title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: While generally successful, Pavarotti's early roles did not immediately propel him into the stardom that he would later enjoy. An early coup involved his connection with Joan Sutherland (and her conductor husband, Richard Bonynge), who in 1963 was seeking a tenor taller than herself to take along on her 1965 tour to Australia. With his commanding physical presence, Pavarotti proved ideal. However, before the summer 1965 Australia tour Pavarotti sang with Joan Sutherland when he made his American début with the Greater Miami Opera in February 1965, singing in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" on the stage of the Miami-Dade County Auditorium in Miami. The tenor scheduled to perform that night became ill with no understudy. As Sutherland had plans to travel with him on the Australia tour that summer, she recommended the young Pavarotti as he was acquainted with the role. Shortly after, on 28 April, Pavarotti made his La Scala debut in the revival of the Franco Zeffirelli production of "La bohème," with his childhood friend Mirella Freni singing Mimi and Herbert von Karajan conducting. Karajan had requested the singer's engagement.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: During the Australia tour in summer 1965 Sutherland and Pavarotti sang some forty performances over two months, and Pavarotti later credited Sutherland for the breathing technique that would sustain him over his career. After the extended Australian tour, he returned to La Scala, where he added Tebaldo from "I Capuleti e i Montecchi" to his repertoire on 26 March 1966, with Giacomo Aragall as Romeo. His first appearance as Tonio in Donizetti's "La fille du régiment" took place at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 2 June of that year. It was his performances of this role that would earn him the title of "King of the High Cs". He scored another major triumph in Rome on 20 November 1969 when he sang in "I Lombardi" opposite Renata Scotto. This was recorded on a private label and widely distributed, as were various recordings of his "I Capuleti e i Montecchi," usually with Aragall. Early commercial recordings included a recital of Donizetti (the aria from "Don Sebastiano" were particularly highly regarded) and Verdi arias, as well as a complete "L'elisir d'amore" with Sutherland.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: His major breakthrough in the United States came on 17 February 1972, in a production of "La fille du régiment" at New York's Metropolitan Opera, in which he drove the crowd into a frenzy with his nine effortless high Cs in the signature aria. He achieved a record seventeen curtain calls. Pavarotti sang his international recital début at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, on 1 February 1973, as part of the college's Fine Arts Program, now known as the Harriman–Jewell Series. Perspiring due to nerves and a lingering cold, the tenor clutched a handkerchief throughout the début. The prop became a signature part of his solo performances. He began to give frequent television performances, starting with his performances as Rodolfo ("La bohème") in the first Live from the Met telecast in March 1977, which attracted one of the largest audiences ever for a televised opera. He won many Grammy awards and platinum and gold discs for his performances. In addition to the previously listed titles, his "La favorite" with Fiorenza Cossotto and his "I puritani" (1975) with Sutherland stand out.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In 1976, Pavarotti debuted at the Salzburg Festival, appearing in a solo recital on 31 July, accompanied by pianist Leone Magiera. Pavarotti returned to the festival in 1978 with a recital and as the Italian singer in "Der Rosenkavalier" in 1983 with "Idomeneo," and both in 1985 and 1988 with solo recitals. In 1979, he was profiled in a cover story in the weekly magazine "Time". That same year saw Pavarotti's return to the Vienna State Opera after an absence of fourteen years. With Herbert von Karajan conducting, Pavarotti sang Manrico in "Il trovatore." In 1978, he appeared in a solo recital on "Live from Lincoln Center."


