Ghosts

spooks, spectres, disembodied spirits

Spiritual Resources > the Paranormal > ghosts

Things that go bump in the night.....

Ancient pagan ideas abound today no less than in the past. Some folks still think there are dead people - ghosts - who hang around just to haunt their enemies and their descendants, or (in a more modern view) in bondage to some unresolved trauma or psychological conflict which somehow is seen as outliving the body of the person who had it. If so, then by now, there must be some psychologist-ghosts to help them out of it, no doubt charging them by the hour. (I hear boo-therapy is effective.) Many reported ghosts are hallucinations, but sometimes hallucinations can seem almost substantively alive, especially to those who insist that they are.

When we die, do we 'go ghost'? Is a ghost demonic? Is it really a visiting apparition from the dead? Or is it caused by a human longing to know the world beyond? I don't know; I've never met one, and I'm not dying to find out. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, if they're there, I figure that ghosts believe in us.

Whether the culture is European, African, or Asian, one of the common beliefs about ghosts is that they are found in cemeteries, burial grounds, and places of mass death or murder. Poltergeists like to make noise and toss objects around as if they're throwing a childish tantrum. Japanese onryos are especially vengeful and relentless. A bhuta from India is fairly neutral, but they have terms for good and evil ghosts, too. A revenant is someone who returns from the dead as an apparition (a visual image, something you can see). A phantasm is created when one (supernatural or natural) being's mind uses extra-sensory means to put images into someone else's mind. There are so many names for spirits who show themselves : spook, specter, phantom, doppelgänger, wraith. And the general reaction, even at just hearing the words, is to have at least a touch of fear. Perhaps the best thing to do with stuff that creates fear is to have fun over them. So the kiddies in Halloween costumes and the guy with the tombstone decorations on his front lawn may have it right.

Ghosts are not the kind of being you'd expect to do anything substantive - it's against their nature. It's said by some that ghosts often try to be what they're not, but if so, they can't be successful at it, because you can see right through them.

If there really are ghosts, think of what they're going through nowadays. After a short while of passing through walls and scaring little kids, it gets to be sorta 'been there, done that'. Hanging out at the old haunts just becomes a bore that... never.... ends..... . And what of the 'doltergeists' that haunt really stupid places? The night life at cemeteries is rather, well, dead. Casper ruined their image by making them seem nicey-nice. A generation raised on Scooby Doo actually thinks it's fun to be ghost hunters. And everyone knows that no apparition looks as good as Tom Cruise. One wonders why any self-respecting ghost would make more than the briefest visit.

Do loved ones come back as apparitions? .

Ghost Stories

Many of the recent ghost stories are created and puffed up by those who wish to cash in, or who just like to watch other people run around like lunatics. It makes for some good scripts, though. In Lord Of the Rings, rings of power sap the real-ness out of rulers and make them into slave wraiths. It's generally thought that Shakespeare didn't really believe in ghosts, but that didn't stop him from making a great turn of plot with the ghost of Hamlet's father. The same is true of those Hollywood script writers (crypt writers??) and TV moguls who churn out ghost shows. In show biz, there are ghost riders in the sky on their way to ghost towns, and ghost whisperers that reach the haunting dead. When something supernatural like a ghost appears in a story, the dramatic tension shoots way up, as if to say 'here's an important moment where we learn what lies behind what's happening in the story'. (Unless, of course, they start sliming people.) Ghost stories can be rocket fuel for a young child's imagination about the world around them. I can recall one ghost tale which left me wondering all week long about whether the walls in a teacher's 'haunted house' held a dead body. In the process, I learned a lot about walls. But no spook has a ghost of a chance of collecting any royalties on the stories about them, nor does the ACLU sue over fomenting hatred of hobgoblins. (Imagine ghosts meeting their lawyers for the first time; I'll bet they find it scary.)

My own local Long Island 'ghost story' (really more of a paranormal/demon story, but those often cover the same ground) is the Amityville Horror house, where a took place. Reports about the presence of spirits by the next home owners led to bigger stories of ghost sightings, then news reports, then a novel, a movie, and a legend. This ghost story was spread for both fun and profit. Owners since then never liked their house's image as a haunted house, and have made it look very different. The truth is more than creepy enough. Murder of a whole family by a material human from that family is an evil that would horrify even the scariest specter.

reports that when Jesus' disciples saw him walk on water, at first they thought he was a ghost (Greek phantasma). Then He talked to them and got into the boat with them, showing them He was materially for real. Check out : when Jesus came back from the dead, He was no ghost.

Sorry. You'll have to look elsewhere for ghost photos and art, or anything on Kerlian photography that's supposed to show ghosts, or crystal-powered seeing of ghosts. This page is not haunted.

One last thing :

I ain't scared of no ghosts.

uh-uh.

Much of what seems spiritual isn't, or isn't spiritually healthy for you. Like ghosts. But there are things you can do to get better in tune with the real spiritual life. Try these: