http://www.all-keyboard.com/,http://www.keyboards-shop.com/,http://www.laptop-fan-shop.com/,http://www.laptopkeyboard-shop.com/
In traditional belief
and fiction, a ghost (sometimes
known as a spectre (British
English) or specter (American
English),phantom, apparition or spook) is
the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that can
appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Sony VAIO
PCG-3B1M Battery
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. Sony VAIO
PCG-3C1T Battery
The belief in
manifestations of the spirits of the dead is widespread, dating back
to animism or ancestor worship in pre-literate cultures.
Certain religious practices—funeral rites, exorcisms, and some practices
of spiritualism and ritual magic—are specifically designed to
rest the spirits of the dead. Sony VAIO
PCG-3D1M Battery
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, phantom ships, and even
ghost animals have also been recounted. Sony VAIO
PCG-3G2M Battery
The English word ghost continues Old
English gást,
from a hypothetical Common Germanic *gaistaz. It is common to West
Germanic, but lacking in North and East Germanic (the equivalent word
in Gothic is ahma, Old
Norse has andi m., önd f.). Sony VAIO
PCG-5R1M Battery
The pre-Germanic form
was *ghoisdo-s,
apparently from a root denoting "fury, anger" reflected in Old
Norse geisa "to
rage". The Germanic word is recorded as masculine only, but likely
continues a neuter s-stem.
The original meaning of the Germanic word would thus have been an animating
principle of the mind, in particular capable of excitation and fury
(compare óðr).
Sony VAIO
PCG-7141M Battery
In Germanic
paganism, "Germanic Mercury", and the later Odin, was at the
same time the conductor of the dead and the "lord of fury"
leading the Wild Hunt.
Besides denoting the human spirit
or soul, both of the living and the deceased, Sony VAIO
PCG-7143M Battery
the Old English word is
used as a synonym of Latin spiritus also
in the meaning of "breath" or "blast" from the earliest
attestations (9th century). It could also denote any good or evil spirit, i.e.
angels and demons; the Anglo-Saxongospel refers to the demonic
possession of Matthew 12:43 as se
unclæna gast. Sony VAIO
PCG-7151M Battery
Also from the Old English
period, the word could denote the spirit of God, viz. the "Holy
Ghost". The now prevailing sense of "the soul of a deceased person,
spoken of as appearing in a visible form" only emerges in Middle
English (14th century). Sony VAIO
PCG-7154M Battery
The modern noun does,
however, retain a wider field of application, extending on one hand to
"soul", "spirit", "vital principle",
"mind" or "psyche", the seat of feeling, thought and moral
judgement; on the other hand used figuratively of any shadowy outline, fuzzy or
unsubstantial image, Sony VAIO
PCG-7162M Battery
in
optics, photography and cinematography especially a flare, secondary image or
spurious signal.[4]
The synonym spook is
a Dutch loanword, akin to Low German spôk (of
uncertain etymology); it entered the English language via the United
States in the 19th century. Sony VAIO
PCG-7181M Battery
Alternative words in modern
usage include spectre (from
Latin spectrum),
the Scottish wraith (of
obscure origin), phantom (via
French ultimately from Greek phantasma,
compare fantasy)
and apparition.