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: At the beginning of the 1980s, he set up The Pavarotti International Voice Competition for young singers, performing with the winners in 1982 in excerpts of "La bohème" and "L'elisir d'amore". The second competition, in 1986, staged excerpts of "La bohème" and "Un ballo in maschera". To celebrate the 25th anniversary of his career, he brought the winners of the competition to Italy for gala performances of "La bohème" in Modena and Genoa, and then to China where they staged performances of "La bohème" in Beijing (Peking). To conclude the visit, Pavarotti performed the inaugural concert in the Great Hall of the People before 10,000 people, receiving a standing ovation for nine effortless high Cs. The third competition in 1989 again staged performances of "L'elisir d'amore" and "Un ballo in maschera". The winners of the fifth competition accompanied Pavarotti in performances in Philadelphia in 1997.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In the mid-1980s, Pavarotti returned to two opera houses that had provided him with important breakthroughs, the Vienna State Opera and La Scala. Vienna saw Pavarotti as Rodolfo in "La bohème" with Carlos Kleiber conducting and again Mirella Freni was Mimi; as Nemorino in "L'elisir d'amore"; as Radames in "Aida" conducted by Lorin Maazel; as Rodolfo in "Luisa Miller"; and as Gustavo in "Un ballo in maschera" conducted by Claudio Abbado. In 1996, Pavarotti appeared for the last time at the Staatsoper in "Andrea Chénier". Throughout the 1980s and 90s, promoters Tibor Rudas and Harvey Goldsmith booked Pavarotti into increasingly larger venues.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In 1985, Pavarotti sang Radames at La Scala opposite Maria Chiara in a Luca Ronconi production conducted by Maazel, recorded on video. His performance of the aria "Celeste Aida" received a two-minute ovation on the opening night. He was reunited with Mirella Freni for the San Francisco Opera production of "La bohème" in 1988, also recorded on video. In 1992, La Scala saw Pavarotti in a new Zeffirelli production of "Don Carlos", conducted by Riccardo Muti. Pavarotti's performance was heavily criticised by some observers and booed by parts of the audience.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: Pavarotti became even better known throughout the world in 1990 when his rendition of the aria "Nessun dorma" from Giacomo Puccini's "Turandot" was taken as the theme song of BBC's coverage of the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy. The aria achieved pop status, became the World Cup soundtrack, and it remained his trademark song. This was followed by the first Three Tenors concert, held on the eve of the 1990 FIFA World Cup Final at the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome with fellow tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras and conductor Zubin Mehta. The performance for the World Cup closing concert captivated a global audience, and it became the biggest selling classical record of all time. A highlight of the concert, in which Pavarotti sang the opening verses using extended vocal runs for di Capua's "O Sole Mio" and which was in turn perfectly repeated note-for-note by Domingo and Carreras to the delight of the audience. The recorded album sold millions of copies, and the first Three Tenors recording became the best-selling classical album of all time. Throughout the 1990s, Pavarotti appeared in many well-attended outdoor concerts, including his televised concert in London's Hyde Park, which drew a record attendance of 150,000. In June 1993, more than 500,000 listeners gathered for his free performance on the Great Lawn of New York's Central Park, while millions more around the world watched on television. The following September, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, he sang for an estimated crowd of 300,000. Following on from the original 1990 concert, the Three Tenors concerts were held during the three subsequent FIFA World Cup Finals, in 1994 in Los Angeles, 1998 in Paris, and 2002 in Yokohama.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In September 1995, Pavarotti performed Schubert's Ave Maria along with Dolores O'Riordan; Diana, Princess of Wales, who attended the live performance, told O'Riordan that the song brought her to tears. In 1995, Pavarotti's friends, the singer Lara Saint Paul (as Lara Cariaggi) and her husband showman Pier Quinto Cariaggi, who had produced and organised Pavarotti's 1990 FIFA World Cup Celebration Concert at the PalaTrussardi in Milan, produced and wrote the television documentary "The Best is Yet to Come", an extensive biography about the life of Pavarotti. Lara Saint Paul was the interviewer for the documentary with Pavarotti, who spoke candidly about his life and career.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: Pavarotti's rise to stardom was not without occasional difficulties, however. He earned a reputation as "The King of Cancellations" by frequently backing out of performances, and his unreliable nature led to poor relationships with some opera houses. This was brought into focus in 1989 when Ardis Krainik of the Lyric Opera of Chicago severed the house's 15-year relationship with the tenor. Over an eight-year period, Pavarotti had cancelled 26 out of 41 scheduled appearances at the Lyric, and the decisive move by Krainik to ban him for life was well noted throughout the opera world, after the performer walked away from a season premiere less than two weeks before rehearsals began, saying pain from a sciatic nerve required two months of treatment. On 12 December 1998, he became the first (and, to date, only) opera singer to perform on "Saturday Night Live", singing alongside Vanessa L. Williams. He also sang with U2 in the band's 1995 song "Miss Sarajevo" and with Mercedes Sosa in a big concert at the Boca Juniors arena La Bombonera in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1999. In 1998, Pavarotti was presented with the Grammy Legend Award.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In 2001, Pavarotti was acquitted in Italian court of a long standing dispute concerning his official country of residency and taxable earnings. Pavarotti long claimed Monte Carlo in the tax haven of Monaco as his official residence, but an Italian court in 1999 had rejected that claim by ruling that his Monaco address could not accommodate his entire family. In 2000 Pavarotti agreed to pay the Italian government more than $7.6 million in back taxes and penalties as a result of tax evasion charges that dated from 1989 to 1995. Pavarotti was subsequently fully acquitted by an Italian court of filing false tax returns in 2001.