How does one overcome the fear of ghosts and the dark?
There are thousand ways to defeat your fear of the dark. Let me briefly explain a few and let you pick. But please remember that the most important milestone in this journey would be to understand that darkness is much more powerful than light. Light needs a source to exist, darkness on the other hand is omnipresent. It is simply the absence of light. The first and most important step in conquering your fear is embracing darkness and removing all the stigma(ghosts, fear of the unknown) around it.
1. The ‘Musk’ method — This man has defeated the toughest thing to defeat — DEFEAT itself. After numerous failures, he has come to a position of respect and is viewed (for good or bad) as a Rockstar among the tech community. He simply says that darkness is an absence of photos in visible wavelength. Exactly the first step in overcoming one’s fear.
“When I was a little kid, I was really scared of the dark. But then I came to understand, dark just means the absence of photons in the visible wavelength–400 to 700 nanometers. Then I thought, well, it’s really silly to be afraid of a lack of photons. Then I wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore after that.”
2. The ‘Reacher’ method — There is a situation in the Jack Reacher novel ‘Echo burning’ where he explains how he fought his fear of the unknown. Now to be fair, to many Reacher himself is an untraceable, undefeatable, indestructive man who is almost seen and feared as a ghost. But this is a greatly effective method. This is the excerpt:
In Echo Burning, Reacher narrates how he first turned “his fear into aggression”. He had been about four when he watched a television show on space adventures. One such episode depicted a space monster which had then terrified the young Reacher. After that he was unable to sleep for days on end, thinking the monster was under his bed and would get him if he tried to sleep. And then, according to Reacher, his younger self got mad: “Not at myself for being afraid, because as far as I was concerned the thing was totally real and I should be afraid. I got mad at the thing for making me afraid. For threatening me”. Reacher then one night “kind of exploded with fury”. In his words, Reacher “raced down the monster” and successfully changed his fear into fury. He also stated he has never been scared since.
Basically what he says is — ‘If there is something under my bed, I am going to pull it out and beat it down till it is afraid of me’. Yeah, Reacher is amazing.
3. The ‘Supernatural’ method — Probably the easiest to relate and most entertaining, if I may. Supernatural is a long-running horror-fantasy series where two brother travel the United states in search of Supernatural elements — ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, amazons, zombies, the Frankenstein family, mad doctors, ghouls, ginns, the devil, his hookup, their son… its…its a long show. I really mean that. The brothers research what they are dealing with and find out ways to kill/suppress it. Its totally relatable and easy to comprehend. Everything created has to have a way to be destroyed. This show more than anything else gave me great reason to be not afraid of the dark. Even the slightest fears that I used to get if I hear something in the dark of the night is now gone thanks to these guys.
4. The ‘Spiritual’ method — This might be contradictory to what you have been taught and what your belief system is. But it is usually assumed that its takes a lot of energy and forms to be born in this world. Sustaining the whole energy and your multiple forms/channel is what keeps you alive. So when anything living(or a part of it) leaves this reality, it is unlikely to return. And even if it does, it has lost a few forms or a lot of the energy that keeps it strong and surviving. So it is unlikely for it to take a stronger form(like a blood sucking Vampire for example) and even kill another being who is alive and is supposed to be filled with much more energy. This energy need not be raw power or will. It cant viewed differently with respect to what you believe in. You can even consider each of 7 chakras as the forms/channel of energy. Refer your belief system to see what would suit you.
Disclaimer — I am not speaking for everyone who has followed spiritualism at some time in their life or derives it from one guru/book. This is just the essence of what I learnt and not meant to offend anyone. If you think my interpretation is wrong, I am happy to be fine with it and so should you. Needless to say, spirituality can be interpreted in multiple ways.
Good luck!
Elon Musk Photo from — https://www.wired.com/story/elon-forget-killer-robots-focus-on-the-real-ai-problems/
