For many people, death is not the end. If psychics and Hollywood films are to be believed, then there is plenty to look forward to after you die. Whether you are motivated by mischief, love, revenge, or even just the inevitable boredom that comes with an eternal afterlife, there are several reasons why you might pay a visit to the living. Here are some of the most common reasons that ghosts continue to hang around post-mortem.
To Pass On A Message
Ghosts have limited options in terms of how they communicate with the Living. Unless they are dealing with someone who is gifted with psychic powers, they are not able to speak directly to us. It is the main reason why many ghosts can initially appear to be hostile, especially if they begin moving things around as a poltergeist would.
Therefore, many people who find themselves being haunted by a ghost choose to speak to a psychic who can help them work out exactly what kind of ghost they are dealing with and what it wants. You can now get a psychic reading over the phone, which is better than having to live with a vengeful spirit until you can see your psychic.
However, you should be aware that ghosts will often choose to reveal their message in a relatively cryptic manner. Generally, these cryptic messages take roughly the duration of a feature-length Hollywood film to decode.
Unfinished Business
One of the most common reasons why ghosts continue to haunt the living is because they have unfinished business on earth and they need someone to help them put their affairs in order. This is a concept that has been explored in numerous works of fiction. There are also lots of films in which the main character is constantly being haunted by the ghost of a deceased person and has to work out for themselves why this is happening.
The ghosts of the deceased use their otherworldly insight in order to identify the best living soul to help them put their affairs in order so that they might finally move on to the afterlife. Until these ghosts have settled their unfinished business, they will be stuck in limbo between the world of the living and the afterlife that awaits them.
Perhaps the best-known example of a ghost of this nature can be seen in M Night Shyamalan the Sixth Sense. In this film, a young boy who is plagued by visions of the undead befriends a psychologist who, spoiler alert, turns out to be Bruce Willis the entire time. Upon finally discovering that he is, in fact, Hollywood actor Bruce Willis, the ghost can move on to the afterlife and rest in peace.
To Protect Us And Watch Over Loved Ones
The 1990 film Ghost features the now-iconic pottery scene involving Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. In the film, Patrick Swayze is murdered but is unable to move on to the afterlife as his wife is still in danger. With the help of a subway poltergeist, Patrick Swayze learns how to use his ghostly powers in order to interact with the physical world.
Despite being dead, Patrick Swayze can solve the mystery of his own death and also keep Demi Moore safe from her own would-be killers.
People who die, especially in particularly violent circumstances, and have concerns about the safety of the loved ones that they leave behind will often find themselves still tethered to our world until they know that their loved ones are safe.
To Take Revenge
Not all ghosts are nice, and not all of them are hanging around for the benefit of the living. Some ghosts are hostile, and some are even vengeful. The famous curse of Tutankhamun’s tomb is believed by many to be an example of a vengeful ghost. Whether Tutankhamun’s followers left a curse on his tomb, or whether he personally took charge of his own post-Pharaoh haunting career no one can be certain of. But he is just one example of a dead person taking vengeance on the still-living.
The film The Ring explored this concept in a slightly different way. In that film, the spirit of murdered girl Samara can seek vengeance on the living thanks to a cursed videotape. Whether ghosts can take their revenge on the living without having the foresight to institute a curse before they die is a matter of debate amongst ghostologists.
Ghosts remain a mystery to us all. Even the most gifted psychics can only guess at what the afterlife has in store for us, however, by studying ghosts of different types, and their motives for interacting with the still living, we can learn a lot about human psychology and our attitudes to the afterlife.
What we have outlined above are some of the most common reasons that ghosts seem to want to hang around with the living, but the list is by no means exhaustive. None of us can really know what motivates our dead companions until we are on the same astral plane as them.