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: On 13 December 2003, he married his second wife and former personal assistant, Nicoletta Mantovani (born 1969), with whom he already had another daughter, Alice. Alice's twin brother, Riccardo, was stillborn after complications in January 2003. At the time of his death in September 2007, he was survived by his wife, his four daughters, and one granddaughter.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In late 2003, he released his final compilation—and his first and only "crossover" album, "Ti Adoro." Most of the 13 songs were written and produced by Michele Centonze, who had already helped produce the "Pavarotti & Friends" concerts between 1998 and 2000. The tenor described the album as a wedding gift to Nicoletta Mantovani. That same year he was made a Commander of Monaco's Order of Cultural Merit.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In 2004, one of Pavarotti's former managers, Herbert Breslin, published a book, "The King & I". Seen by critics as bitter and sensationalistic, it is critical of the singer's acting (in opera), his inability to read music well and learn parts, and his personal conduct, although acknowledging their success together. In an interview in 2005 with Jeremy Paxman on the BBC, Pavarotti rejected the allegation that he could not read music, although he acknowledged he did not read orchestral scores.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: He received an enormous number of awards and honours, including Kennedy Center Honors in 2001. He also holds two Guinness World Records: one for receiving the most curtain calls (165) and another for the best-selling classical album ("Carreras Domingo Pavarotti in Concert" by the Three Tenors; the latter record is thus shared by fellow tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras).


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: Pavarotti began his farewell tour in 2004, at the age of 69, performing one last time in old and new locations, after more than four decades on the stage. On 13 March 2004, Pavarotti gave his last performance in an opera at the New York Metropolitan Opera, for which he received a long standing ovation for his role as the painter Mario Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca." On 1 December 2004, he announced a 40-city farewell tour. Pavarotti and his manager, Terri Robson, commissioned impresario Harvey Goldsmith to produce the Worldwide Farewell Tour. His last full-scale performance was at the end of a two-month Australasian tour in Taiwan in December 2005.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In March 2005, Pavarotti underwent neck surgery to repair two vertebrae. In early 2006, he underwent further back surgery and contracted an infection while in the hospital in New York, forcing cancellation of concerts in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: On 10 February 2006, Pavarotti performed "Nessun dorma" at the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Turin, Italy, at his final performance. In the last act of the opening ceremony, his performance received the longest and loudest ovation of the night from the international crowd. Leone Magiera, who directed the performance, revealed in his 2008 memoirs, "Pavarotti Visto da Vicino", that the performance had been recorded weeks earlier. "The orchestra pretended to play for the audience, I pretended to conduct and Luciano pretended to sing. The effect was wonderful," he wrote. Pavarotti's manager, Terri Robson, said that the tenor had turned the Winter Olympic Committee's invitation down several times because it would have been impossible to sing late at night in the subzero conditions of Turin in February. The committee eventually persuaded him to take part by prerecording the song.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: While proceeding with an international "farewell tour", Pavarotti was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in July 2006. The tenor fought back against the implications of this diagnosis, undergoing major abdominal surgery and making plans for the resumption and conclusion of his singing commitments, but he died at his home in Modena on 6 September 2007. After his death, his manager, Terri Robson, noted in a statement, "The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life. In fitting with the approach that characterised his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness".


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: Pavarotti's funeral was held at Modena Cathedral. The then Prime Minister Romano Prodi and Kofi Annan attended. The Frecce Tricolori, the aerobatic demonstration team of the Italian Air Force, flew overhead, leaving green-white-red smoke trails. After a funeral procession through the centre of Modena, Pavarotti's coffin was taken the final to Montale Rangone, a village part of Castelnuovo Rangone, and was interred in the Pavarotti family crypt. The funeral, in its entirety, was also telecast live on CNN. The Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival Hall flew black flags in mourning. Tributes were published by many opera houses, such as London's Royal Opera House.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: Pavarotti's one venture into film was "Yes, Giorgio" (1982), a romantic comedy movie directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, in which he starred as the main character Giorgio Fini. The film was a critical and commercial failure, although it received an Academy Award nomination for Best Music, Original Song.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: He can be seen to better advantage in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's movie "Rigoletto", an adaptation of the opera of the same name also released in 1982, or in his more than 20 live opera performances taped for television between 1978 and 1994, most of them with the Metropolitan Opera, and most available on DVD.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: He received two Primetime Emmy Awards for his PBS variety specials "Pavarotti in Philadelphia: La Boheme" and "Duke of Mantua, Rigoletto Great Performances".