The term shade in classical
mythology translates Greek σκιά,[9] or Latin umbra,[10] in reference to the
notion of spirits in the Greek underworld. Sony VAIO
PCG-41112M Battery
"Haint" is a
synonym for ghost used in regional English of the southern United States,[11] and the "haint
tale" is a common feature of southern oral and literary tradition.[12] The term poltergeist is a
German word, literally a "noisy ghost", for a spirit said to manifest
itself by invisibly moving and influencing objects.[13] Sony VAIO
PCG-7153M Battery
Wraith is a Scots word for "ghost",
"spectre" or "apparition". It came to be used in Scottish
Romanticist literature, and acquired the more general or figurative sense of
"portent" or "omen". In 18th- to 19th-century Scottish
literature, it was also applied to aquatic spirits. Sony VAIO
PCG-71312M Battery
The word has no commonly
accepted etymology; the OED notes
"of obscure origin" only. An association with the verb writhe was the
etymology favored by J. R. R. Tolkien.[14] Tolkien's use of the word in the naming of the creatures
known as the Ringwraiths has influenced later usage in fantasy
literature. Sony VAIO
PCG-7144M Battery
Bogey[15] or bogy/bogie is a
term for a ghost, and appears in Scottish poet John Mayne's Hallowe'en in
1780.[16][17]
A revenant is a
deceased person returning from the dead to haunt the living, either as a
disembodied ghost or alternatively as an animated ("undead") corpse. Sony VAIO
PCG-7191L Battery
Also
related is the concept of a fetch, the visible ghost or spirit of a person
yet alive.
A notion of
the transcendent, supernatural or numinous, usually
involving entities like ghosts, demons or deities, is
a cultural universal.[18] In pre-literatefolk religions, these beliefs are often
summarized under animism and ancestor worship.[19] Sony VAIO
PCG-3C1M Battery
In
many cultures malignant, restless ghosts are distinguished from the more benign
spirits involved in ancestor worship.[20]
Ancestor worship typically
involves rites intended to prevent revenants, vengeful spirits of the
dead, imagined as starving and envious of the living. Sony VAIO
PCG-3F1M Battery
Strategies for preventing
revenants may either include sacrifice, i.e., giving the dead food and
drink to pacify them, or magical banishment of the deceased to force them not
to return. Ritual feeding of the dead is performed in traditions like the
Chinese Ghost Festival or the Western All Souls' Day. Sony VAIO
PCG-3H1M Battery
Magical banishment of the
dead is present in many of the world's burial customs. The bodies found in
many tumuli (kurgan) had been ritually bound before burial,[21] and the custom of
binding the dead persists, for example, in rural Anatolia.[22] Sony VAIO
PCG-3J1M Battery
Nineteenth-century anthropologist James
Frazer stated in his classic work, The
Golden Bough, that souls were seen as the creature within that
animated the body.
Although the human soul was
sometimes symbolically or literally depicted in ancient cultures as a bird or
other animal, Sony VAIO
PCG-8141M Battery
it appears to have been
widely held that the soul was an exact reproduction of the body in every
feature, even down to clothing the person wore. This is depicted in artwork
from various ancient cultures, including such works as the Egyptian Book of the Dead,
Sony VAIO
PCG-8161M Battery
which
shows deceased people in the afterlife appearing much as they did before death,
including the style of dress.
While deceased ancestors
are universally regarded as venerable, and often imagined as having a
continued presence in some sort ofafterlife, Sony VAIO
PCG-3C2M Battery
the spirit of a deceased
person which remains present in the material world (viz. a ghost) 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, Sony VAIO
PCG-5N2M Battery
but
fear of ghosts also remains an integral aspect of the modern ghost
story, Gothic horror, and otherhorror fiction dealing with the
supernatural.
Another widespread belief
concerning ghosts is that they are composed of a misty, airy, or subtle
material. Sony VAIO
PCG-5P1M Battery
Anthropologists link
this idea to early beliefs that ghosts were the person within the person (the
person's spirit), most noticeable in ancient cultures as a person's breath,
which upon exhaling in colder climates appears visibly as a white mist.[19] Sony VAIO
PCG-5S1M Battery
This belief may have also
fostered the metaphorical meaning of "breath" in certain languages,
such as the Latin spiritus and
the Greek pneuma,
which by analogy became extended to mean the soul. In
the Bible, God is depicted as animating Adam with a
breath. Sony VAIO
PCG-9Z1M Battery
In many traditional
accounts, ghosts were 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. Sony VAIO
PCG-7171M Battery
Seeing
one's own ghostly double or "fetch" is a related omen of death.[24]
White ladies were
reported to appear in many rural areas, and supposed to have died tragically or
suffered trauma in life. White Lady legends are found around the world. Sony VAIO
PCG-7186M Battery
Common
to many of them is the theme of losing or being betrayed by a husband or
fiancé. They are often associated with an individual family line or regarded as
a harbinger of death similar to a banshee.
