Perspectives On Spectrality

Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory
Perspectives on spectrality and death: the birth of a problem1*
Abstract
We are humans so, by definition, we are mortals. During the 20th century the speeches of
scientific and social power have tended to eliminate the possibility of facing death, either
the own individual confrontation or another persons death. Death has been concealed and
targeted: it takes place in aseptic hospitals, being denied even beyond the permissible
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human limits and criticized in his manifestations of mourning and grief. Contemporary
research in genetic technologies and medical advances to control the principal illnesses
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has given an invulnerability illusion, which does not corresponds with the reality.
In this paper we will examine one of the amnesic self problems, namely: death
confrontation. This proposal endeavours to show the archaic and universal notion of
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spectrality as a useful tool to explore the problem and even help us to solve it.
Furthermore, this study allows us to demonstrate the contemporary developments and
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their problems for society and the individual in contrast with traditional positions. This
concealment is a present problem as a culture pathology that denies the necessity of death
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and the possibility of assuming it. Individually, this question causes psychological pain as
well as depression, trauma or shock experiences without a social adaptive response. At the
same time, looking at society as a whole, this question eliminates the moral responsibility,
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the social preoccupation of its individuals and they declining empathy process and group
responses to collective problems.
Key Words: Spectrality; Death; Grief; Individualism; Mental Illness; Amnesic Self;
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Tolerance; Social Pathology.

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* This text is a result of the presentation at the Fifth International Conference Social Pathologies in the
Contemporary Civilization held in Rotterdam, October 30th31st of 2014.
URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rdis
Page 1 of 20 Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory
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3 Occultism is the metaphysics of dunces.
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5 T. Adorno (1994)
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9 Introduction
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Facing death is one of the hardest problems of human beings because we are mortal
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12 creatures. In fact, recently research has shown that it is not an exclusive human problem,
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14 but a social one. Another species like dolphins or monkeys have mourning processes to
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16 ease the grief caused by the death of significant members of the group (McConnell 2003,
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257).
19 As Edgar Morin points out, it is a contradictory fact of having a conscious mind and
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21 thinking about death that humans have to confront as a species (Morin 1976). Although
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23 this is quite a reductive point of view, it summarizes the human process and its related and
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unsolved problems. It is an unresolved problem and it has to be that way. In this sense we
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can affirm that the assumption of death is essentially aporetical (Cheng 2006, 21). But,
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28 even without any solution, humans used to pass through their own death and their loved
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30 ones in a more natural way (Aris 1977).
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32 I am not trying to use the word natural as superior in contrast to social, because it
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does not make sense in the human world. We are social beings, but natural means in this
35 context a less painful and stressing way to confront death. So, the questions that have to
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be asked are: why has this change occurred? And, what is the better option to people in
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39 order to confront this necessary fact in their or, more importantly, our lives? I will try to
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41 answer both questions showing a possible point of view, which defends a more direct and
42 personal treatment for the problem we are facing at this moment.
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44 First of all, it is necessary to explore the confrontation of death in the history of

