by Rahman Majere

Created on: November 11, 2010   Last Updated: November 13, 2010

As children, our rampant imagination often creates ghouls and goblins out of everyday objects when they assume unfamiliar shapes in the darkness of the night. We scoff at these childish notions upon reaching adulthoood and yet, many amongst us still retain the idea that the supernatural does exist in some form. Such beliefs often serve as an antidote for the grief that comes from the loss of a loved one. Certain groups such as the elderly may also find solace in the idea of a soul that can survive the physical death of the body.

We have also heard stories and urban legends of all manner of ghosts who are supposedly souls who have some unfinished business here on this plane of existence. There are also ghosts who are portrayed as vengeful souls ready to wreak havoc on the deserving and sometimes the innocent as well. Of course, these tales are seldom taken too seriously and are often simply told for their entertainment value. Yet the fact remains that a very large number of people do believe in ghosts in one form or another.

The skeptic may, at this point, scoff at such ’silly superstitions’ and give a verbose rational explanation to dismiss them. For example, most people will agree that technology and relative safety is only found in the modern era. For the countless millenia before this one, humanity was usually at the mercy of Nature. Our ancestors had to be hypervigilant against all manner of threats and their collective imagination may have concocted the belief in ghosts. It is likely that in their relative ignorance, they had sought supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. The idea of ghosts may also be appealing to them as it could have given them the illusion of more control over their environment. The ‘worship’ of their ancestors may grant them some confidence as it gives them a kind of mental and spiritual support.

If this situation in our distant past seems strange, it is not much more so than what is happening today. Ancestor worship is still practised by a great number of people all over the world, but it is dwindling as ‘technology, science and rational thinking’ have relegated such practices as quaint traditions… or at least that’s what the skeptic would be apt to argue. What is certainly ironic, however, is that our march of progress has also created entities like Hollywood. Now that we have safely pushed the notion of ghosts out of our minds, we’d like to be scared silly by them

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