Ghosts - do they exist? By @papi.mati

Believing in ghosts is strictly related to religion. Most religions assume there is life after life and some element that survives the death.

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism

These three religions assume every human being has a soul. The variety of the beliefs is huge and some churches assume there are no ghosts, but in general, all three religions assume ghosts exist. We could call them angels if they are good, demons, if bad, Jinns if in Islam. Jewish people may be a bit less focused on the afterlife than Christians or Muslims, but even they have some ghosts, like Dybbuk. However we will name them, believing in non-material creatures which can be seen or experienced is quite common.

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Hinduism

Hinduism assumes there is some spiritual part of the human being, Atmana, but it's not strictly related to the body (one person per one soul) - it migrates from one body to another by reincarnation. Ghosts that can be seen on Earth are, according to this religion, the souls of dead people who suffered a lot or who could not reincarnate because of the skipped death rituals.

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Animism

Assume not only people but animals and plants, minerals have that spiritual element. This is one of the oldest religions and the way how it's interpreted varies extremally between the regions. There is no one animism, but hundreds of similar beliefs are categorized together. In most cases, the contact with the ghosts is limited and only the special, talented people, like Shamans, know how to do it.

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Taoism or Confucianism

Chinese believes says there are two souls - "po" and "hun". "Hun" is a soul which goes to heaven while "Po" has to be dug with the body. If the funeral will not be done properly (related to feng shui proper time, place etc) and if the soul will not be getting regularly the sacrifice gifts, "Po" may change for the bad ghost which will hunt people (it is called "Gui").

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Believes of Africa

There are tens of the believes which varies significantly. In most of them often human is made of multiple elements - there is a body, but also the soul of destiny, the soul of the ancestors, and the individual soul. The soul of the ancestors is the bridge between God or Gods and People. They can be seen and they can hear the prayers which, for some sacrifice gifts, they bring to Gods.

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Buddism

That's the most interesting and original way to look at the afterlife. Buddism assumes that there is no soul as other religions describe it, but the self-aware and self-illuminating Mind is free from the duality of experience and experience. Even though Ego dies with us, part of the mind reincarnates. As far as I know, ghosts which could be seen or with who we could have contacted are not present in Buddism.

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Deism

There are also Agnostics or Deists who may not pay much attention to the religion but they believe there is some God or at least accept it may be the possibility. Even though the main thing of Deism and Agnosticism is to not describe God and not relate it to any existing religion, how it will be seen and described depends mostly on the culture people who describe them were raised in, so in most cases, they will agree that ghosts exist.

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Humanists, Atheists.

I am in that group. With all the respect to every religion, I don't believe any of them is right and God, just as the afterlife does not exist. That includes Ghosts which, in my opinion, are just the projection of our mind who is struggling with fears, grief, or any other unprocessed emotions. I believe in science only, although I do understand that what's unknown terrifies people and they are looking for an explanation in the religion. In ancient times Gods were responsible for everything, starting with earthquakes and wind, ending on the life that exists. With time more and more mythology was explained by science and the matter of Gods was smaller. Still, though some things were unexplained (and always will be, our minds are not capable to understand whole the universe with all its flaws), so people are willing rather project Gods, afterlife and mentioned ghosts than to admit we don't know so much about the life and nature.

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Summary

I respect believes of others and I'm never trying to change someone's opinion about such delicate things as a religion but I'm sure ghosts as creatures do not exist. I can agree though that they exist as the projection of the individual mind, a kind of autotherapy that allows us to process the traumatizing loss of the close ones (Grandma which "comes to say goodbye after death") or helps to get rid of the guilt (bad ghosts which are making a mess, which is the personification of our own guilt that we were bad people for someone and helps to fix it by saying sorry verbally or by some acts). We should remember though that even if feeling the presence of ghosts in most cases is just the innocent way our mind helps us to process emotions, in some situations, it may be difficult and suggest serious disease. If someone hears the voices, especially suggesting him to do harmful things or if someone sees stuff that other people cannot see, rather than going to the priest, they should visit a psychiatrist because it may be the symptom of schizophrenia. Seeing non-existing things is very rare, in schizophrenia too, but it happens sometimes. I was repeating it many times on other occasions and will repeat it once again - there is no shame in asking for help and taking care of our mental health, so if you see any alerting symptoms, don't wait and meet with the doctor as soon as possible.

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Thank you for reading,
@papi.mati