
is a
monotheistic
Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, an all-supreme being that is universally referred to as God. Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford ...
belief system or
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
, postulating a belief in
God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
, but with a distinguishing feature of belief that spirits of the dead residing in the
spirit world can be contacted by "
mediums
Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spir ...
", who can then provide information about the
afterlife
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...
.
Spiritualism developed in the United States and reached its peak growth in membership from the 1840s to the 1920s, especially in
English-language countries.
[
] By 1897, it was said to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe,
mostly drawn from the
middle and
upper classes, while the corresponding movement in continental Europe and Latin America is known as
Spiritism
Spiritism (French: ''spiritisme''; Portuguese: ''espiritismo'') is a spiritualist, religious, and philosophical doctrine established in France in the 1850s by the French teacher, educational writer, and translator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Riva ...
.
The religion flourished for a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, attaining cohesion by periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many prominent Spiritualists were women. Most followers supported causes such as the
abolition of slavery
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
and
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
.
By the late 1880s, credibility of the informal movement weakened, due to accusations of fraud among mediums, and formal Spiritualist organizations began to appear.
Spiritualism is currently practiced primarily through various denominational
Spiritualist church
A spiritualist church is a church affiliated with the informal spiritualist movement which began in the United States in the 1840s. Spiritualist churches are now found around the world, but are most common in English-speaking countries, while in L ...
es in the United States and United Kingdom.
Spiritism
Spiritism, or French spiritualism, is based on the five books of the
Spiritist Codification
Allan Kardec () is the pen name of the French educator, translator, and author Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail (; 3 October 1804 – 31 March 1869). He is the author of the five books known as the Spiritist Codification, and the founder of S ...
written by French educator Hypolite Léon Denizard Rivail under the
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
Allan Kardec
Allan Kardec () is the pen name of the French educator, translator, and author Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail (; 3 October 1804 – 31 March 1869). He is the author of the five books known as the Spiritist Codification, and the founder of S ...
reporting
séance
A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French ''seoir'', "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, spe ...
s in which he observed a series of phenomena that he attributed to incorporeal intelligence (spirits). His assumption of spirit communication was validated by many contemporaries, among them many scientists and philosophers who attended séances and studied the phenomena. His work was later extended by writers like
Leon Denis
Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to:
Places
Europe
* León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León
* Province of León, Spain
* Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again f ...
,
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...
,
Camille Flammarion
Nicolas Camille Flammarion FRAS (; 26 February 1842 – 3 June 1925) was a French astronomer and author. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction ...
,
Ernesto Bozzano
Ernesto Bozzano (January 9, 1862 – June 24, 1943), also known as Signor Bozzano was an Italian parapsychologist and spiritualist.
Career
Bozzano was born in Genoa. He did not receive formal education, he was self-taught. He was influenced by ...
,
Chico Xavier
Chico Xavier () or Francisco Cândido Xavier, born Francisco de Paula Cândido (, April 2, 1910 – June 30, 2002), was a popular Brazilian philanthropist and spiritist medium. During a period of 60 years he wrote over 490 books and several ...
, Divaldo Pereira Franco, Waldo Vieira,
Johannes Greber, and others.
Spiritism has adherents in many countries throughout the world, including Spain, United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, England, Argentina, Portugal, and especially Brazil, which has the largest proportion and greatest number of followers.
Scientific view
The physician
John Ferriar
John Ferriar (1761 – 4 February 1815), was a Scottish physician and a poet, most noted for his leadership of the Manchester Infirmary, and his studies of the causes of diseases such as typhoid.
Background
Ferriar was born near Jedburgh, R ...
wrote "An Essay Towards a Theory of Apparitions" in 1813 in which he argued that sightings of ghosts were the result of
optical illusion
Within visual perception, an optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is an illusion caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual perception, percept that arguably appears to differ from reality. Illusions come in a wide v ...
s. Later the French physician
Alexandre Jacques François Brière de Boismont
Alexandre Jacques François Brière de Boismont (often translated as ''Brierre de Boismont'' in English) (18 October 1797 – 25 December 1881) was a French physician and psychiatrist born in Rouen.
In 1825 he received his medical doctorate in Pa ...
published ''On Hallucinations: Or, the Rational History of Apparitions, Dreams, Ecstasy, Magnetism, and Somnambulism'' in 1845 in which he claimed sightings of ghosts were the result of
hallucinations
A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinatio ...
.
![Ball lightning](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Ball_lightning.png)
David Turner, a retired physical chemist, suggested that
ball lightning
Ball lightning is a rare and unexplained phenomenon described as luminescent, spherical objects that vary from pea-sized to several meters in diameter. Though usually associated with thunderstorms, the observed phenomenon is reported to last c ...
could cause inanimate objects to move erratically.
Joe Nickell
Joe Nickell (born December 1, 1944) is an American skeptic and investigator of the paranormal.
Nickell is senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and writes regularly for their journal, ''Skeptical Inquirer''. He is als ...
of the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the US non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to "prom ...
wrote that there was no credible
scientific evidence
Scientific evidence is evidence that serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis, although scientists also use evidence in other ways, such as when applying theories to practical problems. "Discussions about empirical ev ...
that any location was inhabited by spirits of the dead.
Limitations of
human perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
and ordinary physical explanations can account for ghost sightings; for example,
air pressure
Atmospheric pressure, also known as barometric pressure (after the barometer), is the pressure within the atmosphere of Earth. The Standard atmosphere (unit), standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as , which is equival ...
changes in a home causing doors to slam, humidity changes causing boards to creak,
condensation in electrical connections causing intermittent behavior, or lights from a passing car reflected through a window at night.
Pareidolia
Pareidolia (; ) is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none.
Common examples are perceived images of animals, ...
, an innate tendency to recognize patterns in random perceptions, is what some skeptics believe causes people to believe that they have 'seen ghosts'. Reports of ghosts "seen out of the corner of the eye" may be accounted for by the sensitivity of human
peripheral vision
Peripheral vision, or ''indirect vision'', is vision as it occurs outside the point of fixation, i.e. away from the center of gaze or, when viewed at large angles, in (or out of) the "corner of one's eye". The vast majority of the area in the ...
. According to Nickell, peripheral vision can easily mislead, especially late at night when the brain is tired and more likely to misinterpret sights and sounds.
[
: "Once the idea of a ghost appears in a household ... no longer is an object merely mislaid .... There gets to be a dynamic in a place where the idea that it's haunted takes on a life of its own. One-of-a-kind quirks that could never be repeated all become further evidence of the haunting."] Nickell further states, "science cannot substantiate the existence of a 'life energy' that could survive death without dissipating or function at all without a brain... why would... clothes survive?'" He asks, if ghosts glide, then why do people claim to hear them with "heavy footfalls"? Nickell says that ghosts act the same way as "dreams, memories, and imaginings, because they too are mental creations. They are evidence - not of another world, but of this real and natural one."
Benjamin Radford
Benjamin Radford (born October 2, 1970) is an American writer, investigator, and skeptic. He has authored, coauthored or contributed to over twenty books and written over a thousand articles and columns on a wide variety of topics including urba ...
from the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the US non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to "prom ...
and author of the 2017 book ''Investigating Ghosts: The Scientific Search for Spirits'' writes that "ghost hunting is the world's most popular paranormal pursuit" yet, to date, ghost hunters cannot agree on what a ghost is, or offer proof that they exist; "it's all speculation and guesswork". He writes that it would be "useful and important to distinguish between types of spirits and apparitions. Until then it's merely a parlor game distracting amateur ghost hunters from the task at hand."
According to research in
anomalistic psychology
In psychology, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the paranormal, with few assumptions made about the validity (or otherwise) of the reported phenomena.
