Such sacraments were often concerned with sacrifices in the form of giving food or drink to the souls of the dead or even using magical banishment. The ceremonies of feeding the spirits of dead are still in practice in the Chinese culture and even the western world today exults the david hoffmeister All Souls Day for the spirit of deceased. The magical banishment is still a part of burial customs of many cultures even today. An anthropologist James Frazer during the nineteenth century has also avowed about the existence of souls as vivacious glooms in his classical work entitled The Golden Bough. Ancient literature also corresponds to human souls as birds or some other animals and even the verifications also advocate that human souls are having the strict body structure like that of the dead creature and also wear the equivalent clothing that they wore at the time of their death. A book entitled Egyptian Book of the Dead illustrates life of the souls after death and symbolizes that the souls have the similar dressing sense as well as the hair style which they had when they were alive.
According to one of the well-liked ideas ghosts are made up of airy and murky material. Anthropologists deem that ghosts, accurately talking are the souls of dead persons very prominent in the ancient history as white mists. Many conventional beliefs report, ghosts as souls of the dead lodging on earth either for taking vengeance or incarcerated for the bad things they did during their existence. Sometimes ghosts are also evaluated with appalling omens leading to death. In rural areas souls of dead ladies dressed in white have been noticed and it is said that they have died due to calamity or something bad had transpired with them. The obsessed tales of such white ladies are admired all over the globe. These white ladies are believed to have been deceived either by their husbands or fiancé and are believed as heralds of death who take retribution from the family of coupled persons. If any one of the linked person’s family sees them he or she is at the jeopardy of being dead. The myths of ghost ships are very popular during the eighteenth century as depicted in the Flying Dutchman. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge also gives a picture of ghost ships.
The Mesopotamian religions explicitly the religions of Sumer, Babylon, Assyria and other early states in Mesopotamia are encumbered with the citations of ghosts. The traces of beliefs of these religions even got continuation in the Abrahamic religions. These religions believed that ghosts are created at the time of death of any individual and these beliefs later on traveled towards Netherlands where people started believing that ghosts have figures akin to the living entities. The relatives of the dead persons started giving food and drinks to the souls in order to set them free. It was also believed that the ghosts can bring infirmity of any individual. Ancient Egyptian literature also believes that ghosts are the souls of dead which bear the prospective to harm anyone and there is also a leeway of second death. The Egyptian culture believed for more than 2,500 years about the consequences of afterlife. The Egyptian Book of the Dead accentuates some of the beliefs of different periods of ancient Egyptian history. Even in the modern world people believe that the mummies also materialize in the form of ghosts and take reprisal and these facts are often shown in the horror movies also.
The Bible and the Hebrew Torah also demonstrate some of the quotations about spirits and some supernatural behaviuors. The first book of Samuel in the Holy Bible expresses about King Saul who visited the Witch of Endor to talk with the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel. The New Testament of Bible also describes about the statement of Jesus where he tells his disciples that he will be in present in the form of spirit after resurrection. The disciples of Jesus thought that Jesus is a ghost when he came to them by walking on water. Christian belief is in opposition to the act of communicating with the souls of dead.