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The medieval church put
this fear to good effect, declaring ghosts the province of dark forces
and regarding those who saw them as witches or in league with the
devil. This was done to allow Jesus, who on his resurrection became,
in a sense, the most famous ghost of all, to take on the unique status
that the church believed was due to him. Such indoctrination was
largely responsible for the study into psychic phenomena going
underground and adopting the term occult, which literally means
'hidden'. It became a secret knowledge which it was dangerous to
acquire, less on account of its own nature than because of its
religious association with evil.
The perception persists even today. Meetings that deal with ghostly
phenomena have from time to time been stopped by local authorities put
under pressure by vociferous religious bodies.
The activities of exorcist stem from these roots. Leaving aside
ludicrous TV presentations which usually equate comic movies like
Ghostbusters with the truth, exorcisms are attempts to drive evil
spirits out of people's houses and back into the arms of God -
although it is often a poltergeist outbreak that is being exorcised
rather than a haunting or apparition. There are serious doubts whether
ghosts and hauntings are even connected with poltergeist activity, and
the latter probably owes its power more to the living than to the
dead. |
