Communicating with the Dead

Mutual Care

In many societies, there is a relationship of mutual care between the living and the dead. The dead need the help of the living on their journey to heaven (as in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity) or to the status of ancestor (as in much of East Asia). Catholics, for example, pray to the saints (a particular category of authenticated pious dead) for the souls of those they care for. In Japan, offerings are made to the dead at certain places (the household shrine or public Shinto shrines) and certain times (the O'Bon Festival in mid-August when the dead return to earth). In return, the dead are consulted for guidance, again typically at these times and places. A shrine is a place where the living may care for, and be guided by, the dead.

In a number of cultures and religions, distinctions are made between the recent dead and those who have become ancestors, typically after two generations have passed and there are few if any living who personally remember them. Among the Shona of Zimbabwe, for example, supplications are made to the ancestral spirits (the long dead) through the intermediary of the living dead (the recent dead). Ancestorhood usually reflects not personal affection for the deceased but the continuance beyond the grave of familial authority relations; in Africa, this relation with the ancestor may be more one of fear than of care.

In addition to these family ancestors, there are also the sacred dead legitimated by powerful institutions such as the state (national heroes, the war dead) or the church (saints); communications with these sacred dead are controlled by the relevant institution. In Japan, those who have died in war for their country attain the status of divinities, and so care between the living and the dead is particularly pronounced in rites performed at the Yasukuni national shrine for the war dead.

Reincarnation within the Family

In a number of African and North American Pacific Coast societies, there is a belief that the spirit and character of a dead person may be transferred to a living child or newborn baby. Among the Shona, a child may be given the name of a living grandparent, and be related to as though he or she were the grandparent; after the elder's death, the child receives the personal character of the deceased. In such societies, there is a strong sense that the dead can manifest themselves within the living, and by implication take part in the communications of everyday life. In Western countries without this tradition, there is the idea of a child bearing a strong likeness to an older relative, but this is explained in terms of genes, and, as Roland Barthes has observed, photographs comprise a way in which the dead manifest themselves among the living.

...