Ghost is an expression adequate to make anybody plug up with a manifestation of fear. Many who is jesus christ often have live encounters with them and whenever they commit to their memories about their experience with ghosts they quiver in terror. Diverse group of people have unusual viewpoints about ghosts. If we spotlight on the customary views, a ghost is typically outlined as a spirit or soul or a person or animal that is departed and can also materialize in the perceptible form or may bear resemblance to any living thing.
The depictions of ghosts vary extensively ranging from translucent to visible shadows or even facade of any living individual. Many persons in the past or even today crack to ascertain touch with the spirit of a deceased individual and these intentional efforts are elected as necromancy. Literature throws light on many such shots for instance, the funeral rites, exorcisms and certain practices of spiritualism and ritual magic are the customs to make contact with the souls of dead.
Ghosts are normally pain staked to reside in meticulous settings and are allied with fussy stuffs and such spots share the group of haunted. These haunted buildings or haunted houses are themselves enough to startle anyone. The paranormal activities going inside such haunted places are commonly coupled with some tragedies like murder, suicide or any other violent actions. It is also promising that all such places may not allocate category of haunted. Many religions and cultures also believe that the souls prolong to exist forevermore in the haunted places.
The English word ghost is whispered to have advanced from the Old English word gast which in general is thought to have progressed from the Common Germanic theoretical word gaistaz. Apart from being used for epitomizing the spirits, the word gast is also used as a synonym for a Latin word spiritus meaning blast. Gast can be used to specify the souls of good and the evil.
In Holy Bible the word gast is used to signify the demonic possession especially in the gospel of Matthew 12:43. During the Old English period this word was used to designate the spirit of God as Holy Ghost. The Dutch synonym spook has penetrated the English language of United States during the nineteenth century. The word shade portrays spirits of the underworld in the ancient Greek mythology. Haint is a synonym used for ghost in the regional language of the southern United States and haint tale is a regular attribute coupled with their literature and traditions.
A German word poltergeist is often used for a spirit which bears the supremacy of swaying objects as well as screening its indiscernible charisma by movements. The word wraith is assumed to have originated in Scotland from the Scottish Romanticist literature during the eighteenth and nineteenth century that also embodies spirits. The same word was also used to indicate the aquatic spirits during the olden times in Scotland.
A very eminent Scottish poet John Mayne has used the term Bogie in his distinguished poem Halloween in 1780. The term revenant is used for a lifeless person who is thought to have revisited from dead to irk the living individuals and this word can be interrelated with the phrase fetch which is identified as a perceptible ghost. Gallup Poll News Service reports that the number of haunted houses, ghosts, communication with the dead and witches has amplified in the United States by the end of 1990. A topical report of Gallup poll in 2005 propounded that 32 percent of the Americans believe on the reality of ghosts.
The stature of ghosts and demons in the form of transparent and paranormal entities is a universal cultural conviction and it is often believed to be involved with the ancestor worship. Ancestor worship is associated with rituals to thwart the revenants and other rancorous souls from antagonizing the existing folks.
Such sacraments were often concerned with sacrifices in the form of giving food or drink to the souls of the dead or even using magical banishment. The ceremonies of feeding the spirits of dead are still in practice in the Chinese culture and even the western world today exults the All Souls Day for the spirit of deceased. The magical banishment is still a part of burial customs of many cultures even today. An anthropologist James Frazer during the nineteenth century has also avowed about the existence of souls as vivacious glooms in his classical work entitled The Golden Bough. Ancient literature also corresponds to human souls as birds or some other animals and even the verifications also advocate that human souls are having the strict body structure like that of the dead creature and also wear the equivalent clothing that they wore at the time of their death. A book entitled Egyptian Book of the Dead illustrates life of the souls after death and symbolizes that the souls have the similar dressing sense as well as the hair style which they had when they were alive.