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46 humanity to compare the contemporary situation with other periods. This interesting study
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is, however, too broad to be undertaken in this essay. Furthermore, some French
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historians of similar thoughts and ideas, such as Philippe Aris (1975; 1977), or Edgar
51 Morin (1976) have done part of this historical work for us. In this sense, we agree with
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53 Buse and Stott, who affirm:
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In recent years, cultural historians have been alert to the processes of exclusion
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58 performed by Reason on non-Enlightenment practices where ghosts found or
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60 remained in favour. These scholars of the margins painstakingly chart the histories
of witchcraft and sorcery, occultism and spiritualism, giving voice to people and
Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory Page 2 of 20
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3 illuminating practices otherwise silenced or neglected by the mainstream historical
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5 record (Buse and Stott 1999, 3-4).
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8 It is necessary, so, to appropriately understand our text, remember briefly those
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10 prominent items of the history of the confrontation of death. We will act, then, as a
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12 scholar of the margins.
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14 It seems to be a common thought that across the past people did not have a huge
15 problem with the confrontation of death. Although controversial, we can affirm that it is
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17 because of the construction of the ones self and the daily presence of the problem. On the
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19 one hand, there were not individuals as independent subjects as we are in todays society.
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Individuality as it is understood nowadays was born in the Modern era, as thinkers like
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Michel Foucault pointed out (2010). On the other hand, facing death was a common
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24 reality, since mortality was high. These facts obviously do not mean that death was
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26 painless or an easy issue, but it was not the deep psychological and social problem as it is
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28 nowadays.
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31 Confronting death through times: a brief history.
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33 During Ancient times, a global, omni-comprehensive way to understand the world was the
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35 main point of view (Bellinger 2000). Society, religion, Nature and human life were almost
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in the same sphere. In this sense, the French historian Jean-Pierre Vernant affirmed that it
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38 was not a disconnection between life and death. Death was also surrounding everyone
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40 during life; it was everywhere, everyday as a possibility, so a radical distinction couldnt
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42 be made (Vernant 1996). It is mainly because Greek thought constructed concepts as
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44 related pairs. In Ancient Greece the existence of people's death is shaping not only as the
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final irretrievably limited the horizon of life. Every day, at all times, death is there,
47 crouched against the same life as the hidden face of an existential condition where they
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49 appear in combination, as an inseparable mixtures (Vernant 1996, 21). These mixtures
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51 are opposed and related concepts which conform the global conception, the cosmovision
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53 of the world as well as the human existence. Some examples of the pairs are the opposite
54 poles of positive and negative, being and of their deprivation: birth and death, awakening
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56 and sleeping, lucidity and unconsciousness, tension and relaxation (Vernant 1996, 21).
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58 In this sense, society was conceived as a unique thing in what each person had his
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60 or her place, role and status. There was not such a separation between individuals, I mean,
individuality was not a social clue. While there were citizens (male and born in the city
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3 men) and those who could not be a complete part of the polis (women, children, metekos),
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5 everybody had a function in the society (Skinner 2005; Clark 2008). This is the context to
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7 Platos explanation about the ideal city in which he distributes different roles to people
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9 basing his judge on social needs and value (Plato 1980).
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The Greeks question can be summarized by a beautiful metaphor: the apple of the
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12 other person eye. In Spanish, for example, the literal translation for the apple of the eye
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14 sounds like the girl of your eyes, representing much more the archaic idea of having
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16 your own soul little, like a girl living in your eyes. Each person identity was based on
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the other eye, on the other person way of seeing or looking at the individual. It was a
19 reciprocal interaction in a universe of harmony and interrelations (Szczeklik 2012).
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21 In the transition from Ancient times to the Middle Ages, religion gained importance
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23 and celestial world came to be the essential preoccupation (Aris 1977, 502). In this frame
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death was only another step in the personal way, which people met and communioned
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with Christ. It was part of the process, of the understanding of life as a whole here on
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28 earth and beyond, in Heaven or Hell (Mitre 1998). Depending on the century, people have
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30 gone directly to that celestial place or had to be judged (Le Goff 1981). Religion was, by
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32 the way, essential to understand the way of facing death (Jantzen 1995).
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During the Modern era things started to change: individualism was born and religion
35 was questioned from different ideological, theoretical and socio-political positions, as
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Aris has shown (1977). Modernity was `the period of the world image as Heidegger
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39 demonstrated (1960). In his text he states: the totality of existence is now taken so that
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41 what exists is becoming and it is only if placed by the man who represents and develops
42 (Heidegger 1960, 95); a man who is the whole reference of the existence as existence
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44 (Heidegger 1960, 95).

