Ghosts from the Ancient World

0:17Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Psychic Teachers. I'm your host, Samantha Faye.

0:21Speaker 2:And I'm Deb Bowen.

0:23Speaker 1:And we're very happy to have you join us this week. We are going to be revisiting a topic we covered on the show about nine years ago, and that's Ghost of the Ancient World. We're going to take you on a historical tour of the ancient world to uncover what they really believed about ghosts and the afterlife. So something that I find fascinating is that ghost stories can be found everywhere. In ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, China, India, Greece, Ireland, England, Scotland, the entire continent of Africa. Everywhere you look, you will find ghost stories. Think about that a moment. If everyone around the world throughout the ages has been reporting these stories, there must be something to it. Now for the ancients, they viewed seeing a ghost as a bad sign. They believed it meant that something was wrong with the ghost in their journey or that something not so good was coming to the person seeing the ghost. So let's start with ancient Mesopotamia. The deceased were believed to live in a place called the Land of No Return. It was seen as a sad place of darkness where people drank muddy water and ate dirt. It's believed that it was

1:38Speaker 1:ruled by a queen of the underworld. no one was permitted to leave unless they had to right a wrong. So the only time this queen of the underworld would allow ghosts to appear to the living is if, for example, the family hadn't given them a proper burial, or if the family had neglected to give the ghost offerings. The idea of leaving offerings for the deceased, you will see, comes up again and again and again in the ancient world. So if your family was negligent in your offerings to your family member, then the queen of the underworld in ancient Mesopotamia would give you permission to go and haunt your family. Sickness was believed to be punishment by a ghost for some wrongdoing that the living person created. Mesopotamian doctors would require a confession from the person before they would perform any rituals to ward off ghosts. There's even an old, old story from ancient Mesopotamia that a man who was believed to have strayed or cheated on his wife was then haunted by her after her death. The story clearly states that she was given permission to haunt him.

2:46Speaker 1:And we're talking B.C. times. And Deb, I gotta be honest, I kind of love that story. This lady gets to the land of no return and tells the queen of the underworld, you gotta let me go back and haunt this jerk. Like, he cheated on me, he's straight, he talked this crap about me. And the queen of the underworld is like, oh yeah, girl, I got you. Go back and haunt him.

3:08Speaker 2:I kind of love that, you know. But you have to remember that in the time of Mesopotamia, not only the queen of the underworld, but the queen of the above world, the world was ruled by women. This is the time of when God was a woman. Oh, that's true. Keep that in mind.

3:25Speaker 1:So to support this history, you might remember when we reported on an incredible find at the British Museum a few years ago. A tablet was made in ancient Babylon around 1500 BCE, and it was discovered in the archives, like kind of randomly and by accident, and it may be the earliest known depiction of a ghost. The clay tablet is part of a guide to exercising ghosts, and it's held in the collections of the British Museum. The museum's Middle Eastern curator, a man named Irving Finkel, said the image on the tablet is only visible when viewed from above under a light. The museum acquired this artifact in the 19th century, but it's never been exhibited. He told reporters, you probably never give it a second thought because the area where the drawings are looks like it's got no writing. But when you examine it and hold it under a lamp, those figures leap out at you across time in the most startling way. Now, most notably, the object gives carefully detailed instructions on how to get rid of ghosts. The directions call for the exorcist to make figurines of a man and woman, prepare two vessels

4:41Speaker 1:of beer, and at sunrise, you speak ritual words calling on the Mesopotamian god Shamash, who was responsible for bringing ghosts to the Underworld. The curator Irving Finkel says the idea was to transfer the ghost into one of the figurines. I guess kind of like trapping them like a genie in the bottle. The text's final line urges readers to not look behind you. And this warning is probably intended as an instruction aimed at the figures as they're entering the underworld, but it's possible it's directed to the exorcist as well.

5:17Speaker 2:Wouldn't you love to see that?

5:19Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.

5:21Speaker 2:It's very interesting. And I love the fact that even back then there were exorcists and folks who did this work to deal with folks coming back from the underworld.

5:31Speaker 1:I know.

5:31Speaker 2:That's great. Okay, let me tell you about this one. Because that theme of not looking behind you is found in almost every myth story connected to death. So now we have a really interesting concept to share with you. The ancient Mesopotamians believed in this idea called a Gidim, G-I-D-I-M. And this Gidim was believed to have been created at the moment of death, and it would take on the personality and memory of the deceased. The Gidim would travel to the underworld and relied on offerings from the living family to sustain itself. The ancient Mesopotamians believed that a court called the Anukai met you in the netherworld and would judge you and told you your fate based on how you lived your life. So this concept of meeting a judge at the point of crossing over comes up again and again and again in our research on ancient ghosts.

6:33Speaker 2:So wait, I have questions about this one too, Samantha. Just thoughts bubbling up here. So this Gidom that was created at the moment of death would take on the personality and the memory of the deceased What was happening to the deceased? I don't know.

6:52Speaker 1:It kind of reminds me of the ancient Egyptians' belief in the Ka and the Ba and how different parts would ascend and different parts of us would stay here. Or it's also connected, I think, to the binary soul doctrine that the part of you that's just your personality stays here, but your soul ascends.

7:13Speaker 2:One of the things I'm loving so much about this conversation is And yes, we did this a long time ago. But, you know, we see things differently as time moves on. And we are seeing in just these first couple of stories how ancient our beliefs are today and where they came from so very long ago. It's not new.

