Why Believing In Ghosts Can Make You a Better Person

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A Halloween ghost. Werner Reischel/Flickr.com, CC BY

by Tok Thompson

Halloween is a time when ghosts and spooky decorations are on public display, reminding us of the realm of the dead. But could they also be instructing us in important lessons on how to lead moral lives?

Roots of Halloween

The origins of modern-day Halloween go back to “Samhain,” a Celtic celebration for the beginning of the dark half of the year when, it was widely believed, the realm between the living and the dead overlapped and ghosts could be commonly encountered.

In 601 A.D., to help his drive to Christianize northern Europe, Pope Gregory I directed missionaries not to stop pagan celebrations, but rather to Christianize them.

Accordingly, over time, the celebrations of Samhain became All Souls’ Day and All Saint’s Day, when speaking with the dead was considered religiously appropriate. All Saint’s Day was also known as All Hallows’ Day and the night before became All Hallows’ Evening, or “Hallowe’en.”

Christian ghosts

Not only did the pagan beliefs around spirits of the dead continue, but they also became part of many of early church practices.

Pope Gregory I himself suggested that people seeing ghosts should say masses for them. The dead, in this view, might require help from the living to make their journey towards Heaven.

During the Middle Ages, beliefs around souls trapped in purgatory led to the church’s increasing practice of selling indulgences – payments to the church to reduce penalties for sins. The widespread belief in ghosts turned the sale of indulgences into a lucrative practice for the church.

It was such beliefs that contributed to the Reformation, the division of Christianity into Protestantism and Catholicism led by German theologian Martin Luther. Indeed, Luther’s “95 Theses,” that he nailed to the All Saints Church in Wittenburg on Oct. 31, 1517, was largely a protest against the selling of indulgences.

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Subsequently, ghosts became identified with “Catholic superstitions” in Protestant countries.

Debates, however, continued about the existence of ghosts and people increasingly turned to science to deal with the issue. By the 19th century, Spiritualism, a new movement which claimed that the dead could converse with the living, was fast becoming mainstream and featured popular techniques such as seances, the Ouija board, spirit photography and the like.

Although Spiritualism faded in cultural importance after World War I, many of its approaches can be seen in the “ghost hunters” of today, who often seek to prove the existence of ghosts using scientific techniques.

A wide, wide world of ghosts

These beliefs are not just part of the Christian world. Most, although not all, societies have a concept of “ghosts.” In Taiwan, for example, about 90 percent people report seeing ghosts.

An elaborate model house is being guided into the ocean as an offering to wandering ghosts during the beginning of the Ghost Month Festival in Taiwan. AP Photo/Chiang Ying-Ying

Along with many Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, China, and Vietnam, Taiwan celebrates a “Ghost Month,” which includes a central “Ghost Day,” when ghosts are believed to freely roam the world of the living. These festivals and beliefs are often tied to the Buddhist story of the Urabon Sutra, where Buddha instructs a young priest on how to help his mother whom he sees suffering as a “hungry ghost.”

As in many traditions, Taiwanese ghosts are seen either as “friendly” or “unfriendly.” The “friendly” ghosts are commonly ancestral or familial and welcomed into the home during the ghost festival. The “unfriendly” ghosts are those angry or “hungry” ghosts that haunt the living.

Role of ghosts in our lives

As a scholar who has studied and taught ghost stories for many years, I have found that ghosts generally haunt for good reasons. These could range from unsolved murders, lack of proper funerals, forced suicides, preventable tragedies, and other ethical failures.

Ghosts, in this light, are often found seeking justice from beyond the grave. They could make such demands from individuals, or from societies as a whole. For example, in the U.S., sightings have been reported of African-American slaves and murdered Native Americans. Scholar Elizabeth Tucker details many of these reported sightings on university campuses, often tied in with sordid aspects of the campus’s past.

A ghost dance on Halloween. Chris Jepsen/Flickr.com, CC BY-NC-ND

In this way, ghosts reveal the shadow side of ethics. Their sightings are often a reminder that ethics and morality transcend our lives and that ethical lapses can carry a heavy spiritual burden.

Yet ghost stories are also hopeful. In suggesting a life after death, they offer a chance to be in contact with those that have passed and therefore a chance for redemption – a way to atone for past wrongs.

This Halloween, along with the shrieks and shtick, you may want to take a few minutes to appreciate the role of ghosts in our haunted pasts and how they guide us to lead moral and ethical lives.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.

About Post Author

Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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Diane G
5 years ago

I like to buy lots of candy in case we get trick-or-treaters, then keep the outside lights off, the curtains drawn, and the inside of the house as dim as possible so no one will think I’m home. Then, well, you can’t let all that candy just go to waste…

Neil Bamforth
5 years ago

I hate Halloween with a vengeance. In fact it wasn’t even a ‘thing’ in Blighty until quite recently.

Bloody Americanisation…Bah Humbug! 😜

Glenn R. Geist
5 years ago

Once I would have laughed, but I was younger then. Today I’m a walking haunted house. In the last couple of weeks I lost two of my closest friends and of course when you’ve known someone for nearly 70 years they’re part of the world you live in and you don’t need Halloween to see them.

But the holiday isn’t even related to what it used to be. Visiting grandchildren the other day, I asked why the neighbors had a huge inflatable dragon. They didn’t know it was all about the walking dead but rather about all things “spooky” like dragons. My neighbors here also have a huge dragon and a large elephant with a wizard hat and some kind of white and hideous netting they think looks like spiderwebs on the hedges. A little stupid in South Florida where we have spiders the size of cats (and cats the size of dogs) Anybody afraid of spiders left long ago.

Halloween is now a time where self-assured 30 somethings take their little girls dressed as a princess to collect candy long before sundown. Even the ghosts have given up on the whole thing.

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