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46 This era was, also, the advertisement of the death of God. Much earlier than
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Nietzsche, authors such as Voltaire, Diderot and Comte in France and Hegel, Feuerbach
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or Marx (Lenz-Mendoc, et al. 1970) in the German context announced the fact that
51 produced aloneness, responsibility options that humans have not assumed yet and the
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53 birth of the self as an empty receptacle. How have humans try to fill it up? Probably, in
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55 the easier, but worst possibility: with some illusions, or perhaps, we can say, delusions.
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57 This affirmation should be justified.
58 When we say illusion we can be referring to almost two related but different
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60 things. Firstly, an illusion could be a good thing to tend to, I mean, if we have an illusion
we could try to reach the object of that illusion which would be good for us. In this sense,
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3 illusion works as a synonym of desideratum. It is similar to having hope. But it is also
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5 true that the word illusion has another sense related with perception problems, but
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7 the word delusion defines better what we are referring to. In the dictionary, illusion is
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9 defined as: An instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience,
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or A false idea or belief (Oxford Dictionary, 2015). There is, however, a substantial
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12 difference between the first and the second meaning. While the first one is related with
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14 perception, the second definition introduces a different kind of problem: the rational and
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16 moral issue of beliefs. In this second sense, believing in spectres or being a seer is not a
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perception mistake for anymore, but a rational one.
19 Consequences of this apparently small distinction were fundamental to the
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21 comprehension of spectrality and, which is more important, the treatment of those who
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23 believe in spectres. In an equally little and interesting essay, Inmanuel Kant (1764) makes
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the distinction between being mad and having an extraordinary or non-common
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perception. According to Kant, the first group of people suffer an illness of their very
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28 human cognition, Rationality, and they cannot be cured. The only thing that we can do for
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30 them is to try to ease their pain and relieve them from their suffering (Kant 2001, 266).
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32 But, for Kant, there is another option: just having a different or unusual perception. Those
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kind of people are not mad; their humanity has not been damaged. Surprisingly enough
35 for standard readers of the German philosopher, Kant classified seers in the second group
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(Kant 2002, 53).
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39 Kants thought serves as an example of modern differences between rational and
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41 sensitive problems. The first group is essential, in the very centre of the human definition.
42 But, reading Kantian texts, the main point is that he was worried enough about seers and
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44 spirits to start a research about this issue. As a result, he wrote Dreams of a Spirit-Seer
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46 (2002). Similarly, Schopenhauer (1998) or William James (1960) studied a question that
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is not socially although it remains occult nowadays. These studies were not
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necessarily positive, but they were part of normality in the treatment with both death and
51 its related hope that there is something like life-beyond.
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55 The spectral delusion of the contemporary society
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57 Contemporary society, our own system, has concealed both death and its related issue
58 spectrality as a non-necessary and non-human problem for almost a century. And it has
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60 also linked spectrality with psychological diseases, trying to explain it basing its theories
principally on hallucinations, but in any case basing them on madness (Scotti 2013). So, it
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3 can be affirm that our society has constructed a kind of spectral delusion.
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5 However paradoxical it seems, the term spectral delusion' summarizes the key issue
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7 in our society we attempt to pick up. For centuries spectres were part of the conception of
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9 the world and not an issue, but rather a means of a control solution or different facts.
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Thus, the spectres were the opposite pole to life, as were souls or spirits of sinners who
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12 were opposed to good people, as part of the moral regulation. In addition, while related to
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14 the death of a relative or oneself, hope conferred about a reunion in the afterlife and
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16 helping them cope with the pain of death.
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During the nineteenth century, with the death of God, psychological needs focused
19 on spectrality, which strongly arose to explain both psychological and socio-political
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21 questions. This is what Roger Luckhurst called spectral turn (Luckhurst 2002, 532). As
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23 Oppenheim pointed out:
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26 There is a significant distinction between spiritualism and psychical research in
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28 the late nineteenth century1 and parapsychology in the late twentieth. Now, after
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30 decades of disappointments, few influential or renowned scholars endorse the
31 claims of parapsychology. Then, a century ago, spiritualism and psychical
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33 research loomed as a very serious business to some very serious and eminent
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people (Oppenheim 1985, 3).
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38 Nevertheless, its concealment during the twentieth century was spectrality returns
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40 itself spectral, hidden, dark. Spectres existence has never been proven, but in the
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twentieth century spectrality was rejected, becoming part of the set of deceptive and
43 irrational ideas of some people suspected of being mad: ghost-seers. Although long-lived
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45 and responsible for covering various social functions, however, belief in spectres has
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47 become the product of mental illness. However, spectres are not the objects of these
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49 illusions, but the very idea that it is necessary to mask or isolate both of them and those
50 who see them (Foucault 2009). We should ask ourselves:
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54 Why do ghosts continue to occupy such a prominent position in debates over the
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boundary between real and unreal? Why do they furnish such workable tropes of
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57 untruth? The answer lies in their relationship to reason and rationality. The current
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59 understanding of ghosts owes less to the Reformation, which denied their return
60 from purgatory, than it does to the Enlightenment. With the advent of the
Enlightenment, a line was drawn between Reason and its more shadowy others
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3 magic and witchcraft, irrationality, superstition, the occult. In this wider activity of
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5 exclusion, ghosts of course fall very firmly in the camp of unreason and therefore
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become fair game for empiricists eager to demonstrate that ghosts are in fact the
8 product of illusion or hoax, or mere hallucination (Buse and Sttot 1999, 3).
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12 Spectres, so, continue to occupy a important position, but, what a spectre is? A
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spectre is a death spirit or without historical and religion implications a non-
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15 embodied creature that comes to our physical or perhaps psychological world before
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17 its death as a human being. In this sense each spectre could be the afterlife spirit of a dead
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19 human, so, each spectre give us hope and faith. Of course, this has not happened to
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everybody, but it is very possible to those who do not believe in God, but need something
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22 to release their grief. It is a possible variety of religious experience, in William James
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24 sense (1910).
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26 Then, a spectre is different from other types of extraordinary beings, such as
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28 zombies, vampires or revenants. Even though all of them are related on death, spectres are
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29 the only ones without bodies. Zombies and vampires are themselves beyond life and
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31 death, since they are neither living creatures, nor death ones. They are, so, no mortals
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33 almost in a common way to understand mortality (Carcavila 2014). In the weird case of
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35 revenants, things are more complex, because they are deathpeople who come from the
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afterlife. They are embodied, revived creatures. We should try to differentiate also
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38 between ghosts and spectres to know what we are referring to. According to
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40 LEnciclopedie (1751-1772) the term ghost summarizes beliefs about death-related
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42 beings. On the contrast, spectre focuses on one type of being, one without a physical body
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44 and who has dead and came from the afterlife.

