The fear of ghosts in many human

culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

s is based on beliefs that some

ghost In folklore, a ghost is the soul or Spirit (supernatural entity), spirit of a dead Human, person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from a ...

s may be malevolent towards people and dangerous (''within the range of all possible attitudes, including mischievous, benign, indifferent, etc.''). It is related to

fear of the dark Fear of the dark is a common fear or phobia among Toddler, toddlers, children and, to a varying degree, adults. A fear of the dark does not always concern darkness itself; it can also be a fear of possible or imagined dangers concealed by darknes ...

. The fear of ghosts is a very common fear. A persistent fear of ghosts is sometimes phasmophobia, a type of

specific phobia Specific phobia is an anxiety disorder, characterized by an extreme, unreasonable, and irrational fear associated with a specific object, situation, or concept which poses little or no actual danger. Specific phobia can lead to avoidance of the o ...

. It derives from

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, , meaning "apparition" and , , meaning "fear". It is often brought about by experiences in early

childhood A child () is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking ...

and causes sufferers to experience

panic attacks Panic attacks are sudden periods of intense fear and discomfort that may include palpitations, otherwise defined as a rapid, irregular heartbeat, sweating, chest pain or discomfort, shortness of breath, trembling, dizziness, numbness, con ...

Typical character

The fear of ghosts is widespread even in post-industrial societies. Philosopher

Peter van Inwagen Peter van Inwagen ( ; born September 21, 1942) is an American philosopher. He is the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and a research professor of philosophy at Duke University each spring. He previousl ...

wrote:"God and the Philosophers", edited by Thomas V. Morris (1996)
p. 39
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"...I am perfectly aware that the fear of ghosts is contrary to science, reason and religion. If I were sentenced to spend a night alone in a
graveyard A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...
, <...> I should already know that twigs would snap and the wind moan and that there would be half-seen movements in the darkness. And yet, after I had been frog-marched into the graveyard, I should feel a thrill of fear every time one of these things happened..."

In many traditional accounts, ghosts are often thought to be deceased people looking for vengeance, or imprisoned on earth for bad things they did during life. The appearance of a ghost has often been regarded as an omen or portent of death. Seeing one's own ghostly double or

doppelgänger A doppelgänger ( ), sometimes spelled doppelgaenger or doppelganger, is a ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its own fleshly counterpart. In fiction and mythology, a doppelgänger is often portrayed as a ghostly or p ...

is a related omen of death.

Wari'

Wari', an

Amazon rainforest The Amazon rainforest, also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin ...

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

, believe that the spirits of dead people may appear as scaring specters called ''jima''. The jima is said to grab a person with very strong, cold and poisonous hands and try to pull the person's spirit away.

Papuans

A 19th-century missionary describes the fear of ghosts among

Papuans Papuans may refer to: * Indonesian Papuans – the Native Indonesians of Papua-origin * Papua New Guineans – the nationals of Papua New Guinea * Indigenous people of New Guinea The indigenous peoples of Western New Guinea in Indonesia and Pap ...

as follows:"The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead", by

James George Frazer Sir James George Frazer (; 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist and folkloristJosephson-Storm (2017), Chapter 5. influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. ...

(1913), p. 305in

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

"That a great fear of ghosts prevails among the Papuans is intelligible. Even by day they are reluctant to pass a grave, but nothing would induce them to do so by night. For the dead are then roaming about in their search for '' gambier'' and
tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
, and they may also sail out to sea in a
canoe A canoe is a lightweight, narrow watercraft, water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using paddles. In British English, the term ' ...
. Some of the departed, above all the so-called ''Mambrie'' or heroes, inspire them with especial fear. In such cases for some days after the burial you may hear about sunset a simultaneous and horrible din in all the houses of all the villages, a yelling, screaming, beating and throwing of sticks; happily the uproar does not last long: its intention is to compel the ghost to take himself off: they have given him all that befits him, namely, a grave, a funeral banquet, and funeral ornaments; and now they beseech him not to thrust himself on their observation any more, not to breathe any sickness upon the survivors, and not to kill them or "fetch" them, as the Papuans put it."

References

{{authority control ghosts phobias superstitions

Typical character

Wari'

Papuans

See also

References