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: "Pavarotti", a 2019 documentary film about him, was directed by Ron Howard and produced with the cooperation of Pavarotti's estate using family archives, interviews and live music footage.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: Pavarotti annually hosted the Pavarotti & Friends charity concerts in his home town of Modena Italy, joining with singers from all parts of the music industry, including B.B. King, Andrea Bocelli, Zucchero, Jon Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, Bono, James Brown, Mariah Carey, Eric Clapton, Dolores O'Riordan, Sheryl Crow, Céline Dion, Anastacia, Elton John, Deep Purple, Meat Loaf, Queen, George Michael, Tracy Chapman, the Spice Girls, Sting and Barry White to raise money for several UN causes. Concerts were held for War Child, and victims of war and civil unrest in Bosnia, Guatemala, Kosovo and Iraq. After the war in Bosnia, he financed and established the Pavarotti Music Centre in the southern city of Mostar to offer Bosnia's artists the opportunity to develop their skills. For these contributions, the city of Sarajevo named him an honorary citizen in 2006.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: He performed at benefit concerts to raise money for victims of tragedies such as the Spitak earthquake that killed 25,000 people in northern Armenia in December 1988, and sang Gounod's "Ave Maria" with legendary French pop music star and ethnic Armenian Charles Aznavour.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: He was a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales. They raised money for the elimination of land mines worldwide.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In 1998, he was appointed the United Nations Messenger of Peace, using his fame to raise awareness of UN issues, including the Millennium Development Goals, HIV/AIDS, child rights, urban slums and poverty.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In 1999, Pavarotti performed a charity benefit concert in Beirut, to mark Lebanon's re-emergence on the world stage after a brutal 15-year civil war. The largest concert held in Beirut since the end of the war, it was attended by 20,000 people who travelled from countries as distant as Saudi Arabia and Bulgaria. In 1999 he also hosted a charity benefit concert to build a school in Guatemala, for Guatemalan civil war orphans. It was named after him Centro Educativo Pavarotti. Now the foundation of nobel prize winner Rigoberta Menchú Tum is running the school.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In 2001, Pavarotti received the Nansen Medal from the UN High Commission for Refugees for his efforts raising money on behalf of refugees worldwide. Through benefit concerts and volunteer work, he has raised more than any other individual.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: Also in 2001, Pavarotti was chosen one of that year's five recipients by the President and First Lady as an honoree for their lifetime achievements in the arts at the White House, followed by the Kennedy Center; the Kennedy Center Honors, He was surprised by the appearance of Secretary-General of the United Nations and that year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Kofi Annan, who lauded him for his contribution to humankind. Six months prior, Pavarotti had held a large charity concert for Afghan refugees, particularly children in his home town of Modena, Italy.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: Other honours he received include the ""Freedom of London Award"" and The Red Cross ""Award for Services to Humanity"", for his work in raising money for that organisation, and the 1998 ""MusiCares Person of the Year"", given to humanitarian heroes by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: His first will was opened the day after his death; a second will was opened within the same month of September. He left an estate outside his native Modena (now a museum), a villa in Pesaro, his flat in Monte Carlo, and three flats in New York City.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: Pavarotti's widow's lawyers, Giorgio Bernini and Anna Maria Bernini, and manager Terri Robson announced on 30 June 2008 that his family amicably settled his estate—€300 million ($474.2 million, including $15 million in U.S. assets). Pavarotti drafted two wills before his death: one divided his assets by Italian law, giving half to his second wife, Nicoletta Mantovani, and half to his four daughters; the second gave his U.S. holdings to Mantovani. The judge confirmed the compromise by the end of July 2008. However, a Pesaro public prosecutor, Massimo di Patria, investigated allegations that Pavarotti was not of sound mind when he signed the will. Pavarotti's estate has been settled "fairly", a lawyer for Mantovani said in statements after reports of a dispute between her and his three daughters from his first marriage.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: He posthumously received the Italy-USA Foundation's America Award in 2013 and the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2014.