7:35Speaker 1:No, no. And most of these stories talk about several judges, which is interesting. You see that theme again and again. But if you examine, for example, near-death experiences... Usually the judge is yourself. And I find that interesting because you don't really see that in these ancient texts. Okay, let's move to the Babylonians. They believed their underworld was filled with demons and monsters. However, they did believe that ghosts had houses and could visit other deceased relatives on the other side. There's the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, where it discusses his partner Enkidu's death and his time in the underworld before Gilgamesh rescues him. As we've just said, offerings from living people were believed to help the ghost tremendously.

8:24Speaker 1:It eased their suffering. They also taught that the sun god Shamash would punish a ghost for haunting the living by taking their offerings away. So you get this idea of gods and goddesses kind of watching over the living and the dead. So the living had to take care of the dead by leaving them offerings of food, but the dead also had to take care of the living by watching over them and not haunting them if you didn't, you know, have a good reason to haunt them. In ancient Babylonia, people believed ghosts wandered the night just as the living walked by day, and they could be a lot more terrifying than the ghost we imagine today. Some spirits were thought to possess living animals, especially birds, while others inhabited wild dogs and lions to hunt, sometimes even attacking humans. Among the most feared were women who died in childbirth. It was believed that they were driven mad by grief and condemned to wander forever.

9:21Speaker 2:Oh, they're horrible.

9:23Speaker 1:It is. People who died without children could suffer a similar fate since there was no one left to care for their spirits. To keep dead relatives at peace, families, usually the eldest son, left food and drink for their ancestors. And without these offerings, a hungry ghost might wander into homes or haunt the streets looking for something to eat. And there were plenty of other spirits to fear. People who died violently, drowned, were executed, fell in battle, or died alone in the desert with their bodies left unburied.

9:56Speaker 1:So in ancient Babylonia, night wasn't just dark. It was when the dead came looking for the living. They even believed seeing a ghost could be deadly. Mesopotamian texts from the first millennium BC described the hand of ghost, a supernatural affliction believed to cause illness and misfortune. The ghost of people who died by drowning, murder, burning, or other violent deaths were thought capable of passing specific ailments to the living. For example, breathing problems could be blamed on the ghost of someone who had drowned. Early warnings included ringing in the ears, headaches, stiff necks, and disturbing dreams of the dead, which were believed to provide ghosts a way into the living world. Treatments could last up to six days and involved offerings, cleansing rituals, oils, charms, and prayers to the sun god. In the most extreme cases, a sufferer might even be bled at the temple in an attempt to break the ghost's hold.

10:58Speaker 2:And do you hear all of that today? You still see some of this in belief systems today. That's true. You really do. Okay, Samantha, so let me tell you about battlefields. This is where a lot of our myths about battlefields being haunted started to spring up, because it was really believed back then, and still is today, that if you weren't given a proper burial and you were just left on a battlefield, you would be given permission to haunt the family or to haunt your team of soldiers that you fought with until you were given a proper burial. Now, when we go back to ancient Egypt, we see a much deeper, richer view of ghosts in the afterlife. I want to tell a quick story about an Egyptian ghost before you move me into some fascinating pieces of this because it's one of my favorite Egyptian stories.

11:49Speaker 2:There was once upon a time a man who was accused of committing a crime he did not do, but nonetheless he was killed for it and his body thrown outside the town walls on the roadway and left for the vultures and the ravens to eat him. But along comes a traveler who takes pity on the poor man's body and he buries him. Later, As the man who buried the dead person is walking along, he comes across a ghost. The ghost said, I just need to stop you and to say thank you for honoring my body because I did not commit the crime for which I was accused. And the man says, what is your name?

12:27Speaker 2:And the ghost says, my name is the Grateful Dead. And that's where the band got its name.

12:34Speaker 1:I love that story. It's actually a very nice ghost story.

12:37Speaker 2:It's one of my favorite stories ever.

12:40Speaker 1:So the ancient Egyptians believed that at death, the soul traveled to the Hall of Truth, where you would be judged by Osiris and 42 other judges. And then once you're in front of this team of judges, your heart is weighed against a feather. And if your heart was lighter than the feather, the soul could move on. If the heart was heavier than the feather, and they believed that the heart was made heavy by bad deeds you did on earth, then the heart was eaten by a monster, and the soul would no longer exist. The end. Ancient Egyptians called the afterlife the field of reeds, and it was considered a beautiful, more perfect mirror of your earthly life.

13:18Speaker 1:So I just love to watch how these civilizations are growing and transforming. We go from ancient Mesopotamia, where they looked at the dead as being in a dark and dreary place, where they were eating mud and dirt and needing offerings from their family, for sustenance to this ancient Egyptian culture where the afterlife is a beautiful place. And the ancient Egyptians, as we were referring to before, believed the soul had five parts. They believed that there was a part of your soul called the ren, that's your name given at birth. This part of the soul lives as long as its name is spoken and remembered. The other part of the soul is the shuit, and that's your shadow or the essence of who you are. And then there's your heart, the seed of your soul. It holds your emotions, your will, intent, and thought. There's the Ba, which is your personality. It's what makes you unique. And then there's the Ka. That's your fire, your light, your spark that makes you alive. After death, the ancient Egyptians believed that the Ba, the personality, and the Ka, your passion, came together to form the Ak. And it is that

14:24Speaker 1:part of the soul that would often return as a ghost. And this is interesting because a lot of people today have put forth this theory that ghosts aren't really the ghost of that person, but it's remnants of that person's personality that have stayed behind. Like as you shed your earthly body, you also shed aspects of yourself you no longer need, and that is what is left on Earth to roam and what we see as ghost. I don't know that's true, but I think it's an interesting viewpoint. Well, it is an interesting viewpoint.