Early history
Accordin ...
visions of ghosts may arise from
hypnagogic
Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep: the ''hypnagogic'' state of consciousness, during the Sleep onset, onset of sleep. Its opposite state is described as the transitional state from sleep into wakeful ...
hallucinations ("waking dreams" experienced in the transitional states to and from sleep). In a study of two experiments into alleged
hauntings
The list of reportedly haunted locations throughout the world, that are locations said to be haunted by ghosts or other supernatural beings, including demons. Reports of haunted locations are part of ghostlore, which is a form of folklore.
Ar ...
(Wiseman ''et al.''. 2003) came to the conclusion "that people consistently report unusual experiences in 'haunted' areas because of environmental factors, which may differ across locations." Some of these factors included "the variance of local magnetic fields, size of location and lighting level stimuli of which witnesses may not be consciously aware".
Some researchers, such as
Michael Persinger
Michael A. Persinger (June 26, 1945 – August 14, 2018) was an American-Canadian professor of psychology at Laurentian University, a position he had held from 1971 until his death in 2018. His most well-known hypotheses include the temporal lob ...
of
Laurentian University
Laurentian University (french: Université Laurentienne), officially the Laurentian University of Sudbury, is a mid-sized Bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public university in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, incorporated on March 28, 1960. Lau ...
, Canada, have speculated that changes in
geomagnetic
Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun. The magnetic fi ...
fields (created, e.g., by tectonic stresses in the Earth's crust or
solar activity
Solar phenomena are natural phenomena which occur within the atmosphere of the Sun. These phenomena take many forms, including solar wind, radio wave flux, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, coronal heating and sunspots.
These phenomena are ...
) could stimulate the brain's
temporal lobe
The temporal lobe is one of the four Lobes of the brain, major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain.
The temporal lobe ...
s and produce many of the experiences associated with hauntings. Sound is thought to be another cause of supposed sightings. Richard Lord and
Richard Wiseman
Richard J. Wiseman (born 17 September 1966) is a Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. He has written several psychology books. He has given keynote addresses to The Royal ...
have concluded that
infrasound
Infrasound, sometimes referred to as low status sound, describes sound waves with a frequency below the lower limit of human audibility (generally 20 Hz). Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perce ...
can cause humans to experience bizarre feelings in a room, such as anxiety, extreme sorrow, a feeling of being watched, or even the chills.
Carbon monoxide poisoning
Carbon monoxide poisoning typically occurs from breathing in carbon monoxide (CO) at excessive levels. Symptoms are often described as "flu-like" and commonly include headache, dizziness, weakness, vomiting, chest pain, and confusion. Large e ...
, which can cause changes in perception of the visual and auditory systems,
was speculated upon as a possible explanation for
haunted house
A haunted house, spook house or ghost house in ghostlore is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were otherwise connected with the prope ...
s as early as 1921.
People who experience
sleep paralysis
Sleep paralysis is a state, during waking up or falling asleep, in which one is conscious but is completely paralyzed. During an episode, one may hallucinate (hear, feel, or see things that are not there), which often results in fear. Episodes ...
often report seeing ghosts during their experiences. Neuroscientists Baland Jalal and
V.S. Ramachandran
Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran (born 10 August 1951) is an Indian-American neuroscientist. He is known for his wide-ranging experiments and theories in behavioral neurology, including the invention of the mirror box. Ramachandran is a disti ...
have recently proposed neurological theories for why people hallucinate ghosts during sleep paralysis. Their theories emphasize the role of the
parietal lobe
The parietal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The parietal lobe is positioned above the temporal lobe and behind the frontal lobe and central sulcus.
The parietal lobe integrates sensory informa ...
and
mirror neuron
A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons hav ...
s in triggering such ghostly hallucinations.
By religion
Judaism and Christianity
![Witch of Endor (Nikolay Ge)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Witch_of_Endor_%28Nikolay_Ge%29.jpg)
The
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
contains several references to
owb' ( he, אוֹב), which are in a few places akin to
shades
Sunglasses or sun glasses (informally called shades or sunnies; more names below) are a form of protective eyewear designed primarily to prevent bright sunlight and high-energy visible light from damaging or discomforting the eyes. They can so ...
of classical mythology but mostly describing
mediums
Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spir ...
in connection with
necromancy
Necromancy () is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions, or by resurrection for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future events; ...
and spirit-consulting, which are grouped with witchcraft and other forms of
divination
Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout histor ...
under the category of forbidden
occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
activities. The most notable reference to a shade is in the
First Book of Samuel
The Book of Samuel (, ''Sefer Shmuel'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the narrative history of Ancient Israel called the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Josh ...
, in which a disguised
King Saul
Saul (; he, , ; , ; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel. His reign, traditionally placed in the late 11th century BCE, supposedly marked the transition of Israel and Judah from a scattered tr ...
has the
Witch of Endor
The Witch of Endor ( he, ''baʿălaṯ-ʾōḇ bəʿĒyn Dōr'', "she who owns the ''ʾōḇ'' of Endor") is a woman who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was consulted by Saul to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel. Saul wished to receive ad ...
conduct a seance to summon the dead prophet
Samuel
Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bibl ...
. A similar term appearing throughout the scriptures is
repha'(im)' ( he, רְפָאִים), which while describing the race of "
giants
A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore.
Giant(s) or The Giant(s) may also refer to:
Mythology and religion
*Giants (Greek mythology)
*Jötunn, a Germanic term often translated as 'gi ...
" formerly inhabiting Canaan in many verses, also refer to (the spirits of) dead ancestors of
Sheol
Sheol ( ; he, ''Šəʾōl'', Tiberian: ''Šŏʾōl'') in the Hebrew Bible is a place of still darkness which lies after death. Although not well defined in the Tanakh, Sheol in this view was a subterranean underworld where the souls of the d ...
(like shades) in many others such as in the
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah ( he, ספר ישעיהו, ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC ...
.
In the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
,
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
has to persuade the
Disciples that he is not a ghost following the
resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, which ...
,
Luke
People
*Luke (given name), a masculine given name (including a list of people and characters with the name)
*Luke (surname) (including a list of people and characters with the name)
*Luke the Evangelist, author of the Gospel of Luke. Also known as ...
24:37–39 (some versions of the Bible, such as the KJV and NKJV, use the term "spirit"). Similarly, Jesus' followers at first believe he is a ghost (spirit) when they see him
walking on water.
Some
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
denominations consider ghosts as beings who while tied to earth, no longer live on the material plane and linger in an
intermediate state
In some forms of Christianity the intermediate state or interim state is a person's existence between death and the universal resurrection. In addition, there are beliefs in a particular judgment right after death and a general judgment or last ...
before continuing their journey to
heaven
Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...
.
On occasion,
God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
would allow the
souls
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
in this state to return to earth to warn the living of the need for
repentance
Repentance is reviewing one's actions and feeling contrition or regret for past wrongs, which is accompanied by commitment to and actual actions that show and prove a change for the better.
In modern times, it is generally seen as involving a co ...
.
Christians
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
are taught that it is
sinful
In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...
to attempt to
conjure or control spirits in accordance with
Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy ( grc, Δευτερονόμιον, Deuteronómion, second law) is the fifth and last book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called (Hebrew: hbo, , Dəḇārīm, hewords Moses.html"_;"title="f_Moses">f_Moseslabel=none)_and_th ...
XVIII: 9–12.
Some ghosts are actually said to be
demons
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, anime, ...
in disguise, who the Church teaches, in accordance with
I Timothy
The First Epistle to Timothy is one of three letters in the New Testament of the Bible often grouped together as the pastoral epistles, along with Second Timothy and Titus. The letter, traditionally attributed to the Apostle Paul, consists ma ...
