Why do ghosts: wear clothes???

reply to post by halfoldman




That poor kid might some day run into YourPopRock on the side of the road waving his "Junk" at him

reply to post by SLAYER69

Yeah, poor kid, and poor ghost - the press won't say "Boy sees nude ghost", but "Dirty old man haunts minor - exorcism to be performed immediately!"
Knowing our culture, and originating from it, ghosts would choose to appear with some modesty in mind.

Sceptics might use such issues to argue that ghosts are cultural inventions, and metaphors for the anguish and suffering of various historic settings (a folksy way to keep history alive), and therefore we collectively invent them in period costumes. As such the costumes are more significant than other aspects of the ghost.
The clothing is proof that we invent ghosts in settings that represent our own over-riding current concepts of private vs. public, rather than those of the past.


[edit on 11-5-2010 by halfoldman]

I don't remember where I read this but I remember reading a story someone once posted online. He claimed he was in the future. He also claimed he was in heaven observing people arriving. He claimed people arrived in the clothes they were wearing when they died. If everything else made sense, I could imagine wearing the clothes you died in making sense. He then proceeded to speculate that there would be some middle eastern war based on who was arriving and what clothes they were wearing. I believe I read this over 10 or more years ago. He speculated that the draft age would go up since he saw one of his friends who had to be a lot older wearing some military clothes. Can he or I prove any of this? Of course not. The story does make you have second thoughts about what you are wearing. Just think, if you die wearing an outfit, you could be doomed to haunt the Earth in those same clothes.

reply to post by orionthehunter

Fascinating idea.
According to many psychics like Sylvia Brown "spirits" often appear about 30-years-of-age, and in costumes they wore when they were what she obviously considers "optimum age" (people under 30 may not find the concept so ideal).
These psychics however do distinguish between "ghosts" (who are stuck from time of death, and don't progress), and Spirits who choose to visit from the other side and have a choice in how they want to appear.

Strangely, in medieval art souls going to heaven or hell were always pictured naked. I suppose it showed that we arrive with nothing on earth and leave with nothing, although such iconic afterlife nudity would nowadays be called pornography. Go figure.

I suppose wearing clothes in hell is a bit superfluous.



[edit on 11-5-2010 by halfoldman]

reply to post by halfoldman

Interestingly I'm reminded of a Ghost Hunt programs form New Zealand, which got a really good pic of a ghost reclining in the dance hall of an old hotel. A method of eliciting ghosts is to play music and recreate senery from a certain period. Bring on the costumes and the gramophones, and perhaps the comfortable spooks will come. The question then is, if everyone's in period costume, how does one recognize the ghost? A theme for many a spine-chilling tale.
At least in haunted hotspots it does seem to work.

reply to post by CavemanDD


Possibly the way humans essemble their perceptions allows them to see "Ghosts" with "Clothes" on. If they shifted their perceptions they may not even see Ghosts with clothes , they might see swans sitting on an ocean bed, dogs talking to them, trees walking or any number of infinite things.

Ghosts wearing clothes may just be their fixed visual perception of the altered energy point before them.

...possibly.