Bridges to the Spirit World: A Qualitative Study of Beliefs About how Ghosts and Spirits Communicate

Abstract

Many people across the world believe in ghosts/spirits, and reports of encounters with these spiritual entities are surprisingly common. How do people believe that ghosts and spirits might communicate with people? We explored this question in a qualitative study of undergraduate students who reported some belief in ghosts/spirits (N = 2,452. Participants provided open-ended descriptions of communication methods, and qualitative description analysis yielded 3,775 means of communication, which we distilled to 171 unique codes. We used qualitative concept formation to group codes into 10 categories: Protrusion into Life (e.g., environmental manipulations), Senses (e.g., hearing or sight), Psychological (e.g., unconscious or cognitive influences), Symbolic Gestures (e.g., synchronicities), Appearing/Revealed Presence (e.g., apparitions), Supernatural (e.g., paranormal phenomena), Invited/Conjured (e.g., through mediums), Natural Environment (e.g., nature), Relational (e.g., through others), and Location (e.g., places). These beliefs corresponded with perceived experiences with ghosts/spirits. We discuss how our findings build on research examining prevalence, predictors, and outcomes of perceived engagement with ghosts/spirits, as well as implications that beliefs have for interpreting and navigating ghost/spirit experiences.