I suppose I should be writing this around Halloween, but it’s July and we were at a party a few days ago and the subject of ghosts came up. Actually the conversation wasn’t particularly interesting — that’s too bad, because I think ghosts are interesting. I’ve had a few personal experiences related to “ghosts” and maybe I’ll put them on my list of things to blog about.
But I thought today, I’d just talk about ghosts in general….
Scientist say there is no evidence that ghosts really exist, but there are plenty of people that think they are real.
There are different types or forms of ghosts — I’m sure there are some/many that I don’t know about but I know there are (supposedly) ghosts that appear as floating balls of light — they’re called Orbs. Poltergeists are noisy ghosts that can touch (and often break) objects in the physical world — they like to make noise and mischief. Some ghosts appear as mist or fog and ghosts known as funnel ghosts show up as blurry spots in photographs. Casper cartoons show ghosts that look like bedsheets with eye holes — I’ve never heard of a bedsheets ghost, but who knows?
The word ghost comes from the Old Germanic word gaistaz — meaning soul or spirit. It also shares a root with the word gasp. Maybe that’s why some people gasp when they see a ghost.
Arguably, the place with the most ghosts anywhere is the Tower of London. The place is nearly a thousand years old, so I guess there’s been plenty of time for ghosts to take up residence. Some of its ghosts include the wife of Henry VIII, Lady Jane Grey (the nine days queen,) and even a bear. The tower used to have a zoo, so that probably explains the bear.
When the ancient Romans wanted revenge on someone they didn’t like, they believed they could get a ghost to do it for them. They could do that by writing a curse on something called a curse tablet and putting it into a grave.
Ghost hunters and paranormal scholars agree that ghosts prefer to haunt at night because there is less commotion and electronic disturbances. The witching hour is the time during the night where supernatural and paranormal happenings are more likely to happen. Ghosts and demons are said to be at their most powerful during the witching hour. I’m not sure exactly when the witching hour is.
The official term for the fear of ghosts is phasmophobia — a phobia that is also linked with the fear of the dark. It’s one of the most common fears for both children and adults.
There are lots and lots of ghost stories — probably one of the most famous is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by ghosts of the Christmas past, present and future. But the first ghost story appears to have been written in the first century AD, by the Roman author Pliny the Younger. He described a ghost he saw in his house in Athens, Greece. The ghost was an old bearded man fully shackled in chains.
So — maybe you believe in ghosts or you don’t… maybe people who say ghosts don’t exist are just afraid to admit that they do. Or maybe Stephen King had it right when he wrote “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”
— 30 —