GHOSTS. The belief that the spirits of the departed are occasionally presented to the sight of the living has existed in all ages and countries, and usually declines only when a people has advanced considerably in the knowl edge of physical conditions and laws. We can understand the inability of the primitive man and the savage to realize death. The memory of the deceased lends power to call up his ap pearance. The primitive man does not observe accurately the distinction between fact and fancy — between what is seen in dream and what is seen in reality. (See DREAMS). The belief that man has a soul capable of existing apart from the body to which it belongs, and continuing to live, for a time at least, after that body is dead and buried, fits perfectly in such a mind with the fact that the shadowy fornis of men and women do appear to others, when the men and women themselves are at a distance. and after they are dead. We call these appari tions dreams or fantasms, according as the person to whom they appear is asleep or awake; and when we hear of their occurrence in ordi nary life, set them down as subjective proc esses of the mind. Among the less civilized races, the separation of subjective and objective impressions, which in this, as in several other matters, makes the most important difference between the educated man and the savage, is much less fully carried out. The Dyaks regard dreams as actual occurrences; and many savage races believe that dreams are incidents which happen to the spirit when it is wandering from the body. In sleep, the soul is supposed to leave the body and travel about. The man who fancies he sees at night the figure of a friend, or of an enemy, supposes he sees this dreamer's wandering soul. Among primitive races there is a superstitious objection to rousing a sleeper, lest he should awake before his soul has had time to return to the body. Death is regarded as another form of sleep; and during that sleep the spirit is wandering, and when wandering, may be met. See SLEEP.
Witchcraft, necromancy, has always been timately connected with the spirits of the dead, and this is regarded as the parent of all ligious worship. The savage man fears the dead and seeks to propitiate them, and ally forgets that the ghosts are those of cestors, and considers them as demons, a rate order of spirits; and, as he advances in intelligence, these demons cease to be altogether demoniacal, and become gods. Be that as it
may, it is certain that the propitiation and even worship of the dead has formed an integral part of all primitive religions, and has tained its hold among the more ignorant after • it has ceased to affect the more educated.
The fear of seeing something often so daz zles and bewilders the visual organ that it sees the things that were feared. This accounts for many stories of the sight of apparitions in haunted houses. A crime is supposed to have been committed in some old house, and the superstitious believe that the spirit of the mur derer or of the murdered person cannot rest. Whoever is nervous and timid, and visits this house at night, is predisposed to see the wander ing spirit, and the fear that is present deprives the judgment of its power of taking accurate observations of what really is seen, and so superinduces a lax condition which is ready to be deceived. There may be conditions of body which allow of a sight beyond what is given to most, as it is certain that beasts see and scent and hear what our own faculties fail to per ceive. But what we insist on is, that the great est caution should be exercised in receiving stories of apparitions, and the utmost care taken to investigate every case of apparent spiritual manifestation. Before we can admit that there are genuine cases of ghosts having been seen, we must be satisfied that the ob server was in full possession of his faculties, that his attention was on the alert, that he was capable of judging between subjective and ob jective presentments, and that he was healthy in mind and body.
In 1882 a Society for Psychical Research was founded in London for the scientific and systematic investigation of reported apparitions, clairvoyance, haunted houses, hypnotism, thought-reading and spiritualistic phenomena; it publishes regular reports of its investigations.
The subject of ghosts is treated from other and various viewpoints under APPARITION. (See also SPIRITUALISM; WITCHCRAFT). ' Consult Brewster, 'Natural Magic' (1832) ; Ingram, 'Haunted Houses' (1884) ; Jastrow,