| This handsome painting depicts Shadow The Ghost reading from a book and going for a peaceful solitary walk along a country road. Located in the background, a magestic Victorian mansion which gives this picture a grand appeal. Divine reading has a broader connotation than ordinary reading- we ordinarily read newspapers and magazines for information and entertainment purposes. But in divine reading, we read not so much for information and amusement, but for reflective, meditative and spiritual encounters. Thus, divine reading is meant to lead us into spiritual experience and communion with reality.
The functions of a ghost are twofold: Haunting and Transcending. Ghosts are very proficient at haunting. Ghosts have been known to interfere in the daily life of mortals and haunt them with disturbing scenarios. Ghost can haunt their victims in a variety of ways. Ghosts can appear as apparitions and shadows on the wall. They can visit you with sounds of rapping on your door, pings on your bedroom window, and steps on the attic floor above. They can also produce indeterminate odors, and you may at times feel the grip of their icy hands. Through their hauntings, a ghost can reduce a strong person to weakness and a sane individual to the depths of insanity- Because of their haunting abilities, people often view ghosts as malevolent or evil entities; however, this is not necessarily the case. Before you rush to judgement, let me assure you that ghosts, and their hauntings, do have a benevolent and holy end in view. Ghosts do not haunt just for the sake of haunting; rather, they haunt for a specific purpose. And this purpose is benevolent. So why do ghosts haunt? Ghosts haunt different people for different reasons. Each haunting is unique. But I can propose some general reasons. Ghosts haunt for the purpose of giving their victims a sense of the supernatural and spiritual dimension of life. A person who has undergone a haunting by a ghost will never again view life in quite the same way. They will now view life physically as well as spiritually and supernaturally. In this sense, a common purpose of a haunting is to initiate a person into spirituality. However, the main purpose why a ghost haunts is 'always' to bring about transcendence. This brings us to the second function of a ghost.
The second function of a ghost is to lead their victims into transcendence. As you are probably aware, ghosts have the ability to move through walls and fly through the air. Indeed, even the prisons and dungeons of the abyss cannot hold a ghost. What do these transcendent qualities of ghosts symbolize? For us psychologically, these qualities can symbolize our inner ability to transcend our problems, narrow view-points, and move towards conflict resolution. When our burdens in life seem heavy and torturous, ghosts teach us that we can transcend our burdens so that they don't become a stumbling-block. It should be noted that the transcendent qualities of ghosts do not assist us in running away or avoiding our burdens; rather, they assist us in moving 'through' our burdens. Spiritually, these qualities can mean that we can transcend or move through the grave upon death.
VanJohnstone
|