Fr. Dwight Longenecker: Are Ghosts Real?

C.S. Lewis once wrote that he only knew one person who had seen a ghost, but she still said she didn’t believe in them.

It’s easy to scoff at belief in ghosts as silly superstition, but belief in ghosts seems to have been universal across human cultures from the beginning of recorded history.

Universal belief in ghosts doesn’t mean they exist however. Nevertheless, if they are so common to human experience it’s worth asking what ghosts might be.

Do Ghosts Exist?

The dictionary says a ghost is “the soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit.” If we go with this definition, a ghost is not a demon or an extraterrestrial or a figment of your imagination. It is the invisible aspect of a human being that is separated from the physical body at death.  ….