15:00Speaker 2:Let me move on here to ancient Egypt. We're back in Egypt again with burial rites and how the tombs of almost everybody, not just rich kings, were prepared for the next life with food and with jewels. And I mean, there's a whole ritual of caregiving for sending the person on to the next life. That was a part of Egyptian culture and probably still is today in some ways. And so when we think about folks coming back in the Egyptian belief system, there's got to be a pretty darn good reason because they look like they are sent off pretty comfortably.

15:36Speaker 1:That's true.

15:37Speaker 2:It is true. So let's share an ancient ghost story from Egypt. One night in ancient Thebes, the high priest of Amun encountered a ghost whose sorrow was more unsettling than any scream. The spirit was a dead man who had been forgotten by the living for so long that even his tomb had fallen into ruin. When the high priest met him, the ghost explained that the passage of years had destroyed his burial place, leaving his body exposed to the elements and cutting him off from the offerings that he needed in the afterlife that were lost under the rubble. His spirit could find no peace, not because he sought revenge, but because the obligations owed to the dead had been abandoned. Moved by the ghost's misery, the high priest promised to restore what time had been taken from him. He would provide him with a new and magnificent tomb and ensure that offerings were made regularly so that the forgotten dead man would once again be remembered.

16:47Speaker 2:With that promise, the haunting took on a strangely human quality. The ghost was no longer a monster stalking the living, but a neglected soul desperately asking not to be forgotten. In a world where the Egyptians believed that a person's continued existence depended in part upon the preservation of the body, the tomb, and the memory of the living, the high priest understood that the only way to silence the ghost was not to destroy it, but to give the dead what they had been denied, a proper place to rest and a name that would be remembered.

17:29Speaker 1:And that's a theme you see over and over and over again, that they will come back if they weren't buried properly or given the respect they feel they were due.

17:38Speaker 2:Isn't that what we all want?

17:40Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. That has not changed throughout all the centuries since these stories and rules and beliefs were put into place. It's just a good reminder for us all. We all should do something for our loved ones, you know, tell their stories, hold them in prayer. I think that's important.

18:01Speaker 2:You too.

18:02Speaker 1:Okay, we're going to take our first break and we're going to come back to talking about some of these ancient Egyptian beliefs on ghosts. Stay with us. Hey guys, I would love it if you checked out my newsletter, which you can find on Substack or by subscribing on my website, SamanthaFay.com. My latest newsletter is all about the magical properties of keys and how you can use them to make a lucky talisman. It's filled with great information on hagstones and skeleton keys and teaches you three ways to create avenues for more luck, protection, and positive manifesting.

18:38Speaker 1:And I'm so excited to be one of the speakers at the Edgar Cayce's annual Psychic Development Conference in Virginia Beach from November 13th to the 15th. I'll be presenting Friday night. The rest of the weekend is filled with wonderful presenters like the fabulous medium Mark Anthony, spiritual teacher Joanne DiMaggio, Writer Happy Ali, and so many more. To register, go to EdgarCasey.org. Hope to see you there. Welcome back. So similar to ancient Mesopotamia, the Ak could return to the world of the living to right any wrongs. That's the part of the soul that combines the Ba and the Ka. That part could come back. If they were appeased with offerings, they would be of great help to the living. So again, we see another growth here, where it's not so much that the living have to take care of the dead in order to sustain them in the afterworld. Now we have kind of a give and take relationship. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. You leave me a bowl of rice, I'll help you with that job situation. And we see that exchange still today in many ways. I mean, in my belief, for example, you go to church and you light a candle and

19:53Speaker 1:you ask that the light will go and bring light, love, and peace to your loved one in heaven. And in return, they will help watch over you. I mean, we have whole masses that are said for the deceased. It's a belief I was raised with, and I really like that belief. The idea that we do have to pray for the deceased, that our prayers do have an impact and can help them. But I like that even the ancient Egyptians believed that our loved ones in heaven could help us here. And I really believe that. And I know you do too.

20:24Speaker 2:Absolutely, I do. So let's move over to the ancient Greeks. They believed that the afterlife had three realms. The river Styx would take you to the afterworld. you'd pay a coin to the ferryman. There's a song, don't pay the ferryman until he gets you to the other side. The greater the amount of the coin, the better the seat on the ferry. So it wasn't so much that if you left a ton of coins, you'd get a better spot in the afterworld. It was about the boat ride on the River Styx. And after passing the three-headed dog, Berius, the Berus? I think of him as Fluffy, okay, but that's a different story. You'd stand before three judges. So again, we had this concept of judgment, and you would tell the story of your life. After they listened to you tell your story, the judges would then meet and confer and decide your fate. The judges would then decide where you go. Soldiers who died in battle went to the Eleusinian fields, which were like a perfect paradise. If you led a good, decent life, you go to the plain of Asphodel. If you were bad, you go to Tartarus, where you'd remain until you had atoned for your sins.

