Why do you believe in ghosts?

By Donna L. Marsh, APS Founder

Most recorded cultures have shown some belief in an afterlife, but what a culture believes happens to the human soul upon demise of the physical body varies according to time and place. Ancient Greeks believed in an underworld literally located beneath the earth, with caves and cracks in the earth’s surface acting as doorways to Hades, while animistic societies believe the spirits of the dead co-exist with them, although unseen. Christianity has given us the concept of heaven and hell, with the latter becoming the eternal home of those souls damned by God because of their evil behavior.

But despite the variances in what we believe happens to the human soul, why we believe it continues is a common thread binding all of mankind. As humans, we simply don’t want to believe this life is all there is. There just has to be something else. And so we have the concept of ghosts.

The belief in ghosts is tied to the belief in the afterlife. The human form may perish, but the soul continues. A ghost is proof to those who believe that the soul has not perished but has simply gone on to the next level of existence.

However, can we know for certain that ghosts do exist and there actually is an afterlife? While we may not have concrete proof at this moment in time, we need only remind ourselves that it wasn’t that long ago we believed the world was flat, the sun and stars revolved around the earth, and the moon was made of green cheese. Just as scientists and individuals worked to disprove those commonly held beliefs, we work to prove that our belief in ghosts is valid.

And so ghost hunters are born.

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