“Nobody likes a skeptic.”
— Dean Winchester, Supernatural
I’m a fantasy junkie. Every year, when new TV shows premier, I always check out the science fiction and fantasy ones first. The comic books I read aren’t of the superhero genre, such as Superman or Batman, but more fantasy stuff like Sandman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Trese (plug: Book 3 is coming out in November!). I’m actually writing an urban fantasy graphic novel right now. (OK, I’m procrastinating more than actually writing it, but it will get done.)
And no, I don’t believe in ghosts.
I’ve stopped believing in ghosts since I was 10 years old and decided that everytime I’d hear a strange noise at night, I’d get up and see what was making it. It always turned out to be something innocuous like paper being blown around by the electric fan, or an rusty door. Or a cat walking on the piano keys. As I got older, I’d volunteer to take the most “haunted” room of the house (it was my grandparents’ house, which was big and old, and supposedly housed a couple of ghosts according to my Mom, aunts and sisters who all swore they saw apparitions). In all the years I’d lived there, I never saw a single supernatural event or entity, despite my habit of walking around by myself in the dark in the middle of the night to check what was making that banging noise that woke me up.
Why do people believe in ghosts? You’d think that if they’d existed all these thousands of years, someone somewhere would’ve been able to get positive proof. Yet all we’ve come up with so far are a million anecdotes and those “reality” ghost shows, which are basically just footage of a bunch of idiots running around in a dark house and asking one another, “Did you hear that? Did you see that?” Yet a lot of people still believe they exist. And not just ghosts, but manananggal, tiyanak, mangkukulam, and a host of other supernatural beings.
It’s quite simple, really. For one, our eyes (and light) occasionally do play tricks on us. Even I’m not immune to that. For another, nobody really knows what happens to us after we die. Oh, sure, religion tells us that we go to either heaven, hell or purgatory, but as no one has actually gone to any of these places and come back to confirm their existence (at least, no one credible), the idea of ghosts comforts us. Their “existence” tells us that there is some part of us that lives on even after our bodies have been turned to worm food. They may be scary and all, but the thought of there being nothing for us after we die is a million times more terrifying. So we cling to the idea of ghosts being real. And everything else follows from there — the manananggal, the tiyanak, the mangkukulam. Oh, and let’s not forget the kapre and tikbalang.
I think the kapres, tikbalangs, tiyanaks and the like are actually quite awesome. But only as myths. Only in storybooks, movies, TV shows, and our daydreams and nightmares, where they belong. That’s why it’s called the fantasy genre, children. In Supernatural, the Winchester brothers may be demon hunters, but they go about their investigations in a scientific manner. They don’t jump to conclusions, and they make sound hypotheses which they then proceed to test. The reason why they can get proof of ghosts is because in their world, ghosts exist. When Joss Whedon — who is an atheist, by the way — created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he knew he wasn’t making a documentary on the undead, he wanted to empower the tiny blonde girl who kept getting killed off in horror movies, and turn her into a heroine we could all look up to. He wanted to explore the pleasures and pains of growing up, using demons and vampires as metaphors. Because that’s what mythical creatures are — literary devices that represent our dreams, our fears, our hopes. I say we keep them alive in our books and movies, but I also say we keep our heads and not think they’re lurking out there in the dark.
So when you think you see or hear a ghost, get up and investigate. Turn on the lights — and I mean this literally and figuratively. Use reason, logic and science. Be a skeptic. Because the real world is terrifying enough as it is without us having to be scared of our own shadows.
i believe in ghost, not through supernatural sense but through scientific perspective. i believe that ghosts are just manifestations of the deceased in what einstein called 'spacetime'. to make my point easy to understand, let me explain it in another way. everything is made up of energy and matter is just a concentrated form of it. we, humans are not excluded. in time of death, our emotions boosts up our consciousness which in turn makes our creative power more powerful. (fact; in quantum mechanics, consciousness affects the wave-particle duality of the sub-atomic particles.) while dying, our consciousness may release some of the energy we are made of in spacetime and remains there which we could confuse as a ghost. the stronger the emotion, the stronger the consciousness, the more the energy etch in spacetime, and the stronger the manifestation of the deceased appear. (this may be the reason why people who die tragically such as murder, suicide and accident show more. places become haunted when many people die tragically in there.)
i'm a science loving guy and believe that supernaturals are bullshit but i cannot deny that once, i had encountered a tyanak. we where then at the middle of the woods at the the middle of the night when a loud, and very beautiful, cry of a baby burst out of the dark. it was as if it came from a dolby surround speaker. i have no third eye whatsoever and it was more than five of us who heard it. what was a baby doing under the thickets? how could it stroll in the darkness of the night? and how could the cry follow us 2-3 kilometers away?