Legends of ghost ships have
existed since the 18th century; most notable of these is the Flying Dutchman. Sony VAIO
PCG-81112M Battery
This
theme has been used in literature in The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge.
A place where ghosts are
reported is described as haunted, and often seen as being inhabited
by spirits of deceased who may have been former residents or were
familiar with the property. Sony VAIO
PCG-31311M Battery
Supernatural activity
inside homes is said to be mainly associated with violent or tragic events in
the building's past such as murder, accidental death, or suicide — sometimes in
the recent or ancient past. But not all hauntings are at a place of a violent
death, or even on violent grounds. Sony VAIO
PCG-8152M Battery
Many cultures
and religions believe the essence of a being, such as the 'soul',
continues to exist. Some religious views argue that the 'spirits' of those who
have died have not 'passed over' and are trapped inside the property where
their memories and energy are strong. Sony VAIO
PCG-31111M Battery
There are many references
to ghosts in Mesopotamian religions – the religions
of Sumer, Babylon, Assyria and other early states
in Mesopotamia. Traces of these beliefs survive in the
later Abrahamic religions that came to dominate the region.[25] Sony VAIO
PCG-61111M Battery
Ghosts were thought to be
created at time of death, taking on the memory and personality of the dead
person. They traveled to the netherworld, where they were assigned a position,
and led an existence similar in some ways to that of the living. Sony VAIO
PCG-51112M Battery
Relatives of the dead were
expected to make offerings of food and drink to the dead to ease their
conditions. If they did not, the ghosts could inflict misfortune and illness on
the living. Traditional healing practices ascribed a variety of illnesses to
the action of ghosts, while others were caused by gods or demons. Sony VAIO
PCG-51211M Battery
The Hebrew
Bible contains few references to ghosts, associating spiritism with
forbidden occult activities cf. Deuteronomy 18:11. The most notable
reference is in the First Book of Samuel (I Samuel 28:3–19 KJV), in
which a disguised King Saul has the Witch of Endor summon
the spirit/ghost of Samuel. Sony VAIO
PCG-51212M Battery
There was widespread belief
in ghosts in ancient Egyptian culture in the sense of the continued
existence of the soul and spirit after death, with the ability to
assist or harm the living, and the possibility of a second death. Over a period
of more than 2,500 years, Sony VAIO
PCG-41111M Battery
Egyptian beliefs about the
nature of the afterlife evolved constantly. Many of these beliefs were recorded
in inscriptions, papyrus scrolls and tomb paintings. The Egyptian Book of
the Dead compiles some of the beliefs from different periods of ancient
Egyptian history.[27] Sony VAIO
PCG-41111V Battery
In
modern times, the fanciful concept of a mummy coming back to life and wreaking
vengeance when disturbed has spawned a whole genre of horror stories and films.
Ghosts appeared
in Homer's Odyssey and Iliad, in which they
were described as vanishing "as a vapor, gibbering and whining into the
earth".Sony VAIO
PCG-61412V Battery
Homer’s ghosts had little
interaction with the world of the living. Periodically they were called upon to
provide advice or prophecy, but they do not appear to be particularly feared.
