I don't believe in ghosts

I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do believe in spirits. Some years ago I read an intriguing statement, claiming that when one reads a book, one gets influenced by the author’s mood at the time of writing, beyond what is conveyed in the words of the book. True or not, the author’s mood may well be referred to as the spirit in which the writing took place. And, if not beyond, then at least some of that spirit will likely be conveyed through the words written. Another example can be given through what is sometimes indicated in certain spiritual teachings: that one’s mood - one’s spirit - always influences others around and carries on that way in a kind of a ripple effect.

More recently, I was confronted with a situation which illustrated this point even more convincingly. Shortly after I had moved into some rented rooms in a beautiful house in the countryside, it became clear that the house’s beauty was rather superficial and that in the finishing of details - but not just the details, as I later found out - had been done in rather lousy ways, leading to significant inconveniences. Initially I considered it indeed minor inconveniences that doors wouldn’t always close properly, or that a light switch was mounted in another room than the light it controlled. But it went on. Many minor inconveniences started mounting on each other and thus started to become major. Windows wouldn’t close properly and start to leak in a hard rain. The electric wiring wasn’t only mixed up, it was also of insufficient capacity and circuit breakers would flip on a daily basis. Then the sewage would start to come up from the washing machine’s draining pipe - it turned out that the whole sewage system was a mess, with broader pipes flowing into narrower ones and intended separation of gray and black water non existent. Tiles would be coming off the stairways. Curtain rails come off the wall. We would warrant the landlord and landlady at times to fix, or at least help us fix certain things. But much of it was unfixable, at least not in the short term and not without making significant costs. Fixing the wiring, fixing the sewers would necessitate some serious deconstruction and reconstruction work. Through the discussions we had over time we learned that the house had been troubled ever since it was delivered and they had made significant extra costs already to fix several things. What happened most likely is that the construction was granted to a contractor for a fixed amount, who then sub-contracted parts of the job to rather unprofessional parties, obviously at great discount. This being not an uncommon practice in the region.

And precisely that practice, that way of thinking and dealing is what I call a bad spirit. It surmounts to a mentality in which stealing is not allowed, unless nobody is looking. In other countries, a contractor would not have gotten away with it. But here they did. And that spirit of greed, neglect and disdain for one’s customers was breathed into the house, as well as, through its mentioned commonality, it was breathed all over the country. The defects started to affect our moods as well as the relationship with our landlord and -lady. A serious and conscious effort needed to be made to counter it.

And that illustrates why - and how I believe in spirits and how I see them propagate.