21:50Speaker 1:And I want everyone to pay attention to that, because this is important. No soul was ever condemned to eternal hell. And in all the research we did for this show, I did not find one ancient belief that preached eternal hell and damnation. There's always hope for redemption, and that's something I definitely respect about the ancients. I wonder if this is where Catholics got the concept of purgatory. You know, because the Catholic Church used to teach, they've amended it a lot, but they used to teach that you would either go to heaven or hell or purgatory. And purgatory was this place where you just kind of would sit and hang out, kind of like a hellish waiting room is how I used to think about it. And you would just wait for people on earth to pray for you.

22:33Speaker 1:and you would say prayers to atone for your sins. And then when you'd atoned enough, you could get out of purgatory and move on up to heaven.

22:44Speaker 2:I'm just envisioning this ladder climbing is where I'm going here.

22:49Speaker 1:You know, that idea of eternal hell and damnation, it almost feels like it was made up and put in after Martin Luther put his complaints on the church door.

22:58Speaker 2:Well, it does seem very puritanical and Yes, it does, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it really does. I think it's really fascinating to look at the progress of these ancient cultures and how they all believed in ghosts and how their view of the afterlife evolved and changed. And yet some of it remained the same. They all believed that ghosts would haunt for a reason. It was never just because they were antsy and wanted to mess with us. It was always for a reason. The ancient Greeks believed in not only three places in the afterlife, but also three reasons why someone could become a ghost. One way was if you weren't given a proper burial, another if you had unfinished business, and the third was if you had suffered a violent death. Does that sound like every ghost investigation you've ever heard about?

23:55Speaker 1:Yeah, it does actually sound pretty similar.

23:58Speaker 2:Very much so. Yeah.

24:01Speaker 1:Okay, ready for another ancient ghost story? Sure.

24:04Speaker 2:Okay.

24:05Speaker 1:So in Athens, there stood a great house that had been abandoned for years. Its doors locked and its rooms left to gather dust because no one dared spend a night within its walls. According to Pliny the Younger, the reason was a terrifying apparition that appeared after dark. An old, emaciated man with a long, tangled beard. his wrists and ankles bound by heavy chains that rattled ominously as he wandered through the house. No one could explain who the ghost was or why it haunted the place, until the philosopher, Athenodorus, rented the house for a remarkably cheap price. He was unimpressed by the rumors, so he just settled in with his writing materials and stayed awake late into the night, working quietly by lamplight. Then, in the dead of night, he heard it, the slow, unmistakable clatter of chains. Looking up, he saw the ghost standing before him, pale and gaunt, silently beckoning him to follow. Rather than flee, the philosopher calmly rose and followed the apparition through the dark halls out into the courtyard, where the figure suddenly vanished. So the philosopher marked the exact spot, where the ghost had disappeared,

25:26Speaker 1:and waited until morning. The next day, he summoned the city magistrates and told them what had happened. When they ordered the ground dug up, the workers uncovered an ancient skeleton, its bones still tangled in rusted chains. The remains were given a proper public burial, and from that night onward, the ghost was never seen again. For years, people had feared the house because of this restless spirit. But All this ghost ever wanted was for someone to find him and give him a proper burial.

26:00Speaker 2:Wow. Those are different kinds of chains than the one for Scrooge and Jacob Marley. Yeah, exactly.

26:07Speaker 1:They were actual chains, not metaphorical chains.

26:10Speaker 2:Right, exactly. Okay, so I've got an ancient Roman ghost story I want to share. Y'all remember the famous line from Caesar, et tu, Brutus? Well, Brutus himself went on to become part of another famous story. Brutus, as you probably know, was a Roman politician and one of Julius Caesar's assassins. He reportedly encountered a terrifying apparition before his death. According to Plutriart's Life of Brutus, he was awakened late one night while his army was camped in Asia when he heard movement inside his tent. He turned and found a dreadful apparition standing silently beside him. When Brutus demanded to know who it was, the spirit gave him a chilling warning. I shall see thee at Philippi. Brutus apparently showed little fear, but the prophecy would soon come true.

27:12Speaker 2:At the second battle of Philippi in 42 BC, his forces were defeated by a Octavian and Mark Anthony. Facing the collapse of its cause, Brutus fell on his sword and died, just as the apparition had foretold. And on that spooky note, let's take another break. Hi, everybody.

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28:20Speaker 2:Stevebowen.com Thanks so much, everybody. Welcome back. Let's go to China, shall we? Because China has some real interesting perspectives on ghosts. In Chinese culture, the belief is that a spirit of a person who has drowned, died alone, died in battle, or suffered some other kind of death where they went unburied would appear bodily but could only be seen at night by a torchlight. The spirit of an ancestor who wished to relate some information to family members or give a warning would appear in a dream. Chinese folk believed in the reality of ghosts, that there were different kinds of ghosts who appeared in different ways depending on how they died or what people needed to learn from the ghost.

29:13Speaker 2:The Chinese belief in ghosts was, of course, heavily influenced by the idea of ancestor worship. The idea that our dearly departed continue to exert a powerful influence on family members' lives. And in fact, I think we'll talk more about this when we get into a discussion on Celtic cultures, but the idea of what Celtic culture is called a dumb supper, meaning silent, is also something that you see in Asian cultures, and in China particularly, where there are meals served, where there's a place set at the table for the deceased. I find it fascinating that that's cross-cultural there.

