The desire for justice and the belief in some form of supernatural protection which we see in more major religions address basic human needs. Ghosts have long been thought of as vehicles for justice. In Macbeth, meanwhile, the murdered Banquo points an accusing finger at the man responsible for his death.
This idea has its equivalents today in various countries. In Kenya, a murdered person may become an ngoma , a spirit who pursues their murderer, sometimes causing them to give themself up to the police. Or in Russia the rusalka is the spirit of a dead woman who died by drowning and now lures men to their death. She may be released when her death is avenged. Ghosts can also be friends and protectors.
In the Sixth Sense spoiler alert , the ghost character played by Bruce Willis helps a young boy to come to terms with his ability to see ghosts and to help them to find peace.
It wasn't until recently that ghost hunting became a widespread interest around the world. Much of this is due to the hit Syfy cable TV series "Ghost Hunters," which aired episodes and found no good evidence for ghosts.
The show spawned dozens of spinoffs and imitators, and it's not hard to see why the show is so popular: the premise is that anyone can look for ghosts. The two original stars were ordinary guys plumbers, in fact who decided to look for evidence of spirits.
Their message: You don't need to be an egghead scientist, or even have any training in science or investigation. All you need is some free time, a dark place, and maybe a few gadgets from an electronics store. If you look long enough any unexplained light or noise might be evidence of ghosts.
That vague criteria for ghostly happenings is part of the reason why myths about the afterlife are more alive than ever. One difficulty in scientifically evaluating ghosts is that a surprisingly wide variety of phenomena are attributed to ghosts, from a door closing on its own, to missing keys, to a cold area in a hallway, to a vision of a dead relative.
When sociologists Dennis and Michele Waskul interviewed ghost experiencers for their book " Ghostly Encounters: The Hauntings of Everyday Life " Temple University Press they found that "many participants were not sure that they had encountered a ghost and remained uncertain that such phenomena were even possible, simply because they did not see something that approximated the conventional image of a 'ghost.
Thus, many people who go on record as claiming to have had a ghostly experience didn't necessarily see anything that most people would recognize as a classic "ghost," and in fact they may have had completely different experiences whose only common factor is that it could not be readily explained. Personal experience is one thing, but scientific evidence is another matter. Part of the difficulty in investigating ghosts is that there is not one universally agreed-upon definition of what a ghost is.
Some believe that they are spirits of the dead who for whatever reason get "lost" on their way to The Other Side; others claim that ghosts are instead telepathic entities projected into the world from our minds.
Still others create their own special categories for different types of ghosts, such as poltergeists, residual hauntings, intelligent spirits and shadow people. Of course, it's all made up, like speculating on the different races of fairies or dragons : there are as many types of ghosts as you want there to be. There are many contradictions inherent in ideas about ghosts. What do we look like when we die?
We no longer have any physical appearance. What is there to do on the Other Side? There are so many dimensions, we have the choice of any kind of beauty we wish to experience.
Whatever we loved is there — how could it be paradise otherwise? If we liked baseball on this side, we might choose to spend most of our time in a big beautiful baseball park, watching or playing our favorite game. If we liked to fish we can choose to be on a gorgeous, sparkling lake. If we liked the mountains, we could go skiing for as long as we want. If we liked music, we might be in a wonderful music hall. These dimensions are all created by God.
Do dead people watch us shower? Does Grandma know I like to do that in bed? Sure they can! And Grandma certainly does … They see us in the bathroom and they see us in the bedroom! But who cares? Has she got a big butt! They just look at it like human nature, like we might see two animals going at it and just look at it as animal nature. Maybe we might smile, or even laugh. They are happy for you. The dead are not nearly as stuffy about sex — not even our dead Sicilian fathers! No judgment.
They also see us in the operating room and in the classroom, and at our holiday table. They enjoy with us all the events we celebrate in our life and they also walk us through our sorrows and heartaches. Is it possible to ask the dead for a moment of privacy? I hate to break it to you, but, no. What about God?
You never think about God looking, right? Does God ever stop looking? When your grandparents are over there, they are one with God. Do the dead have sex one the Other Side? No sex? They may touch someone or push someone, just to show they can do it.
I had one client whose beach house down at the Jersey shore had a very playful resident ghost. He seemed to live in their shower and delighted in pressing up against anyone who used the shower — not every time, but often enough that the whole family was aware of it.
The dead are just having some fun with us. They like to joke about the body. We have good days and bad days. Do the dead remember having sex? They certainly do remember! And that reminds me of a story, a couple years ago, two women came to see me for a reading. They were old friends, either in their late 70s or early 80s and had made their appointments together. They both wanted to hear from their husbands, and without any problem, their husbands both came through.
So the one husband is talking about Wednesday night and the other is talking about Friday night. The one mentioned a restaurant. Do the dead miss their bodies? They remember eating, they remember having sex. But they have a sense of humor remembering their earthly desires and pleasures. Other sections of our headspace can also fall victim to phantom confusion. In a study, Swiss neuroscientists blindfolded a group of participants, then hooked up their hands to a machine that tracked finger movement.
When the subjects moved their arms, a robotic appendage behind them simultaneously touched their backs in the same fashion. But when investigators delayed the mimicking movements of the animatronic device by just a few milliseconds, several people reported sensing an intelligent presence behind them, as if a spirit were poking them in the back.
The researchers think the stalled movements wreak havoc on how the brain times incoming signals in the frontoparietal cortex, which controls inbound sensory and motor cues. Later imaging on folks who reported sensing paranormal shadows in the past found many had lesions in that exact area of gray matter, affecting its normal functioning. If a tiny movement delay is enough to conjure up spirits, perhaps our brains are predisposed at some deep level to imagine ghosts are walking among us.
We might grow up, but those feelings never go away. This story appears in the Fall , Mystery issue of Popular Science. Correction: The story previously stated that the Salem Witch Trials took place in the late s. Republicans and Democrats have both made appearances in Glasgow for the giant climate conference. The quasar J is 13 billion light-years away from Earth. But it still can reveal a lot about our own universe. Brighstoneus simmondsi has a big lump around the nostrils, like a chunky alligator.
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RELATED An overlooked fossil turned out to be a new herbivorous dinosaur with an oddly shaped nose Brighstoneus simmondsi has a big lump around the nostrils, like a chunky alligator. Like science, tech, and DIY projects?
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