45 Statement above is at least dangerous, since both terms are hardly distinguishable.
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47 In the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (online edition) we read that
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49 'spectre' means ghost and vice versa. Anyway, what is proved is that believing in spectres
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51 has been a common idea throughout time, although with different expressions depending
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on the period. For example, in Greece people believed that it was necessary to make a
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54 colossus when someone died in strange circumstances and its body couldnt be found.
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56 This colossus, then, contained the energy or spirit the spectre of the dead person
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58 (Vernant 1965, 303).
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During the Middle Ages, demons, incubus and, even angels, a large contrast
conformed both common life and theological ideas. It is well known that the golden age
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3 for spectres was Romanticism, when lots of different beliefs were developed and, also,
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5 when Spiritism grew as a separated discipline, although not as serious as their authors
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7 tried (Bloom 2007). However, during the Romanticism period, psychologist, physiologists
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9 and doctors, such as Kieser or Kerner were interested in spectre visions and the death
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phenomena (Montiel 2001, 2005). Some philosophers as important as Kant in the
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12 Enlightenment or Schopenhauer in the Romantic period wrote about seers and
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14 those types of beliefs. In Sciences, some authors as the botanic Alfred Russell Wallace
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16 experimented with spiritism (Bloom 2007). Even though, research about spectres has not
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necessarily meant that the authors had a positive thought about them. But it was not a
19 madness problem, but a interesting one.
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23 The twentieth century and its problems.
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Some changes started to happen in the twentieth century despite being spectres and
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spiritism a sort of fashion during nineteenth century. As a result ideological and social
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28 issues related to ghost and death were modified. These changes can be summed up
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30 reading Adornos sentence which one we started this text: occultism is the metaphysics
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32 of dunces (Adorno 1994, 238). It is true that this affirmation should be put in context, so
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it is not only a case of ghost beliefs, but also occultism as a pseudo-science economically
35 strong. In his sentence, Adorno is referring to both phenomena and thought that he
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summarizes about mediumship and beliefs on ghosts. So, even his critic to occultism as
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39 a pseudo-science could be share in general ways, it is also true that his sentence cancelled
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41 all possibilities to study spectrality and its social and psychological implications. His
42 point of view is totally close to twentieth century general ideology. On the contrary we
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44 can place Foucaults point of view, since, as Dmezil pointed out:

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Foucault had set up his observatory in areas of the humans where the traditional
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49 distinctions of body and spirit, instinct and the idea seem absurd: madness,
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51 sexuality, crime. From there, his eyes spinning like the beam of a lighthouse
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perched on the history and the present, ready for less reassuring findings
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54 (Dmezil 1984).
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58 According to Dmezil own reading of Foucault, the French thinker had a special
59 sensibility to discover the very centre of some kind of problems: the most polemic ones.
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This is the case for sexuality and madness, as well as criminality, but what happens
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3 with faith, hope and the afterlife? As we have seen, they are also a human principal need,
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5 so it can be put together with the questions mentioned. Then, Foucaults study of both
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7 History and present times can be enlarged. It is an interesting research since spectrality is
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9 itself in the middle of fundamental pairs of concepts: death-life, soul-body, instinct-idea,
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rational-emotional, internal-external, true-false physically and psychologically
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12 speaking His point of view is really concrete, but in his aim to discover causes and
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14 consequences, he makes a deep study of each phenomenon. In this sense, his position
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16 contrasted to Adornos, who prejudiced occultism and spectrality without a complete
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study of them.
19 Although I am not defending occultism and its frauds I have to express my
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21 agreement with some part of its aim to help people. It seems true that a lot of mediums
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23 had their activity as a way to earn money great amounts of it, but it cannot be
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forgotten those real cases. I mean, those mediums who earned nothing with their tried to
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help or answer other peoples sorrow. It is necessary to be respectful because it is a
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28 complex and painful phenomenon. When I talk about respect I am thinking in William
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30 James as a model (1996). His pluralism and his extraordinary capacity to do neutral
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32 approaches to many different questions should be our way of researching.
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Speaking on changes, we should say, first of all, that death began to be both a social
35 problem and a hidden one. In my opinion, death is not a problem, but a fact. It is true that
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a beloved ones death is one of the most painful events in a persons life, but it is natural in
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39 the sense that I have explained. After the World War II and its awful consequences, a
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41 metaphoric spectre_ in the Marxs way (1848) rose above Western civilization and
42 death started to be a hidden topic. Furthermore, sciences advanced a lot during the past
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44 century in denying the necessity of death as a human essential fact. It is necessary to say
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46 the treatment that Spiritism had on these issues did not help to take death and its
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confrontation as a necessity in any way. This is because authors and practitioners of this
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school were like showman, considered almost eccentric and clowns. They were not only
51 far away from being serious, but also they seemed ridiculous.
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53 In this context, ghost stories were relegated to fiction literature and the most
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55 important form of expression in the twentieth century, the socalled Seventh Art:
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57 cinema. There are lots of films, which tell stories about zombies, vampires, spectres
58 (Pedraza 2005) It is important to note that zombies are the stars of many films and there is
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60 a reason directly connected with our study. Zombies represented at the same time the fear
for the middle class of proletarians and the main tendency of the techmedical sciences
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3 to prevent and eliminate death. Behind zombie fashion and ghost repudiation it is one
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5 and the same connected reason: the occultation of death signified that creatures beyond
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7 this point spectres from the afterlife had to be eliminated. On the contrary, zombies
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9 started to represent the new social ideology: death is not necessary anymore. Being
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between life and death, but without being limited for them, zombies incarnated at the
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12 same time the fear of scientific progress reinforced after the World War II impact, the
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14 idea of an alienated society the mass, and the ideal for whom? of not having to
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16 die. The society is sick, but the individual does not have to die.
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Even speaking about madness and not specifically death and spectrality, something
19 Michel Foucault said in an interview can help us understand the general situation. He
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21 said:
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My history of madness is indeed very illustrated in one of the most famous
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26 paintings of Dutch art, by Frans Hals. In The regents, there are around a table
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28 these five old women whose job is to run this house of imprisonment, where during
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29 the 17th century and later during the 18th century, all socially worthless people, the
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31 troublemakers, were imprisioned. These women are actually the expression of our
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33 societys rationalisation that sets madness apart. It is from here on that science of
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34 madness was able to develop, precisely from the moment when we parted with this
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36 old familiarity that we used to have with madness (Foucault 2014).
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39 This familiarity with madness we used to have that Foucault spoke about was
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41 deepest with spectres and also with death. Spectality and madness are similar in several
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43 aspects, starting to be considered spectres as part of madness. This point of view is almost
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45 narrow-minded, so I will point out the most significant characteristics to our study in
46 order to clarify those aspects that are connected and traditionally misunderstood or,
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48 maybe intentionally misinterpreted.