Ghosts in the classical world often appeared in the form of vapor or smoke, Sony VAIO
PCG-71112M Battery
but
at other times they were described as being substantial, appearing as they had
been at the time of death, complete with the wounds that killed them.[29]
By the 5th century
BC, classical Greek ghosts had become haunting, frightening creatures
who could work to either good or evil purposes. Sony VAIO
PCG-81111V Battery
The spirit of the dead was
believed to hover near the resting place of the corpse, and cemeteries were
places the living avoided. The dead were to be ritually mourned through public
ceremony, sacrifice and libations, or they might return to haunt their
families. Sony VAIO
PCG-81111V Battery
The
ancient Greeks held annual feasts to honor and placate the spirits of the dead,
to which the family ghosts were invited, and after which they were “firmly
invited to leave until the same time next year”.[30]
The 5th century BC
play Oresteia contains
one of the first ghosts to appear in a work of fiction. Sony VAIO
PCG-81212M Battery
The ancient
Romans believed a ghost could be used to exact revenge on an enemy by
scratching a curse on a piece of lead or pottery and placing it into a grave.[31]
Plutarch, in the 1st
century AD, described the haunting of the baths at Chaeronea by the
ghost of a murdered man. Sony VAIO
PCG-81212V Battery
The ghost’s loud and
frightful groans caused the people of the town to seal up the doors of the
building.[32] Another celebrated
account of a haunted house from the ancient classical world is given
by Pliny the Younger (c. 50 AD).[33] Pliny describes the haunting of a house
in Athens by a ghost bound in chains. Sony VAIO
PCG-51111M Battery
The
hauntings ceased when the ghost's shackled skeleton was unearthed, and given a
proper reburial.[34] The
writers Plautus and Lucian also wrote stories about haunted
houses.
In the New
Testament, Jesus has to persuade the Disciples that he is
not a ghost following the resurrection, Sony VAIO
VPCS13X9E/B battery
Luke 24:37–39
(some versions of the Bible, such as the KJV and NKJV, use the term
"spirit"). In a similar vein, Jesus' followers at first believe him
to be a ghost (spirit) when they see him walking on water.
One of the first persons to
express disbelief in ghosts was Lucian of Samosata in the 2nd century
AD. Sony VAIO
VPCS12V9E/B battery
In his tale "The
Doubter" (circa 150 AD) he relates howDemocritus "the learned
man from Abdera in Thrace" lived in a tomb outside
the city gates to prove that cemeteries were not haunted by the
spirits of the departed. Lucian relates how he persisted Sony VAIO
VPCS12V9E/B battery
in his disbelief
despite practical jokes perpetrated by "some young men of
Abdera" who dressed up in black robes with skull masks to frighten him.[35] This account by
Lucian notes something about the popular classical expectation of how a ghost
should look. Sony VAIO
VPCF13M8E/B battery
In the 5th century AD, the
Christian priest Constantius of Lyon recorded an instance of the
recurring theme of the improperly buried dead who come back to haunt the
living, and who can only cease their haunting when their bones have been
discovered and properly reburied. Sony VAIO
VPCF13Z0E/B battery
Ghosts reported
in medieval Europe tended to fall into two categories: the souls of
the dead, or demons. The souls of the dead returned for a specific purpose.
Demonic ghosts were those which existed only to torment or tempt the living. Sony VAIO
VPCM13M1E/L battery
The
living could tell them apart by demanding their purpose in the name of Jesus
Christ. The soul of a dead person would divulge their mission, while a demonic
ghost would be banished at the sound of the Holy Name.[37]
Most ghosts were souls
assigned to Purgatory, condemned for a specific period to atone for their
transgressions in life. Sony VAIO
VPCM13M1E/W battery
Their penance was generally
related to their sin. For example, the ghost of a man who had been abusive to
his servants was condemned to tear off and swallow bits of his own tongue; the
ghost of another man, who had neglected to leave his cloak to the poor, Sony VAIO
VPCF22M1E battery
was condemned to wear the
cloak, now "heavy as a church tower". These ghosts appeared to the
living to ask for prayers to end their suffering. Other dead souls returned to
urge the living to confess their sins before their own deaths.[38] Sony VAIO
VPCF11M1E/H battery
Medieval European ghosts
were more substantial than ghosts described in the Victorian age, and
there are accounts of ghosts being wrestled with and physically restrained