(sori for my english)
and inspite of what was said, i still get the gooseflesh when im left alone in the dark.
Oops sorry, mis read that. Sorry Tania 😀
@ram: Yeah, me too. See ya!
Good. 🙂 I hope I meet you soon in FF gatherings as well.
Nikolas: Re Tiyanak– I wouldn't be surprised if the tiyanak myth appeared after the beginning of the Spanish colonization. Because the tiyanak myth smacks of Catholic guilt by women who did not want their babies, and it struck me that it was probably a means of scaring pregnant women into carrying their fetuses to term.
@ Nikolas – Ooops, It was Tania's not mine. 🙂
Great Article Geri 🙂
I would like to add, according to my lolo who was a guerrila in WWII the those popular versions of the myths were pretty recent. The tiyanac most of all. He says he heard of them only during the war as an insurgent, despite coming from a rural background. Probably the idea sprang from the infant mortality of war. Although I wouldn't be surprised if it actually came about from the civilian massacres of the Phil-Am war (1 million deaths, gotta have a lot of babies that died then).
Some of them were clearly invented during the spanish philippine conflicts as a deterrent. Particularly the Tikbalang, when you consider that horses are not indegenous and the largest wild mamal you can actually find in the philippines is the wild boar.
Then the Mananangal which is a cultural derivative of the Asian Penangolan is another monster whose roots can be called into question.
What is strange is despite having the largest of Birds (Philippine Eagle) and Snakes, we do not have myths that take advantage of the shock value of these creatures (which I find quite sad).
Our lack of education is quite telling by the amount of superstition people are ready to believe.
Yay! Whedon fans represent! 😀
@ram: Thanks! And sadly, I must confess I haven't had time to check out Hellblazer. I mean to, though, and I guess I should also check out The Preacher 🙂 Vertigo rocks.
Great article.
Off topic, since you expressed your desire for NG's Sandman, i would assume you like The Preacher and Hellblazer (Vertigo titles as well, and good fantasy storylines).
Wes: Halata ano? Heee.
Geri: I don't think so. It's like saying that if I like pasta arrabiata, then I must also like Lucky Me instant pancit canton, because they're both noodles. (For the record, I do love both pasta arrabiata AND LM instant pancit canton.) Thanks, Geri. I'll do my best.
If one could prove the existence of ghosts, then does it logically follow that God also exists?, as both concept rely on some non-physical/organic state in which mental process is possible?
More like this Tania!
Thanks all.
Cookiemonster: Yes, you ought to write that essay.
Great article! 😀 Although I have to say, regrettably, that that kind of thinking where myth and mystery take on the same level as matters of fact is yet to be completely eliminated at least in this country.
Let me sum up your thoughts in another perspective:
We, human beings, have come to a point where science (and mathematics) has solved most, if not all, problems that were formerly thought to be mysteries, where many of the universe's secrets have been unlocked and unfolded before our eyes. (And in case we don't know some of the answers, we will, maybe in this generation or in the next.)
History has also taught us that man and nature made the world as we know it, and events do not unfold by some manifest destiny or divine plan.
Art has been liberated from its shackles and no longer bows down to the dictates and tastes of some omnipotent power, it has truly become the perfect expression of our humanity.
And what has science, history, art—and reason—have showed us? That we have no reason to believe in fantasies and myths as if they were facts and truths. That we have no reason to submit out thoughts and free will to the whims of an unknown being—supernatural, divine or otherwise—whose reasons are "beyond human reason".
And more importantly: that we have reason.
What the heck…I should really be writing this as a separate essay of its own 😛 hehehe
Excellent article… 🙂
I believed ghost really exist but i dont scared of them.I have also ghost experiences.