The
belief in manifestations of the spirits of the dead is widespread, dating back
to animism or ancestor
worship in pre-literate cultures. Certain religious practices—funeral
rites, exorcisms,
and some practices of spiritualism and ritual
magic—are specifically designed to appease the spirits of the dead. Ghosts
are generally described as solitary essences that haunt particular locations, objects, or people
they were associated with in life, though stories of phantom armies, ghost trains, phantom ships, and even ghost animals have
also been recounted.[2][3]In traditional
belief and fiction,
a ghost is the soul or spirit of a
deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other
manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from
an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to
realistic, life-like visions. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a
deceased person is known as necromancy,
or in spiritism as a séance.
Further
information: spirit, soul
(spirit), anima, genius (mythology), and Geist
Terminology
The
English word ghost continues Old English gást,
from a hypothetical Common Germanic *gaistaz. It is common
to West Germanic, but lacking in North and East Germanic
(the equivalent word in Gothic is ahma, Old Norse has andi m., önd f.).
The pre-Germanic form was *ghoisdo-s, apparently from a root denoting
"fury, anger" reflected in Old Norse geisa "to
rage". 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, in particular
capable of excitation and fury (compare óðr). In Germanic
paganism, "Germanic Mercury", and the later Odin, was at the same
time the conductor of the dead and the "lord
of fury" leading the Wild Hunt.
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, i.e.
angels and demons; the Anglo-Saxon gospel refers to the demonic possession 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".
The now prevailing sense of "the soul of a deceased person, spoken of as
appearing in a visible form" only emerges in Middle
English (14th century). The modern noun does, however, retain a wider
field of application, extending on one hand to "soul",
"spirit", "vital principle", "mind" or "psyche", the seat of feeling, thought and
moral judgement; on the other hand used figuratively of any shadowy outline,
fuzzy or unsubstantial image, in optics, photography and cinematography
especially a flare, secondary image or spurious signal.[4]
The
synonym spook is
a Dutch loanword, akin to Low German spôk (of
uncertain etymology); it entered the English language via the United
States in the 19th century.[5][6][7][8] Alternative
words in modern usage include spectre (from Latin spectrum), the
Scottish wraith (of obscure origin), phantom (via French
ultimately from Greek phantasma,
compare fantasy) and apparition. The termshade in classical mythology translates Greek σκιά,[9] or
Latin umbra,[10] in
reference to the notion of spirits in the Greek
underworld. "Haint" is a synonym for ghost used in regional
English of the southern United States,[11] and the
"haint tale" is a common feature of southern oral and literary
tradition.[12] The
term poltergeist is
a German word, literally a "noisy ghost", for a spirit said to
manifest itself by invisibly moving and influencing objects.[13]
Wraith is
a Scottish dialectal word for
"ghost", "spectre" or "apparition". It came to be
used in Scottish Romanticist literature, and acquired the more general or
figurative sense of "portent" or "omen". In 18th- to
19th-century Scottish literature, it was also applied to aquatic spirits. The
word has no commonly accepted etymology; OED notes "of
obscure origin" only. An association with the verb writhe was
the etymology favored by J.
R. R. Tolkien.[14] Tolkien's
use of the word in the naming of the creatures known as the Ringwraiths has
influenced later usage in fantasy literature.Bogie is
an Ulster Scots term for a ghost, and
appears in Scottish poet John Mayne's Hallowe'en in 1780.[15][16]
A revenant is a deceased person returning
from the dead to haunt the living, either as a disembodied ghost or
alternatively as an animated ("undead")
corpse. Also related is the concept of a fetch,
the visible ghost or spirit of a person yet alive.
Anthropological
context
Further
information: Animism, Ancestor
worship, Origin of religion, and Anthropology of religion
A
notion of the transcendent, supernatural or numinous,
usually involving entities like ghosts, demons or deities, is a cultural universal.[17] In
pre-literate folk religions, these beliefs are often summarized
under animism and ancestor
worship.[18]
In
many cultures malignant, restless ghosts are distinguished from the more benign
spirits involved in ancestor worship.[19]
Ancestor
worship typically involves rites intended to prevent revenants, vengeful spirits of the dead,
imagined as starving and envious of the living. Strategies for preventing
revenants may either include sacrifice,
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 or the Western All
Souls' Day. Magical banishment of the dead is present in many of the
world's burial customs. The bodies found in many tumuli (kurgan) had been
ritually bound before burial,[20] and the
custom of binding the dead persists, for example, in rural Anatolia.[21]
Nineteenth-century anthropologist James
Frazer stated in his classic work, The
Golden Bough, that souls were seen as the creature within that animated the
body.[22]
Ghosts
and the afterlife
Further
information: Soul (spirit), Psyche (psychology), Underworld, Hungry
ghost, and Psychopomp
Further
information: Ghost Festival, All
Souls' Day, Day of the Dead, and Ghost Dance
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, which shows
deceased people in the afterlife appearing much as they did before death,
including the style of dress.
Fear
of ghosts
Main
article: Fear of ghosts
Information Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost