Beliefs In The Existence Of Ghosts And Poltergeists - Term Paper Example

Beliefs In The Existence Of Ghosts And Poltergeists What is a ghost? An emotion, a terrible moment condemned to repeat itself over and over? An instant of pain, perhaps? Something dead which appears at times alive. A sentiment suspended in time ... like a blurry photograph ... like an insect trapped in amber."- Toro, 2001 Whether or not they actually have any real existence ghosts and poltergeists play an important part in the story lives at least of peoples all around the world. Such stories have been there for a very long time. It has been well said that ‘The literature of all civilized peoples abounds with accounts of ghosts and haunted houses. Such spirits have the power to trouble the sleep of even convinced materialists.’( Lepp, 1968 ) In the Old Testament book of Ist Samuel 28 we read how Saul, after the death of Samuel the prophet , gets the witch of Endor to call up the ghost of Samuel to seek his advice. Instead he received a prediction of his own death. Rudyard Kipling, whose son had died in the 1st World War and who may well have wished to be able to communicate with him, wrote a poem ‘En-dor’on the subject in about 1919.:- Oh the road to En-dor is the oldest road And the craziest road of all! Straight it runs to the Witch’s abode, As it did in the days of Saul, And nothing has changed of the sorrow in store For such as go down on the road to En-dor! What the witch was supposed to have done was necromancy – raising the soul of a dead person. Saul , as can be seen from other scriptures, was inclined to fits and visions, and perhaps in this instance all that happened was that his imagination took over at a time when he was desperate. The prediction wasn’t even totally correct, although Saul would die at the hand of the Philistines – but that is likely to have happened anyway he was so disheartened. Webster’s Dictionary defines a ghost as being ‘a spirit or a demon, a disembodied soul.’ believed to be an inhabitant of an unseen world. Kipling, whose son died in the Ist World War and who might well have wanted contact with him, is warning people to leave well alone. The ghost of Samuel is not of course the only well known literary ghost. In the Odyssey Homer describes how Circe advises Odysseus to consult the spirits of the dead. ( Odyssey 11 v 23-28.) There is also Hamlet’s father in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Banquo in his Macbeth., the ghosts being devices to explain a character’s inner feelings or move the story on. ‘Whethering Heights’ by Emily Bronté ( 1847) has its Kathy clawing at the windows. Dickens of course had Marley appearing to Scrooge ( A Christmas Carol, 1843), one of the few instances in literature where some good resulted. In modern day films we have the Ghost busters and of course the Harry Potter films, both of which show ghosts as being evil things, although J.K. Rowling also portrays more gentle beings such as Harry’s parents. In C.S. Lewis’s ‘The Great Divorce’ (1945) the author describe ghosts who have to choose whether to give up their sins and go to heaven or whether they prefer to retain them and go to hell. Stevie Smith in her 1953 poem ‘ Not waving but drowning’ has the dead man explaining his predicament. Again this is a literary device, but one which perpetuates the idea that life continues after death and that the dead continue to communicate with the living. The web page ‘Short Scary Ghost Stories’ has a long list of modern ghost stories. Why do we find such stories fascinating? And why are they scary? They are for the most part simply explanations for what we don’t understand. When someone dies it is hard to understand how all that they were is now just an inanimate pile, and that they will never return and so stories develop. But if ghost stories are to be believed they do come back, they are still alive in some unexplainable way. And it is our lack of understanding that is scary rather than the idea of life after death. As well as ghosts there have also always been skeptics. George Bernard Shaw has been quoted as saying:- ‘The existence of a liar is more probable than the existence of a ghost.’ Poltergeists are a rather different matter. The word is German and means ‘knocking ghost’. It refers to the explanation often given for such things as strange rappings and tappings, bangs and even the unexplained movement of furniture. Unlike ghostly experiences it seems that poltergeist activity can take place at any time of day. However most can be explained as such things as the little movements a house makes when it is cooling at night. Pliny in a letter to Licinius Sura describes a house where chains seem to clank at night. The ghost therein was discovered to be a particular person buried nearby. Once proper funerals rites had been conducted he haunted no more. Ghosts are closely associated with shamanism according to the Catholic Encyclopedia ( Driscoll 1912) describing such things as goblins, ghosts, fairies and demons as being connected with primitive man. Perhaps it would be truer to say that they are connected with the primitive part of man – his pre- scientific part. Ghosts are connected with ancestor worship in many instances. Egypt in the time of the pharaohs is a prime example of a culture whose ethos was centered upon life after death. In some modern societies there is a day in the year when groups go to graveyards to feed the dead, as on all Saints Day in the Philippine islands, where even Roman Catholics take part. (English 2010). It is a long time now since the beginning of the scientific age. Why is there still the interest? Does the human psyche need this kind of thing? If it did not why are people so prepared to accept the scanty ‘evidence’ that there is to the point where scholars can actually discuss the taxonomy of ghosts? (American Ethnologist 1989)There are more questions than answers. The web page ‘Spirit Classification’ has long lists of various types of spirit – good and bad, from angels to demons. The writer however does admit that this does not imply that all or any of such beings do exist. Other writers describer only two types – those that interact and those that don’t, but which are merely observed. The latter is known as a residual haunting and the former as an intelligent haunting - one in which whatever it is seems to be aware of living beings. The former group would include such things as ghost ships. According to some beliefs, a ghost can be just the personality of a person which remains after their death, and is not the same as their soul or spirit. Appearances vary – some seem to be light in various shapes, others as mists, and in some cases