Ghosts

Photo "Full Moon" by Gualberto107, courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

During the autumn months, as the days shorten and nights lengthen, we have a tendency to let our imaginations wander to the realms of the frightening - perhaps a left over of a time when it was hard for humanity to bring light to long, dark, cold nights.  Some people believe in ghosts, some don't.  Some want to believe and some go out there into the big wide world and explore the creepiest of places in order to investigate: ghost hunters, parapsychologists, spiritualists etc.  I'm very decidedly agnostic, but interested.  So when I think of Halloween, a time and festival I enjoy immensely, I cannot help but wonder what the whole drama about ghosts is all about.

Photo "Ghost Girl on Glass" by hyena reality courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The general belief is that ghosts are the spirits of the dead, who are no longer of this world but can find no peace or rest in the other.  Ghosts come in an infinity of forms, mostly human-like or with the same appearance as in their previous existence in the earthly realm, and they appear for a multitude of reasons.  Some manifest themselves as sounds such as the rustling of a taffeta gown in an old hallway, or as shadows in corners or as a cold spot in the middle of the lawn on a summer afternoon.  And there are thousands of tales of  ghosts or sightings of ghosts, or unexplained happenings that are ascribed to ghosts, from all over the world, not least a place as ancient and with a violent a history as Gibraltar.

Tower of Homage, a place of horror centuries past.

The most disturbing ghosts of all are those who have come not as they were in life but as they appeared at the time of death - their corpses tattered and torn in aspects of their perhaps untimely death, perhaps beribboned with the remains of their funerals shrouds, or worse still, maimed and mutilated from the wounds or diseases that ripped them unwillingly from life - armless, or legless, or most sinister of all, headless.

The motives for hauntings are as varied as the ghosts themselves. Some were thought to have returned to complete unfinished business, or have returned to wreak vengeance for some wrong done to them in life.  Some, evil during their lives, returned as part of their eternal punishment doomed to reenact their crimes, and others have been summoned by the living.  Some ghosts have no purpose at all and appear driven by some malevolent force, while others are just guileless or harmless, drifting apparitions with no apparent purpose.

"Bloody Tunnel" photo by hyena reality courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Yet the sight of a ghost, or even just the stories of the sighting of a ghost, almost always struck terror into the hearts of the living.  The fear of death and of the dead is an age-old, perhaps instinctive, fear.  Ghosts are a violation of the laws of nature and deny humanity the reassurance of the orderly structure of the universe.  And, above all, they are a cruel reminder that the living must all inevitably die.  In ancient times, where death and life were so much more closely intertwined, people would look for the signs that death was imminent, that the Grim Reaper was on his ghastly way to claim them and prepare themselves for the event.  Perhaps these signs could be read in the way the bees might not swarm as usual, or an owl that hooted right by the house, or a raven perched on the house roof, or a cockerel that suddenly started to crow in the day; all nature's signs that the order of things were about to change.

In this way, death, ghosts and other unnatural manifestations could be portended by events or animals that eventually became symbols of Halloween: owls, bats, ravens or crows, tapping on windows in the dead of night, guttering candles and so on.  Ravens or crows were considered particular portends of death; burst which hovered eagerly over battlefields to feed on the corpses of the newly-dead were thought to be able to smell carrion on those about to die.

Photo "Halloween Night in the Graveyard" by digital art courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Gruesome!  But fascinating.  The search for interesting ghost stories continues as the year lightens and brightens, but comes inevitably full circle towards the year end and Halloween once again.