title: Luciano Pavarotti

text: In addition to his very large discography of opera performances Pavarotti also made many classical crossover and pop recordings, the Pavarotti & Friends series of concerts and, for Decca, a series of studio recital albums: first six albums of opera arias and then, from 1979, six albums of Italian song.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Doctor Zhivago () is a 1965 epic historical romance film directed by David Lean with a screenplay by Robert Bolt, based on the 1957 novel by Boris Pasternak. The story is set in Russia during World War I and the Russian Civil War. The film stars Omar Sharif in the title role as Yuri Zhivago, a married physician and poet whose life is altered by the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war, and Julie Christie as his love interest Lara Antipova. Geraldine Chaplin, Tom Courtenay, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson, Siobhán McKenna, and Rita Tushingham play supporting roles.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: While immensely popular in the West, Pasternak's book was banned in the Soviet Union for decades. For this reason, the film could not be made in the Soviet Union and was instead filmed mostly in Spain. It was an international co-production between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Italian producer Carlo Ponti.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Contemporary critics were critical of its length at over three hours and claimed that it trivialized history, but acknowledged the intensity of the love story and the film's treatment of human themes. At the 38th Academy Awards, "Doctor Zhivago" won five Oscars: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design. It was nominated for five others (including Best Picture and Best Director), but lost four of these five to "The Sound of Music". It also won five awards at the 23rd Golden Globe Awards including Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama for Sharif.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: , it is the eighth highest-grossing film of all time in the United States and Canada, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. It is also one of the top ten highest-grossing films worldwide after adjusting for inflation. In 1998, it was ranked by the American Film Institute 39th on their 100 Years... 100 Movies list, and by the British Film Institute the following year as the 27th greatest British film of all time.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: The film is set against a backdrop of World War I, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the Russian Civil War. A narrative framing device, set in the late 1940s or early 1950s, involves NKVD Lieutenant General Yevgraf Andreyevich Zhivago searching for the daughter of his half-brother, Dr Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago, and Larissa ("Lara") Antipova. Yevgraf believes a young woman, Tanya Komarova, may be his niece and tells her the story of her father's life.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: After his mother's burial in rural Russia, the orphaned child Yuri Zhivago is taken in by family friends in Moscow: Alexander and Anna Gromeko. In 1913, Zhivago, now a doctor but a poet at heart, is reunited with the Gromekos' daughter, Tonya, when she returns to Moscow after her schooling in Paris. They soon become engaged.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Lara, only 17 years old, is seduced by her mother's much older friend/lover, the well-connected Victor Ippolitovich Komarovsky. One night, Lara's friend, the idealistic reformer Pasha Antipov, is wounded by sabre-wielding Cossack mounted police during an attack on a peaceful demonstration. Pasha goes to Lara, whom he wishes to marry, and she treats his wound. He asks her to hide a gun he picked up at the attack.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: After learning of her daughter's affair with Komarovsky, Lara's mother attempts suicide. Komarovsky summons his doctor friend, who brings along Zhivago as his apprentice. Komarovsky attempts to dissuade Lara from marrying Pasha. When she refuses, he pressures her into sex. Enraged, Lara later takes Pasha's gun and follows Komarovsky to a Christmas party. She shoots him, wounding his arm. Komarovsky insists no action be taken against Lara, and she is escorted out by Pasha, who followed her to the party; meanwhile, Zhivago, who is another party guest, treats Komarovsky's wound. Although devastated by Lara's admission about her and Komarovsky, Pasha marries her, and they eventually have a daughter, Katya.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: During World War I, Yevgraf Zhivago is sent by the Bolsheviks to subvert the Imperial Russian Army. Yuri, now married to Tonya, is drafted to be a battlefield doctor. Pasha, unsatisfied in his marriage to Lara, joins up, but is reported missing in action following an attack on German forces. Lara enlists as a nurse to search for him. Yuri encounters Lara, and takes her on as his nurse. For the next six months, they serve at a field hospital, during which time radical changes ensue throughout Russia as Vladimir Lenin returns from exile to Moscow. Before their departure from the hospital, Zhivago and Lara fall in love, though Zhivago remains faithful to Tonya.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: After the war, Yuri returns to Tonya, their son Alexander (Sasha), and the now-widowed Alexander Gromeko. They are still living in what had been their Moscow house, but it has been confiscated by the new Soviet government and divided into tenements. Yevgraf, now a member of the Cheka, informs Yuri that his poems have been condemned as antagonistic to communism. Fearing Zhivago will ultimately incriminate himself through his poetry, Yevgraf provides Yuri documents to leave Moscow and travel to the Gromekos' country home, "Varykino", located in the Ural Mountains. The family boards a heavily guarded freight train, bound to be traveling through contested territory that is secured by the Bolshevik commander, Strelnikov, formerly known as Pasha Antipov.