impression showing the god
Dumuzid being tortured in the
Underworld by
galla demons
Ancient Near East and Egypt There are many references to
ghosts in Mesopotamian religions – the religions of
Sumer,
Babylon,
Assyria, and other early states in
Mesopotamia. Traces of these beliefs survive in the later
Abrahamic religions that came to dominate the region. The concept of ghosts may predate many
belief systems. Ghosts were thought to be created at time of death, taking on the memory and personality of the dead person. They traveled to the netherworld, where they were assigned a position, and led an existence similar in some ways to that of the living. Relatives of the dead were expected to make offerings of food and drink to the dead to ease their conditions. If they did not, the ghosts could inflict misfortune and illness on the living. Traditional healing practices ascribed a variety of illnesses to the action of ghosts, while others were caused by gods or demons. and spirit re-united after death There was widespread belief in
ghosts in ancient Egyptian culture. The
Hebrew Bible contains few references to ghosts, associating spiritism with forbidden occult activities cf.
Deuteronomy 18:11. The most notable reference is in the First
Book of Samuel (I Samuel 28:3–19 KJV), in which a disguised
King Saul has the
Witch of Endor summon the spirit or ghost of
Samuel. The
soul and spirit were believed to exist after death, with the ability to assist or harm the living, and the possibility of a second death. Over a period of more than 2,500 years, Egyptian beliefs about the nature of the afterlife evolved constantly. Many of these beliefs were recorded in
hieroglyph inscriptions, papyrus scrolls and tomb paintings. The Egyptian
Book of the Dead compiles some of the beliefs from different periods of ancient Egyptian history. In modern times, the fanciful concept of a mummy coming back to life and wreaking vengeance when disturbed has spawned a whole genre of horror stories and films.
Classical Antiquity Archaic and Classical Greece depicting the ghost of
Clytemnestra waking the
Erinyes, date unknown Ghosts appeared in
Homer's
Odyssey and
Iliad, in which they were described as vanishing "as a vapor, gibbering and whining into the earth". Homer's ghosts had little interaction with the world of the living. Periodically they were called upon to provide advice or prophecy, but they do not appear to be particularly feared. Ghosts in the classical world often appeared in the form of vapor or smoke, but at other times they were described as being substantial, appearing as they had been at the time of death, complete with the wounds that killed them. By the 5th century BC,
classical Greek ghosts had become haunting, frightening creatures who could work to either good or evil purposes. The spirit of the dead was believed to hover near the resting place of the corpse, and cemeteries were places the living avoided. The dead were to be ritually mourned through public ceremony, sacrifice, and libations, or else they might return to haunt their families. The ancient Greeks held annual feasts to honor and placate the spirits of the dead, to which the family ghosts were invited, and after which they were "firmly invited to leave until the same time next year." The 5th-century BC play
Oresteia includes an appearance of the ghost of
Clytemnestra, one of the first ghosts to appear in a work of fiction.
Roman Empire and Late Antiquity and the Ghost'', by
Henry Justice Ford, The
ancient Romans believed a ghost could be used to exact revenge on an enemy by scratching a curse on a piece of lead or pottery and placing it into a grave.
Plutarch, in the 1st century AD, described the haunting of the baths at
Chaeronea by the ghost of a murdered man. The ghost's loud and frightful groans caused the people of the town to seal up the doors of the building. Another celebrated account of a haunted house from the ancient classical world is given by
Pliny the Younger (). Pliny describes the haunting of a house in
Athens, which was bought by the
Stoic philosopher
Athenodorus, who lived about 100 years before Pliny. Knowing that the house was supposedly haunted, Athenodorus intentionally set up his writing desk in the room where the apparition was said to appear and sat there writing until late at night when he was disturbed by a ghost bound in chains. He followed the ghost outside where it indicated a spot on the ground. When Athenodorus later excavated the area, a shackled skeleton was unearthed. The haunting ceased when the skeleton was given a proper reburial. The writers
Plautus and
Lucian also wrote stories about haunted houses. In the
New Testament, according to
Luke 24:37–39, following his
resurrection,
Jesus was forced to persuade the
Disciples that he was not a ghost (some versions of the Bible, such as the KJV and NKJV, use the term "spirit"). Similarly, Jesus' followers at first believed he was a ghost (spirit) when they saw him
walking on water. One of the first persons to express disbelief in ghosts was
Lucian of Samosata in the 2nd century AD. In his satirical novel
The Lover of Lies ( 150 AD), he relates how
Democritus "the learned man from
Abdera in
Thrace" lived in a tomb outside the
city gates to prove that cemeteries were not haunted by the spirits of the departed. Lucian relates how he persisted in his disbelief despite
practical jokes perpetrated by "some young men of Abdera" who dressed up in black robes with skull masks to frighten him. This account by Lucian notes something about the popular classical expectation of how a ghost should look. In the 5th century AD, the Christian priest
Constantius of Lyon recorded an instance of the recurring theme of the improperly buried dead who come back to haunt the living, and who can only cease their haunting when their bones have been discovered and properly reburied.