until a priest could arrive to hear its confession. Some were less solid, and
could move through walls. Sony VAIO
VPCF13M0E/B battery
Often
they were described as paler and sadder versions of the person they had been
while alive, and dressed in tattered gray rags. The vast majority of reported
sightings were male.[39]
fighting battles at night
in the forest, or in the remains of an Iron Age hillfort, as
at Wandlebury, near Cambridge, England. Living knights were sometimes
challenged to single combat by phantom knights, which vanished when defeated.[40] Sony VAIO
VPCYB3V1E battery
From the medieval period an
apparition of a ghost is recorded from 1211, at the time of
the Albigensian Crusade.[41] Gervase of Tilbury, Marshal of Arles, wrote that the
image of Guilhem, a boy recently murdered in the forest, appeared in his
cousin's home in Beaucaire, near Avignon. Sony VAIO
VPCY11M1E battery
This series of
"visits" lasted all of the summer. Through his cousin, who spoke for
him, the boy allegedly held conversations with anyone who wished, until the
local priest requested to speak to the boy directly, leading to an extended
disquisition on theology. Sony VAIO
VPCS12L9E/B battery
The boy narrated the trauma
of death and the unhappiness of his fellow souls in Purgatory, and
reported that God was most pleased with the ongoing Crusade against
the Cathar heretics, launched three years earlier. Sony VAIO VPCF11S1E/B
battery
The
time of the Albigensian Crusade in southern France was marked by intense and
prolonged warfare, this constant bloodshed and dislocation of populations being
the context for these reported visits by the murdered boy.
Renaissance magic took
a revived interest in the occult, including necromancy. Sony VAIO
VPCYB3V1E/R Battery
In the era of the
Reformation and Counter Reformation, there was frequently a backlash against
unwholesome interest in the dark arts, typified by writers such asThomas
Erastus.[43] The Swiss Reformed
pastor Ludwig Lavater supplied one of the most frequently reprinted
books of the period with his Of
Ghosts and Spirits Walking By Night.[44] Sony VAIO
VPCF23P1E Battery
The Child
ballad "Sweet William's Ghost" (1868) recounts the story of a
ghost returning to his fiancée begging her to free him from his promise to
marry her. He cannot marry her because he is dead but her refusal would mean
his damnation. Sony VAIO
VPCF23N1E Battery
This reflects a popular
British belief that the dead haunted their lovers if they took up with a new
love without some formal release.[45] "The Unquiet Grave" expresses a belief even more
widespread, found in various locations over Europe: Sony VAIO
VPCY21S1E/L Battery
ghosts can stem from the
excessive grief of the living, whose mourning interferes with the dead's
peaceful rest.[46] In
many folktales from around the world, the hero arranges for the burial of a
dead man. Soon after, he gains a companion who aids him and, in the end, Sony VAIO
VPCY21S1E/G battery
the
hero's companion reveals that he is in fact the dead man.[47] Instances of this
include the Italian fairy tale"Fair Brow" and the Swedish
"The Bird 'Grip'".
Spiritualism is
a monotheistic belief system or religion, postulating a belief
in God, Sony VAIO
VPCF24M1E battery
but
with a distinguishing feature of belief that spirits of the dead
residing in the spirit world can be contacted by "mediums",
who can then provide information about the afterlife.[48]
Spiritualism developed in
the United States and reached its peak growth in membership from the 1840s to
the 1920s, Sony VAIO VGN-AW110J/H Battery
especially inEnglish-language
countries,[49][50] By 1897, it was said
to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe,[51] mostly drawn from
the middle and upper classes, while the corresponding
movement in continental Europe and Latin America is known as Spiritism. Sony VAIO VGN-AW11M/H Battery
The religion flourished for
a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, attaining
cohesion by periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the
missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many prominent Spiritualists
were women. Sony VAIO VGN-AW11S/B Battery
Most followers supported
causes such as the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage.[49] By the late 1880s,
credibility of the informal movement weakened, due to accusations of fraud
among mediums, and formal Spiritualist organizations began to appear.[49] Sony VAIO VGN-AW11XU/Q Battery
Spiritualism
is currently practiced primarily through various
denominational Spiritualist Churches in the United States and United
Kingdom.
No comments:
Post a Comment