History of Ghosts

Have you ever seen a ghost? This book is packed with spooks, spectres, and horrible hauntings! Discover the history of ghost beliefs from the ancient world to the present day. Find out why people believe in ghosts, and the possible scientific explanations behind haunted houses, spectral lights, scary sounds, and spooky apparitions. Explore hoaxes and horrors from some of the world’s most eerie locations, and delve into stories of the phantoms, wraiths and spirits that are thought to frequent them. Learn about the legends and folklore that surround ghost beliefs around the world, from famous figures like headless horsemen to tragic tales of the colorful and ethereal ladies that haunt woods, castles and stately homes. Plus, check out modern-day phantasms, possessions and poltergeists, and the paranormal investigators who use traditional…

Of all the humans who have ever lived, only a fraction are alive now. Behind all of us lurk the ghosts of dozens of people who have passed on into death. For those that are left behind we can see reflections of them in all the places they used to haunt in life. For some spirits, though, it seems as if haunting memories are insufficient – sometimes the dead are said to come back as ghosts. Tales of ghosts and ghost-sightings can be found in almost every culture and across the millennia. As soon as writing was invented people began to set down their beliefs regarding the afterlife and those who sometimes returned from it. Why some spirits seem unable to rest in the hereafter is a question just as…

The civilisations of Mesopotamia provide us with some of our earliest literary sources. From their cuneiform tablets we get to see how they viewed death. The Epic of Gilgamesh, written around 1800 BCE, is a tale steeped in death. When the hero Gilgamesh witnesses his friend Enkidu die he suddenly realizes that he too will one day die. Death and the nature of the afterlife have fascinated humans from the beginning. When we consider how the Sumerians viewed the afterlife, though, it is hardly surprising that Gilgamesh did not wish to go there. It was a dark and dreary place where the souls of people continued to exist as shades. In a story known as Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the Netherworld we are told how the shades of the dead…

Defining moment Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld 18th century BCE The Epic of Gilgamesh and other poems from ancient Mesopotamia provide the earliest literary view of the afterlife and ghosts. Gilgamesh is horrified by the idea of dying and seeks to live forever. He fails. In one version of the tale his friend Enkidu willingly goes to the Netherworld but is trapped there, unable to return. Only the gods breaking a hole in the Earth allows his ghost to return. The Netherworld of the Mesopotamians was not an enviable one. The dead lived a pale imitation of life there. ~1500 BCE Tomb raiders Despite the Egyptian afterlife being a paradise it was known that the improperly buried could return to vex the living. Individuals could sicken and die if a…

The Greek historian Plutarch writing in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE described the situation that led to a bathhouse becoming home to a terrifying spectre. It all started when a Roman army captain came to town in Chaeroneia. He took a fancy to a local boy of surpassing beauty named Damon, and did everything in his power to seduce the boy. Damon refused the advances but feared the captain would turn violent if rejected too often. Damon and some friends gathered together one night and murdered the Roman captain and several of his colleagues. When Damon was condemned to death for his crime he slew the town council too. Damon and the gang took to raiding and robbing in the countryside. Something had to be done. The town invited…

Bernado: Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio. Horatio: Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder. So begins the visitation by the ghost of the king of Denmark in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Seen by multiple people on multiple occasions, this is no figment of the imagination but a real haunting. As one witness says, “Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the sensible and true avouch, Of mine own eyes.” We might think of medieval and Renaissance people as overly credulous but they knew how to weigh evidence just as well as we do – and they believed in ghosts. The medieval period in Europe was profoundly shaped by Christian belief. For some the idea of ghosts sat uncomfortably with that faith. God sat in…