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: While the train makes a mid-journey stop, Yuri gets out. He inadvertently wanders too closely to Strelnikov's armored train on a nearby track. He is captured by guards and taken to Strelnikov. During the intense interrogation, Yuri recognizes Strelnikov as Pasha. Strelnikov mentions that Lara is living in Yuriatin, where Yuri is headed and which is occupied by the anti-Communist White forces. Strelnikov deems Yuri a non-threat and allows him to return to the train. The family settles into a cottage on the Varykino estate. While in Yuriatin, Yuri sees Lara, and they surrender to their long-repressed passions. Tonya is pregnant again and when she is about to give birth, Yuri travels to Yuriatin to break it off with Lara. On his return, he is abducted by the Communist partisans and forced to join their field medical service.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: After two years, Yuri deserts the partisans. Amid great hardship, he makes it back to Yuriatin, arriving exhausted, ill, and suffering from frostbite. He goes to Lara, who cares for him. She says Tonya had contacted her while searching for Yuri. Leaving his belongings with Lara, she returned to Moscow. She had sent Lara a sealed letter to give Yuri if he returned. The letter is six months old. Tonya had given birth to a daughter named Anna, and she, her father, and her two children were deported and are living in Paris.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Yuri and Lara become lovers again. One night Komarovsky arrives and warns that Cheka agents have been watching them due to Lara's marriage to Strelnikov. Komarovsky offers her and Yuri help in leaving Russia, but he is promptly refused. They return to the abandoned Varykino estate, and hide in the state-confiscated main house. Yuri begins writing the "Lara" poems, which will later bring him popular fame but government disapproval. Komarovsky arrives with a small party of troops. Recently appointed as a regional official in the Far Eastern Republic, he informs Yuri that the Cheka only allowed Lara to remain in the area to lure Strelnikov. He was captured five miles away and committed suicide while en route to his execution. They now intend to arrest Lara. Yuri accepts Komarovsky's offer of safe passage for himself, Lara, and her daughter. However, once Lara is safely on her way, Yuri instead stays behind, although he had said that he would follow in their carriage. Yuri runs to the top of the Varykino main house and watches them from a window ride off in the distance. On the train, Lara tells Komarovsky that she is pregnant with Yuri's child.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Years later in Moscow during the Stalinist era, Yevgraf procures a medical job for his destitute, frail half-brother. While looking out of the tram's window, Yuri spots Lara walking on the street. Unable to attract her attention, he struggles to get off at the next stop. He runs after her but suffers a fatal heart attack before reaching her. Yuri's funeral is well-attended, despite his poetry being banned. Lara approaches Yevgraf at the graveside and asks for his help to find her and Yuri's daughter, who was lost during the civil war. Yevgraf helps her search the orphanages, but they are unable to locate her. Lara disappears and Yevgraf believes she must have died in one of the labour camps.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: While Yevgraf still believes that Tanya Komarova is Yuri and Lara's daughter, she remains unconvinced. After persistently being asked how she came to be lost, Tanya finally answers that her "father" had let go of her hand when they were running from the war's chaos. Yevgraf responds that a real father would not have let go. Tanya promises to consider what Yevgraf has told her. As she is about to leave with her fiancé, Yevgraf notices Tanya's balalaika, the same instrument which Yuri's mother was gifted at playing. When Yevgraf asks if Tanya can play it, her fiancé declares "Can she play? She's an artist!" and adding that she is self-taught, thus suggesting she might well be Yuri's daughter.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Boris Pasternak's novel was published in the West amidst celebration and controversy. Parts of Pasternak's book had been known in Samizdat since some time after World War II. However, the novel was not completed until 1956. The book had to be smuggled out of the Soviet Union by an Italian called D'Angelo to be delivered to Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, a left-wing Italian publisher who published it shortly thereafter, in 1957. Helped by a Soviet campaign against the novel, it became a sensation throughout the non-communist world. It spent 26 weeks atop "The New York Times" best-seller list.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Pasternak was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. While the citation noted his poetry, it was speculated that the prize was mainly for "Doctor Zhivago", which the Soviet government saw as an anti-Soviet work, thus interpreting the award of the Nobel Prize as a gesture hostile to the Soviet Union. A target of the Soviet government's fervent campaign to label him a traitor, Pasternak felt compelled to refuse the Prize. The situation became an international "cause célèbre" and made Pasternak a Cold War symbol of resistance to Soviet communism.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: The film treatment by David Lean was proposed for various reasons. Pasternak's novel had been an international success, and producer Carlo Ponti was interested in adapting it as a vehicle for his wife, Sophia Loren. Lean, coming off the huge success of "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), wanted to make a more intimate, romantic film to balance the action- and adventure-oriented tone of his previous film. One of the first actors signed onboard was Omar Sharif, who had played Lawrence's right-hand man Sherif Ali in "Lawrence of Arabia". Sharif loved the novel, and when he heard Lean was making a film adaptation, he requested to be cast in the role of Pasha (which ultimately went to Tom Courtenay).


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Sharif was quite surprised when Lean suggested that he play Zhivago. Peter O'Toole, star of "Lawrence of Arabia", was Lean's original choice for Zhivago, but turned the part down; Max von Sydow and Paul Newman also were considered. Rod Taylor was offered the role but turned it down. Michael Caine tells in his autobiography that he also read for Zhivago and participated in the screen shots with Christie, but (after watching the results with David Lean) was the one who suggested Omar Sharif. Rod Steiger was cast as Komarovsky after Marlon Brando and James Mason turned the part down. Audrey Hepburn was considered for Tonya, and Robert Bolt lobbied for Albert Finney to play Pasha.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Lean convinced Ponti that Loren was not right for the role of Lara, saying she was "too tall" (and confiding in screenwriter Robert Bolt that he could not accept Loren as a virgin for the early parts of the film), and Jeanne Moreau, Yvette Mimieux, Sarah Miles and Jane Fonda were considered for the role. Ultimately, Julie Christie was cast based on her appearance in "Billy Liar" (1963) and the recommendation of John Ford, who directed her in "Young Cassidy" (1965). Sharif's son Tarek was cast as the young Zhivago, and Sharif directed his son as a way to get closer to his character.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Because the book was banned in the Soviet Union, it could not be filmed there. Lean's experience filming a part of "Lawrence of Arabia" in Spain, access to CEA Studios, and the guarantee of snow in some parts of Spain led to his choosing the country as the primary location for filming. However, the weather predictions failed and David Lean's team experienced Spain's warmest winter in 50 years. As a result, some scenes were filmed in interiors with artificial snow made with dust from a nearby marble quarry. The team filmed some locations with heavy snow, such as the snowy landscape in Strelnikov's train sequence, somewhere in Campo de Gómara near Soria.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Nicolas Roeg was the original director of photography and worked on some scenes but, after an argument with Lean, he left and was replaced by Freddie Young. The film was shot over ten months, with the entire Moscow set being built from scratch outside Madrid. Most of the scenes covering Zhivago's and Lara's service in World War I were filmed in Soria, as was the Varykino estate. The "ice-palace" at Varykino was filmed in Soria as well, a house filled with frozen beeswax. The charge of the partisans across the frozen lake was also filmed in Spain; a cast iron sheet was placed over a dried river-bed, and fake snow (mostly marble dust) was added on top. Some of the winter scenes were filmed in summer with warm temperatures, sometimes of up to 25 °C (77 °F). Other locations include Madrid-Delicias railway station in Madrid and the Moncayo Range. The initial and final scenes were shot at the Aldeadávila Dam between Spain and Portugal. Although uncredited, most of those scenes were shot on the Portuguese side of the river, overlooking the Spanish side.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Other winter sequences, mostly landscape scenes and Yuri's escape from the partisans, were filmed in Finland. Winter scenes of the family traveling to Yuriatin by rail were filmed in Canada. The locomotives seen in the film are Spanish locomotives like the RENFE Class 240 (ex-1400 MZA), and Strelnikov's armoured train is towed by the RENFE Class 141F Mikado locomotive.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: One train scene became notorious for the supposed fate that befell , a Hungarian actress, who slipped clambering onto a moving train. Although she fell under the wagon, she escaped serious injury and returned to work within three weeks (and did not perish or lose a limb). Lean appears to have used part of her accident in the film's final cut.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Released theatrically on 22 December 1965, the film went on to gross $111.7 million in the United States and Canada across all of its releases, becoming the second highest-grossing film of 1965. It is the eighth highest-grossing film of all time adjusted for inflation. The film sold an estimated 124.1 million tickets in the United States and Canada, equivalent to $1.1 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2018.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: In addition, it is the ninth highest-grossing film worldwide after adjusting for inflation. The film sold an estimated 248.2million tickets worldwide, equivalent to adjusted for inflation as of 2014. It is the most popular film of all-time in Italy with 22.9 million admissions. It was the highest-grossing film in Germany with theatrical rentals of 39 million Deutschmarks from 12.75 million admissions and also the most popular film of all-time in Switzerland with over 1 million admissions. In the United Kingdom, it was the most popular film of the year with 11.2 million admissions and was the third-highest-grossing film of all-time in Australia with theatrical rentals of A$2.5 million. The film's 2015 limited re-release in the United Kingdom grossed $138,493.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: On 24 September 2002, the 35th Anniversary version of "Doctor Zhivago" was issued on DVD (two-disc set), and another Anniversary Edition in 2010 on Blu-ray (a three-disc set that includes a book).


