THE DEFINITION OF A GHOST.

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 88, 14 April 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE DEFINITION OF A GHOST.

What are we to answer when people ask, "Do you believe in ghosts?" No reply can be made (except by a downright Bceptic) till w« have defined the term " ghost." Even popular usage has made one step towards a definition, by employing the word " wraith " to denote the phantasm of a living person, while " ghost " means the phantasm of a dead person. But the difficulty begins when we inquire what is the phantasm in either case ? " Gin a body meet a body," who actually is not there, but elsewhere, and in life, what is the thing met ? " The old idea was that the thing is a spiritual double of its owner, a separable self, or, as the Esoteric Buddhists do vainly talk, an " astral bodj-." That body, or double, is an actual entity, filling space, and, as it seems, is really material, and capable of exercising an influence on matter. The phantasm of a dead person, the ghost, again, was regarded as the surviving soul, made visible, and was really material, as far as beiug ponderable and able to affect matter — for example, to draw the bed-curtains — involves materiality. We may argue about matter and spirit as we please, but wraiths, and ghosts, and 801119, on the old theory, are obviously matter, though matter of a refined sort ; the the soul, for example, was capable of material pains and pleasures, could touch a harp, or rejoice in the society of houris, or burn in material fire, or freeze in material ice. — From "Ghosts up to Date," by Andrew Lang, in Blackwood's Magazine.