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50 Although both madness and spectrality are as old as humanity, neither of them have
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52 been understood yet. It is also really difficult to accept the implications of both, since it
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means to lose our individuality. As we have said, the Modern era brought about the
55 conception of the person as a subject and as an individual. Therefore, those who deviate in
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57 any way, who are different, are suspect and relegate. Philosophers started to discuss about
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59 the implications of the existence of these different people for subjectivity as a social
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thing. Madmen dont think like a normal person, they dont feel equally, so are they
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3 as human as everybody? Should they have the same status in the society? What about
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5 rights and duties? In the case of madness, the answers to the later questions are quite
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7 clear, easy to see how the Enlightenment people react from these questions: they bring
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9 mad people to the asylum, as Foucault (2009), among others, evinced.
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12 Spectrality: from the Normal to the Pathological
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14 We have talked about madness, but the same thing almost the same happened with
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16 spectrality. A spectre is only the appearance of a human, because it is not embodied.
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However, a spectre has the most important thing to be, since Modernity, a human: spirit,
19 soul, thought. On the one hand, Modernity was defined with Cartesian cogito ergo sum
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21 and spectres have thoughts, desires and feelings about life people, revenge and fury or
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23 love, for example. In this sense, the reality of spectres is more difficult to determine than
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our society have recently recognized. They provoke, also, real phenomenological
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consequences on people. This issue should be revised.
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28 Firstly, what happen with ghost-seers? They are been more and more the object of
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30 study, but the majority of the researches started from a negative, prejudicial point of view.
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32 It was because seers are not considered as normal, they have not got the same rational
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mind as the other citizens, their cogito is different. Despite of being interpreted as
35 positively special, this distinction became the justification to different kinds of stigmas
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(Goffman 1990). They are pathological subjects and, as a result, they are gradually
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39 stigmatized. However, this pathologization is itself a consequence and not the cause of
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41 the society in which they are living (Canguilhem 1966).
42 New rationality post-secular and natural reason ideology replaced the old
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44 prejudiced ideas of religion, identifying those who had contact with the afterlife as crazy.
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46 While they could be agents of God in the Middle Ages on earth and bring heavenly
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messages, now with the progressive secularization of society, they could just be crazy.
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Spectre-seers can then be matched with crazy in the sense that Foucault points out in his
51 text on abnormality (1974-1975). Both play a crucial social function: what the French
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53 thinker conceptualizes as public or social hygiene. The reclusion of madmen satisfies a
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55 double function: apart mad people from the healthy society to keep it clean and, at the
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57 same time, it implies a power control function (Vasquez Rocca 2012). With this, power
58 breakups spiritualistic capacity, sending a message: those who are deviate should be and
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60 will be separated, stigmatized. Its policy is basing on the interest of public hygiene; so
normal people agree and become part of the surveillance system (Foucault 1975).
1
2
3 The conception of the seers as their progressive mockery gone and fulfils the same
4
5 function. Firstly, dissuade individuals to express their preternatural not supernatural,
6
7 that means upper than natural, but weird, no totally natural experiences demonstration
8
9 that was highly praised during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Arguably, those
10
who had contact with spirits enjoyed great popularity and the ability to convince and
11
12 move the masses. Power should prevent further spread of this phenomenon in order to
13
14 maintain control. In addition, having death become a taboo, those who dare talk to it will
15
16 be repudiated. Stigmatization and concealment is an example of coding a social danger
Fo
17
18
and disease (Goffman 1990). What we have now and, along those lines, if you will, of
19 those weak concepts of psychiatry, is always the function of public hygiene, fulfilled by it
20
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21 (Foucault 1999, 117).

