Ghosts (Book 1 Part 9)

The ancient Romans had names for ghosts. I cannot say with certainty that they were the first culture to believe in them as there were many ancient cultures that came before them. But, they believed in them as much as they believed in the gods that, for the most part, they just grabbed from their ancient Greek predecessors.

The Lemures were souls of those who had departed life and would haunt a particular place. These beings were considered evil and would appear under awful guises and grotesque and hideous shapes. They might very well have been the beginnings of the contemporary ghost stories. Of course, I am sure they were quite real and were what I like to refer to as haunts. They might have been human when alive, but something so twisted and evil about them caused their afterlife forms to become misshapen and ugly, terrible to behold. Still, whether audible or not, they usually cannot physically harm the living, but I guarantee you that they can scare the shit out of you.

The Lares were of a different sort, benevolent ghosts that primarily looked after the well-being of their descendants. A great man in life had the potential to become one of these apparitions. It seemed that their primary purpose was to guard the prosperity of successors for centuries or even millennia after their own slip off of the mortal plane of being. Often they were considered to have been the founder of a particular family.

I am of the opinion that the ancient Roman view of ghosts is a little too simplified in comparison to what I have witnessed in my time on Earth. I have developed a different sort of classification. The words just came to me, as I studied all I was to witness. Others who can see what I see might have a different view.

The repeaters I have already touched on. They repeat. They are really almost like something etched in space and time that cannot alter their ghostly destinies. I am not sure how much better I can describe them. They repeat, continually over and over, reliving one scene. Like the girl in the Shanghai hostel, they can relive a moment of innocence, but mostly they relive a horrific death, or something that led to their individual deaths. These particular forms never leave the area they appear in.

The partial specters are just that. They are partial. They are no longer the whole form of what once was as they are pieces of something left in time for those like me to observe. They are fragments of something whole that was mostly lost, often brilliant saturations of colors, but usually just one glowing tint, most regularly blue or red. Shades of neon seem to permeate what I can only refer to as their existence. These apparitions are so far gone and alien to what those of us alive are familiar with that I fear there is nothing left of them to help. They can repeat, but I cannot help but think of them as something completely lost, never to be regained, essences floating through time and space and in many ways almost insignificant. It is easier not to feel any empathy for these things as whatever was human in them has long since expired.

Haunts seem to be cruel and devious incarnations. I can only guess that they were evil in life and have become more corrupted in death. They can sometimes appear to be almost human, but with relatively regular frequency never appear to be human. They might be the stuff of vampire or other monster legends. Nothing good or redeemable seems to be found with them. Maybe I can help them, but I prefer to avoid them. They can transform, which can be a little overwhelming when they initially appear to be beautiful and suddenly turn into something disgusting and depraved, morbid and fascinating, sprouting long teeth or vicious fangs that I cannot help but think will tear me apart. I have to say that their primary purpose seems to be a malicious attempt to scare the living or even others who are dead. There seems to me to be no rhyme or reason to their existence, as to be in some semblance of hell as penance for misbehavior in life. Similar to repeaters, they seem confined to one area, yet they seem to be able to act of their own volition and the area they are imprisoned in can be quite expansive.

The ones I can and have helped are what I refer to as merely souls, or perhaps better stated as lost souls. I can usually hear them. They can speak to me and I can understand them. The first one I met was named Tommy and I have every intention of digressing and telling you more of him in the writing of this. These are the ones that need something to happen in order for them to finally rest. Maybe some manifestation of an occurrence in life or maybe a former belief in something that resides into their death prevents them from resting eternally. It is not always easy to decide what it is they need done, but I am of the opinion that they can all be helped. Like haunts, they can act and react of their own volition and they seem to be just as intelligent in death as they were in life.

I have only ever fully dealt with one poltergeist in my time. I have seen several, but only dealt with one. These are things to avoid, as they are quite powerful and can use that power to become tangible and physically influential in the world of the living. So, these are very grievous entities. They can harm the living, not just emotionally. They can kill. I believe that they kill the living and are able to entrap the souls of those they kill and keep them for whatever they want them for. A pedophile can lure children into death just to keep them there, if he were a poltergeist. It seems they like to collect souls for various reasons. They are extremely dangerous as not just one’s psyche can be affected by these monstrosities, but his or her very life and everlasting soul can become enslaved. The film inspired what I have decided to call these entities.

There is Violet. I call her an angel, but that is primarily just based on my interpretation of what an angel might be. In truth, I have not really classified her. She seems to be utterly unique and different from any other ghost I have encountered. I still think that it is possible that she is even some sort of goddess. I do believe that my destiny has something everlasting to share with her. I can only hope that we will be whatever physical lovers might become once they had moved on. It is hard to explain a sort of lust that exists without lust. Of course I love her, but there is a physical need there too that is not lust, but that is the best way to describe it.

Lastly, there is what I encountered in China, far different than anything else that I had happened upon before.