It’s that frightening time of year again... No, not tax
time! Although that’d be close.
It’s Halloween, and that brings us face to face
with our not-so-hidden fears. Whether your beliefs tilt towards the traditional and the
Pagan or the “Christian” variety, it makes little difference. Irrespective of your superstitious
tendencies, you’re also coming up on the “Day of the Dead” (the first of
November for those prone to the latter). For Hallows’ Eve always precedes that
ominous day – the ultimate “day after.” Where will you spend those twenty-four
hours?
One thing about our decadent Western Civilization, we
certainly don’t want to deal with the dead and the issues they leave behind.
The consequences of History, you might say (especially our own “personal
history”).
We have our friends’ ‘tweets’ to look at instead, which are more “pressing”…
And here’s a fact that ought to raise some hairs and
pimple your skin. We modern Westerners are the most ignorant and superstitious
people that have ever walked the surface of this planet (and I include the
Neanderthals in that grouping). In humanity’s entire history (not to
mention evolution!) no one has ever had so many fears and foibles to deal with on a day to day basis.
Our superstitions have their origins, of course. They
come from our past. Therefore, we attribute OUR superstitions to those that
went before and blame them for our “unfounded” fears. Well, you know what
happens when you blame ghosts for your own shortcomings. Yep, they come back
and bite you in the ‘you know where’…
And to make matters worse, we have no “coping
mechanism” to deal with ghosts. Sadly, no Ghostbusters’ hot line to call. That’s
because no human culture before ours paid so little heed to the dead as
we do. We simply have no respect for them.
The Day of the Dead
Why should we? We had no respect for the dead while they
were alive, why waste our time now? Isn’t that like closing the barn after the
cows have gone? Our shallow values and our bromidic culture have no place for
them or for
our ancestors either. Unlike our ancestors, whose lives were guided by their progenitors
across countless generations, we’re more than glad that they’re not
around to tell us what to do!
I still don’t know why people hang their skeletons in
the closet, instead of burying them in the backyard, under the tulips or
guardiolas, like respectable people do. Closets, especially built-in ones, are
so small these days, and skeletons take up a lot of otherwise useful space in
there, that you’d think people would be more practical about these matters. And
under the guardiolas is apropos, I might add, since these beautiful flowers are
native to Mexico,
where they do celebrate the “day of the dead” (el día de los
muertos/difuntos). We gringos don’t know what we’re missing.
We
keep piling things on… Evermore, like the Raven said. More bad Karma on top of
bad, especially vis-à-vis the dearly departed. In light of the fact that every
lie is a murder – another skeleton in the proverbial closet – we ought to be a little
less disdainful. All the big and little lies we’ve told, the frauds we’ve perpetrated, that’s something
else we carry around, dangling from our necks, adding to our unease. Another
shibboleth that betrays our fears and gives us away.
But that’s not good news for us, if you think about it,
because the deeds of the past don’t go away. Unless, of course, we do something
about them… like “burning off” the Karma we’ve heaped up during our short existence
– especially the bad variety – by doing some “good” somewhere. Take that as a
“moral lesson,” if you will.
Yeah, I know, you scoff…
Because you tell yourself that these fears and superstitions are
“existential.” We have turned these fears into novels and horror movies, but
that little sleight-of-hand on our part – this childish attempt to fool
ourselves – doesn’t mean they aren’t there. We can, of course, disown them more
readily when they’re “collective” and in the cultural milieu, and that’s how we
keep our petite superstitions from overwhelming us during our waking day. But
there they are, nonetheless, in their manifold appearances (manifesting
themselves in everything from headaches to clinical depression) and they’re not
going away.
You’re probably saying: Why bother? I’m having too good
of a time lying, ripping people off, and kill anything that moves (I have to
eat, don’t I?). I’ll take care of the bad stuff once I’m on the “other side.” In
the meantime, I’m going to enjoy my one and only time in the spotlight.
You have no idea what a spotlight that is…
It’s no skin off of my nose if you do or don’t, but
it’ll be skin off of YOURs. Despite your brave face (from here, it looks like a
noseless one to me), everyone pays the piper. The ghosts and denizens that
“live” there, in the “hereafter,” the ones who’ve suffered your “fun and
games,” are waiting patiently for you to arrive in all your splendour.
Consider that a heads up…
What Are Ghosts?
Ghost, ghouls, and goblins, demons and hellions,
eidolons and other incorporeal beings are always there, on the other side of
that invisible veil that separates the living from the dead. And what are
ghosts if not some glimmer or trace of what’s left of the dead?
If you were living 5,000 years ago (or earlier), you’d
know exactly what a ghost was. Ancient Egyptians knew them to be the memory of
the dead, namely, what was left of their ka-doubles (the “etheric remnant” of
light which ignited the living person’s experiences while alive, including their
memories). That’s why it was important to the Black People to keep their
identity after death – to remember what they had NOT done (the negative confession they
were to give while their hearts lay on the Scales of Ma’at (Truth) in the Land
of Amentet, in the Dwat.
Their
thoughts, feelings, and deeds, were remembered through their “secret
name,” the name that would identify them to the denizens of the “netherworld”
as a “resurrected Osiris,” blameless of all wrongdoing. They didn’t have to recant their misdeeds
because they enumerated the 42 things they did not do (btw, these 42 items were
eventually dwindled down by those who followed to the Ten Commandments – a kind
of memory mnemonic for those lost in the Netherworld). Without your secret name
you’d be lost in the darkness of ignorance, completely unconscious, from the instant you
entered that lightless
world without
the aid of your sense perceptions. How could you have any sensorial
perceptions once you left your physical body (the khat) behind?