Middle Ages Ghosts reported in
medieval Europe tended to fall into two categories: the souls of the dead, or demons. The souls of the dead returned for a specific purpose. Demonic ghosts existed only to torment or tempt the living. The living could tell them apart by demanding their purpose in the name of Jesus Christ. The soul of a dead person would divulge its mission, while a demonic ghost would be banished at the sound of the Holy Name. Most ghosts were souls assigned to
Purgatory, condemned for a specific period to atone for their transgressions in life. Their penance was generally related to their sin. For example, the ghost of a man who had been abusive to his servants was condemned to tear off and swallow bits of his own tongue; the ghost of another man, who had neglected to leave his cloak to the poor, was condemned to wear the cloak, now "heavy as a church tower". These ghosts appeared to the living to ask for prayers to end their suffering. Other dead souls returned to urge the living to confess their sins before their own deaths. Medieval European ghosts were more substantial than ghosts described in the
Victorian age, and there are accounts of ghosts being wrestled with and physically restrained until a priest could arrive to hear its confession. Some were less solid, and could move through walls. Often they were described as paler and sadder versions of the person they had been while alive, and dressed in tattered gray rags. The vast majority of reported sightings were male. There were some reported cases of ghostly armies, fighting battles at night in the forest, or in the remains of an
Iron Age hillfort, as at
Wandlebury, near Cambridge, England. Living knights were sometimes challenged to single combat by phantom knights, which vanished when defeated. From the medieval period an apparition of a ghost is recorded from 1211, at the time of the
Albigensian Crusade.
Gervase of Tilbury, Marshal of
Arles, wrote that the image of Guilhem, a boy recently murdered in the forest, appeared in his cousin's home in
Beaucaire, near
Avignon. This series of "visits" lasted all of the summer. Through his cousin, who spoke for him, the boy allegedly held conversations with anyone who wished, until the local priest requested to speak to the boy directly, leading to an extended disquisition on theology. The boy narrated the trauma of death and the unhappiness of his fellow souls in Purgatory, and reported that God was most pleased with the ongoing Crusade against the
Cathar heretics, launched three years earlier. The time of the Albigensian Crusade in southern France was marked by intense and prolonged warfare, this constant bloodshed and dislocation of populations being the context for these reported visits by the murdered boy. Haunted houses are featured in the 9th-century
Arabian Nights (such as the tale of
Ali the Cairene and the Haunted House in Baghdad).
European Renaissance to Romanticism and his father's ghost" by
Henry Fuseli (1796 drawing). The ghost is wearing stylized
plate armor in 17th-century style, including a
morion type helmet and
tassets. Depicting ghosts as wearing armor, to suggest a sense of antiquity, was common in
Elizabethan theater.
Renaissance magic took a revived interest in the
occult, including
necromancy. In the era of the Reformation and Counter Reformation, there was frequently a backlash against unwholesome interest in the dark arts, typified by writers such as
Thomas Erastus. The Swiss Reformed pastor
Ludwig Lavater supplied one of the most frequently reprinted books of the period with his
Of Ghosts and Spirits Walking By Night. The
Child Ballad "
Sweet William's Ghost" (1868) recounts the story of a ghost returning to his fiancée begging her to free him from his promise to marry her. He cannot marry her because he is dead but her refusal would mean his damnation. This reflects a popular British belief that the dead haunted their lovers if they took up with a new love without some formal release. "
The Unquiet Grave" expresses a belief even more widespread, found in various locations over Europe: ghosts can stem from the excessive grief of the living, whose mourning interferes with the dead's peaceful rest. In many folktales from around the world, the hero arranges for the burial of a dead man. Soon after, he gains a companion who aids him and, in the end, the hero's companion reveals that he is in fact the
dead man. Instances of this include the Italian
fairy tale "
Fair Brow" and the Swedish "
The Bird 'Grip'".
