Where Ghosts Love To Haunt
What are ghosts? Are they souls of deceased people?
What are ghosts?
Ghosts are believed to be the spirits or souls of deceased people (or animals) that are left to linger in the physical world. Usually, for unresolved reasons, they are to remain in a location to haunt it, manifesting themselves as an apparition or an unexplained phenomenon.
Ghosts were more popular in centuries past, often a prevalent element in folklore, told through spooky tales around a campfire to scare one another or dissuade someone from wrongdoing. They were the beliefs in the afterlife, something to give meaning and purpose to where they might end up once their physical vessels depart this mortal coil.
Often a debated subject on whether they exist or not, there’s no doubt that ghosts continue to captivate and thrill us with imaginative curiosity about whether there is a next stage after death.
Below is a collection of locations where ghosts can often be sighted, given the right time of day or year.
Elm tree’s
An old creepy elm tree in a field.
Beneath an elm tree is often a common place where ghosts can be sighted. This is because a few centuries back, criminals and murderers were often hanged from their lower branches due to their sturdiness and strength.
They would often be able to suspend a man, without snapping, whilst they wriggled and writhed around beneath it, until they drew their last breath.
Having their life cut short before their time would often be grounds for the return of their ghost seeking either forgiveness or revenge on their executioners.
North side of a Church
The north side of the church remains in shadow.
The north side of a church, sometimes referred to as the ‘devils side’, would receive the least amount of sunlight and would often be bathed in shadow and darkness, reflecting a more gloomy feel to the church grounds.
It was often thought, up to the late nineteenth century, that those who had committed suicide should be buried here, for it was a great sin to take your own life. This meant they would be buried in unconsecrated grounds, denying their rights to whatever belief they had in the next life.
By burying bodies on the north side of a church also meant that they were segregated from the rest of the burial ground, reinforcing the stigma that suicide was a sinful act and should be discouraged.
Battlefields
The location of a battlefield where many souls return as ghosts to haunt.
Battlefields are frequently haunted as ghosts are commonly reported to appear at the locations where they met their demise. Of course, with many thousands of people dying in battle, these places are no exception.
When a person dies in battle, they often leave unresolved issues, or unfinished business, because they’ve been taken prematurely, which prevents them from moving on to the afterlife in peace.
Crossroads
When ghosts return, they would be confused by their orientation.
This might seem like a strange one at first, but spirits have often been seen at old crossroads because they’ve purposely been left there by their executioners so that when their souls return as ghostly apparitions, they would be confused by their orientation.
Back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, criminals or prisoners would be kept in a gibbet (a metal cage, that hangs from a structure, to publicly execute the prisoner inside through starvation/ exposure), hanging above a crossroads, so that when they eventually died, their spirits wouldn’t be able to find their way home, or find the ones who killed them to take revenge.
Church graveyard
The Graveyard Guardian often haunts the sleeping places for other buried souls.
A distinct difference from the previous entry of the north side of the church, ghosts don’t often appear in graveyards because it was not the location of their death.
Yet there have been sightings of a particular ghost that often lingers in these parts, commonly referred to as the ‘graveyard guardian’. This is the spirit of the first person to ever be buried in the graveyard, and has the responsibility to both protect the other souls resting there, and to warn off any unwanted or evil spirits that may enter.
In some cultures, this meant sacrificing a person for a new burial ground, so that they would be the protectors of that graveyard for others to be safely buried thereafter.
Haunted houses
A haunted house is the most common place for a ghost to haunt.
This one may seem like the most obvious one of all. How many horror movies do we all know set in a haunted house? Well, there’s a reason for this. Often when someone is killed, murdered, or taken horrifically and intensely, they leave an energy behind.
Thousands of people die in their homes every year, which means their spirit can sometimes be attached to the place until it can find peace.
People have fled their homes after encountering apparitions or poltergeists, fearing harm or extreme terror. Psychics have been known to bring their unique abilities to make contact with the dead inside these homes, to ask them what they require to move on.
Conclusion
Whether you believe in ghosts or not, there are many places around the world shrouded in mystery and intrigue, where the veil between the living and dead tends to be thin.
All these haunted locations have captured the imaginations of millions around the world, some able to explain them with science and logic, and some not.
So whether you're a skeptic or a believer, delving into the lore of these places of power provides an opportunity to uncover hidden histories and untold tales that you may not have known about until now.
I believe that all time is present, so when a ghost is sighted, it’s actually because our universe is momentarily colliding with another. So a time in the past that is present for that ‘ghost’, is actually overlapping with our present and therefore we become the ghost. That said, I’ve never seen one in real life.
Still think I’m crazy? Well, I probably am, but let me know what you think in the comments! Otherwise, check out our other articles like the one titled “The Most Haunted Village In Britain”.
