Halloween looks like the best time of 12 months for sharing the history of the Chaffin family and the way a ghost helped settle an inheritance dispute. James L Chaffin of Monksville, North Carolina, died in an accident in 1921, leaving his entire estate to his favorite son, Marshall, and nothing to his wife and three other children. A 12 months later, Marshall died, so the home and 120 acres of land passed to Marshall's widow and son.
However, 4 years later, his youngest son James “Pink” Chaffin began to have unusual dreams through which his father visited him and identified the situation of a second, later will through which Chaffin Sr. left his estate divided between his widow and his surviving children. The case went to court and, as one might expect, the newspapers of the day went crazy over the story.
The court ruled in Pink's favor and due to the publicity Society for Psychical Research (SPR) he investigated the case and eventually got here to the conclusion that Pink had indeed been visited by his father's spirit. Pink himself never deviated from this explanation, stating: “I was completely convinced that my father's spirit had visited me to clear up some mistake.”
As unlikely because it could appear within the cold light of day, ghosts and hauntings are a significant area of belief. Recent research by YouGov in Great Britain and USA show that between 30% and 50% of the population say they imagine in ghosts. Belief in ghosts also appears to be global, with most (if not all) cultures world wide having some widely accepted kinds of ghosts.
The existence of a spirit because the disembodied (disembodied) soul or spirit of a deceased human or animal is contrary to the laws of nature as we understand it, so it seems there’s something here that needs explaining. We can look to the world of literature, philosophy, and anthropology for some explanation why individuals are so willing to imagine.
Carefree (and vengeful) ghosts
The desire for justice and the assumption in some type of supernatural protection (which we see in most major religions) satisfy basic human needs. Ghosts have long been considered vehicles of justice. Shakespeare's Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his murdered father, who wants revenge on his murderer. Meanwhile, in Macbeth, the murdered Banquo points an accusing finger at the person chargeable for his death.
Theodore Chasseriau
This idea has its equivalents in various countries today. An individual may be murdered in Kenya some dance, a ghost who pursues their murderer, sometimes forcing them to show themselves in to the police. Or in Russia the mermaid she is the ghost of a dead woman who died by drowning and now lures men to their deaths. Perhaps she will probably be released once her death is avenged.
Spirits will also be friends and protectors. In Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the ghosts of the current, past and future help Ebeneezer Scrooge mend his unrepentant ways before it is simply too late. In The Sixth Sense (spoiler alert), a ghost character played by Bruce Willis helps a young boy come to terms along with his ability to see ghosts and help them find peace. Many people take comfort within the thought that their deceased family members are watching over them and maybe guiding them.
But many individuals also prefer to imagine that death will not be the tip of existence – it’s a comfort once we lose people we love or once we come head to head with the considered our own mortality. Many cultures world wide believed that the dead could communicate with the living, and the phenomenon of spiritism posits that we will communicate with the spirits of the dead, often through specially gifted spirit mediums.
And we like to be afraid so long as we all know we're not actually in peril. Halloween TV shows are filled with movies through which a bunch of (often young) volunteers spend the night in a haunted house (with bloody results). We appear to just like the illusion of danger, and ghost stories can provide that form of thrill.
Body and soul
The belief in ghosts is confirmed by the long-standing philosophical concept that an individual is an individual naive dualists, naturally believing that our physical being is separate from our consciousness. This view of ourselves makes it easier for us to just accept the concept that our mind can exist individually from our body – opening the door to the assumption that our mind or consciousness can survive death and maybe change into spirit.
Looking at how the brain works, the experience of hallucinations is way more common than many individuals realize. SPR, founded in 1882, has collected hundreds of verified first-hand reports of visual or auditory hallucinations of a recently deceased person. More recent research suggests that the majority bereaved older people may experience visual or auditory hallucinations related to their deceased family members that last for several months.
Another source of hallucinations is phenomenon of sleep paralysiswhich can occur when falling asleep or waking up. These momentary paralysis are sometimes accompanied by hallucinations of figures within the room that may be interpreted as a supernatural being. The concept that it might be a supernatural visitation is simpler to know if you happen to think that once we imagine in a phenomenon, we’re experiences it more often.
Consider what would occur if you happen to were in a supposedly haunted house at night and saw something moving out of the corner of your eye. If you think in ghosts, chances are you’ll interpret what you see as a ghost. This is an example of top-down perception, through which what we see is influenced by what we expect. And at nighttime, where it could be difficult to see properly, our brain draws the most effective possible conclusions that rely upon what we expect is probably going – and that could be a ghost.
According to the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, faith comes quickly and naturally, while skepticism is slow and unnatural. IN examination of neuronal activityHarris and colleagues found that believing an announcement required less effort than not believing it.
Given these many explanation why we imagine in ghosts, plainly this belief will likely remain with us for a few years to return.
Image Source: Pixabay.com
