The Beginning!
Have you ever wondered where, and when the first account of a ghost occurred? Well that was one of my first questions when I became involved in the paranormal field.
I felt it very important finding an answer to this question as everything has a beginning! Where it all started I felt was a key to the whole validation of the possibilities of ghost even existing.
Maybe the more important thing I wanted and needed to know, Was if the first accounts of a ghost were from a reputable person? or some sort of gypsy?
I say this because it made my personal accounts a thing in question! I was actually questioning my own sanity and wondered if maybe I had hallucinated all my experiences through my younger years?
Needless to say people have been witnessing apparitions and seeing ghostly images for a very long time! As well as hearing Eerie cries and voices from an other worldly place! We wanted to share a few of the very earliest recorded accounts of people referring to ghost with everyone. So here it is!
According to the book "Ghost Sighting"s by Brian Innes, the oldest written report of a ghost comes from the Bible, in the first book of Samuel.
Saul goes to a medium (“a woman that hath a familiar spirit”) and asks her to conjure up the deceased Samuel, which she does. Samuel appears in the form of “an old man covered with a mantle.”
Another very old ghost sighting comes from Ancient Greece. A Greek writer named Pausanius wrote around 150 AD about a haunting at the site of the battle of Marathon (490 BC). In the words of Pausanius:
“At this place you can hear all night horses whinnying and men fighting. No one who stays there just to have this experience gets any good out of it, but the ghosts do not get angry with anyone who happens to be there against his will.”
Notes: The description of Samuel in his undead state, covered with his mantle, seems to set a precedent for the sheet-covered ghost so favored in Western culture.
Although Samuel was conjured and perhaps not a “true” ghost, Pausanius’ account is clearly that of an already established haunting which must have been well known at the time.
These are just a couple of the earliest accounts and ones that I feel the most validating! Of course in every culture there is some reference to ghost at some point in history and we think this is the more important point!
The fact that so many cultures through history share a common ground in the ghost department! With so many different cultures talking of the same thing! how is it that people can dismiss it so easily as being in a persons head?
We are going to be discussing more of this subject in the next few blogs. We want to look more into the individual cultures and how they perceive ghost and their actions? We will also be looking at cultures that believe in being able to communicate with the dead, and certain people that were able to be used as a type of divining tool!
