Monster Mash: Ghosts

   In folklore, mythology, and modern media such as literary fiction, a ghost, sometimes known as a phantom, apparition, spirit, spook, or haunt is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic, lifelike visions. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a deceased person is known as necromancy, or in spiritism as a séance. The belief in seeing spirits of the dead is widespread, dating back to animism or ancestor worship in pre-literate cultures. Certain religious practices such as; unreal rites, exorcisms, and some practices of spiritualism and ritual magic are specifically designed to rest the spirits of the dead. Ghosts are generally described as solitary essences that haunt particular locations, objects, or people they were associated with in life, though stories of phantom armies, ghost trains, ghost ships, and even ghost animals have also been recounted.

   While deceased ancestors are regarded as venerable, and often imagined as having a continued presence in some sort of afterlife, the spirit of a deceased person which remains present in the material world is regarded as an unnatural or undesirable state of affairs and the idea of ghosts or revenants is associated with a reaction of fear. This is universally the case in pre-modern folk cultures, but fear of ghosts also remains an integral aspect of the modern ghost story, Gothic horror, and other horror fiction dealing with the supernatural.