4:1, that they "come to deceive people and draw them away from God and into bondage."
As a result,
attempts to contact the dead may lead to
unwanted contact with a demon or an
unclean spirit
In English translations of the Bible, unclean spirit is a common rendering of Greek ''pneuma akatharton'' (πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον; plural ''pneumata akatharta'' (πνεύματα ἀκάθαρτα)), which in its single occurrence in ...
, as was said to occur in the case of
Robbie Mannheim
In the late 1940s, in the United States, priests of the Roman Catholic Church performed a series of exorcisms on an anonymous boy, documented under the pseudonym "Roland Doe" or "Robbie Mannheim". The 14-year-old boy was the alleged victim of dem ...
, a fourteen-year-old Maryland youth.
The Seventh-Day Adventist view is that a "soul" is not equivalent to "spirit" or "ghost" (depending on the Bible version), and that save for the Holy Spirit, all spirits or ghosts are demons in disguise. Furthermore, they teach that in accordance with (
Genesis
Genesis may refer to:
Bible
* Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind
* Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
2:7,
Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes (; hbo, קֹהֶלֶת, Qōheleṯ, grc, Ἐκκλησιαστής, Ekklēsiastēs) is one of the Ketuvim ("Writings") of the Hebrew Bible and part of the Wisdom literature of the Christian Old Testament. The title commonly use ...
12:7), there are only two components to a "soul", neither of which survives death, with each returning to its respective source.
Christadelphian
The Christadelphians () or Christadelphianism are a restorationist and millenarian Christian group who hold a view of biblical unitarianism. There are approximately 50,000 Christadelphians in around 120 countries. The movement developed in the U ...
s and
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
reject the view of a living, conscious soul after death.
Jewish mythology
Jewish mythology is the body of myths associated with Judaism. Elements of Jewish mythology have had a profound influence on Christian mythology and on Islamic mythology, as well as on world culture in general. Christian mythology directly inhe ...
and folkloric traditions describe
dybbuk
In Jewish mythology, a (; yi, דיבוק, from the Hebrew verb meaning 'adhere' or 'cling') is a malicious possessing spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person. It supposedly leaves the host body once it has accomplished ...
s, malicious possessing spirits believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person. However, the term does not appear in the
Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
or talmudic literature, where it is rather called an "evil spirit" or ''ru'aḥ tezazit'' ("
unclean spirit
In English translations of the Bible, unclean spirit is a common rendering of Greek ''pneuma akatharton'' (πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον; plural ''pneumata akatharta'' (πνεύματα ἀκάθαρτα)), which in its single occurrence in ...
" in the New Testament). It supposedly leaves the host body once it has accomplished its goal, sometimes after being
helped.
["Dibbuk", Encyclopedia Judaica](_blank)
by Gershom Scholem
Gershom Scholem () (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982), was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kaballah, Scholem was appointed the first professor of Jewish Mystici ...
.
Islam
![Muhammad ibn Muhammad Shakir Ruzmah-'i Nathani - A Soul Symbolized as an Angel - Walters W65944A - Full Page](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Muhammad_ibn_Muhammad_Shakir_Ruzmah-%27i_Nathani_-_A_Soul_Symbolized_as_an_Angel_-_Walters_W65944A_-_Full_Page.jpg)
''Rūḥ'' ( ar, روح, links=no; plural ''arwah'') is a person's immortal, essential self —
pneuma
''Pneuma'' () is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for "spirit" or "soul". It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is a ...
, i.e. the "spirit" or "
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
". The term is also used for ghosts. The souls of the deceased dwell in
barzakh
Barzakh (Arabic: برزخ, from Persian ''Barzakh'', "limbo, barrier, partition") is an Arabic word meaning "obstacle", "hindrance", "separation", or "barrier". In Islam, it denotes a place separating the living from the hereafter or a phase/"st ...
. Only a barrier in
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
, in Islamic tradition this refers to an entire intermediary world between the living and the afterlife. The world, especially cemeteries, are perforated with several gateways to the otherworld or barzakh. In rare occasions, the dead can appear to the living. Pure souls, such as the souls of
saints
In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness
Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual res ...
, are commonly addressed as
rūḥ
The Holy Spirit ( ar, رُوحُ ٱلْقُدُسِ, ''ruh al-qudus'') is mentioned four times in the Quran, where it acts as an agent of divine action or communication. The Muslim interpretation of the Holy Spirit is generally consistent with o ...
, while impure souls seeking for revenge, are often addressed as
afarit. An inappropriate
burial
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...
can also cause a soul to stay in this world, whereupon roaming the earth as a ghost. Since the just souls remain close to their tomb, some people try to communicate with them in order to gain hidden knowledge. Contact with the dead is not the same as contact with
jinn
Jinn ( ar, , ') – also Romanization of Arabic, romanized as djinn or Anglicization, anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources)
– are Invisibility, invisible creatures in early Arabian mytho ...
, who alike could provide knowledge concealed from living humans. Many encounters with ghosts are related to dreams supposed to occur in the
realm of symbols.
Belief in spirits have not ceased to exist in Muslim belief. Smile of new-born babies is sometimes used as a proof for sighting spirits, like ghosts. However, the connection to the
other world
The concept of an otherworld in historical Indo-European religion is reconstructed in comparative mythology. Its name is a calque of ''orbis alius'' (Latin for "other Earth/world"), a term used by Lucan in his description of the Celtic Otherworld ...
fades during life on earth but is resumed after death. Once again, smiling of dying people is considered as evidence for recognizing the spirit of their beloved ones. Yet, Muslims who affirm the existence of ghosts, are carefully when interacting with spirits, as the ghosts of humans can be as bad the jinn. Worst of all, however, are the devils.
Muslim authors, like
Ghazali Ghazali is an international surname and given name with different spellings (e.g. Gazali, Gazzali, Gazzaly, Gassaly, Garzali), it may refer to:
* Ahmad Ghazali (c. 1061–1123 or 1126), Persian mystic
* Lynda Ghazzali, Malaysian porcelain painter
...
,
Ibn Qayyim
Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn Ayyūb al-Zurʿī l-Dimashqī l-Ḥanbalī (29 January 1292–15 September 1350 CE / 691 AH–751 AH), commonly known as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya ("The son of the principal of he school ...
and
Suyuti
Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti ( ar, جلال الدين السيوطي, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī) ( 1445–1505 CE),; (Brill 2nd) or Al-Suyuti, was an Arab Egyptian polymath, Islamic scholar, historian, Sufi, and jurist. From a family of Persian or ...
wrote in more details about the life of ghosts. Ibn Qayyim and Suyuti assert, when a soul desires to turn back to earth long enough, it is gradually released from restrictions of Barzakh and able to move freely. Each spirit experiences afterlife in accordance with their deeds and condictions in the earthly life. Evil souls will find the afterlife as painful and punishment, imprisoned until God allows them to interact with other others. Good souls are not restricted. They are free to come visit other souls and even come down to lower regions. The higher planes are considered to be broader than the lower ones, the lowest being the most narrow. The spiritual space is not thought as spatial, but reflects the capacity of the spirit. The more pure the spirit gets, the more it is able to interact with other souls and thus reaches a broader degree of freedom.
The
Ismailite
Isma'ilism ( ar, الإسماعيلية, al-ʾIsmāʿīlīyah) is a branch or sub-sect of Shia Islam. The Isma'ili () get their name from their acceptance of Imam Isma'il ibn Jafar as the appointed spiritual successor (imām) to Ja'far al-Sa ...
Philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
Nasir Khusraw
Abu Mo’in Hamid ad-Din Nasir ibn Khusraw al-Qubadiani or Nāsir Khusraw Qubādiyānī Balkhi ( fa, ناصر خسرو قبادیانی, Nasir Khusraw Qubadiani) also spelled as ''Nasir Khusrow'' and ''Naser Khosrow'' (1004 – after 1070 CE) w ...
conjectured that evil human souls turn into
demons
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, anime, ...
, when their bodies die, because of their intense attachment to the bodily world. They were worse than the jinn and
fairies
A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore), a form of spirit, o ...
, who in turn could become devils, if they pursue evil. A similar thought is recorded by
Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi
Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (full name: ar, أبو بکر محمد بن زکریاء الرازي, translit=Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyāʾ al-Rāzī, label=none), () rather than ar, زکریاء, label=none (), as for example in , or in . In m ...
.
The ghosts of saints are thought to transmit blessings from God through the heavenly realm to whose who visit their graves. Therefore,
visiting the graves of saints and prophets became a major ritual in Muslim spirituality.
Buddhism
In Buddhism, there are a number of
planes
Plane(s) most often refers to:
* Aero- or airplane, a powered, fixed-wing aircraft
* Plane (geometry), a flat, 2-dimensional surface
Plane or planes may also refer to:
Biology
* Plane (tree) or ''Platanus'', wetland native plant
* ''Planes' ...
of existence into which a person can be
reborn
Reborn may refer to:
Film
*''Reborn'', a 2015 video produced by the Augustine Institute
* ''Re:Born'' (film), a 2016 Japanese action film
* ''Reborn'' (film), a 2018 American horror film
Music
* Reborn (band), a Moroccan death metal band
Albums
...
, one of which is the realm of
hungry ghosts
Hungry ghost is a concept in Buddhism, and Chinese traditional religion, representing beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way.
The terms ' literally "hungry ghost", are the Chinese translation of the term ''pret ...
. Buddhist celebrate the
Ghost Festival
The Ghost Festival, also known as the Zhongyuan Festival (traditional Chinese: 中元節; simplified Chinese: ) in Taoism and Yulanpen Festival () in Buddhism, is a traditional Taoist and Buddhist festival held in certain East Asian countrie ...
as an expression of compassion, one of
Buddhist virtues. If the hungry ghosts are fed by non-relatives, they would not bother the community.
By culture
African folklore
For the
Igbo people
The Igbo people ( , ; also spelled Ibo" and formerly also ''Iboe'', ''Ebo'', ''Eboe'',
*
*
* ''Eboans'', ''Heebo'';
natively ) are an ethnic group in Nigeria. They are primarily found in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States. A ...
, a man is simultaneously a physical and spiritual entity. However, it is his spirited dimension that is
eternal
Eternal(s) or The Eternal may refer to:
* Eternity, an infinite amount of time, or a timeless state
* Immortality or eternal life
* God, the supreme being, creator deity, and principal object of faith in monotheism
Comics, film and television
* ...
.
In the
Akan Akan may refer to:
People and languages
*Akan people, an ethnic group in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire
*Akan language, a language spoken by the Akan people
*Kwa languages, a language group which includes Akan
*Central Tano languages, a language group w ...
conception, we witness five parts of the human personality. We have the Nipadua (body), the Okra (soul), Sunsum (spirit), Ntoro (character from father), Mogya (character from mother).
The
Humr people of southwestern
Kordofan
Kordofan ( ar, كردفان ') is a former province of central Sudan. In 1994 it was divided into three new federal states: North Kordofan, South Kordofan and West Kordofan. In August 2005, West Kordofan State was abolished and its territory di ...
,
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
consume the drink Umm Nyolokh, which is prepared from the
liver
The liver is a major Organ (anatomy), organ only found in vertebrates which performs many essential biological functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the Protein biosynthesis, synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for ...
and
bone marrow
Bone marrow is a semi-solid tissue found within the spongy (also known as cancellous) portions of bones. In birds and mammals, bone marrow is the primary site of new blood cell production (or haematopoiesis). It is composed of hematopoietic ce ...
of
giraffe
The giraffe is a large African hoofed mammal belonging to the genus ''Giraffa''. It is the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on Earth. Traditionally, giraffes were thought to be one species, ''Giraffa camelopardalis ...
s.
Richard Rudgley
Richard Rudgley (born 1961) is a British author and television presenter. He specialises on the topics of the usage of hallucinogens and intoxicants in society. He has also written about the Stone Age and about Paganism.
Rudgley completed a BA in ...
hypothesises that Umm Nyolokh may contain
DMT
''N'',''N''-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT or ''N'',''N''-DMT, SPL026) is a substituted tryptamine that occurs in many plants and animals, including human beings, and which is both a derivative and a structural analog of tryptamine. It is used as a ...
and certain online websites further theorise that giraffe liver might owe its putative psychoactivity to substances derived from
psychoactive plant
Psychoactive plants are plants, or preparations thereof, that upon ingestion induce psychotropic effects. As stated in a reference work:
Psychoactivity may include sedative, stimulant, euphoric, deliriant, and hallucinogenic effects.
Several ...
s, such as
Acacia
''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...
spp. consumed by the animal. The drink is said to cause hallucinations of giraffes, believed by the Humr to be the ghosts of giraffes.
European folklore
![Banquo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Banquo.jpg)
Belief in ghosts in
European folklore
European folklore or Western folklore refers to the folklore of the Western world, especially when discussed comparatively.
The history of Christendom during the Early Modern period has resulted in a number of traditions that are shared in many ...
is characterized by the recurring fear of "returning" or ''
revenant
In folklore, a revenant is an animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living. The word ''revenant'' is derived from the Old French word, ''revenant'', the "returning" (see also the related French language, F ...
'' deceased who may harm the living. This includes the Scandinavian ''
gjenganger
A Gjenganger ( no, Gjenganger, ' or '; da, Genganger or '; sv, Gengångare) in Scandinavian folklore was a term for a revenant, the spirit or ghost of a deceased from the grave.
Etymology
' has two parts; the prefix is related to "again" or "ag ...
'', the Romanian ''
strigoi
Strigoi in Romanian mythology are troubled spirits that are said to have risen from the grave. They are attributed with the abilities to transform into an animal, become invisible, and to gain vitality from the blood of their victims. Bram Stoke ...
'', the Serbian ''
vampir'', the Greek ''
vrykolakas
Vrykolakas (Greek βρυκόλακας, pronounced ), also called vorvolakas or vourdoulakas, is a harmful, undead creature in Greek folklore. It shares similarities with numerous other legendary creatures, but is generally equated with the vampir ...
'', etc. In Scandinavian and Finnish tradition, ghosts appear in corporeal form, and their supernatural nature is given away by behavior rather than appearance. In fact, in many stories they are first mistaken for the living. They may be mute, appear and disappear suddenly, or leave no footprints or other traces.
English folklore
English folklore consists of the myths and legends of England, including the English region's mythical creatures, traditional recipes, urban legends, proverbs, superstitions, and folktales. Its cultural history is rooted in Celtic, Christian, ...
is particularly notable for its numerous
haunted locations
The list of reportedly haunted locations throughout the world, that are locations said to be haunted by ghosts or other supernatural beings, including demons. Reports of haunted locations are part of ghostlore, which is a form of folklore.
...
.
Belief in the
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
and an
afterlife
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...
remained near universal until the emergence of
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
in the 18th century. In the 19th century,
spiritism
Spiritism (French: ''spiritisme''; Portuguese: ''espiritismo'') is a spiritualist, religious, and philosophical doctrine established in France in the 1850s by the French teacher, educational writer, and translator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Riva ...
resurrected "belief in ghosts" as the object of systematic inquiry, and popular opinion in
Western culture
Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''.
image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
remains divided.
