Ghost of a Chance of a Ghost

The West has made a religion of secular science.
It’s an obsession, as well, but it becomes a religion by seeking grounds to crowd out every other religion. It’s a sort of, “Believe what you want, but if you want the real truth…” This is a fundamentally religious claim, despite efforts to deny any “religion” at all. Isn’t it funny how most people in the name of secular science and atheism or agnosticism claim to be seeking objective truth, when it is established by science humans aren’t capable of objectivity? It’s a religious doctrine to say all religions are false.
By the way, agnosticism is simply a way of saying, “Since we don’t know, we can’t act on religious assertions.” But it supplants “religion” with something which works the same as religion. We all act on things we can’t prove, nor even properly explain, to others. That’s not always because those others simply can’t rise to the intellectual challenge of understanding. Plenty of things we don’t understand ourselves, but a favorite deception is to pretend such things don’t matter.
Modern Western theology tends to assert ghosts don’t actually exist. The Scriptures indicate each of us has a spirit potential and an eternal soul. The popular definition of “ghost” pretty much centers on a soul without a regular body, but hanging around here in human space. In the Bible, there is no precedent for a disembodied human soul hanging around except directly sent by God for some specific purpose. All other manifestations are simply demons masquerading as human souls, trying to enslave folks to their fears and guilt. This has something to do with the pedantic literalism of the assertions typical of most Western theology.
We are all aware of the literary symbolism in the term “ghost.” It refers to our own subjective feelings and commitments regarding someone who has died. Separation is torment, even when it brings some measure of relief. The point is well captured in the term “significant other” — someone whose presence looms large for good or ill, and usually some of both. That we are illogically conflicted should simply taken for granted, and is poorly accepted as the norm in modern Western culture. In other words, only the more literary and intelligent folks accept the idea it’s good and right for humans to be self-contradictory that way. It’s part of what gives meaning to the literary term “ghost”.
When we are haunted by some ghost, it simply means there is unfinished business in our souls regarding that person. It has nothing to do with their actual status on the other side of death, but our sense of disturbance and guilt and all sorts of other things natural to healthy human psyches (as healthy as a human psyche is likely to be). That we are dealing with them is the healthy part. Running from them simply adds another layer of neurosis.
Fictional portrayals of facing our ghosts is very good therapy. The mythology each of us holds regarding such a thing is immaterial. Choose your technology, rituals, etc.; it won’t matter much, so long as you face it. When folks tell me some place is haunted, I’m altogether eager to explore it. It’s not that I know no fear; it’s because I’ve been facing my ghosts for quite some time, and I’m comfortable with the emotions involved. I don’t need a ghost whisperer nor ghost-busters. It is not possible for haunting to be an objective fact; it simply has no meaning as such. But I’ll be glad to go with you and take your feelings and sense of haunting seriously, because the effects are just the same. You can surely die from such internal conflicts. Just because I can’t sense precisely what you sense has nothing to do with it; my empathy makes it possible to sense them on another level. That’s usually about all it takes to help someone put their ghosts to rest.
Whatever else is required is wholly a matter of the person who is haunted. I can teach them about such things, but only what I think I understand. You’ll still have to find your own path, your own peace.
There are an awful lot of things in this world for which a factual scientific explanation is really no answer at all.