29:54Speaker 2:They're very specific in their funeral rites, the Chinese folks are, about how the dead are to be treated. It's important that the funeral rites take place properly or else the spirit of the dead will come back and have to get permission from heaven to return and right the wrong of what's been done to them or what's not been done properly for the burial. Very similarly to what we saw in ancient Mesopotamia, Babylonian cultures and in Egypt and Greece, this idea that you have to take care of your dead, that you have to bury your dead or at least honor them in some way is a common theme that runs through all of these cultures and that you must bury and honor the dead or they will have permission to haunt you.

30:44Speaker 1:It's so fascinating to look at that common thread. Even the famous Chinese philosopher Confucius believed in these ghost stories because he felt that they taught us lessons we can learn from these supernatural encounters that instill proper virtues in the living. And he felt this was particularly true in Hungry Ghost, in which spirits whose relatives had forgotten their duties of respect and remembrance, or spirits of those who had been murdered but whose killers had not been brought to justice, would become Hungry Ghost. Hungry for justice, or starving to be remembered. So these hungry ghosts were thought to have received special dispensation from the gods to torment the living until they received justice. The hungry ghosts would torment the mind of the living or inhabit the home and behave along the lines of kind of like poltergeist.

31:33Speaker 1:So behave in this lifetime or the hungry ghost is going to come and wreak havoc in your life, in other words. And this also infiltrated their beliefs about reincarnation. Sometimes ghosts became hungry ghosts not because of their family's inability to properly bury them or honor them, but because of their own wrongdoings. There's a myth or a ghost story legend of a nasty woman who was mean to a holy man and was therefore prohibited from reincarnating. In the story, a monk visits a couple's house for something to drink, and for some reason, this nasty lady urinates in the cup and gives it to the monk. And he, of course, was made aware of this when he took a sip. And so when she died, she was not able to be reborn. She stayed a hungry ghost, traveling the land, seeking the sustenance that she denied the monk.

32:24Speaker 1:And here's another famous ghost story from ancient China. There's a story about a king who ordered the execution of his minister, Tupou, for political reasons. It was largely viewed as an unfair execution. And then three years later, the king was riding out with all his men to hunt. He was surrounded by hundreds of courtiers who gathered to witness the royal spectacle. Now, Tu Po had been condemned despite proclaiming his innocence. And before his execution three years before this encounter, he had sworn that he would return to seek justice. Most men would have dismissed such a threat once the condemned minister was buried. But according to ancient Chinese tradition, The dead could sometimes carry grievances that even death could not silence. So on that hunting day, with the king surrounded by guards and nobles, something impossible appeared before them. A figure approached in a white chariot, dressed in crimson armor and gripping a red bow. The courtiers recognized the dead man.

33:26Speaker 2:It was Tupou.

33:28Speaker 1:For a moment, the hunting group fell silent as the ghost raised his bow and drew back the strings. Then he released one single arrow. It struck the king and he fell dead right in front of his men. The apparition disappeared as mysteriously as it had arrived, leaving behind a story that was more than a tale of revenge. It was a warning. Even though he'd been silenced by the king's judgment three years later, the dead minister returned from the grave with a weapon in his hands and a debt of justice to collect. The king, who had believed himself powerful enough to condemn an innocent man, discovered too late that death itself might not protect the guilty from the judgment of the dead.

34:09Speaker 2:Ooh, that's a scary story.

34:12Speaker 3:I know.

34:13Speaker 1:Of course, I'm just thinking, maybe all the noblemen just made it up so they could execute the king who had gotten too power hungry, and they were like, the ghost did it.

34:22Speaker 2:Well, there may be that. But while you were talking about that, I have to tell you, I was over here perseverating. on the myth story about the woman who urinated in the monk's cup and became a hungry ghost. I mean, that's just bizarre to me. And there's a similar, I know it is. So there's a similar legend in both ancient and modern India, where some ghosts appear as humans, but with backward feet. These feet were thought to represent that something had gone wrong and that the spirit was in an unnatural state and had not passed on to the next life properly. Sometimes these were people who had died before their ordained time on earth was completed. So they may have been murdered or something bad happened to them in some way. And sometimes they reanimated in their own corpse. And sometimes they took over or possessed a living person's body. Yikes. And one researcher said that this is one of the reasons in India why they moved to cremation of bodies to keep the spirits alive. from returning to a body and reanimating, which I thought was just fascinating.

35:36Speaker 1:It is, because you don't really think about where did that belief come from.

35:40Speaker 2:I guess I never had.

35:41Speaker 1:You know why some people bury, some people will do cremation, or a Viking funeral is totally different. You know, you don't really sit around and think about, well, how did that get started? I wonder if that could be one of the reasons.

35:58Speaker 2:It could be.

35:59Speaker 1:I mean, you're right.

36:00Speaker 2:I've never given that a whole lot of thought as to where some of these funeral and burial customs came from like this. But it makes sense. And I do know also, and I don't know whether or not it's still practiced in India. I bet it is with some groups. I think the practice is called Sati, S-U-T-T-E-E. It's where if a husband dies, the wife also is put on the funeral pyre.

36:27Speaker 1:Oh, gosh. Wow, that's horrific to think about. It really is. I mean, you hear about the ancient Egyptians burying people with their servants and their cats, but not their spouses, too.

36:40Speaker 2:Yep.

36:41Speaker 1:Wow. Well, now I'm wondering if these places, if the areas where cremation is the number one way of burying people, disposing of people, there must not be a lot of zombie or vampire stories in those cultures.