South and Southeast Asia
Indian subcontinent
A ''bhoot'' or ''bhut'' ( hi, भूत, gu, ભૂત, ur, بهوت, bn, ভূত, or, ଭୂତ) is a supernatural creature, usually the ghost of a deceased person, in the popular culture, literature and some ancient texts of the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
.
North India
Interpretations of how ''bhoot''s come into existence vary by region and community, but they are usually considered to be perturbed and restless due to some factor that prevents them from moving on (to
transmigration, non-being,
nirvana
( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...
, or heaven or hell, depending on tradition). This could be a violent death, unsettled matters in their lives, or simply the failure of their survivors to perform proper funerals.
In Central and Northern India, ''ojha'' or
spirit guide
A spirit guide, in Western spiritualism, is an entity that remains as a discarnate spirit to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnation, incarnated human being.
Description
In traditional African belief systems, well before the spre ...
s play a central role. It duly happens when in the night someone sleeps and decorates something on the wall, and they say that if one sees the spirit the next thing in the morning he will become a spirit too, and that to a headless spirit and the soul of the body will remain the dark with the dark lord from the spirits who reside in the body of every human in Central and Northern India. It is also believed that if someone calls one from behind, never turn back and see because the spirit may catch the human to make it a spirit.
Other types of spirits in Hindu mythology include
Baital
A vetala ( sa, वेताल ') or Betal is a Bhairava form of Shiva in Hindu mythology, usually defined as a knowledgeable (fortune telling) paranormal entity said to be dwelling at charnel grounds. The vetala is comparable to the vampires of ...
, an evil spirit who haunts cemeteries and takes
demonic possession
Spirit possession is an unusual or altered state of consciousness and associated behaviors purportedly caused by the control of a human body by spirits, ghosts, demons, or gods. The concept of spirit possession exists in many cultures and reli ...
of corpses, and
Pishacha
Pishachas ( sa, पिशाच, ') are flesh-eating demons in Dharmic religions, appearing in Buddhist and Hindu mythologies. A pishacha is a malevolent being that has often be referred to as the very manifestation of evil.
Mythology
The Mah ...
, a type of flesh-eating demon.
Bengal and East India
There are many kinds of ghosts and similar supernatural entities that frequently come up in
Bengali culture
The culture of Bengal defines the cultural heritage of the Bengali people native to eastern regions of the Indian subcontinent, mainly what is today Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura, where the Bengali language is th ...
, its folklores and form an important part in Bengali peoples' socio-cultural beliefs and superstitions. It is believed that the spirits of those who cannot find peace in the afterlife or die unnatural deaths remain on Earth. The word ''Pret'' (from Sanskrit) is also used in Bengali to mean ghost. In Bengal, ghosts are believed to be the spirit after death of an unsatisfied human being or a soul of a person who dies in unnatural or abnormal circumstances (like murder, suicide or accident). Even it is believed that other animals and creatures can also be turned into ghost after their death.
Thailand
![XRF-krasue](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/XRF-krasue.jpg)
Ghosts in
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
are part of local
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
and have now become part of the popular culture of the country.
Phraya Anuman Rajadhon
Phya Anuman Rajadhon ( th, พระยาอนุมานราชธน; , also spelled ''Phaya Anuman Rajadhon'' or ''Phrayā Anuman Rajadhon''; December 14, 1888 – July 12, 1969), was one of modern Thailand's most remarkable scholars. He ...
was the first Thai scholar who seriously studied Thai folk beliefs and took notes on the
nocturnal
Nocturnality is an animal behavior characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnal meaning the opposite.
Nocturnal creatures generally have highly developed sens ...
village spirits of Thailand. He established that, since such spirits were not represented in paintings or drawings, they were purely based on descriptions of popular orally transmitted
traditional stories
Traditional stories, or stories about traditions, differ from both fiction and nonfiction in that the importance of transmitting the story's worldview is generally understood to transcend an immediate need to establish its categorization as imagi ...
. Therefore, most of the contemporary
iconography
Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...
of ghosts such as
Nang Tani
Nang Tani ( th, นางตานี; "Lady of Tani") is a female spirit of the Thai folklore. According to folk tradition, this ghost appears as a young woman that haunts wild banana trees (''Musa balbisiana''), known as in Thai language as ' ...
,
Nang Takian
Nang or nangs may refer to:
* Nang County, Nyingchi, Tibet, China
* Nang yai, a form of shadow play
* ''Nang!'', a general interest magazine
* Nang, a slang term for nitrous oxide (N2O, laughing gas) when used as a recreational drug; or for whippe ...
,
Krasue
The ''Krasue'' ( th, กระสือ, ), known as ''Ahp'' ( km, អាប) in Cambodia; as ''Kasu'' ( lo, ກະສື, ) in Laos; as ''Kuyang'' ( id, Kui'yang), ''Leak'' ( id, lei'yak), ''Pelasik'', ''Pelesit'', or ''Penanggalan'' in Indone ...
,
Krahang
Krahang ( th, กระหัง, ; or , ) is a male spirit of the Thai folklore. It manifests itself as a shirtless man, wearing a traditional loincloth, who flies in the night. Royal Institute Dictionary, 1999 edition, first printing (2003)
''Kr ...
,
Phi Hua Kat
Phi (; uppercase Φ, lowercase φ or ϕ; grc, ϕεῖ ''pheî'' ; Modern Greek: ''fi'' ) is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet.
In Archaic and Classical Greek (c. 9th century BC to 4th century BC), it represented an aspirated voicele ...
,
Phi Pop
Pop ( th, ปอบ) is a cannibalistic spirit of Thai folklore. It manifests itself as a that likes to devour human viscera. Pop is related to the Phi Fa spirit.
Legends
A traditional legend says that a long time ago a flower could take control ...
,
Phi Phong,
Phi Phraya
Phi (; uppercase Φ, lowercase φ or ϕ; grc, ϕεῖ ''pheî'' ; Modern Greek: ''fi'' ) is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet.
In Archaic and Classical Greek (c. 9th century BC to 4th century BC), it represented an aspirated voicele ...
, and
Mae Nak
Mae Nak Phra Khanong ( th, แม่นากพระโขนง, meaning 'Lady Nak of Phra Khanong'), or simply Mae Nak ( th, แม่นาก, 'Lady Nak') or Nang Nak ( th, นางนาก, 'Miss Nak'), is a well-known Thai ghost. Acc ...
has its origins in Thai films that have now become
classic
A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank – something that exemplifies its class. The word can be an adjective (a ''c ...
s.
The most feared spirit in Thailand is
Phi Tai Hong
Phi Tai Hong ( th, ผีตายโหง) is a ghost of Thai folklore. It is the vengeful and restless spirit of a person who suffered a violent or cruel death.
Origins
''Phi Tai Hong'' usually has its origin in a man or a woman who died sudd ...
, the ghost of a person who has died suddenly of a violent death. The folklore of Thailand also includes the belief that
sleep paralysis
Sleep paralysis is a state, during waking up or falling asleep, in which one is conscious but is completely paralyzed. During an episode, one may hallucinate (hear, feel, or see things that are not there), which often results in fear. Episodes ...
is caused by a ghost,
Phi Am.
Tibet
There is widespread belief in ghosts in Tibetan culture. Ghosts are explicitly recognized in the
Tibetan Buddhist
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
religion as they were in
Indian Buddhism
Buddhism is an ancient Indian religion, which arose in and around the ancient Kingdom of Magadha (now in Bihar, India), and is based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha who was deemed a "Buddha" ("Awakened One"), although Buddhist doctrine ...
