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ghost town
ghost town term for any once flourishing American community that has been abandoned, generally for economic reasons. While most of the towns have little or no population, they often contain old buildings, which may serve as tourist attractions. Many, such as Virginia City, Nev., were gold-mining to...
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William Frend De Morgan
William Frend De Morgan 1839-1917, English artist and novelist; son of Augustus De Morgan. A famous potter, he designed glass and tiles and rediscovered an old process of making colored lusterware. When he was 66 he retired from business and turned to writing novels, which were quite popular and br...
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ghost
ghost When asked if he believed in ghosts, Coleridge replied that he had seen too many to put any trust in their reality. Verifying their existence does not, according to psychics, always depend upon believing the evidence of one's eyes or ears. Freud attributes a belief in ghosts to our sense of &...
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Ghost Dance
Ghost Dance central ritual of the messianic religion instituted in the late 19th cent. by a Paiute named Wovoka . The religion prophesied the peaceful end of the westward expansion of whites and a return of the land to the Native Americans. The ritual lasted five successive days, being danced each...
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poltergeist
poltergeist [Ger.,=knocking ghost], in spiritism , certain phenomena, such as rapping, movement of furniture, and breaking of crockery, for which there is no apparent scientific explanation. Believers in spiritism interpret these phenomena, particularly common during séances, as evidence of...
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Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu , 1814-73, Irish author. He spent his early career as a journalist. In 1863, he began producing a series of stories noted for their reflections of Irish life and supernatural, mysterious atmosphere. His two best works are the novels The House by the Churchyard (1863) and U...
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Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost [ ghost, i.e., spirit, a translation of Gr. pneuma =breath, air], in Christian doctrine, the third person of the Trinity . The Holy Spirit is sometimes defined as the aspect of God immanent in this world, in human beings, and in the church. Jesus' promise to his dis...
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Didymus of Alexandria
Didymus of Alexandria d. c.396, Greek grammarian and theologian, also called Didymus the Blind. His treatise On the Holy Ghost was translated by St. Jerome, who studied briefly with him. Although Didymus had been trusted with teaching theology by St. Athanasius, he was condemned for Origenism by ...
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lares
lares , in Roman religion, guardian spirits. According to some they were ghosts of the dead, destructive spirits who frequented crossroads and had to be propitiated. Others say that the lares were farm deities, worshiped as fertility powers of the earth. The most common myth, however, identifies the...
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apparition
apparition spiritualistic manifestation of a person or object in which a form not actually present is seen with such intensity that belief in its reality is created. The ancient and widespread belief in apparitions and ghosts (specters of dead persons) is based on the idea that the spirit of a man,...
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