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Ghosts...Who's Afraid?

© Janice Oberding

How can I tell if my home is haunted or not? The question came in a phone call just as I sat down to eat dinner. I did my best to allay the caller's fears of the "supernatural," finished my meal, but couldn't get the question out of my mind. Even through my favorite C.S.I it nagged at me. It wasn't that question so much as the fear behind it that bothered me. Where, I wondered, has all this fear come from. Could it be the spate of new movies, (aren't there always some) that play upon our fear of the dark, our fear of the unknown, and any other fears a good screenwriter can exploit.

I'm not afraid. Are you? If so, why? Ghosts are dead people and haven't you heard it said a hundred times or more by one of your ghost hunting buddies, "I'm more afraid of live people than dead people!" Me too, come to think of it. It's natural that we as humans fear what we don't know or understand. Maybe it harks back to the days of the cave man that ventured forth only in search of food. Maybe Hollywood has done a better job than we thought of scaring us with vicious ghosts that taunt the unsuspecting in abandoned cemeteries. Though why anyone would be unsuspecting in an abandoned cemetery is beyond me. Especially when you consider all those movies that feature phantoms wreaking havoc among tumbledown headstones and creaking iron gates.

Have you ever seen a ghost? And how many people will admit it if they have? To admit to having seen a ghost can leave one open to ridicule. And no one likes to be ridiculed. Okay, I'll step up to the plate here. The very first time I saw a ghost I didn't even realize what I was seeing. The person appeared to be as alive as anyone else. It wasn't until much later that I knew I had seen a ghost. I admit to being frightened. Until a friend asked me, "If you weren't afraid of this person when she was alive, why should you be afraid now that she is a ghost?"

Good question. It helped me to put things into perspective. The phenomena we know as ghosts and hauntings are real. Life and death are natural occurences. That said, I'll go further and say so is rain and sunlight and the wind and...You get the idea. Why should we fear what natural occurences? Now who's afraid?

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