, occupying a distinct but overlapping world to the human one, and feature in many traditional legends. When a human dies, after a period of uncertainty they may enter the ghost world. A
hungry ghost
Hungry ghost is a concept in Buddhism, and Chinese traditional religion, representing beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way.
The terms ' literally "hungry ghost", are the Chinese translation of the term ''pret ...
(
Tibetan
Tibetan may mean:
* of, from, or related to Tibet
* Tibetan people, an ethnic group
* Tibetan language:
** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard
** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...
: , ; sa, प्रेत, transl=preta) has a tiny throat and huge stomach, and so can never be satisfied. Ghosts may be killed with a ritual dagger or caught in a spirit trap and burnt, thus releasing them to be reborn. Ghosts may also be exorcised, and an annual festival is held throughout Tibet for this purpose. Some say that
Dorje Shugden
Dorje Shugden ( bo, རྡོ་རྗེ་ཤུགས་ལྡན་, Wylie: ''rdo rje shugs ldan'', ), also known as Dolgyal and Gyalchen Shugden, is an entity associated with the Gelug school, the newest of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism. ...
, the ghost of a powerful 17th-century monk, is a deity, but the
Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...
asserts that he is an evil spirit, which has caused a split in the Tibetan exile community.
Austronesia
There are many
Malay ghost myths
There are many Malay ghost myths (Malay: ''cerita hantu Melayu''; Jawi: چريتا هنتو ملايو), remnants of old animist beliefs that have been shaped by Hindu-Buddhist cosmology and later Muslim influences, in the modern states of Brune ...
, remnants of old animist beliefs that have been shaped by later Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim influences in the modern states of
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
,
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
, and
Brunei
Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...
. Some ghost concepts such as the female vampires
Pontianak
Pontianak or Khuntien is the capital of the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan, founded first as a trading port on the island of Borneo, occupying an area of 118.31 km2 in the delta of the Kapuas River at a point where it is joined by ...
and
Penanggalan
The ''penanggal'' or ''penanggalan'' is a nocturnal vampiric entity from Malay ghost myths. Its name comes from the word ''tanggal'' meaning to remove or take off, because its form is that of a floating disembodied woman's head with its trailin ...
are shared throughout the region.
Ghosts are a popular theme in modern Malaysian and Indonesian films.
There are also many references to
ghosts in Filipino culture
Souls in Filipino cultures abound and differ per ethnic group in the Philippines. The concept of souls include both the souls of the living and the souls or ghosts of the dead. The concepts of souls in the Philippines is a notable traditional und ...
, ranging from ancient legendary creatures such as the
Manananggal
The ''manananggal'' is a mythical creature in the Philippines that separates from their lower part of its body and their fangs and wings give it a vampire-like appearance.
Mythology
The ''manananggal'' is described as scary, often hideous, u ...
and
Tiyanak
The Tiyanak (also Tianak or Tianac) is a vampiric creature in Philippine mythology that takes on the form of a toddler or baby. Although there are various types, it typically takes the form of a newborn baby and cries in the jungle to attract unwa ...
to more modern urban legends and horror films. The beliefs, legends and stories are as diverse as the people of the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
.
There was widespread belief in
ghosts in Polynesian culture
There was widespread belief in ghosts in Polynesian culture, some of which persists today.
After death, a person's ghost would normally travel to the sky world or the underworld, but some could stay on earth. In many Polynesian legends, ghosts we ...
, some of which persists today.
After death, a person's ghost normally traveled to the sky world or the underworld, but some could stay on earth. In many
Polynesian legends, ghosts were often actively involved in the affairs of the living. Ghosts might also cause sickness or even invade the body of ordinary people, to be driven out through strong medicines.
East and Central Asia
China
![ZhongKui-by-GongKai](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/ZhongKui-by-GongKai.jpg)
There are many references to ghosts in Chinese culture. Even Confucius said, "Respect ghosts and gods, but keep away from them."
The ghosts take many forms, depending on how the person died, and are often harmful. Many Chinese ghost beliefs have been accepted by neighboring cultures, notably Japan and southeast Asia. Ghost beliefs are closely associated with traditional Chinese religion based on ancestor worship, many of which were incorporated in
Taoism
Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of Philosophy, philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of China, Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmo ...
. Later beliefs were influenced by
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
, and in turn influenced and created uniquely Chinese Buddhist beliefs.
Many Chinese today believe it possible to contact the spirits of their ancestors through a medium, and that ancestors can help descendants if properly respected and rewarded. The annual
ghost festival
The Ghost Festival, also known as the Zhongyuan Festival (traditional Chinese: 中元節; simplified Chinese: ) in Taoism and Yulanpen Festival () in Buddhism, is a traditional Taoist and Buddhist festival held in certain East Asian countrie ...
is celebrated by Chinese around the world. On this day, ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the
lower realm. Ghosts are described in classical Chinese texts as well as modern literature and films.
An article in the
China Post
China Post, legally the China Post Group Corporation ( zh, 中国邮政集团有限公司, Pinyin: ''Zhōngguó yóuzhèng jítuán yǒuxiàn gōngsī''), is the state-owned enterprise operating the official postal service of China, which provi ...
stated that nearly eighty-seven percent of Chinese office workers believe in ghosts, and some fifty-two percent of workers will wear hand art, necklaces, crosses, or even place a crystal ball on their desks to keep ghosts at bay, according to the poll.
Japan
![Kuniyoshi The Ghosts](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Kuniyoshi_The_Ghosts.jpg)
are figures in
Japanese folklore
Japanese folklore encompasses the informally learned folk traditions of Japan and the Japanese people as expressed in its oral traditions, customs, and material culture.
In Japanese, the term is used to describe folklore. The academic study ...
, analogous to Western legends of ghosts. The name consists of two
kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
,
幽 (''yū''), meaning "faint" or "dim", and
霊 (''rei''), meaning "soul" or "spirit". Alternative names include 亡霊 (Bōrei) meaning ruined or departed spirit, 死霊 (Shiryō) meaning dead spirit, or the more encompassing 妖怪 (
Yōkai
are a class of supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore. The word is composed of the kanji for "attractive; calamity" and "apparition; mystery; suspicious." are also referred to as , or . Despite often being translated as suc ...
) or お化け (
Obake
and are a class of ''yōkai'', preternatural creatures in Japanese folklore. Literally, the terms mean ''a thing that changes'', referring to a state of transformation or shapeshifting.
These words are often translated as "ghost", but primari ...
).
Like their
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
and Western counterparts, they are thought to be
spirits
Spirit or spirits may refer to:
Liquor and other volatile liquids
* Spirits, a.k.a. liquor, distilled alcoholic drinks
* Spirit or tincture, an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol
* Volatile (especially flammable) liquids, ...
kept from a peaceful
afterlife
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...
.
Americas
Mexico
![Catrinas 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Catrinas_2.jpg)
There is extensive and varied belief in
ghosts in Mexican culture
There are extensive and varied beliefs in ghosts in Mexican culture. In Mexico, the beliefs of the Maya, Nahua, Purépecha; and other indigenous groups in a supernatural world has survived and evolved, combined with the Catholic beliefs of the Sp ...
. The modern state of
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
before the
Spanish conquest
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predece ...
was inhabited by diverse peoples such as the
Maya
Maya may refer to:
Civilizations
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...
and
Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
, and their beliefs have survived and evolved, combined with the beliefs of the
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
colonists. The
Day of the Dead
The Day of the Dead ( es, Día de Muertos or ''Día de los Muertos'') is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. It is widely obser ...
incorporates pre-Columbian beliefs with
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
elements. Mexican literature and films include many stories of ghosts interacting with the living.
United States
According to the
Gallup Poll News Service, belief in haunted houses, ghosts, communication with the dead, and witches had an especially steep increase over the 1990s. A 2005 Gallup poll found that about 32 percent of Americans believe in ghosts.