36:57Speaker 2:I bet not. And it also, of course, then frees the soul to move on to the next life. Yeah. Because there's no body to come back to in this life.

37:08Speaker 1:Well, moving from India and China, let's go now to Mesoamerica. In the Mayan belief system, lingering ghosts were considered intolerable and needed to be kept at bay. So we have lots of charms and amulets and the intercession of a shaman to create a barrier or a wall between the living and the dead. They saw the underworld as a dark and terrible place in the Mayan culture. There were numerous lords of the dead who could trick the soul of a deceased person as he or she tried to get to paradise. Sometimes they were conducted across great expanses of water by a spirit dog who would help them to escape and come back up above ground. Well, now that would just scare me.

37:49Speaker 2:Well, that would be scary, but it's a different task for this dog, isn't it?

37:54Speaker 1:Yeah, another dog. Had they... encountered the ancient Greeks, or is there some truth to some spirit dog?

38:02Speaker 2:I don't know. And of course, there's always the legend that Hecate has a dog. She's often depicted with a dog.

38:10Speaker 1:So again, we see that. Interesting.

38:13Speaker 2:Okay, let's go to Celtic culture. And we are moving, of course, into my favorite time of the year, which we call Halloween in our modern culture. In the Celtic tradition, it's called Samhain, although... In Scotland, it's pronounced Sovin. And that word means both the end of summer and the beginning of a new year. It is the third of three harvest festivals. And in the pagan wheel of the year, this is New Year's Day, Samhain is. This is a time to begin the turning of the wheel again. And the logic behind that is that with that third harvest, the year is finished. Crops are gathered in. Things are being prepared for winter. It's time to rest and reflect and think about where you're going in this next year.

39:01Speaker 2:It's also a time, one of two times, when the veil between the worlds is thinnest. That's true at Samhain and at Beltane, which is in May. It's a time when we can more easily connect with our loved ones. And the belief has been for thousands of years that our loved ones come back to visit us during this time to give us hope. to remind us to be connected to each other. That trick-or-treating custom that we're so familiar with actually comes from a very old tradition called wassailing, or a-souling, a soul, a soul, a soul cake. Please, good miss, is a soul cake. That eventually moved to Yule, but the original holiday was Salad, where that was celebrated, this eating and drinking and being merry and celebrating both the living and the dead. Folks would go from house to house praying for the souls of the loved ones who had died. And in turn, they would get a penny or a hay penny, a half penny, or an apple, a plum, a cherry, any good thing to make us all merry. You know the song.

40:08Speaker 1:If you haven't got a hay penny, God bless you.

40:12Speaker 2:That's right, exactly. And soul cakes, by the way, are sort of like shortbreads. I have a recipe for soul cakes, and it's terrible, but we'll move on.

40:22Speaker 1:I remember you saying that it was dense and tasteless.

40:26Speaker 2:Oh, and hard as a, I mean, it's like a hockey puck, but anyway. That's where the origin of trick-or-treating came from, was this idea of going from house to house. And sometimes people would play tricks if they weren't given soul cake or something to drink. And that was also a time where they would pray for the dead, the people who were walking through the village. In about 700... Pope Boniface created All Saints Day in the Catholic Church, but it was originally celebrated on May 13th. And in 900, Pope Gregory III moved All Saints Day to November 1st in an attempt to counterpoint Samhain. And so that evening before All Saints Day on October 31st became known as All Hallows' Eve, the evening before All Saints Day. And it's from that that we get the term Halloween, meaning basically Hallow's Eve. And so this is a night to commune with your loved ones across the veil. They can come visit you. This is a night of divination, of honoring ghosts and loved ones with what we mentioned a minute ago is called a dumb supper. It means a silent supper. Literally, you set the table, get everything you

41:41Speaker 2:need brought in, light the candles, say some prayers. And there is a place set at the table for the deceased or to represent the deceased. And I love this part of this. The meal is conducted in absolute silence. You don't talk. You don't have anything to say. You just make space and honor the person or persons who are not there. And when food is passed around the table, the person sitting closest to the empty seat with the table with a plate in front of it, puts everything that's passed around the table on the plate. And I just love that, that there's a little bit given there.

42:20Speaker 2:And then at the end of the meal, that food on that plate is taken outside and shared with the four-legged folks. I love that. In the Lakota tradition, that same practice is called giving a spirit plate to their loved ones. But that's what's happening in the Celtic lands, is this idea that our loved ones are there at that table with us, They're always accessible to us, but even more particularly on All Hallows' Eve. So we have this idea again that our deceased ones are able to connect with us and to help us and that we can honor them every year, at least on that particular night.

43:01Speaker 1:I think that's important to do that. It doesn't have to be Halloween or Samhain. It can be on your loved one's birthday or their anniversary of their crossing over. But to take those moments, And just think about them and, you know, raise a glass to them. I think that's so, so important.

43:18Speaker 2:I do too. I've been doing that silent supper on Samhain particularly for many years. And it's a lovely service. It really is.

43:25Speaker 1:I'm sure it is. But we've got to get back to spooky stuff, Deb, okay?

43:30Speaker 2:Okay.

