Ofrendas and the “Reality” of Ghosts and Spirits
Today’s topic is the reality of ghosts and ancestor spirits, as encountered in our ritual lives.
I wrote in a post about ofrendas about the how their meaning relates to “ancestor worship.” Ofrendas allow our ancestors to live on, to inform and enrich our community, to preserve its moral and spiritual traditions and way of life.
Today, speaking of the basis for these rituals, let’s talk about the “reality” of spirits. My purpose is to protect, and so further inspire, the practices of Day of the Dead. I do this by arguing against certain common misunderstandings about them, and about other rituals.
Ancestor Spirit Worship and Superstition
In the previous post, I mentioned the philosopher Ludwig Wittenstein. He denied that most truly religious rituals were “based on” getting control over the natural world. I suggested instead that the “basis” of these rituals is what they do for us, and for our community. How they connect us to those who have passed over. Let’s explore a criticism of these kinds of rituals that might then occur to someone. Are these rituals in some way “based on superstition?”
A “superstition” is a practice be based on (1) ignorance, (2) fear of the unknown, (3) trust in magic, or (4) a false conception of causation– of cause and effect. Are my Day of the Dead rituals based on any of these?
(1) Ignorance About or (2) Fear of Ghosts of Ancestors
Nothing I said in the prior post should give anyone any ground to suggest that my ofrendas are “based on fear of the unknown,” or “ignorance.”
As for the “unknown,” let me be clear: I know that my ancestors are dead. I worship, I make offerings to, my departed relatives to keep them alive in my heart. That way, their spirit can inform me as I walk the path of life. Moreover, once in while, if I am fortunate, I can feel their presence with me. Sometimes, as I said, that presence has a very strong sense of reality, either in the ritual, or in dreams, or in visions. But I can tell a spirit, which has this sense of reality, from a real person. No “ignorance” there.
As for “fear”: well, if we were afraid of ancestor spirits, we certainly would not build ofrenda to them. We would let the old memories die out; we would move out of the house they once lived in. We’d treat them like pests– but we don’t do that. We’d never go back to their graves. As an account of why people engage in these rituals, this account– that people do it because of a superstitious fear– is not very plausible to me.
(3) “Magic” as a “Theory of Cause and Effect”
Do I base my practice on “magic”? People might say, “Oh, you light candles and put out beans and arrange flowers because you think that magically your grandparents will come and eat them.”
If I believed exactly that, it would be a somewhat wacky “theory”– a wacky account of cause and effect. It would be as if the ofrenda were a kind of “magic spell.” To say a practice is based on “magic” is in this sense to say it’s kind of a “magic spell” that brings things about.
But I don’t put out flowers and such because I “think my father will come back to life.” I know he’s dead. That’s why I put the ofrenda out! That’s why I don’t text him anymore. That’s why, if his presence fills the room, I don’t say, “Hey, Daddy, I thought you were dead. Quit punkin’ me, Papa!”
If I put out pistachios and he comes back to life, we don’t go to court and sue for malpractice. “Medical establishment: you should have set up an ofrenda to revive him!”
I fully realize that when and if my “father returns,” what returns is a spirit, and not my father. This is an important difference. Therefore: to say that my practice of ancestor worship is “based on superstition” or theories, is in very important way, backwards.
A Sense of the “Magical”
To see how the naysayers get it backwards, let’s talk about “magic,” not in the sense of a theory of cause and effect, or a technology– maybe with a magic wand?– or, in the sense of a mysterious “control” of something. Let’s talk about another kind of magic.
Notice that when I feel the presence of my late father, it can be pretty weird. I’m pretty weirded out.
It’s the fact that he has passed to his reward, as my Aunt Pati used to say, that makes the feeling of his presence wondrous and strange. When I engage in the ritual, it “evokes a sense of reality.” Part of that sense of reality is weirdness. A sense that the living presence of an ancestor, who has clearly passed away, is abnormal, and strange. “Magic” can mean, “from a supernatural source.” The feeling that one gets from the presence of a spirit is “magic” in that sense— the sense of a supernatural source.
Once I’ve experienced that “sense,” that “sense” can itself become part of the basis of the practice. The religious or spiritual sense, gets added to the meaning of the ritual, and helps to ground the practice. You could say: now, I engage in the practice to “evoke that sense.”
You could also say: the lived reality of the practice expresses my experience of the feeling of the presence of my father– either in the ritual, or in my life. I feel his presence in my life, therefore, I offer him snackies, for instance.
The relation of these feelings to each other, and to the ritual, is subtle, and complex. But it’s key to see that this magic feeling is part of the basis of the practice, grounds it— it’s grounded on my sense, or perception, of something that is magic. So it is not as if I have a theory of ghosts, and that theory then fills me with wonder. The wonder comes first, then the practice. Indeed, as we’ll see shortly, you don’t need a theory at all. First, let’s talk a little bit more about the “perception” of something magic.