22
23 Another aspect of similarities between madness and spectrality is that both things
24
are conformed a neglected or, even more, a hated part of our society which represents the
ee
25
26
non-reasonability of humans; the hidden, forbidden fragment of them. So, we used to be
27
28 familiar with these different people, but it is also true that we have lost familiarity with
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30 those people and, even worse, we have lost our own relationship within ourselves. What I
31
32 am referring to? A spiritual or religious one? No, simpler, our sensible and sensitive one;
33
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34
our aliveness and then, our condition of forthcoming death bodies.
35
36
From confronting to depressing: the nowadays death
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37
38
39 Sciences are developing their own limits as well as expanding the limits on the age of
40
41 human beings2. As I have said before, for the last few decades some scientific discoveries
42 have changed our understanding of the world and they are also modifying our concept of
43
On
44 being human. For example, some parts of an ill body can be replaced; knowledge of the
45
46 human mind is increasing almost every day; birth control in different senses is a reality
47
and not only a far dream I am not thinking in prevention campaigns, but in eternity
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48
49
50
ideals; cloning is becoming closer and closer to exist definitively, these advances
51 bring the possibility to one day exist without death. These ideas are really dangerous and
52
53 we should control them, because some of our psychological illnesses and problems
54
55 nowadays are based on them. In saying that, I am thinking about the third raked pathology
56
57 illness in the world: depression (OMS). Because of its impact on nowadays society, this
58 illness is considered an epidemic (Pignarre 2002).
59
60 Butwhy speak about depression and not another phenomena? We can defend the
relevance of this illness based on three main points. First of all, depression affects too
1
2
3 many people, so we should be worried about all of its implications and causes. Secondly,
4
5 because we are living in a period that we can call psychological turn, according to Ole
6
7 Madsen (2014). In this sense, psychology is replacing old religious traditions that helped
8
9 people feel better, I mean, traditions on faith and hope, beliefs of a fair world, a world
10
beyond death happier than the present world, and so on. I talked about science in a general
11
12 way and its deepest consequences to individuals, putting the eye in biological and
13
14 technological advances. However, since psychology is the new dogma, we should find
15
16 links between spectrality, death, and this new worldview. Finally, it is really important
Fo
17
18
to maintain the contact between speculative issues like spectrality and their palpable
19 correlations. I am not defending a causal relation between both terms, but it cannot be
20
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21 denied that they are connected in some ways.

22
23 Depression can be cause by so many things as humans worry themselves, but as a
24
essential and necessary problem, death confrontation should be put in the list of morbidity
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25
26
reasons. Since the confrontation of death is one of the causes of getting depression and I
27
28 think that it is because of society indications. One useful thing that people and society
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30 used to do was express grief as a tool: they served (and also serve, however they are less
31
32 common nowadays) to show the painful fact of a beloved person is death, a way to relax
33
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34
and relieve that pain. Ireland ceremony of keening is a marvellous example of this type of
35 relief from sorrow and expression of the mourning (Collins, pers. comm). They also
36
served to prepare society to be careful about the people who are suffering. I agree with
iew
37
38
39 Jean Delumeau when he said that mourning used to help show respect to the dead person,
40
41 release pain about his or her death and, at the same time, allow society to care for the
42 living (Delumeau 1976, chapter 2).
43
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44 The same can be said about ghost visions: they help ghost-seeing people confront
45
46 death and its related pain. So, we can affirm that mourning woke up empathy in society.
47
However, since we have to die in an aseptic place, in a hospital, and the people closest to
ly
48
49
50
us are not socially allowed to show their love to us because of society, we have lost both
51 mourning and, with it, the opportunity to feel others empathy. According to Veyne a
52
53 person is constituted of an individual self because of its own conscience to be unique
54
55 (Veyne 1987, 25). Also it is because of the others own selves which represent all of
56
57 humanity in which that person feels different, feels him or her as a separated self. Because
58 of this fact, it is possible to say that each self, each as Veyne pointed out (Veyne 1987,
59
60 26) different psychological and individual representation of a separated and alive being
is being eliminated by our contemporary society when it promotes the amnesic self. Any
1
2
3 type of individualism is understood as someone being alive yet, at the same time, it
4
5 represents a death being a very real possibility.
6
7 As a result, depression increases everyday to remind us that we are not only rational
8
9 beings and I am not sure that this would be the solution to death problem but also
10
emotional and sensitive ones. In saying that, the presence of the amnesic self is shown,
11
12 because contemporary society concealed expressions of grief as well as mourning ones.
13
14 Its principal aim can be advertised as hidden death and amnesic self, which consists of
15
16 allowing any expression neither the pain or mourning, nor the lifedeath dialectical
Fo
17
18
tension. It doesnt conceive or permit us to understand we are alive because of the
19 possibility of death itself. Without this looming death, we are neither alive nor humans,
20
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21 so I think that we should rethink how we view death. Instead of thinking of it as a

