If the spirit is the essence that gives us life, and if it’s that which survives
after the body’s death, who is it? No problem when the medium says, “Your Uncle
Charlie is here”, or when we find out that the headless lady in the corridor was
Mrs Smith whose husband accidentally missed the log. But what if Uncle Charlie
died of Alzheimer’s? Will the spirit then have no clue as to who it is, or who
it meets? What if it’s a baby? Will it spend eternity, or at least a few billion
years, communicating sweet nothings? What if it’s an alcoholic, a drug addict, a
schizophrenic? Are there cures out there in the spirit world? What if the person
was a murderer, a rapist, a megalomaniac, a shyster? Any chance of reform? Is
the spirit capable of change at all? What would change it? The very fact that
the medium can tell you Uncle Charlie is here suggests that the spirit not only
knows who it is, but also knows who you are, and so by inference will know who
other familiar spirits are. What, then, goes on in that bodiless world? An
endless round of social intercourse via telepathy?
And if the spirit is the essence that gives us life, let us not forget that
every insect, reptile, mammal, bird is possessed of the same spirit. We shall
talk about animals later, but they too are alive one second and dead the next,
and they too have an identity. How will our brachiosaurus spirit cope when it
meets the spirit of the tyrannosaurus that ripped it to pieces?
The fact is, we cannot conceive a spirit world. It raises so many questions that
the whole concept becomes laughable – sheer pleasure for the atheist, who can
ignore his own blinkered vision by poking fun at the blinkered vision of others.
And yet…we are still faced with the need (a) to discredit every single spirit
tale, report, communication, sighting, and (b) to identify what it is that gives
us life. We always come back to the problem of origins, and if we are unable to
share the blind, unreasoning and unreasonable faith of the theist or the
atheist, we must consider the alternatives.
Is there a scenario that can encompass all the ghost stories and yet at the same
time remove all the problems associated with the spirit world – identity, how do
spirits pass the time, where does the animal world fit in, etc.? A lot of ghost
stories concern spirits that cannot “rest”. This at least gives us one way out
of our dilemma. If rest is the problem, then death is the solution. The
dreamless sleep of death is the perfect rest and provides the perfect peace
beyond all understanding. And so maybe the vast majority of spirits (remember, I
use the word only to describe the unknown spark that gives us life) die with
their bodies. The current is switched off. But maybe in some cases, it lingers
for a while, independently of the dead body. Just as the amputated limb
continues to hurt, maybe the spirit hurts too. Maybe the death of the spirit is
a loss of the will to live (= the desire to rest), but the will to live survives
in those who for whatever reason feel they need to go on: to right a wrong, to
contact the living, to find out what happens next.
Another possibility with regard to ghosts lies with the observer: as we have
seen, light waves theoretically go on for ever, and so perhaps the observer is
able to shift his position in time/space, and latch onto the ongoing waves,
“seeing” the past. This doesn’t explain the medium’s contact with the dead, who
send messages to the living, but the ability – conscious or otherwise – to move
onto another wavelength would be a common feature between the two sets of
claims. This may even be on a par with the ability of animals to perceive things
that humans can’t perceive. We know for a fact that there are, for instance,
sounds beyond our hearing, and there are innumerable verified tales of animals
sensing danger long before we do. Perhaps in some people there is the same
heightened sensitivity to the “waves”, the “vibes”, or whatever you want to call
them.
“Perhaps” is not the sort of word to find favour with your scientist or your
self-confident believer or your equally self-confident atheist. They all want
firm truth, and “perhaps” is worthless to them. But your scientist can only
investigate the material universe, and your believer and your atheist rely
ultimately on faith, and since neither the material universe nor faith can
provide us with a provable explanation of the origins of life, reproduction,
etc., “perhaps” is the best we can do. And within its parameters lie not only
infinite possibilities, but also guidelines for future research into the nature
of communication and into the forces that make us what we are.
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