GHOST. Ghosts are certain spiritual substances that are seen or heard by men. Some believed that they were souls of the dead who come back to earth and show themselves. This was what Platonists believed, as we can see in Plato’s Phaedo , in Porphyry , etc. In general the opinion regarding the existence of ghosts was rather common in paganism. Festivals and solemnities were even established for the souls of the dead, so that they would not even contemplate frightening men with their apparitions. Among the Jews, cabalists and rabbis also believed in ghosts. The same must be said of the Turks, and of almost all sects of Christianity. Partisans of this opinion give as evidence profane examples or examples taken from Holy Scripture. Baronius [1] recounts a fact, which he believes no one can doubt: the famous apparition of Marsilius Ficinus to his friend Michael Mercato. Both friends had agreed that whoever died first would return to instruct the other about the truth of things in the other life. Some time later, Mercato, busy meditating on something, suddenly heard a voice calling him. It was his friend Ficinus that he saw on a white horse, but who disappeared the moment the other called to him by his name.

The second opinion on the essence of ghosts is that of those who believe that it is not the souls who return, but a third part of which man is composed. This is the opinion of Theophrastus [2], Paracelsus [3], and all those who believed that man is made of three parts: the soul, the body, and the spirit. According to him, each of these parts returns after death to the place from which it came. The soul, which comes from God, returns to God. The body, which is made of two inferior elements, earth and water, returns to the earth, and the third part, which is the spirit, pulled by the two elements above, air and fire, returns to the air, where with time it is dissolved like the body. And it is this spirit, and not the soul, which makes apparitions. Theophrastus adds that it is ordinary to see it in places and next to things that had the most meaning for the person it animated, because extremely strong impressions remain with it.

The third opinion is that which attributes the apparitions to elemental spirits. Paracelsus and some of his followers believed that each element is filled with a certain number of spirits, that the stars are the dwelling of salamanders, the air that of sylphs, water that of nymphs, and the earth that of pygmies.

The fourth opinion regards ghosts as the exhalations of rotting bodies. The partisans of this hypothesis believe that these exhalations made thicker by night air could represent the face of a dead man. This is the philosophy of Cardan [4] and others: it is not new. One finds traces of this opinion in the ancients and especially in Seneca’s Troades .

Finally the fifth opinion gives diabolical operations as a cause for ghosts. Partisans of this opinion assume the truth of apparitions as historical fact, which we cannot doubt; but they believed that it is the work of the demon that, forming a body of air, uses it for its different designs. They believe that this is the most convenient and least cumbersome way to explain apparitions.

Regardless of the large number of those who believe in ghosts and who seek to explain their possibility, there have always been philosophers who have dared to deny their existence. One can class them into three groups. In the first, we can include those who do not admit any difference between the body and the spirit, like Spinoza, [5] who asserting that there is only one substance, cannot admit ghosts . In the second group, we can put those who seem to believe in the existence of the devil, but who deny he has any power on earth. The third group consists of those who admit the devil’s power on earth, but who deny that he can have a body.

1. Caesar Baronius (1538-1607), Italian cardinal and historian of the Roman Catholic Church.

2. Theophrastus (c. 371-c. 287 B.C.E.), Greek philosopher.

3. Paracelsus (1493-1541), German-Swiss physician and alchemist credited with founding toxicology.

4. Gerolamo Cardano (1501-1576), Italian polymath.

5. Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher.