You wake up in the middle of a hot night, sweating. But then you remember it is mid-winter and the snow is on the ground. You sit up in bed and see a semi-transparent figure sitting next to your bed, looking at you with a sly but benevolent smile. The figure is a nerdy looking teen age boy with thick black rimmed glasses. Rubbing your eyes you look down at your thin plaid blanket then back at the figure. It is still there by your bed but it fades away. You look at the door of your bedroom in the dark, lit only by the alarm clock’s light. The apparition is gone. Your door is closed and you assume you were still dreaming, although the dream goes unrecalled. Strange, maybe that second egg-nog and rum mixed with a semi-dream state created a temporary hallucination. You lie back down on your pillow, closing your eyes. Opening your eyes cautiously to look in the direction of your hallucination to make sure nothing is there, you go back to sleep.
Many people believe in ghosts, more than one might expect. In a recent survey of 1000 random people about 45% believe. Those are people who said they believe that ghosts, or spirits of the dead, can come back in certain places and situations, according to the 2012 data. Some 32% also said ghosts or spirits can hurt living people, while 43% said ghosts (if they are real) are harmless.
While I consider myself a scientific sort, the nerdy glasses-wearing ghost described above might have been one of my visitors. I try to keep an open mind about the ‘spiritual nature’ of the universe, after all, we still don’t know everything. The smartest people on earth several hundred years ago thought the earth was the center of the universe and eccentric old ladies on the outskirts of town were witches in league with the devil. Talk of Satan or the devil leads one to think of Heaven and Hell. If heaven is ruled by Gods or God then Hell must surely be the domain of a fallen angel like Satan or other entities with names like Loki, Amon, or Beelzebub. The ancients believed that heaven was the domain of the skies with Hell in the depths of earth. Where ghosts come into play would be a question of whether or not the heavens allowed spirits to visit the land of the living. Why would a spirit wish to leave the fragrant beauty of an otherworldly paradise to come to the land of sinners and unpredictable human desires. On the other hand a demon conscripted to Hell might want a little vacation from the fiery tortures of everlasting damnation.
As religion gave way to science sometime during the later Renaissance many came to question the old Biblical notion of heaven and hell. Scientist began to describe the world in a way that seemed to be magic at first. Alchemists could create fantastic metals out of dirt. Is this not godlike? Other impressive technological feats became more common and many standard ideas that held sway for hundreds of years were disproved. Man realized that he could actually learn and improve on his lot and the old ways were not infallible. The Christian religion began to split into various factions (Catholics-Protestants for example) as the Pope and other Catholics became corrupted by power and money. Through all this upheaval ghosts were still around. What did the ghosts think of all these silly humans and their attempts to understand the world and the universe in terms of religion or science? Did the oldest ghost have a different outlook than a younger ghost? Was the first ghost an orangutan, chimpanzee, Neanderthal, Homo erectus, or one of us; Homo Sapiens? What is the ‘physical’ nature of a ghost?
Amrak, the Karankawan, will attempt to explain much of it to the recently deceased, Trisha Niles. Amrak has been assigned to mentor Trisha through the complexities of the afterlife and to make sure she stays in Heaven, at least the actual version of it that will be revealed.
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