43:32Speaker 1:And how can we talk about Celtic ghosts without mentioning the Banshee? The word Banshee usually brings to mind a ghostly woman whose whale predicts death. But older Irish and Celtic traditions paint a more complicated picture. Some Banshees were once associated with goddesses and war. One famous figure, Halval, was said to haunt Craglia in the House of Cass, and legend holds that she appeared to Brian Boru before the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, warning him that he would not survive the fight. Banshees were also traditionally linked to great Celtic families, with some said to rule over groups of lesser spirits. Their forms varied, some appeared as young women, others as old women in dark cloaks, while one from Connemara was said to wear red and sing rather than wail. In older stories, banshees did more than scream warnings from the darkness. They might be seen washing blood from clothing or heads or limbs before a battle, offering a chilling glimpse of the death to come. But perhaps one of the oldest written ghost stories we have from this area is the Adventure of Nera, with the written account dating to around the 8th to 10th century.

44:52Speaker 1:And it says that at a Samhain feast at Cruachan, a king named King Aliel dared his warriors to venture into the dark and tie a band around the ankle of a hanged corpse. The story opens at the Samhain feast of Queen Maeve and her husband Aliel. who proposes a challenge to his warriors about going out and tying this willow branch around the feet of a man who had been hung. Only one warrior named Nera was brave enough to try it. And as he approached to fasten the willow branch around his ankle, the corpse suddenly sprang back into life, jumped onto Nera's back like a jumping spider, clamping his legs around his neck. The dead man was thirsty, and he forced Nera to carry him from house to house looking for a drink, since the dead could not cross into homes protected by a ring of fire or a moat of water. Once the corpse rides Nera's back and demands a drink, Nera is like, okay, calm down, and he goes from house to house. But one's guarded by a ring of fire, another house has a moat around it, which is impassable.

46:05Speaker 2:To the dead.

46:06Speaker 1:Finally, they reach a filthy, disordered house where the corpse finally gets a drink. Nera then unknowingly follows a raiding party of the Otherworld, and he follows these otherworldly beings back into their fairy mound. It's called the Cave of the Cats, and it's a real cave still around at Rothkragen, and it's considered by some still to be a gateway to the Otherworld. So he follows all these otherworldly beings into this cave, this mound, and inside he finds that beings from the mound have already destroyed the royal hall above, you know, where the king and queen are, where they're daring him to do all this stuff, and left a pile of severed heads in its place. It's a vision, though.

46:51Speaker 1:It's not the present. It's a vision of the future. So while Nera is trapped inside, an otherworldly woman there becomes his wife, bears him a son, and eventually tells him what he saw was a prophecy. The destruction that he saw will actually happen the next Samhain, unless he warns Queen Med and King Alil. She sends him back with proof that he truly been to the underworld. She sends him back with flowers and wild garlic that were somehow blooming in the dead of winter. So when he returns to the feast to tell everyone, like, yeah, I did the dare and this ghost jumped on my back and then I went into this whole adventure he went on, he realizes no time had passed. I mean, think about that.

47:37Speaker 1:He's had this scary encounter with a ghost. He's gone into the mound and entered the other world, fallen in love with a woman who had his baby, but he goes back to the castle and it's like 10 minutes has passed. So he's telling them at this feast that Like, okay, this is what happened to me. Here's the warning. Here's the proof. He shows them the garlic and the flowers. And so the following Samhain, the queen and king and their forces read the Sid first, preempting the attack and looting treasures from it, including a bull calf whose bloodline becomes central to a much bigger story you can read called the Cattle Raid of Cooley. It's one of the centerpieces of Irish mythology. Mira himself, though, he chooses to stay behind in the other world with his fairy wife and his son for the rest of his life. So it's a story about Samhain as a hinge point. This one night of the year where the walls between the worlds are so thin that a man can walk through, see a possible future, and come back changed by it.

48:42Speaker 1:What do you think of that?

48:44Speaker 2:I think that's amazing. And he chose to stay. Yes. In the other world. Woo, boy. We have been fascinated with that possibility of crossing back and forth across the veil for millennia.

49:01Speaker 1:I'm fascinated by stories of fairies because they're either little or they're just like us or they're mean or they're tricksters or they're wonderful and beautiful and no one wants to leave.

49:11Speaker 2:Or they're just like us and they're wonderful and beautiful and they have pointed ears. Yeah.

49:15Speaker 1:The stories are all over the place. There's no consistency.

49:19Speaker 2:Which I think is also a part of the fun of it, you know? Yeah, that's true.

49:23Speaker 1:I love those.

49:24Speaker 2:Okay, we have one more story about the Headless Horseman of Ireland, which may have inspired Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow tale. The Headless Horseman of Ireland is... is thought to be the embodiment of an ancient Celtic god named Black Crom. He was worshipped by a prehistoric king who ruled an island about 1,500 years ago. This king offered a human sacrifice to this fertility god each year.

49:53Speaker 3:Yikes!

49:55Speaker 2:Decapitation was the favored method. When worship of the old gods fell out of favor in Ireland by the 6th century, they did not entirely go away. This story has morphed into the legend of the Headless Horseman. In October, of course, is the likely time of year when he most likely made his journey from the other world to ours. When people see him, he's wearing all black with a black cape flapping in the wind as he sits atop a fearsome red-eyed horse. In one hand, he carries a human spine as a whip, and in the other, his severed head.