Magic, and Wonder, as Spiritual Feelings
The ofrenda practice feels magical and wondrous. The practice, evokes a sense of wonder and magic; and sometimes, of awe and weirdness. When a religious or spiritual feeling such as wonder, awe, or a sense of magic arises, that wonder, awe, or sense of magic has an object. That object is what they call “the numinous”– something which has spiritual qualities, supernatural qualities. Like a ghost.
The spiritual quality of the object, like say, of a ghost, causes my feeling of something magic happening. It fills me with wonder.
Once I have this sense of wonder, that wonder can make me do all kinds of things. It might inspire me to write ghosts stories, or fantasies, or poetry. Wonder does that.
Busting Ghosts and Spirits, and Other Theories
I could also have a very different kind of reaction to a sense of wonder. A sense of wonder might make me want to develop a theory about what a ghost is. Some people, myself included, think that when you start to build a theory of, in this case, ghosts, you’re making a mistake.
If you want to build a theory about ghosts, you are free to do so. But now, you’ve left the lived reality of ritual far behind. Now, you’re theory building, which is a very different thing from a religious or spiritual practice.
In the modern world, may people think they know what a scientific theory is. But I’ll argue in future columns that sometimes people, even educated ones– even or especially, those who write about science– don’t really understand what theories and science are, and are not.
“Building a theory” is a narrow sort of thing, a very specific practice. I have a theory about whether it’s going to rain tomorrow, because I must make a prediction. I can look at the clouds and say ooh, that means rain, and test that theory. That is one kind of thing to do.
But it seems to be a mistake, for many reasons, to theory-build about ghosts.
Making a theory about ghosts is very different from speculating about the nature of ghosts. It is more narrow, more specific, than that. Think about the famous movie, Ghostbusters. Those guys are theorists of ghosts. They study ghosts in labs, and try to control and trap them, all based on built theories about them. That’s all good fun in a movie. But I think that if you could trap a ghost, or snap a picture of one, someone would have done that by now.
The building of theories about ghosts, and movies or reality shows about theories about ghosts, you might say are “inspired” by the lived experience of spirits. But when you posit a theory, you better be ready to back it up. And I don’t see how my ofrenda can generate data that has the right shape to detach, and plug into a lab setting. Or that you could use, to build a ghost trap.
If there were, we would have built a trap long ago, so that Dad could be with me on a more regular basis. We have not. This shows there is very likely nothing there on which we could build a theory.
We can debate that at length. But that debate has nothing to do with the lived reality of ghosts and spirits.
(Notice that my sense of wonder at ghosts, is not at all like my sense of wonder at other things that science can investigate, like animals that nobody has ever trapped yet. Coelacanths don’t weird people out. They’re just fish.)
And remember: because real science is, you know, science, it must be open to the possibility that a theory about ghosts could be validated by new evidence. I’m skeptical about this, about whether we have enough evidence even to test a theory with. But science does what it does, and says what it says, based on evidence, so in this way ghosts must remain an open scientific question. To, you know, real scientists.
Now it looks like the naysayers are in fact less scientific, than I am.
The Reality of Ghosts and Spirits
When I want to “think about” the reality of ghosts and spirits, I think about the ofrenda practice itself– which is, itself, the best guide to their reality.
The practice itself, diligently practiced, earnestly observed, reverently engaged in, will tell you all that we can learn about the spirits of the dear departed. Including what they mean, which is the most important thing of all; but also, the sense in which these things are real, and the sense in which they are not.
This is what mystics have said about these matters, through the ages: if you want to know more about spirits, engage in a spiritual practice. Develop a spiritual sense. But don’t reach for a theory, unless of course you want to change what you are doing and pursue a very different kind of inquiry.
Chasing Wonder from the World
So it’s not science, real science, that chases wonder from the world.
The ancient Greeks were scientific. They had complex theories of mathematics, astronomy, and biology, which Greek citizens who counted themselves educated understood fairly well. These were pretty sharp people.
Yet the Greeks had no problem with the idea that reality was full of Gods, ghosts, and spirits running around all over the place, giving people meanings and messages and guiding their lives.
If we’ve lost a sense of wonder at the world, and our ability to find wonder in it, don’t blame science. Blame the way that we lead our lives. You can’t find wonder and wisdom from the act of staring into a glowing screen. And too much staring at glowing objects leads you to seek meaning and wisdom by staring at glowing objects.
Technology of this kind corrodes thought and spiritual sense, I would say.
If we do not live the reality of the ghosts and spirits our ancestors, then their lived reality loses part of its basis. And they vanish from our world. It’s the lived reality of the practice that, well, creates a lived reality. That’s why people have spiritual practices.
I know it’s hard to leave it at that. But leaving it at that is part of what it means to live with a sense of wonder at the world.