HAPPY HALLOWEEN
Who believes in ghosts? We do.

A couple of weeks ago in the intro-to-acting class I teach at LSU, somebody said something about a haunted house, which I asked about, which morphed into a quick discussion about ghosts. It struck me that I seemed to be the only skeptic in the room so I made sure: I asked, by show of hands, how many people believed in ghosts; apparently, most of the class are believers. Pretty weird I thought, and these aren't even weirdo theater majors--they're mostly non-majors picking up a fine arts credit. I later asked my own MFA classmates what their views are, and, again, most of them believe we live in a universe filled with the spirits of the dead moving among the living.

I'm now wondering if my unscientific study of people I know in any way reflects the national opinion on this. I wouldn't at all be surprised if most Americans now believe in ghosts, and I seem to remember seeing some poll somewhere a while back that suggests as much.

What's going on here?

Personally, I'm very much of the opinion that ghosts are like God in that, because you can't really prove or disprove phenomena about which you have no evidence one way or the other, it's really got to take an individual leap of faith to believe in them. So, okay, ghosts might exist, but I've never, never, ever had any experience which pushes me in that direction. Really, I'd love to encounter a ghost, but I never have. UFOs and Bigfoot, too, for that matter. All these weird In Search Of phenomena, I just love 'em, and believe that they would definitely make existence more interesting if true. Frankly, I'm a bit envious of the ghost-believers: their universe is a bit cooler than mine.

But I just can't get on board simply because I think it's cool. I've never even heard a compelling ghost story. Generally, so-called "eye witness" stories seem to have an element of something unexplained, but the conclusion that ghosts are at the bottom of the weirdness never works for me. So, somebody sees some weird lights, and experiences a change in temperature, and feels a "presence." Okay, maybe that's true. But why conclude that you saw a ghost? Why not conclude that you had a "close encounter" with an alien? Or met God? Or that the air conditioner was broken, which caused a power surge creating strange flashes of light, which creeped you out, making you feel a "presence?" And why the hell haven't I ever seen a ghost?

My very conservative buddy Stephen once wisely observed that aliens and ghosts only appear to people who already believe in them. That's something to chew on. Clearly, many people have a predisposition to believe in such things, and when something happens that seems to fit these pre-existing beliefs, that then becomes, to them, a supernatural experience. Or that's just what I think. Who am I to attempt to disprove that which cannot really be disproved?

At any rate, I think it's damned bizarre that so many Americans seem to believe in ghosts. What can that possibly mean? When I was a kid in the 70s it seemed like the prevailing philosophical notion was skeptical: there are no ghosts; that's all just old-fashioned superstition. What is it about today that's turned that notion around? My guess is that it has something to do with fundamentalist Christianity and its strange notions of spirit wars between the agents of God and Satan going on around humanity all the time, but there's probably more to it than that. Maybe people are so disaffected from the concept of participating meaningfully in society that they need to indulge in ghost fantasies. I don't know. But something is up.

Anyway, happy Halloween. Here are the ghosts I prefer:



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