A spiritual look at ghosts

So, I have a theory about ghosts. But it will take a minute to get there.

In its many and varied ways, the Earth is receiving information from us. It receives the sound waves of every footstep we make, it tastes the pollution we release upon it. Mingled with the smelling of its own flowers, it smells its own people.

And just because the Earth receives information, doesn’t prove it can process and act upon it like a human brain and body. Yet many cultures have nonetheless attributed the Earth with consciousness. They hold that the Earth is aware of our presence, and has opinions about it. Whether or not it’s true, thinking of it as such helps connect us with it and to resonate with it. It helps us remain accountable to it. And maybe there’s a reason many cultures throughout history have perceived the Earth as having consciousness. Whether or not it is literal in the way we think of consciousness is beside the point.

One might wonder if some of these traditional ways of thinking resonate with a truth of some kind. Is the Earth listening to us? If it is, might it also be retaining what it feels? Is the Earth recording history?

I do not present this as a point of scientific debate. I have science-based notions that happen to resonate with my overall faith-based perspective. Which, by the way, is true for 100% of us.

I think about crystals. Quartz, specifically. The new age, wellness and neopagan communities are festooned with them. But while there are those who scoff, or even ridicule, never dismiss something out of hand which millions believe in. That is true regardless of the correctness of their view. It means something is there. And it might not be quite what you think, or even quite what they think either.

Personally, I like crystals. They’re pretty, culturally meaningful, and in my personal experience, physically uplifting. Many years ago, around the age of 21, my first management job was running a natural crystal kiosk in the thoroughfare of the local mall. Just during the holidays.

I worked long hours, almost entirely on my feet. But unlike almost every other job I’d ever had before or since, I felt tireless.

Of course this is entirely anecdotal. I make no claim, I just state it because it was my personal experience.

But quartz crystals in particular do have scientifically recognized properties. For one, they have the ability to store information. As well, they regulate energy. They keep it flowing evenly. That’s why we use crystals in wrist watches and throughout the tech industry.

Quartz dust floats through our ocean currents and is picked up by windstorms. Though we do not physically process or digest it, quartz is often present in our bodies just by the air we breathe, the dirt on our hands, and the food we eat.

Are quartz crystals, and perhaps other minerals, “recording” us in a literal sense? If they can indeed store information, are they? Is it acted upon, or is it just stored there?

We haven’t the ability to know one way or the other. But for argument’s sake, let’s say the Earth, in its way, does record us. It records our actions and words, it stores an energetic imprint of who we are, or were. I could imagine the imprint is stronger when we experience profound joy or grave fear.

And so, in honor of Halloween tomorrow, I’ll use this opportunity to give one final theory. Is this what explains ghosts?

Are we triggering the stored memories of departed souls that have long moved on, but whose resonance lingers?

I’m not claiming this is the answer to all or necessarily any of the recorded supernatural experiences had by humanity throughout the ages. But it does give me pause.

I think ghosts are real. Even though I’ve never seen one. To my mind they’re logical.

And so, let’s remain open minded about these things. They may be the answer to questions we’re not even sophisticated enough yet to ask.

Superstitions and myths and fairytales surround us. What if every single one of them had a grain of truth within?

Happy Halloween. Wil Darcangelo, M.Div, is the minister at the First Parish UU Church of Fitchburg and of the First Church of Christ, Unitarian in Lancaster, and producer of The UU Virtual Church of Fitchburg and Lancaster on YouTube. Email wildarcangelo@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @wildarcangelo. His blog, Hopeful Thinking, can be found at www.hopefulthinkingworld.blogspot.com.