Why ghost stories captivate us
From ghost tours to horror films, society’s fascination with the paranormal is undying.
In a new ghosts course taught at Virginia Tech, ghost stories aren’t just viewed as a source of fear, but as a tool for understanding how the past continually shapes the present. Taught by Shaily Patel, assistant professor in the Department of Religion and Culture, the class examines what it means to be haunted.
Patel shared why society is drawn to ghost stories and the lessons that they can teach us about trauma and unresolved histories.
Why are some people fascinated with ghosts?
There are a lot of reasons, I think. We’re fascinated by the uncanny or supernatural – those things that we cannot explain or are perhaps fearful of. Some people might be compelled by the idea of trying to prove the existence of ghosts. Others simply enjoy the adrenaline rush of being scared.
How do ghosts fit into the broader study of religion and culture?
Ghost figures of one sort or another appear across cultures. These figures may not always represent the same thing, of course. But there's certainly something about life after death that has captured the human imagination. And so, a course like this is less about the dead — or undead — than it is about the living.
It begins with the premise that ghost stories really aren't about ghosts; they're about us, and how we reckon with history. This course uses ghosts as a cultural metaphor to talk about all the ways that the past continues to impose upon the present, much like a haunting. So, the animating question behind the course is: What are we haunted by, and why do these things haunt us?
Why should we study ghost stories?
They can teach us about ourselves, and how we've not fully resolved parts of the past; how we're constantly trying — and not always succeeding — to make sense of past horror like mass violence, enslavement, or displacement; how we're not always as rational as we imagine ourselves to be; how there are parts of our past that we simply cannot escape.
The cultural metaphor works because ghosts are liminal creatures, meaning they are in-between. They're living and yet not; here but not, corporeal but also not. The ability of the ghost figure to straddle these conceptual conflations makes it especially useful to think with.
Are ghosts real? Is that beside the point?
It is beside the point. But that's the whole point of the course. We're not really interested in whether or not ghosts are real. Scholars of religion very rarely ask after the existence of gods or tell people what they should or should not believe. We're not interested in proving or disproving belief. We're more interested in what people do with their belief. Religion is what people do. As a religion course, we're most interested in how people use ghost stories and legends to transmit ideas, morals, and values.
Has the course inspired students to share their own ghost stories?
I started the term with an icebreaker exercise where I asked students to relate a local ghost story. My students aren't all local to Blacksburg or Southwest Virginia, so I've heard stories from as far away as Paris. It's been really illuminating to see just how widespread these sorts of stories are and why ghostly figures emerge in some historical contexts.
