Ghost Stories: A Survey of Cultural Beliefs in Regards to Death and the Spirit

Abstract

No matter what culture, or historical time period, the only inevitable truth is that life is finite. Comfort is found with either the formation of religious or philosophical belief systems that establish certain, accepted standards for life and death. Human beings have always strived to understand the supernatural and what happens after life. We tell ghost stories around the fire and speak wistfully about our lost loved ones. We are connected by our desire to believe in something more, something greater than what we know. These practices have existed since the beginning with the Neanderthals, when grave goods were first placed with the dead in the form of flowers, until today when hills are filled with tombs and stone angels. The purpose of this project is not solely to be an exploration of different cultural beliefs, but to create an understanding of how people try to hold on to those they have loved and lost, and how they create their own ghosts. While this project covers many different, isolated points of history which all give a different answer to what comes after death, it was not created to give one true answer to this question. It was also not meant to present certain cultures as having correct or mistaken views on the happenings of death and after. Rather, the goal has been to bring light to the different cultural perspectives and practices that exist outside of the popular Western canon.