Depiction in the arts
Ghosts are prominent in story-telling of various nations. The
ghost story
A ghost story is any piece of fiction, or drama, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them."Ghost Stories" in Margaret Drabble (ed.), ''Oxford Companion to English Literature'' ...
is ubiquitous across all cultures from oral
folktales to works of literature. While ghost stories are often explicitly meant to be scary, they have been written to serve all sorts of purposes, from comedy to
morality tale
The morality play is a genre of medieval and early Tudor drama. The term is used by scholars of literary and dramatic history to refer to a genre of play texts from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries that feature personified concepts ( ...
s. Ghosts often appear in the narrative as sentinels or
prophet
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...
s of things to come. Belief in ghosts is found in all cultures around the world, and thus ghost stories may be passed down orally or in written form.
Spirits of the dead appear in literature as early as
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
's ''
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...
'', which features a journey to the
underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.
...
and the hero encountering the ghosts of the dead, and the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
, in which the
Witch of Endor
The Witch of Endor ( he, ''baʿălaṯ-ʾōḇ bəʿĒyn Dōr'', "she who owns the ''ʾōḇ'' of Endor") is a woman who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was consulted by Saul to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel. Saul wished to receive ad ...
summons the spirit of the prophet
Samuel
Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bibl ...
.
Renaissance to Romanticism (1500 to 1840)
One of the more recognizable ghosts in
English literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...
is the
shade of Hamlet's murdered father in Shakespeare's ''The Tragical History of
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
''. In ''Hamlet'', it is the ghost who demands that
Prince Hamlet
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...
investigate his "murder most foul" and seek revenge upon his usurping uncle,
King Claudius
King Claudius is a fictional character and the main antagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Hamlet''. He is the brother to King Hamlet, second husband to Gertrude and uncle and later stepfather to Prince Hamlet. He obtained the throne of ...
.
In
English Renaissance theater
English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642.
This is the style of the plays of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson ...
, ghosts were often depicted in the garb of the living and even in armor, as with the ghost of Hamlet's father. Armor, being out-of-date by the time of the Renaissance, gave the stage ghost a sense of antiquity. But the sheeted ghost began to gain ground on stage in the 19th century because an armored ghost could not satisfactorily convey the requisite spookiness: it clanked and creaked, and had to be moved about by complicated pulley systems or elevators. These clanking ghosts being hoisted about the stage became objects of ridicule as they became clichéd stage elements. Ann Jones and Peter Stallybrass, in ''Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory'', point out, "In fact, it is as laughter increasingly threatens the Ghost that he starts to be staged not in armor but in some form of 'spirit drapery'."
Victorian/Edwardian (1840 to 1920)
The "classic" ghost story arose during the Victorian period, and included authors such as
M. R. James
Montague Rhodes James (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936) was an English author, Medieval studies, medievalist scholar and provost (education), provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918), and of Eton College (1918–1936). He was List of ...
,
Sheridan Le Fanu,
Violet Hunt
Isobel Violet Hunt (28 September 1862 – 16 January 1942) was a British author and literary hostess. She wrote feminist novels. She founded the Women Writers' Suffrage League in 1908 and participated in the founding of International PEN.
Bio ...
, and
Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
. Classic ghost stories were influenced by the gothic fiction tradition, and contain elements of folklore and psychology. M. R. James summed up the essential elements of a ghost story as, "Malevolence and terror, the glare of evil faces, ‘the stony grin of unearthly malice', pursuing forms in darkness, and 'long-drawn, distant screams', are all in place, and so is a modicum of blood, shed with deliberation and carefully husbanded...". One of the key early appearances by ghosts was ''
The Castle of Otranto
''The Castle of Otranto'' is a novel by Horace Walpole. First published in 1764, it is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – ''A Gothic Story''. Se ...
'' by
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician.
He had Strawb ...
in 1764, considered to be the first
gothic novel
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...
.
[Newman, Kim (ed.) ''BFI Companion to Horror'', Cassell: London, 1996, , p. 135.]
Famous literary apparitions from this period are the ghosts of ''
A Christmas Carol
''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas C ...
'', in which
Ebenezer Scrooge
Ebenezer Scrooge () is the protagonist of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella ''A Christmas Carol''. At the beginning of the novella, Scrooge is a cold-hearted miser who despises Christmas. The tale of his redemption by three spirits (the Ghost of ...
is helped to see the error of his ways by the ghost of his former colleague
Jacob Marley
Jacob Marley is a fictional character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novella ''A Christmas Carol'', a former business partner of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who has been dead for seven years.Hawes, Donal''Who's Who in Dickens'' Routledge (1998), Goog ...
, and the ghosts of
Christmas Past,
Christmas Present
A Christmas gift or Christmas present is a gift given in celebration of Christmas. Christmas gifts are often exchanged on Christmas Eve (December 24), Christmas Day itself (December 25) or on the last day of the twelve-day Christmas season, Twel ...
, and Christmas Yet to Come.
Modern era (1920 to 1970)
Professional parapsychologists and "ghosts hunters", such as
Harry Price
Harry Price (17 January 1881 – 29 March 1948) was a British psychic researcher and author, who gained public prominence for his investigations into psychical phenomena and exposing fraudulent spiritualist mediums. He is best known for ...
, active in the 1920s and 1930s, and
Peter Underwood
Peter George Underwood, (10 October 1937 – 7 July 2014) was an Australian jurist and the Governor of Tasmania from 2008 until his death in 2014. He was the Chief Justice of Tasmania from 2004 to 2008, having been a judge of the Supreme Cou ...
, active in the 1940s and 1950s, published accounts of their experiences with ostensibly true ghost stories such as Price's ''The Most Haunted House in England'', and Underwood's ''Ghosts of Borley'' (both recounting experiences at
Borley Rectory
Borley Rectory was a house famous for being described as "the most haunted house in England" by parapsychology, psychic researcher Harry Price. Built in 1862 to house the rector (ecclesiastical)#Anglican churches, rector of the parish of Borley ...
). The writer
Frank Edwards delved into ghost stories in his books of his, like ''Stranger than Science''.
Children's benevolent ghost stories became popular, such as
Casper the Friendly Ghost
Casper the Friendly Ghost is the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. He is a pleasant, personable and translucent ghost, but often criticized by his three wicked uncles, the Ghostly Trio.
T ...
, created in the 1930s and appearing in comics,
animated cartoon
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...
s, and eventually a
1995 feature film.
With the advent of motion pictures and television, screen depictions of ghosts became common, and spanned a variety of genres; the works of Shakespeare, Dickens and Wilde have all been made into cinematic versions. Novel-length tales have been difficult to adapt to cinema, although that of ''
The Haunting of Hill House
''The Haunting of Hill House'' is a 1959 gothic horror novel by American author Shirley Jackson. A finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the 20th century, it has been made ...
'' to ''
The Haunting'' in 1963 is an exception.
Sentimental depictions during this period were more popular in cinema than horror, and include the 1947 film ''
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
''The Ghost and Mrs. Muir'' is a 1947 American romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R.A. Dick. In ...
'', which was later adapted to television with a successful 1968–70
TV series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...
.
Genuine
psychological horror
Psychological horror is a genre, subgenre of horror fiction, horror and psychological fiction with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and Mental state, psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre frequent ...
films from this period include 1944's ''
The Uninvited'', and 1945's ''
Dead of Night
''Dead of Night'' is a 1945 black and white British anthology horror film, made by Ealing Studios. The individual segments were directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Wi ...
''.
Post-modern (1970–present)
The 1970s saw screen depictions of ghosts diverge into distinct genres of the romantic and horror. A common theme in the romantic genre from this period is the ghost as a benign guide or messenger, often with unfinished business, such as 1989's ''
Field of Dreams
''Field of Dreams'' is a 1989 American sports fantasy drama film written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, based on Canadian novelist W. P. Kinsella's 1982 novel '' Shoeless Joe''. The film stars Kevin Costner as a farmer who builds a ...
'', the 1990 film ''
Ghost
A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...
'', and the 1993 comedy ''
Heart and Souls
''Heart and Souls'' is a 1993 American fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Ron Underwood. The film stars Robert Downey Jr. as Thomas Reilly, a businessman recruited by the souls of four deceased people, his guardian angels from childhood, to h ...
''. In the horror genre, 1980's ''
The Fog
''The Fog'' is a 1980 American supernatural horror film directed by John Carpenter, who also co-wrote the screenplay and created the music for the film. It stars Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Janet Leigh and Hal Holbrook. It ...
'', and the ''
A Nightmare on Elm Street
''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' is a 1984 American supernatural slasher film written and directed by Wes Craven and produced by Robert Shaye. It is the first installment in the ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' franchise and stars Heather Langenkamp ...
'' series of films from the 1980s and 1990s are notable examples of the trend for the merging of ghost stories with scenes of physical violence.
Popularised in such films as the 1984 comedy ''
Ghostbusters
''Ghostbusters'' is a 1984 American Supernatural fiction, supernatural comedy film directed and produced by Ivan Reitman, and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and ...
'',
ghost hunting
Ghost hunting is the process of investigating locations that are reported to be haunted by ghosts. Typically, a ghost-hunting team will attempt to collect evidence supporting the existence of paranormal activity. Ghost hunters use a variety of ...
became a hobby for many who formed ghost hunting societies to explore reportedly haunted places. The ghost hunting theme has been featured in
reality television series
Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...
, such as ''
Ghost Adventures
''Ghost Adventures'' is an American paranormal and reality television series that premiered on October 17, 2008, on the Travel Channel before moving to Discovery+ in 2021. An independent film of the same name originally aired on the Sci-Fi Chann ...
'', ''
Ghost Hunters'', ''
Ghost Hunters International
''Ghost Hunters International'' (abbreviated as ''GHI'') is a spin-off series of '' Ghost Hunters'' that aired on Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi). The series premiered on January 9, 2008, and ended on April 4, 2012. Like its parent series, ''GHI'' was ...
'', ''
Ghost Lab
''Ghost Lab'' is a weekly American paranormal television series that premiered on October 6, 2009, on the Discovery Channel. Produced by Paper Route Productions and Go Go Luckey Entertainment, the program is narrated by Mike Rowe. It follows gho ...
'', ''
Most Haunted
''Most Haunted'' is a British paranormal reality television series. Following complaints, the broadcast regulator, Ofcom, ruled that it was an entertainment show, not a legitimate investigation into the paranormal, and "should not be taken seri ...
'', and ''
A Haunting
''A Haunting'' is an American paranormal TV, paranormal Drama (film and television), drama anthology series, anthology television series that depicts eyewitness accounts of alleged possession, exorcism, and ghostly encounters. The program feature ...
''. It is also represented in children's television by such programs as ''
The Ghost Hunter
A ghosthunter is a person who engages in ghost hunting, the process of investigating locations that are allegedly haunted.
Ghosthunter(s), Ghost Hunter(s) or Ghost Hunt may also refer to:
Literature
*''Ghosthunters'', a four-book series by Germa ...
'' and ''
Ghost Trackers
''Ghost Trackers'' (also known as GTK) is a children's reality show created by Chris Gudgeon on HBO that was previously aired on Discovery Kids Canada, & YTV. It ran for fifty-two episodes in four seasons (thirteen episodes per season) from 2005 ...
''. Ghost hunting also gave rise to multiple guidebooks to haunted locations, and ghost hunting "how-to" manuals.
The 1990s saw a return to classic "gothic" ghosts, whose dangers were more psychological than physical. Examples of films from this period include 1999's ''
The Sixth Sense
''The Sixth Sense'' is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It stars Bruce Willis as a child psychologist whose patient (Haley Joel Osment) claims he can see and talk to the dead.
Released by ...
'' and ''
The Others''.
Asian cinema has also produced horror films about ghosts, such as the 1998 Japanese film ''Ring (film), Ringu'' (remade in the US as ''The Ring (2002 film), The Ring'' in 2002), and the Pang brothers' 2002 film ''The Eye (2002 film), The Eye''.
Indian ghost movies are popular not just in India, but in the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia, and other parts of the world. Some Indian ghost movies such as the comedy / horror film ''Chandramukhi'' have been commercial successes, dubbed into several languages.
In fictional television programming, ghosts have been explored in series such as ''Supernatural (U.S. TV series), Supernatural'', ''Ghost Whisperer'', and ''Medium (TV show), Medium''.
In animated fictional television programming, ghosts have served as the central element in series such as ''
Casper the Friendly Ghost
Casper the Friendly Ghost is the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. He is a pleasant, personable and translucent ghost, but often criticized by his three wicked uncles, the Ghostly Trio.
T ...
'', ''Danny Phantom'', and ''Scooby-Doo''. Various other television shows have depicted ghosts as well.
Metaphorical usages
Nietzsche argued that people generally wear prudent persona (psychology), masks in company, but that an alternative strategy for social interaction is to present oneself as an absence, as a social ghost – "One reaches out for us but gets no hold of us" – a sentiment later echoed (if in a less positive way) by Carl Jung.
Nick Harkaway has considered that all people carry a host of ghosts in their heads in the form of impressions of past acquaintances – ghosts who represent mental maps of other people in the world and serve as philosophical reference points.
Object relations theory sees human personalities as formed by splitting (psychology), splitting off aspects of the person that he or she deems incompatible, whereupon the person may be haunted in later life by such ghosts of his or her alternate selves.
[Michael Parsons, ''The Dove that Returns, the Dove that Vanishes'' (2000) p. 83-4]
The sense of ghosts as invisible, mysterious entities is invoked in several terms that use the word metaphorically, such as ghostwriter (a writer who pens texts credited to another person without revealing the ghostwriter's role as an author); ghost singer (a vocalist who records songs whose vocals are credited to another person); and ghosting (relationships), "ghosting" a date (when a person breaks off contact with a former romantic partner and disappears).
See also
* World of Darkness (Mandaeism)#Inhabitants, Gadulta
* Hauntology
* List of ghosts
* Paranormal activity
* ''Spiritism (book), Spiritism''
*Spirit photography
*Susulu (mythology)
*La Llorona
References
Bibliography
* Finucane, R. C., ''Appearances of the Dead: A Cultural History of Ghosts'', Prometheus Books, 1984, .
* Hervey, Sheila, ''Some Canadian Ghosts'', in series, ''Original Canadian Pocket Book[s],'' Richmond Hill, Ont.: Pocket Books, 1973, SBN 671-78629-6
* Hole, Christina
''Haunted England'' Batsford: London, 1950.
*
*
*
Further reading
* Fairly, John & Welfare, Simon, ''Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers'', Putnam: New York, 1985.
* Felton, D., ''Haunted Greece and Rome: Ghost Stories From Classical Antiquity'', University of Texas Press, 1999.
* Johnston, Sarah Iles, ''Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece'', University of California Press, 1999.
* MacKenzie, Andrew, ''Apparitions and Ghosts'', Arthur Barker, 1971.
* Moreman, Christopher, ''Beyond the Threshold: Afterlife Beliefs and Experiences in World Religions'', Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
External links
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{{Authority control
Ghosts,
Afterlife
Paranormal terminology