definite figures are said to have been seen. Why this variation occurs is unexplained. Photographs as evidence are difficult. Apart from the fact that it possible, especially with modern techniques and equipment, to produce believable if strange images, there is the fact that a strand of hair, or something like it, across a lens, may not be seen by the photographer, but appears upon the image. In early photography, which required very long exposure times, ghostly images are in fact due to movement by the subjects being photographed. True Ghost Tales (Roberts 2007) define 6 types of hauntings. Residual hauntings are said to occur when there has been some traumatic experience such as a battle. Juliano describes these in detail. These are very repetitive with tales of figures appearing in a particular place at a particular time. The theory is that they are an imprint of negative energy released at the time of the original occurrence. Juliano describes them not as ghosts, but as a type of recording of events, a tape which plays on a loop. He gives the examples of Anne Boleyn in the Tower of London ( from where she went to her death) and the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall. These hauntings are said to result in the events being repeated perpetually. Poltergeist activity is described by the same writer as being caused by pent up teenage energy, especially from girls. Demon activity is described as originating in beings who have never existed as human beings. Intelligent or interactive ghosts are caused by the energy we all have in life according to their theory. Shadow people are perhaps among the strangest types described. They may have some, but not all human attributes, no facial expressions for instance. A person being in a state of hypnogogia, which is the physiological condition when a person is somewhere between sleeping and being fully awake, could be the explanation for some sightings. When in a hypnogogic state , a person can be aware of their environment, yet at the same time be half dreaming and capable of receiving images from their subconscious mind that they belive to be real. How often do people report ghost sas standing at the bottom of their bed or sitting at their bed side? Doppelgangers ( German for look alike, are a rarely described ghostly type. People apparently meet a ghostly form of themselves. However you describe them, and whatever they are said to look like or do, fear of ghosts is a very real phenomenon. The web page ‘Yeats’ Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry’ describe how in Norway the heads of corpses would be removed in order to weaken the power of their ghosts. In the north of England there was ( and perhaps still is ) a belief in boggarts – a type of mischievous ghost. It was boggarts who were blamed when something went missing. It is said that if named they will become actively destructive. The Yeats article describes banshees – spirits who appear in female form to tell of a death. Strangely these are almost a status symbol for they only appeared to the great families. At one time they were said to appear when someone died, but in later stories they predict it. Similar stories attend another Celtic people – the Scots with stories of ghostly appearances at the wedding of Alexander III. The ghost is said to have predicted the king’s death ( Ashley, 2002, page 89) Such ghosts are sometimes described as informers – they bring a message and will persist until sure that their message is heard and understood. If such stories change over time does this necessarily mean that they have no basis in fact? Beliefs in ghosts persist despite all the science which encircles us and on which we depend for so many of our every day activities and experiences. You can read for instance about how ghosts can manipulate energy - most commonly perhaps by causing a drop in temperature or by showing lights which appear to have no source. ( Signs of Ghosts 2010) Ghost hunters use pseudo scientific methods to search for evidence. In most cases though they may well have already decided that the ghost does exist .Scientific researchers on the other hand propose hypotheses to explanations phenomena, and design experimental, easily repeatable studies to test their ideas. Are the experiments of ghost hunters replicable? Not if the hauntings are actually due to weather conditions, marsh gas etc. For something to be said to exist it has to be proven and explainable and it has proved very difficult indeed to prove in the existence of ghosts or to explain how and why they exist ( if they do). . Conclusion The subject of ghosts and poltergeists obviously raises many questions, a lot of which are not answerable. Whether or not they actually exist is almost irrelevant. It is the beliefs that are of interest, as is the way in which these affect human behavior. Belief in being able to speak to spirits of the dead for instance leads to such things as séances where people seek the comfort of communicating with their dead loved ones. Such beliefs can be very lucrative for those who cultivate such beliefs in others. Ghosts make money – whether for writers, film makers or frauds and psychics. Mna is designed to try and make sense of his environment . This is a survival mechanism. In order to make sense of the world those who cannot understand science substitute ghost stories. Most of those who read stories such as the Harry Potter tales, know that they are just stories – yet somewhere deep in their subconscious there is something else, something that reaches far back into the past and beyond. A half remembered story perhaps, or maybe a dream now consciously forgotten. Many people for instance have had a dream which they can relate back to a television program recently seen, or perhaps a book they have been reading. Later they perhaps forget the link and just remember the story. Which is one reason why perhaps that ghost stories continue to appear? Jason Karl has collected many of these from all parts of the world in his book “21st century ghosts.”( 2007) It can almost be guaranteed that in another 100 years another , very similar book will appear. Ghosts may not live, but their stories live on. unexplained rappings, noises, and similar disturbances unexplained rappings, noises, and similar disturbances References Ashley,L.,(2002) The Complete Book of Spells, Curses and Magical Recipes, Barricade Books, New York Bible, New International Version Bronté,E. (1847) Whethering Heights, Driscoll, J. ( 1912), Shamanism, Catholic Encyclopedia, retrieved 8th December 2010 from http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13750a.htmEnglish, R. 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