What Is A Ghost?

Spirit. Ghost. Shade. Apparition. Remnant. Soul. Demon.

The Ghost That Was Lasher

Lasher himself seems, in his disembodied state, to have no recollection of where he came from or even what he was before Suzanne called him in the circle of stones. He did not recall anything of his life before he became Lasher until he was born in the flesh. He told Rowan he learned to want and to plan from her ancestors, the Mayfair Witches. In this sense, his memory might be childlike: "once I didn't know how to do it, but now I do." He could tell her nothing of his identity since he could not remember his life, or if he even had one.

In The Witching Hour, Lasher is the Demon, the Devil. He is also the Dream Lover, the Incubus. He is not natural, not of this world. He wants something from the Mayfair Witches that he has been manipulating them to be able to provide over the centuries. In exchange, he lends them his own abilities as power and uses it to gain them immense wealth and status. Ultimately, what he wants will be prohibitively expensive, a cost that even the Legacy cannot finance: to return in the flesh to regenerate his own species, one that threatens the very existence of human life.

Lasher, as a ghost, is feared not only for what he wants, but for what is not known about him. The human family he dominates has tried for centuries to learn more about what he is and where he comes from. At times, the answer is right in front of them and they miss it, like any other ordinary human. It is the human essence that is at stake here, not the preservation of witch-producing genes, and the Mayfairs seem to know this difference instinctively. Preserving human life so it can survive to reproduce itself is the "bottom line" when it comes to evolution and even religion, which may be the only idea on which evolution and Christianity are in some sort of tentative agreement. Lasher, a spirit of some kind, is a direct threat to humanity itself. But how?

Ghosts Among Us

To even interpret that question, one has to have some background knowledge of ghosts in history and popular culture as well as the myths and beliefs surrounding ghosts.

People have been asking and attempting to answer questions about the nature of ghosts for millenia. Ghosts have appeared everywhere in documented form, from religious texts and canons to literature and camp-fire tales. Movies and plays have been written about ghosts both real and made up, and people across time, nations and cultures have claimed to see or experience them in one form or another.

Unlike communion with God, the saints or direct communication with the gods, during which it is implicitly understood that these gods and their intercessors have rightful charge over the world and its inhabitants, ghosts are almost universally understood to be the discarnate souls of people who have died. Various explanations exist for why a person would return to the world as a ghost, but as to what implications it has for the living, there is yet another almost universal understanding: the ghost does not belong.

Many believe a ghost returns to resolve unfinished business, in a manner similar to what Lasher did. Then, there are ghosts of people who do not know they have died, like Quinn Blackwood's mother, Patsy. The ghosts people are afraid of, like a ghost returned for revenge or to wreak general havoc among the living out of jealousy that the living can still experience sensation, are the ghosts that appear in popular culture and urban legends. Lasher could be described as one such ghosts. All are afraid of him and with good reason.

Then, there are earthbound spirits attached to a particular place or person, like Julien Mayfair. He deliberately attached himself to an object that would be a sort of doorway for him back into the world, the Victrola. His hair and nail clippings were secreted inside the player, a living part of him that would bind him to the world so he could continue to fight Lasher even after his own death. Julien's return is not revenge, but unfinished business. Unfortunately for Julien, he may never really rest in peace because it is after his death that he learns that his many sexual blunders in life were part of the very thing that rendered his (many) descendants vulnerable to Lasher, the being he remained behind to fight.

The Mayfair Ghosts

Julien's sexual blunders apparently were not limited to his lifetime. It was he who, through an illusion he created using the Victrola, brought Mona and Michael together in the double parlor for the purpose of waking Michael from his stupor. Julien's only goals were that Rowan be found and Lasher stopped before Lasher could fulfill his goal. Michael had to come out of his stupor to do this. Michael was the angel referred to in Evelyn's poem. Julien needed Michael to help him fulfill his own destiny as a ghost.

From the description of the ghost Julien and his blunders, ghosts are not all-seeing, all-knowing, nor are they infallible. If so, Julien would have seen the dreadful error of pairing off two people who carried the genes necessary to create the very being Lasher actually was: the Taltos. This is the species that would take over and have dominion over the earth - what Julien would ultimately stop if he were to succeed in stopping Lasher.

This error is what causes him to remain in the earthly realm. He appears later, in Blackwood Farm, to warn Quinn that he cannot marry Mona Mayfair due to yet another sexual escapade that resulted in the spread of the Mayfair genes - Julien Mayfair as a stand-in for William Blackwood so Manfred Blackwood could have grandchildren and a line of descent. Quinn Blackwood's ability to see Goblin, his doppelganger mirror twin, is in fact inherited from Julien Mayfair.

What Can Ghosts Actually Do?

Is it possible that ghosts can appear as vital and alive as Julien Mayfair did for Quinn Blackwood in the garden? Is it possible that ghosts can cause purely physical sensations and reactions in living people as Lasher did for Rowan and her forebears? In order to do this, Rowan surmises, Lasher must gather his own molecules together to form solid matter, a process that would require a great deal of energy to do and to hold it as the molecules must be far more fine than the molecules of living humans, right down to atomic structure. Lasher as a ghost does this more than once but cannot hold himself together solidly to appear for long.

Is it possible that, assuming ghosts can gather in a solid mass in this manner, that ghosts appear so briefly because they have used up energy regulated by their own molecular properties? Rowan could be right when she said science may someday be able to explain ghosts, explain Lasher. Whatever the scientific or religious explanations, it is generally accepted that a ghost is a representation of a person now dead, regardless of the nature of how the apparition came to be.

The Good vs. Evil of Ghosts

Ghosts in and of themselves seem to be neutral with no real moral gradient. It is their purpose and the effects of their actions that determines the good/bad in the equation, even their intent. Lasher could be called a tragic figure because he had been a Taltos savagely murdered for no reason other than he was of a species that humans considered to be a threat, but a dangerous figure because he did not realize until later in his short life and at the moment of his death what a danger he was. He took that knowledge into the spirit world, using a vague awareness of it as the blueprint for his purpose in breeding the Mayfair Witches the way he did. It is destruction that is the determining factor in whether or not Lasher was a good or evil ghost.

In human ghosts such as Julien, intent plays a role in the good/bad question because even though Julien blundered terribly with Mona, his intention was to help motivate Michael, rejuvenate him the best way he knew how in order to accomplish a crucial and necessary, good task. Despite Julien's mistake, what he was in life or his relentless stalking of Lestat, all of these things were done with good intentions, aimed at the greater good of all involved. This is what would make him a "good" ghost as opposed to an evil one.

14 June 2008