Modern period of western culture Spiritualist movement Spiritualism is a
monotheistic belief system or
religion, postulating a belief in
God, but with a distinguishing feature of belief that spirits of the dead residing in the
spirit world can be contacted by "
mediums", who can then provide information about the
afterlife. Spiritualism developed in the United States and reached its peak growth in membership from the 1840s to the 1920s, especially in
English-language countries. By 1897, it was said to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe, mostly drawn from the
middle and
upper classes, while the corresponding movement in continental Europe and Latin America is known as
Spiritism. The religion flourished for a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, attaining cohesion by periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many prominent Spiritualists were women. Most followers supported causes such as the
abolition of slavery and
women's suffrage. and others. Spiritism has adherents in many countries throughout the world, including Spain, United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, England, Argentina, Portugal, and especially Brazil, which has the largest proportion and greatest number of followers.
Scientific view The physician
John Ferriar wrote "An Essay Towards a Theory of Apparitions" in 1813 in which he argued that sightings of ghosts were the result of
optical illusions. Later the French physician
Alexandre Jacques François Brière de Boismont published
On Hallucinations: Or, the Rational History of Apparitions, Dreams, Ecstasy, Magnetism, and Somnambulism in 1845 in which he claimed sightings of ghosts were the result of
hallucinations. David Turner, a retired physical chemist, suggested that
ball lightning could cause inanimate objects to move erratically.
Joe Nickell of the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry wrote that there was no credible
scientific evidence that any location was inhabited by spirits of the dead. Limitations of
human perception and ordinary physical explanations can account for ghost sightings; for example,
air pressure changes in a home causing doors to slam, humidity changes causing boards to creak,
condensation in electrical connections causing intermittent behavior, or lights from a passing car reflected through a window at night.
Pareidolia, an innate tendency to recognize patterns in random perceptions, is what some skeptics believe causes people to believe that they have 'seen ghosts'. Reports of ghosts "seen out of the corner of the eye" may be accounted for by the sensitivity of human
peripheral vision. According to Nickell, peripheral vision can easily mislead, especially late at night when the brain is tired and more likely to misinterpret sights and sounds. Nickell further states, "science cannot substantiate the existence of a 'life energy' that could survive death without dissipating or function at all without a brain... why would... clothes survive?'" He asks, if ghosts glide, then why do people claim to hear them with "heavy footfalls"? Nickell says that ghosts act the same way as "dreams, memories, and imaginings, because they too are mental creations. They are evidence – not of another world, but of this real and natural one."
Benjamin Radford from the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and author of the 2017 book
Investigating Ghosts: The Scientific Search for Spirits writes that "ghost hunting is the world's most popular paranormal pursuit" yet, to date, ghost hunters cannot agree on what a ghost is, or offer proof that they exist; "it's all speculation and guesswork". He writes that it would be "useful and important to distinguish between types of spirits and apparitions. Until then it's merely a parlor game distracting amateur ghost hunters from the task at hand." According to research in
anomalistic psychology visions of ghosts may arise from
hypnagogic hallucinations ("waking dreams" experienced in the transitional states to and from sleep). A study of two experiments into alleged hauntings (Wiseman
et al.. 2003) came to the conclusion "that people consistently report unusual experiences in 'haunted' areas because of environmental factors, which may differ across locations." Some of these factors included "the variance of local magnetic fields, size of location and lighting level stimuli of which witnesses may not be consciously aware". Some researchers, such as
Michael Persinger of
Laurentian University, Canada, have speculated that changes in
geomagnetic fields (created, e.g., by tectonic stresses in the Earth's crust or
solar activity) could stimulate the brain's
temporal lobes and produce many of the experiences associated with hauntings. Sound is thought to be another cause of supposed sightings. Richard Lord and
Richard Wiseman have concluded that
infrasound can cause humans to experience bizarre feelings in a room, such as anxiety, extreme sorrow, a feeling of being watched, or even the chills.
Carbon monoxide poisoning, which can cause changes in perception of the visual and auditory systems, was speculated upon as a possible explanation for
haunted houses as early as 1921. People who experience
sleep paralysis often report seeing ghosts during their experiences. Neuroscientists Baland Jalal and
V.S. Ramachandran have recently proposed neurological theories for why people hallucinate ghosts during sleep paralysis. Their theories emphasize the role of the
parietal lobe and
mirror neurons in triggering such ghostly hallucinations. ==By religion==