Ghosts, Spirits and things that go bump in the night
Rising like mist from the grave, gliding noiselessly through solid walls and doors, Ghosts have been woven into our consciousness for centuries. Tales of the disembodied spirits of the dead appear in folk lore around the world and Ghost stories have made their audiences shiver from the earliest times.
We don’t know what happens to us after death but most of us like to think that some essential element of our personality persists, some believe we are transmuted to spirit form and from this arises the unsettling possibility that in some cases, just some, this process could go wrong.
There are as many types of Ghosts as there are human societies, sometimes the ghosts are of well known people and are instantly recognizable, the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln is often seen at the White House, unlike Lincoln other Ghosts can be anonymous, one of the more common is the white lady, often covered in flowing white robes.
These ghosts are not frightening though their appearance may cause alarm and even though some encounters are harmless or even consoling most are quite literary chilling experiences, as whatever form these entities take, the living recognize they are in the company of something unreal that challenges the safety of their known world.
However our fascination with Ghosts runs almost as deep as our fear, the chilling image of the headless horseman is familiar across Europe and North America, a symbol of the restless Ghost unable to find peace in the Grave.
The Irish Banshee has traditionally been associated with the fairies of the forest. But unlike their sisters they have a sinister side, they are said to appear to warn of an impending death, family members that hear their haunting cry know one of them will soon die, normally within days of her appearance.
Maybe what we fear is nothing more than the unknown and maybe there are things that are not meant to be known, however something that sticks in my mind when I’m confronted with such thoughts is a quote by Arthur C Clarke:
“The universe is not stranger than you can imagine,
The universe is stranger than you can possibly Imagine”.
Fear and Reality 26th October 2014 by/Tony Gorman
On darkened nights when trees are bare
And branch like arms hold owls that stare
That hoots an eerie woodland sound
An echoing shrill to all around
And foxes screech in brambles deep
To wake up all from slumber sleep
And bring a fear within a mind
Of ghostly images of a kind
And shadows cast will bring some fear
Together with strange things we hear
And small light orbs will bring a chill
Upon a wall in a room so still
With sounds of footsteps on a floor
Followed by the creaking of an opening door
And tapping sounds on a window pane
Sometimes caused by driving rain
And images of transparent kinds
That conjures fear within your mind
And leaves your body comatose
A fearsome feeling when it shows
And graveyards cast the darkest shroud
At night each sound will sound aloud
Like breezes blowing with silent ease
Causing fluttering sounds within the trees
But in truth its minds that make things real
Imagination enhances all that we feel
And break of day will throw new light
On all those things we feared at night
Hi Gary
Great subject for Halloween, as all of us Irish love a good ghost story.
People say I’m a sceptic tor trying to be logical about things I have seen.
I described a fading vision I seen in my flat to my neighbours after moving in two years ago and they told me I had described the lady that lived there before me who had died in the same room as I had seen the vision.
It was approximately seven in the morning and I had just woken up with the sun beaming in the window and was surprised to see a transparent image just starting to fade next to the room door.
I wasn’t alarmed by what I seen but could remember enough to describe the features to my neighbours.
I often wonder does our brain hold images and project them like a hologram confusing us into thinking what we see is a ghost.
I still love ghost stories as they bring me back to my childhood days.