What Is A Ghost?

The word ghost comes from the Old English word gást and comes from the word meaning rage or fury. The idea of ghosts however goes much further back and stems from the belief in many religions and cultures that the soul separates from the physical body after death. The Ancient Egyptians had the Kingdom Of The Dead, the Ancient Greeks had Tartarus, the Vikings had Valhalla etc. The idea of spirits going to the afterlife has led to the belief that those spirits can sometimes be seen by those of us still living. That belief has passed down through the centuries and is common to cultures around the world.

Other words such as spectre/specter, phantom, apparition, spook and ghoul are used to describe ghost. The term is used when the soul or spirit of a dead person manifests visibly, aurally or in any other form to a living person. People who claim to have seen ghosts describe many different forms from full apparitions to translucent shapes and orbs. Sounds, smells or physical contact are also commonly reported.

Ghosts can haunt either locations, objects or people. For the most part, the spirit will have had some connection to whatever it is they are haunting when they were alive. For example, many spirits haunt the place where they lived, while some will remain close to a loved one.

There is a belief in some cultures that ghosts are deceased people returning to our plain of living to seek vengeance. There is also a belief that ghosts have unfinished business and are therefore unable to move on to the next world.

Below is a list of common words for ghosts and where they came from.

Spirit - Comes from the Latin spiritus meaning breath.

Spook - Is from a word used by Dutch immigrants in the United States in the 19th Century.

Spectre - Comes from the Latin spectrum meaning image or apparition.

Phantom - Is from the Greek phantasma meaning fantasy.

Poltergeist - Is German and means noisy ghost.

Wraith - Comes from the Scottish word for ghost.

Welcome To World Haunted

The world of the paranormal has fascinated people for centuries. Ghosts have been the subject of debate for years and through this blog, we hope to continue the discussion. We will have a number of contributors writing a multitude of different things including their own personal experiences with ghosts, analysis of haunted locations around the world and much much more. We aim to create a community not only here on the blog but also on social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The idea for this blog came about through the pre-existing work on our sister site World Abandoned. Many of the comments we received were about the haunted stories surrounding abandoned buildings and that interest is what sparked the idea to create something to focus on the paranormal side of such buildings. That idea has grown to become World Haunted.

Interest in the paranormal goes back for centuries and the question of what happens after we die has always garnered debate. By the 19th century, scientists began to investigate using a number of methods. Many of the experiments were carried out on areas of religious belief. They tried to prove the existence of ghosts and spirits and whether certain people can communicate with them. Since the Victorian era, the number of paranormal investigators has grown and groups now exist around the world. The advances in technology have given rise to new tools to aid in ghost hunting.

The interest in ghosts has risen spectacularly in recent years due to television programmes like Most Haunted and Ghost Hunters. Websites and forums have sprung up on the internet and now World Haunted takes its place among them.

We hope that you will follow us and return frequently. Interact, join in the debate and spread the word.

Welcome to World Haunted!