Belief in the return of the dead in the visible form of wraiths has been common to many races from the earliest times. It has had a significant part in some so-called religious beliefs and has led to the development of various religious theories, such as ancestor worship, belief in immortality, witchcraft, nature worship, and totemism. Ghost belief is difficult to trace. The idea of the separation of the soul and the body may have developed through dreams, in which the mind, or soul, seems to leave the body and have independent experiences.
Ghosts, it is said, adopt a terrible character during their development. Unhindered by natural laws, they can determine the distance between places far apart. There are beliefs that eventually led to the notion that ghosts possess remarkable superhuman powers. Among the superstitious some care is exercised to gain the goodwill of departed spirits to prevent them from exerting a malignant influence upon the living. It is especially frightening to think of the spirits of one who died a violent death or was concerned with murder. This feeling still survives among primitive minds, as shown in wild stories of haunted houses. No intelligent person admits the possibility of such things.
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