It is believed to be the soul of a deceased person
Spirits can be visible, but only a small number of cases involve visual perceptions. Basically, spirits make their presence known through mysterious sounds, smells, cold breezes and the movement of objects.
In the archaic sense, the word "spirit" means a soul or a special non-material substance, independent of the human body. After death, the soul goes to the underworld, or the afterlife, sometimes to the bottom of the lake or on the other side of the ocean, to the sky or to the moon, or to the west, where the sun sets.
They imagined differently what was happening to the soul.
For example, Melanesians are convinced that the soul after death is divided into two parts: adaro - the spirit that embodies all that was bad in a person, and aunga - a good beginning. Spirits move to neighboring islands or to the underworld. They follow to their habitat by land or on a death ship. Arriving there, they are sorted by the ruler of spirits into good and bad, according to their essence. There are different beliefs on different islands. But generally, adaro eventually dies, while aunga has a happy life. In Melanesia, as in other animistic societies, the souls of the dead are honored. In particular, the adaro is revered in San Cristobal. Spirits are different from figaro, a spirit that never had a human form.
Similarly, the ideas of the Chinese include two or even three aspects of the soul, which explains the fact that the deceased can reveal his presence not in one place, but in several places at once. There are the best and the worst parts of the soul, and in addition there is a third, which dwells in the altar of the ancestors, where relatives pray for it.
In fact, in all cultures at one time or another, there were beliefs that the spirits of the dead can return to the world of living people either in corporeal form ("walking dead") or sensory form. When they return, they may have good intentions or evil intentions. In cultures where ancestor worship exists, the return of the deceased is taken for granted, and they are often considered to be in the same home as the living.
In the West, the soul had to go to the place of its eternal sojourn, or to God in heaven or to the Devil in the underworld (or to occupy an intermediate position in purgatory between them). As a result, the returned deceased was perceived as something unnatural and frightening - a possible trick of the devil. Catholicism allows souls in purgatory to return as a ghost, but not in bodily form.
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The spirits ask the living to pray for them. In earlier times, Protestants usually believed that the dead could not return, and spirits were devilish creatures posing as dead people. These ideas continue to exist today, especially among devout Christians. In Eastern European mythology, there were vampires - the returned dead who attacked living people.
Followers of spiritualism believe that spirits are the souls of the dead, who ended up on earth either because they are in a confused state, or because they still do not perceive themselves as dead.
Mediums believe that they can communicate with spirits and they help them express themselves.
Numerous stories about the returning dead are based on the following: the spirit returns to take revenge on its treacherous killer (see Spirit from Greenbrier), to take care of unfinished business; convey important information that was not reported during life; punish living enemies; protect loved ones or give advice; reward the living, or simply reenact their death. In folklore, it was believed that spirits behave like ordinary people - they eat, drink and look quite normal. This is what misleads those who come across them until the truth is discovered.
In every culture there are superstitions about spirits.
For example, the following beliefs are widespread in European folklore: you should never touch the spirit; spirits cannot cross flowing water (as well as sorcerers, vampires, demons and other evil creatures); perfume appears only at night; perfumes have specific smells. Smells are the second most common sign of a ghost.
However, it is not true that spirits appear only at night, many appear during the day. It can be assumed that foggy forms visible to the eye are easier to distinguish at night, or that a person is more susceptible to clairvoyance at night, when he is in a relaxed state or asleep (many spirits appear in dreams or awaken people from sleep). In addition, such conditions can be considered conducive to the occurrence of hallucinations. On many occasions, the spirits were said to have appeared at dusk (American perfume researcher Dale Kaczmarek called such stories "sleeping episodes"). The storytellers claimed to be awake while they were asleep or dormant. Many of the spirits that have been reported could just be a play of light and shadow. The same spirits reported in connection with thunderstorms could be caused by electrical discharges in the atmosphere. Contrary to popular beliefs, spirits are more often found not in cemeteries, but in buildings - houses and buildings. In Hong Kong, a huge number of spirits are associated with the buildings that the Japanese occupied during the Second World War. Many of them were interrogated, and hundreds of Chinese are said to have been tortured there. Apart from these buildings marked by the Japanese occupation, hospitals are the places where spirits are most often found.
According to researchers of the phenomena of the psyche, the overwhelming majority of reports about spirits that they studied, in fact, have a natural explanation (see Hunting for spirits). However, there remains a small number of cases - about two percent - for which no explanation can be found. Researchers can't figure out what this is. For more than a hundred years of scientific work in this area, they have not finally decided on the spirits and their nature. Researchers have not come to a unanimous conclusion whether spirits are an objective reality or a product of fantasy, whether they have a mind and individuality, whether they represent mental traces of past events. It is also possible to assume that there are different types of perfume.
Frederick W. T. Myers, founder of the Society for the Study of Psychic Phenomena in London, defined the spirit as "the manifestation of constant personal energy or as an indication of some kind of force that manifests itself after death and which is in some way associated with a pre-existing personality." … Myers did not believe that spirits were conscious or sentient. However, I was convinced that they represent an involuntary projection of consciousness, which has its center somewhere else. Subsequent researchers disagreed with him, arguing that at least some spirits can be conscious.
In all societies, there have been ways and rituals that govern behavior towards disturbing spirits. Exorcism was used against spirits that bring misfortune, disease and failure (see Dybbuk). In Christianity, there was an official religious rite for the expulsion of evil spirits that completely took possession of a person, and not just spirits. Nevertheless, clergymen of different denominations perform religious acts in order to “deliver”, “free” from the spirit.
Disincarnated being, essence or supernatural force of nature
Spirits can also represent places such as mountains, lakes, trees, and especially sacred places.
Spirits are widely represented in world religions and folklore. It is generally believed that they exist in some invisible realm that can be seen under certain circumstances. It is also seen by people with the gift of clairvoyance. It is believed that spirits regularly interfere in human affairs, doing good or harm.
Spirits appear in numerous guises, such as fairies, elves, dwellers of houses or workplaces, monsters, demons and angels. In animistic representations (Animism), spirits personify basic qualities, characteristics, and elemental forces that are recognized, gratified, and worshiped. Stories about spirits, their coming to earth and their interactions with the human race are contained in myths. In different cosmologies, spirits are arranged in hierarchical ranks.
In many societies, including animistic ones, the ancestral spirits of the dead are given special honor and worship. Such spirits usually reside in a dwelling, where a special altar, or house, is created for them. They feed on sacrifices, are cognized in ritual; people seek their advice and protection.
In the precise sense of the word, the spirit is not the ghost or the spirit of the deceased, although the distinction between the two is often very vague. Spiritualists profess a belief in the immortality of the soul and speak of the spirits of the dead, contact with which is established by mediums.
It is not spirit and soul, although the term "spirit" is often used to describe the soul. For example, Frederick W. G. Myers, founder of the Society for Psychical Research, in his book The Human Personality and Its Survival After the Death of the Body (1903), argued that the spirit is "that unrecognized part of the human person … which we distinguish as acting before or after death."
Likewise, the medium Arthur Ford defined spirit as "nothing more than the stream of consciousness of the personality that we meet in every human being." This, Ford argued, is what death experiences - not as a spiritual vision, but as an "oblong spot." Ford based his views on the epistles of St. Paul, who wrote about the spiritual body. The spirit-"master" of Ford Fletcher called the spirit a "rebellious" body, which a person takes after death and which does not age and has no physical defects. After death, the spirit assumes a perfect mature spiritual body: the old become young, and the young become mature. The spiritual body has no clothes in the earthly sense, but there is a cover of light and a projection of thought.