50:34Speaker 2:Unlike the banshee, who is typically attached to a particular family and whose cries come as a warning of death, this headless horseman is allowed to speak but once on each journey, and that is only to call the name of the person whose soul he draws forth with the calling of that name. However, this is a specter that can be tempted away from stealing your soul if you give him a bit of gold. There's an old story from County Galway that tells of a man walking home one night just after the sun sets. It was just getting dark when all of a sudden he hears the sound of horses' hooves pounding along the road behind him.

51:20Speaker 2:Looking back, he sees the headless horsemen of Ireland charging towards him. With a loud shout, he made to run, but the thing came on after him, gaining on him all the time. It would have carried him away had he not dropped a gold-headed pin from the folds of his shirt onto the road behind him. There was a roar in the air above him, and when he looked up again, the headless horseman was gone. I assume so was the pin. So if you find yourself walking by yourself in the countryside, an island on a dark, lonely night, be sure to carry a piece of gold with you.

52:01Speaker 1:I kind of love that idea of the scary headless ghost coming up to you and you're like, hey, would you like my gold earring? And he's like, okay. And just goes on his way.

52:12Speaker 2:I like that too.

52:17Speaker 1:But following the themes in all of these cultures is really interesting. And if you guys enjoy that, I do recommend Joshua Cutchin. He has written a lot of books following themes throughout cultures. Like one is The Brimstone Deceit, where he talks about certain smells and scents. Like why does every culture say sulfur is connected with something negative or evil? He has The Ecology of Soul, which is about the commonalities in death and things like what we're talking about now. A Trojan Feast, that's another good one.

52:53Speaker 1:I think that's the first one of his I read. And it's just all about food and drink offerings. and connecting them to stories of aliens, fairies, and Bigfoot.

53:03Speaker 2:We could go on and on and on about that, couldn't we?

53:06Speaker 3:I know. Fine.

53:08Speaker 1:We hope we've given you some food for thought as you prepare for the Halloween season. This is the time when the veil is at its thinnest, so it's just a wonderful, wonderful month for you to reach out to your loved ones on the other side, ask them to show up for you in a dream, ask them to gift you with a sign from above, And to have that validation and that comfort in your heart that your loved ones on the other side do go on. I think it's important before we wrap up the show to differentiate between a ghost and a spirit. So we do believe that spirits can visit us. And sometimes people might mistake that as a ghost. But there is a difference.

53:44Speaker 1:And the main difference you can note is your emotion. If you see a spark out of the corner of your eye, if you see an image of someone and you feel fear instantly, That could just be that you're a jumpy, easily startled person, or it could be that it's a ghost. But if you see a spark of light or an image out of your peripheral vision and you feel a sense of love or comfort and peace, then that's a sign that that's a visit from a loved one in heaven. And that's very, very different. So I think the key to discernment is your emotion. How does that visit, that sight of that paranormal experience, how does it make you feel? Always follow your feelings. because you'll know the difference, don't you agree?

54:27Speaker 2:Well, I do, but as you're talking, I'm thinking about the ghost of the woman who lived in the apartment. This is kind of a follow-on to the story of the apartment that Merlin and I moved into together after we talked about him in a recent episode. And the woman who had died in that apartment came to see me as I was moving in. I was standing on a stepladder putting dishes in the cupboards. And I felt something behind me and I turned around and she was standing in the kitchen behind me. And I said, I just was startled, of course. And I realized that she was not going to go away. I was in her house where she had lived for 17 years and had lots of fun with lots of really interesting people. And she was not leaving. And so I spoke to her, called her by name. And I said, I promise you, that I will carry on the traditions of inviting folks over and having interesting conversations in this apartment. I promise I will do that. But can we arrange a place where you might be comfortable and I won't kind of like walk into you in the middle of the night and stuff. There was a book that had been written

55:43Speaker 2:about the house I lived in. And on the cover of the book, she was in a rocking chair on the porch. A pencil sketch that was the cover of the book. And I asked her if she would consider going to the porch and sitting in her rocking chair. And she did. And for the whole time I lived there, which was another, I lived there six or seven years, she would sit on the porch. And there were two rocking chairs on the porch. And one that was always her chair sometimes would rock. And the other one was perfectly still. And I knew she was sitting out there on the porch. And she stayed out of the kitchen.

56:18Speaker 2:Do you think she.

56:19Speaker 1:Was a ghost, though, or a spirit? who kind of had a foot in both worlds.

56:24Speaker 2:I think she had a spirit in both worlds and that she really was so attached to that space and to all of the wonderful things. I mean, some world famous people sat in that kitchen with her. It's a whole other story. And so she really was not very excited about going away. And she really needed to know that that apartment was going to be left in good hands. And I did my best. I really did. And she seemed to be okay with that. She never bothered me again.

56:54Speaker 2:She would resign sometimes if she had been around. But I was never frightened after that first night of her just standing there.

57:02Speaker 1:Yeah, that would startle and freak me out.

57:04Speaker 2:She was just, I could have touched her.

57:06Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing. If you do see a ghost this month, we hope it's a friendly ghost. And we hope more... than that that you have a lovely encounter or dream experience with a loved one or friend that you're missing on the other side we hope you guys have a beautiful happy week filled with magical wonderful happy dreams and experiences be the light for yourself and others take care everyone Thank you for listening to Psychic Teachers, your podcast for seekers, lightworkers, mystics, and magical thinkers. If you like the show, please tell a friend or leave us a review wherever you listen to your podcast. For more information, check out our Facebook page, Psychic Teachers, or our websites, SamanthaFay.com and DebBowen.com. Thanks for listening and have a great week.