22
23 problem, we should accept it as a fact, shouldnt we?
24
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25
26
Summarizing the question: future perspectives from the past
27
28 In conclusion, it is necessary to clarify some points that could be misunderstood. This
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29
30 essay is not defending the existence of ghosts and spectral beings. In fact, ontology is not
31
32 essential in this case because two main points: on one hand, their existence is quite
33
ev
34
independent of their presence for people, so psychological and phenomenological
35 observations of the question are more appropriate than ontological ones. In this sense, we
36
can affirm:
iew
37
38
39
40
41
While proving or disproving the existence of ghosts is a fruitless exercise, it is
42 more rewarding to diagnose the persistence of the trope of spectrality in culture.
43
On
44 Spectrality and haunting continue to enjoy a powerful currency in language and in

45
thinking, even if they have been left behind by belief (Buse and Stott, 1999, 3)
46
47
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48
49 On the other hand, we cannot decide about ontological fact, so a study in this way
50
51
would be an empty research. In this sense, Kants essay on ghost-seers could help us to
52 understand the difference between our limited knowledge and the necessity of studying
53
54 essential human beliefs as life beyond death or, according to Kant, the possibility of a
55
56 spirit world (Kant 2001, 75).
57
58 This essay neither aims to establish a new era of occultism or something like that.
59 Leaving negative sentences and summarizing the main idea in a positive way, this study is
60
an attempt to defend ghosts from radical positivism and psychological critics. We are
1
2
3 trying to show that belief in spectres can be a way of mourning or releasing pain death has
4
5 caused. There are different expressions in this sense, like keening in Ireland, Christian
6
7 faith, traditional ceremonies all over the world; and ghost-seers are not extremely
8
9 different from these type of manifestations: they are wondering to understand death. It is
10
an attempt, so, to respect some complex beliefs and try to hide negative implications of
11
12 denying them.
13
14 Over the text we have shown spectrality relationships with mental illness as a
15
16 category, depression in particular and more recently conception, bereavement, ideology
Fo
17
18
about death and the necessity of denying it... It is not a coincidental thing that spectrality
19 is compliant and must cover a social function, as traditionally made. The strokes given
20
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21 here show how spectrality is at the centre, in the really heart, of a fundamental human
22
23 need. Not only is the struggle against death, but also its acceptance and assimilation. It is
24
an assumption question, but not a pessimistic one.
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25
26
Spectres, although exogenous to the individual, become a way of coping and they
27
28 are at least useful and, we believe, necessary for some people. Beyond the reductionist
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29
30 and biased discussion sidewalk if it is a religious event, a superstitious belief or mental
31
32 disease, the fact is that ghosts are still present and helping those who see them. Though
33
ev
34
ideally not represent the maturity shown that Kant proposed, their implications in a
35 practical level must be respected. Its occultation, in any case, is an answer to the self
36
denial of death and the cares of science either psychologically or biologically beyond
iew
37
38
39 human limits.
40
41 The question, then, becomes: do we want such a world? Are we willing to accept
42 the so-called technological singularity3 or will be ourselves become these machines? This
43
On
44 is, however, a subject of debate for another and larger research. Our goal has been
45
46 fulfilled: to show the limitations of the denial of death and spectrality.
47
I would like to express my openminded perspective through another writers pen
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48
49
50
that collected the main point of my own understanding. So, as Buse and Stott have
51 recently said:
52
53
54
55 more easily said than done. Even in a disenchanted world, ghost are still
56 invoked when there is some uncertainty about the believability or authenticity of an
57
58 event or experience in the material world hence phantom pregnancies, limbs, and
59
60 phone calls, ghostwriters, a ghost of a chance, televisual ghosting, and so on. In
the context of a truth test, ghost and its many synonyms always provide useful
1
2
3 metaphors when the test ends in failure. in other words, even though it is now
4
5 frivolous to believe in ghosts, they cannot shrug off the spectre of belief: it is
6
7
simply that now they have been consigned to the task of representing whatever is
8 not to be believed. The equation has not changed, but now ghosts inhabit its other
9
10 side. Why do ghosts continue to occupy such a prominent position in debated over
11
the boundary between real and unreal? Why do they furnish such workable tropes
12
13 of untruth? (Buse and Stott 1999, 3).
14
15
16
It is neither a question about reality or superstition, nor a science-religion debate.
Fo
17
18 Ghost stories and stories about ghosts, i.e. inexplicable experiences, are considered part of
19
20 our History, but not a present issue. They were really popular from the birth of Modernity
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21
22 to approximately World War II. The Romantic period was the glory-moment of spectres,
23
24 seers, mediums and psychical research. This was also the period of the advertisement of
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25 Gods death and the consequently secularization of society. As a slogan we can affirm
26
27 that: spectres are, then, a product of secular ideology.
28
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29 During twentieth century natural or more exactly scientific reason was the key
30
31 question that should explain everything. This is the post-secular society in which we are
32
33
living in nowadays. However, people continue to see ghost or have had extraordinary
ev
34 experiences. Why? As we have seen because such experiences cover a human principal
35
36 need: Hope.
iew
37
38 Nowadays, those scientific (post-secular) discourses have forgotten spectres, seers
39
40 and related experiences. There are almost two main reasons for such a silence: firstly,
41 spectres and seers are considered from the past and related with madness or superstition.
42
43 Because of that, they were progressively hidden. Since they were considered related with
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44
45 mental diseases or mystic beliefs, they were abandoned by a aseptic, objective and
46
47 amnesic discourse. As a result, they are not present in academic thought, even when
ly
48
they are actually alive in common life.
49
50 And this is the second point: how post-secularization affects both natural reason
51
52 ideology (the new rationality) and human needs. Since present today and without a
53
54 satisfactory explanation, spectres should be studied and seers should be respected. They
55
56
are in between religious and our post-secular conception, so their study can be a possible
57 point of view that transcends narrow-minded options from both sides of the question.
58
59 We have talked about experiences with spectres and people who experienced
60
them seers to explain the reductionist point of view of a natural-reason based
1
2
3 ideology and a possible way of an intermediate solution. We have shown a hidden
4
5 question that affects much more people than we normally think. So, why do not be
6
7 tolerant?
8
9
10
Notes
11 1
12 The most relevant attempt to develop a scientific approach to spiritualism was
13 constituted by the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). The SPR was the first learned
14
15
society of its kind, was founded in London in 1882. Its stated purpose was to investigate
16 that large body of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric,
Fo
17 psychical and spiritualistic, and to do so in the same spirit of exact and

