Ghost. The word resonates with everyone differently. To some ghosts are the stuff of legends, campfire tales, horror movies and many Halloween costumes. We all know someone that swear they have seen a ghost or someone that knows someone. We all have listened to stories that made us shiver and wonder if that sound we just heard was not maybe a ghost. Chances are you, reading here can tell us a ghost story… or maybe right now feels a chill down your spine because you have met one… Ghosts are a global belief, from the Afrikaans ‘spook‘ or ‘gees‘ to the Japanese ‘yūrei’ we all have words and lore about these paranormal entities.

In Japan, spirits or ghosts are known as yūrei. Traditional Japanese belief insists that all humans have a soul or spirit called a reikon. When you die, the reikon leaves the body and enters a type of purgatory, waiting for the proper funeral rites to be performed for it so that it can join its ancestors. If the funeral rites are done properly, it is believed that that spirit becomes a protector for its living family and that spirit will come and visit during Obon in August to receive thanks, much like beliefs in Hellowe’en are in some cultures.

If the funeral rites have not been observed properly, especially if the person died in a violent or sudden manner like suicide or murder, or is influenced by powerful emotions like love, revenge, hate or sorrow, the reikon transforms into a yūrei, giving it the ability to manifest in the physical world, our world. According to yūrei lore, once a thought enters the mind of a dying person, if he or she dies, and the rituals were not properly done, the yūrei will come and complete that action be it a good or bad one. Only when a yūrei finds peace it can return to the cycle of reincarnation.

The lore also dictates that they are usually dressed in white, maybe this myth is based on the white burial kimono that the Japanese used in the Edo era. The colour white is the colour of ritual purity in Shinto beliefs, reserved for priests and the dead. Usually, the hair of a yūrei is long and black and their hands dangle lifelessly from the wrists, which they hold outstretched with the elbow close to the body.

Some types yūrei are known as the Onryō (they are vengeful ghosts returned from purgatory to avenge a wrong done to them when they were alive), Ubume (the ghost of a mother who died during childbirth that left young children behind. The ubume returns to take care of the children and even brings them sweets.), Goryō (The vengeful ghosts of the aristocratic class), Funayūrei (the ghosts of those who died at sea. They can be fish-like in appearance or look like mermaids or mermen), Zashiki-warashi: (the mischievous ghosts of children), and earth-bound spirits or jibakurei. Ghosts come in many shapes and forms. They can have grudges, haunt objects like videos, and haunts houses and forests. If they are real or superstition is in the beholder’s eye.