Ghosts are Just Vibing, Man!

If a ghost has beef with you, maybe that's a you problem.

A Venus flytrap wearing a ghost costume, accompanied by a three-eyed black cat.
Credit: rommy torrico

It's around this time of year, when things allegedly get spooky and scary, that I have a thought that's contrary to the October status quo: Maybe ghosts are just vibing. And maybe we, of flesh and blood, are pretty silly to be scared of them.

There are many reasons why I think this, chief among them is that I am from Brazil and I grew up hearing stories about spirits that were left behind. And I always understood the reasons behind any interactions they had with humans.

In one story I was told, a toddler kept sitting up in bed while sleeping, speaking in tongues, eventually screaming in a panic and waking up. The toddler's mother took him to a spiritist center, a place where Spiritism is practiced, a common religion in Brazil where the existence of a spiritual world is recognized and communicated with through mediums, for help. The mediums assessed the child, and determined their young soul was still being sought after by their friends in the spiritual world. After receiving a blessing, the mother was told to introduce herself to the spirits when the toddler's sleep was disturbed, and to explain that the toddler was now in flesh, on earth, and that they could no longer come out to play. The mother followed the instructions the following night, and the spirits never came back to bother her toddler.

We live in societies built off genocide and colonization. Of course most stories about the paranormal would be about revenge and hauntings.

At face value, this might sound like a scary story. But in reality, it shows how much spirits are just like us. Whoever those spirits were, they were looking for connection, which is a deeply human need. They clearly became confused by the sudden change of their friend leaving and entering a human body, and kept coming to them to play. The mother was, of course, terrified of her own toddler speaking in tongues, but that fear comes from the unknown, from not understanding the metaphysical dynamics of friends from another plane. Once that was explained and dealt with, everything settled in its place.

These stories have been a constant feature of my childhood, which has convinced me that there's a lot we cannot see in the physical world we inhabit. And that ultimately, that's okay. Unlike how ghosts are portrayed in American media, where hauntings often don't have much reason behind them, these stories showed me that ghosts want similar things to what we all wantโ€”they simply no longer have bodies.

My mother says that when my grandfather passed away suddenly, the whole family was hanging out at my grandmother's apartment after the funeral when the light switched off and then on again. She thought it was my brother, but he was far away from the switch. The whole family understood it must have been my grandfather, saying goodbye the only way he could. It wasn't scary; it was comforting. The need to say a final goodbye, the desire to see your family one last time. These were things I understood instinctually about that story.

Much of the fear we have of spirits can be attributed to the mystery of the unknown. Not knowing is terrifying, and the biggest unknown of human life is death. It makes sense that we would be fearful of what we become after dying, because we simply don't know.

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Ghosts: They're Just Like Us

There are a few exceptions to the "ghosts are just vibing" rule. And that's if the spirit has some kind of animosity or need for revenge. In that sense, they're just like us too: They'll want to get some closure for what was done to them. This is why, I think, colonizers in particular are often terrified of any paranormal activity, and maybe why there's so much media about how scary ghosts are, considering that we live in societies built off genocide and colonization. Of course most stories about the paranormal would be about revenge and hauntings.

In the Guatemalan film La Llorona (2021), the spooky tale of the weeping woman who steals kids is given the context it deserves. Previously depicted as an evil woman who likes to kill children for no reason beyond her own lust for blood, Indigenous woman Alma becomes the weeping woman after she and her children are murdered during a military attack on her village in Guatemala. When the general who ordered the genocide of her people is exonerated in court 30 years later, Alma comes back to take her revenge. In this case, Alma isn't just vibing or chilling, but can we blame her? I don't think so.

If Alma had died in old age after seeing her children grow up and her village thriving, she would have no reason to haunt a genocidaire general in death. She would just be chilling. But part of colonialism is not understanding that taking land and life has consequences, even if your victims are six feet under.

The biggest villains of our time stand to gain land, money, and power through their harmful actionsโ€”why would ghosts be any different?

In the American depiction of the tale in The Curse of La Llorona (2019), there's no rhyme or reason for the weeping woman's thirst for children's blood. Relying on atmospheric creepiness and the bad decisions of its main characters, a mother and a child who actively decide to ignore warnings that they've been cursed, this version of the story is just another run-of-the-mill horror film. Creepy when watching it, sure. Interesting for people who agree that ghosts and paranormal activity are inherently evil, or rooted in some essential, supernatural malice. But ultimately, it only reinforces the idea that ghosts just decide to murder children for the kicks, further sanitizing colonialism.

A similar dynamic appears in Netflix's Wednesday, a show that thrives on its spookiness but fails to actually delve into the horrors of colonialism and racialization it nods at. As I wrote back in 2022, Wednesday weirdly positions white people as the victims of colonialism instead of exploring the titular character's Mexican heritage and the spiritual beliefs that may come with that cultural baggage. Personally, I don't find evil without reason interesting. The biggest villains of our time stand to gain land, money, and power through their harmful actionsโ€”why would ghosts be any different?

Too often, the makers of media that represents ghosts as inherently troublesome don't truly understand how much the current world we live in was built on pain. This translates to a shallow understanding of why ghosts would bother the living at all.

When I say ghosts are just vibing, what I mean is that they're only humans who are no longer. There's no reason for ghosts to be inherently evil, just as there's no reason for people to be inherently evil. Of course, some people are evil; some people are seeking revenge, sometimes rightfully. The same applies to ghosts. It rings much truer to me that ghosts would have reasons for haunting or for just chilling in your house. If a ghost has beef with you, I'm inclined to think that's a you problem. Have you considered your ancestral harm and begged for forgiveness? Maybe you should, but I will never believe all spirits are evil all the time.

Talking to Ghosts

I practice a religion called Umbanda. It's a religion that was founded in Brazil, merging the beliefs of African, Indigenous, and Christian spiritualities. In the terreiro (what we call the worship space) I go to, mediums make their bodies into vessels for spirits to come back to earth temporarily. It is believed that these spirits are wise, and that they can help humans navigate their lives with their knowledge from beyond.

In a rectangular room, the mediums are cordoned off to a half of the terreiro. The people who come to worship stand or sit on the other side of the room, waiting to speak to the dead. The mediums are all dressed in white, and they dance when the percussion starts playing. They are calling on the spirits to come back, sometimes holding objects that represent specific kinds of spirits. There are many different kinds of spirits to call upon. The pombagira is usually a woman who was either promiscuous or a sex worker, and to attract her, the mediums wear bright red lipstick and flowers in their hair. She represents the divine feminine and protects people suffering for love. The malandro is a man who enjoyed life beyond constraints of capitalism, drinking and indulging in the pleasures of fleshly life, and to attract him, the mediums bring cigarettes and beer. He protects people who like to have fun and hate to work.

When the spirits take over the mediums' bodies, they start doing fleshly things. They frown or smile. They drink beer or liquor. Some of them drink tea or eat bread. Some of them yell war cries. Others just dance and dance, sometimes spinning in place like children. They are eager to say hello to the worshippers, the people who came to see them. The spirits usually greet the worshippers with a long hug. Their visitors ask them for advice: Should I break up with my partner? Should I get a new job? I miss my dead mother; is she okay? Am I walking the right path? Sometimes visitors cry, sometimes they laugh. After receiving the advice, visitors are given candles to burn and herbs to worship, tasks that will help quiet the spirit, that will call protection or peace into their lives.

"This terreiro will always welcome you," one of them told me.

The makers of media that represents ghosts as inherently troublesome don't truly understand how much the current world we live in was built on pain.

Before I started practicing Umbanda, I spoke to spirits whenever I felt them around. "I am here too, I am of flesh, and I will not bother you," I told them. They usually left me alone after that. I already believed that we could all live peacefully in our different planes of existence. But now that I have seen that spirits do some of their favorite things when they're back in a body, I know for sure that they're not all inherently scary. They're just people.

I still talk to them when they're around. I ask for protection and thank them for the abundance in my life as I light the monthly candle for Oxalรก. The flame flickers in response, and then becomes still.

This piece was edited by s.e. smith and copyedited by Andrea Grimes.