Originally written on Thursday, November 4, 2010

So, tomorrow, being the last day of October is the time when, according to story, myth and, perhaps, legend is the time when ghouls and ghosts, witches and demons are said to haunt the land with chilly fingers that reach out for a quick ephemeral fondle as you climb the wooden hill.

Oddly, Monday is a national holiday, to celebrate All Saints Day. On the back of this, and a conversation I had recently with a couple of colleagues, I do have some questions about the myths of dead people, ghosts, ghouls and goblins, witches wizards and warlocks.

The first thing to say is that I do not believe in anything like this. For me, the whole idea of ghosts, ghouls, goblins, astrology, reiki, feng shui, super-natural crystals, quija boards, blah, blah, blah….. is poppycock. Amusing poppycock, but poppycock none the less. However, having said that, I do, like most people, have a restive imagination.

When I am alone in a dark, outdoor, place, with perhaps, just the mooooooon to illuminate, a slight rustling in the trees…… you know what I mean, my imagination does start to wander and I do have to make a concerted effort to remind myself that I am being stupid and there is no such thing as ghosts. I do quicken my step a little though…..

So, I have some questions that, by dint of the fact that I can not answer them, is part of the reason why I know the whole field of the super-natural is piffle.

So tell me, if ghosts do exist, why are there no cavemen ghosts, ghosts of Pachycephalosaurus knocking around from 60 odd million years ago? Why do we not see ghosts of some of our common ancestors, such as Homo heidelbergensis, or it’s descendant Homo Neanderthalensis or our cousins Neanderthals.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if there was a ghost of Mitochondrial Eve, the woman that lived in the Rift Valley in East Africa, somewhere in the areas that is now known as Tanzania. She is the statistically expected most recent female ancestor common to all mitochondrial lineages in humans alive today.

Yes, I know there are countless stories from Classical Greek and Roman mythology, but do they really count? The Greeks believed there was a man with the head of a bull, or is that a bull with the body of a human? And of course, on a similar vein, mermaids; half fish and half human. But no explanation of what is inside? Lungs of a human or filters of a fish? Is there just one ever lasting mermaid or an entire colony of male and female mermaids producing little mermaid children. Oh how we laughed…..

Wizards and witches: outside the stories of the marvellous Terry Pratchett, why are wizards considered to be venerable old men and witches seen as mad and dangerous old women? Obviously the, calm, relaxed and even handed Papal Inquisition had a lot to do with that, with the stories of ‘meddling witches’ becoming engrained in the public psyche of central and western europe. Never really made sense to me…

… and why the pointy hat ?

And when did bats become associated with vampires? Bats are fantastic, amazing creates, navigating through the world with sonar, which compensates massively and incredibly for their relatively poor eye sight at night. Think about the evolutionary logic of sonar at night. Eyes need light. Night is dark. So to operate at night requires larger eyes to make use of the low light levels.

This is not massively efficient as large eyes require a larger head, reduce mobility because a larger body is more difficult to manoeuvre quickly. Sonar is a magnificent alternative. That is why the bats have the skies to themselves at night….. Pelicans do not fly at night……

And then there are crystal pyramids, reiki and feng shui, or, as some polo necked black jumper wearing style gurus would have you believe it is pronounced fung schwaaaaaaaaaaay. I mean come on, really. You may as well believe that astrology, really works.

And then there is the Ouija board, often thought to be of German or French mediæval origin, but is in fact a trade marked invention now owned by an American games company. Oh yes, patent law is very spooky. But there is the “séance”. For those who are not utterly aware, a séance is, we are told, the ability to communicate with the dead. Oh yes. The lights must be off, there must be lots of velvet and, oh yes, we must hold hands. Astonishing.

This list could go on and on and, frankly, it almost never ending…. but this post does.