But that’s not scary enough, is it?
Technically speaking, ghosts don’t actually last as long
as we imagine. In ancient times they were gone in a matter of days, so people
had little trouble from ghost and other eidolons. If someone died back then,
and you hadn’t lied to them, cheated them, or worse, they’d be gone in a few
days and no one would be the wiser for it. In fact, if you prayed to them when
they died, and gave them bread (they were called “offering loaves”) they would
stay away from you until you yourself died, and then they’d be nice enough to
accompany you and guide you to the Guardian of the Threshold (that would be
Lord Anpu (Anubis) or Lord Wepwawet, the Opener of the Ways).
But that was then, and this is now – thousands of years
later. Things
have changed quite a bit since then (more than a few “reversals of values”
later, you might say). And, when you think about how many people you’ve
lied to in the course of one day (which is tantamount to a violent murder to any ghost in the
world of the spirits), and then multiply that by all the days you’ve been around
people on this planet, your list of ghost could be quite long. And, God forbid
if you’ve done worse than lie, like actually murder someone… Well, now that’s a
little scarier…
The key to understanding ghosts, even in our day, is if
we understand them as a “memory.” That’s why they “come back,” because they
forgot something, someone, a thought, a feeling, an unseen object (to the
ghosts themselves, naturally). And, it’s that memory which brings them back to
haunt the place where they died. But ghosts, like people, are very mobile these
days. Did I mention that they’re also prone to haunt the person that
lied to them?
Yes
Virginia, they also come back because they remembered something… that
“little white lie” you told them, which in the “other world” is a gigantic axe
cleaving their forehead!
It’s all very mysterious to us in this present age of
materialism, because we believe that there’s nothing that exists which can’t be
seen or touched (by our sense organs). And conversely, nothing exists if it
can’t be seen or touched. So logically, ghosts don’t exists. Have you touched
any ghosts lately?
You probably have…
They’re In The Attic
You may not have seen them, but you have certainly heard
them… they’re usually in the attic, where you keep the objects of your own memory. That’s
why they’re up there, scrounging around, like rats, which is what you think you
really hear when they scamper over the ceiling joists. They’re ghosts, not rats,
trust me.
And when you get the nerve to go up there with a torch
and point its narrow beam of light around in the dark, and you actually see rats, be assured that
the pesky rodents are being “guided” by that very same ghost you lied
to. The ghost just happens to be looking for something… and yes, they’re up
there every night. Of all the nights of the year tonight and tomorrow night
should be the hairiest in that regard.
That’s because the dead come to us every night and feed
on our dreams… that’s where we keep count of the many and varied lies we’ve told.
But, it’s best not to think about that… especially, this time of year.
What Do THEY Want?
Ghosts want what everyone wants. In two words – “pay
back.” Just like the living, the dead thirst for Justice. Herein lies another lesson
we ought to take from antiquity.
The Black People were, above all practical people, and
therefore, “harmonious” people. They knew how to deal with this “balance”
between the Dwat and the Top of the Earth (i.e., the dead and the living), and they did so
by first “keeping the peace” in the Land of the Living (in their own Black Land
and between all the living Black People). Over time, the problem was doing the
same with their neighbours (the so-called Nine Bows), the Red People, the White
People, and the Green People. But that’s another story – what Hagel called the
“aim of history” – the story behind “history” itself (if you believe in such
things).
That’s why one of the most highly regarded, and
venerated, neteru in the Land of Love was Lady Ma’at (she’s the goddess of
Truth and Collective Justice). Why “collective justice”? Because Justice, like
Truth, is never a matter that concerns a single individual or a small group of
individuals (that’s one of the fundamental errors we make as a result of our
short-sightedness, our vacant values, and our superficial, modern thinking).
Despite what “Relativism” or “Positivism” tell us, the ancients knew there was
but one Truth. There can never be one “truth” for one person and another
“truth” for another. Likewise, there can’t be “justice” if it’s only for one
individual. If one individual (or small group, like a class in our society)
enjoys “justice,” then no one else enjoys it and there’s effectively no justice
at all. In other words, Justice concerns every individual, it has to inform the
totality of humankind. It can’t be an “individual” matter. (Only in our
decadent society can such an aberration be conceived, which explains why we
enjoy neither justice nor peace.)
Every soul that dies today screams out for Justice. One
can be poetic about it and say they clamour for Peace (since one can’t happen
without the other). They want “peace on earth” above all things because they
keep suffering what we suffer while we’re doing what we’re doing. And, what are
we doing? We’re killing one another in hordes. We think the lies we tell are
just “words” blown in the wind and will disappear the second we utter them…
We’ve always been good at lying to ourselves first (it’s that little rehearsing
we do before we lie to the next guy).
The dead are like the lies we speak, they never go away.
Those who have gone before us are waiting there on the other side of that gossamer
veil. The souls of the dead keep coming back and they want justice. We ignore
them at our peril – especially in this day and age! This has to do with the
“economy of the universe,” something that we don’t quite have a grip on.
Somehow we still believe we can get more than we put it.
This “economy” between the living and the dead, was
always known in antiquity, because the only way the dead could “rest in peace”
was if there was some kind of peace among the living. But, as I said earlier,
today we don’t give a gnat’s ass what the dead want. How can we? We don’t even care
about the living! As a matter of fact, we’re dispatching the living to the
“other side” at such a dizzying rate that the noise level over there in the
Netherworld is getting rather loud. (If you really want to know the true cause
of “Global Warming,” my friend, start looking into that!)
Don’t forget, all ghosts want but one thing – Justice!
Now you can be very afraid…