18
19 unimpassioned enquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems (Gauld
20 1968, 137).
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21 2
A clear example of this attempt to go beyond the limits of humanity is the
22
23 announcement of the possibility of a head transplant. Daily Mail pickep up the news as
24 follows: Human head transplant edges closer to reality: Chinese surgeon teams up with
ee
25 Italian doctor to perform controversial procedure in 2017. Read more in:

26
27 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3227954/Human-head-transplant-edges-
28 closer-reality-Chinese-surgeon-teams-Italian-doctor-perform-procedure-
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30
2017.html#ixzz3n8XEK0My
3
31 The Technological singularity is a hypothetical event related to the advent of
32 artificial general intelligence. Following this hypothesis machine or robots would
33
ev
34 theoretically be capable of recursive selfimprovement that could derivate in the

35 autocreation of smart machines. These machines design successive generations of
36 increasingly powerful machines, creating intelligence far exceeding human intellectual
iew
37
38 capacity and control.
39
40 References
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On
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51 Aris, P. 1982. The Hour of Our Death. New York: Vintage Books.
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55 Bloom, D. 2007. Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of
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Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory

Perspectives on spectrality and death: the birth of a problem1*

Tolerance; Social Pathology.

44 First of all, it is necessary to explore the confrontation of death in the history of

44 (Heidegger 1960, 95).

44 and who has dead and came from the afterlife.

44 can place Foucaults point of view, since, as Dmezil pointed out:

48 maybe intentionally misinterpreted.

21 (Foucault 1999, 117).

21 denied that they are connected in some ways.

21 so I think that we should rethink how we view death. Instead of thinking of it as a

44 Spectrality and haunting continue to enjoy a powerful currency in language and in

17 psychical and spiritualistic, and to do so in the same spirit of exact and

25 Italian doctor to perform controversial procedure in 2017. Read more in:

34 theoretically be capable of recursive selfimprovement that could derivate in the

44 on the Irrational in Culture. New York-London: Routledge, 238-241.

21 De Maat, S., J. Dekker, R. Schoevers, and F. de Jonghe. 2007. Relative efficacy of

44 Foucault, M. 1990. The History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage Books.

21 des arts et des mtiers. http://encyclopdie.eu/index.php/

44 Montiel, L. 2001. Historia y enfermedad mental en dos historia clnicas de Dietrich

21 Sociales y Jurdicas 34-2: 421-445.

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