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Upon its initial release, "Doctor Zhivago" was criticized for its romanticization of the revolution. Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" felt that the film's focus on the love story between Zhivago and Lara trivialized the events of the Russian Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War, but was impressed by the film's visuals. Also critical of the film was "The Guardian"'s Richard Roud, who wrote: "In the film the revolution is reduced to a series of rather annoying occurrences; getting firewood, finding a seat on a train, and a lot of nasty proles being tiresome. Whatever one thinks of the Russian Revolution it was certainly more than a series of consumer problems. At least it was to Zhivago himself. The whole point of the book was that even though Zhivago disapproved of the course the revolution took, he had approved of it in principle. Had he not, there would have been no tragedy". Brendan Gill of "The New Yorker" called the film "a grievous disappointment ... these able actors have been given almost nothing to do except wear costumes and engage in banal small talk. "Doctor Zhivago" is one of the stillest motion pictures of all time, and an occasional bumpy train ride or crudely inserted cavalry charge only points up its essential immobility." "The Monthly Film Bulletin" wrote: "The best one can say of "Doctor Zhivago" is that it is an honest failure. Boris Pasternak's sprawling, complex, elusive novel is held together by its unity of style, by the driving force of its narrative, by the passionate voice of a poet who weaves a mass of diverse characters into a single tapestry. And this is precisely what David Lean's film lacks. Somewhere in the two years of the film's making the spirit of the novel has been lost."


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Among the positive reviews, "Time" magazine called the film "literate, old-fashioned, soul-filling and thoroughly romantic". Arthur D. Murphy of "Variety" declared, "The sweep and scope of the Russian revolution, as reflected in the personalities of those who either adapted or were crushed, has been captured by David Lean in 'Doctor Zhivago,' frequently with soaring dramatic intensity. Director [David Lean] has accomplished one of the most meticulously designed and executed films—superior in several visual respects to his 'Lawrence of Arabia.'" Philip K. Scheuer of the "Los Angeles Times" called the film "as throat-catchingly magnificent as the screen could be, the apotheosis of the cinema as art. With Spain and Finland doubling, absolutely incredibly, for Moscow and the Urals in all seasons, we are transplanted to another land and time ... if you will brace yourself for an inordinately lengthy session—intermission notwithstanding—in a theater seat, I can promise you some fine film-making." Richard L. Coe of "The Washington Post" called it "Visually beautiful and finely acted." He identified the film's length as its "greatest drawback" but wrote that "we weary of the long train ride or become impatient with individual scenes, but, thinking back on them, we perceive their proper intent." Clifford Terry of the "Chicago Tribune" wrote that director David Lean and screenwriter Robert Bolt "have fashioned out of a rambling book, a well controlled film highlighted by excellent acting and brilliant production."


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Reviewing it for its 30th anniversary, film critic Roger Ebert regarded it as "an example of superb old-style craftsmanship at the service of a soppy romantic vision", and wrote that "the story, especially as it has been simplified by Lean and his screenwriter, Robert Bolt, seems political in the same sense "Gone with the Wind" is political, as spectacle and backdrop, without ideology", concluding that the political content is treated mostly as a "sideshow". Geoffrey Macnab of "The Independent" reviewed the film for its 50th anniversary and noted director David Lean's "extraordinary artistry" but found the film bordering on "kitsch". Macnab also felt that the musical score by Maurice Jarre still stood up but criticised the English accents.


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating 84% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 7.60/10. The critical consensus reads: "It may not be the best of David Lean's epics, but "Dr. Zhivago" is still brilliantly photographed and sweepingly romantic."


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: In 2013, Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck cited "Doctor Zhivago" as an influence on the 2013 film "Frozen".


title: Doctor Zhivago (film)

text: Both "Doctor Zhivago" and "The Sound of Music" received the most nominations at the 38th Academy Awards (ten each). Both films won five Academy Awards apiece, but "The Sound of Music" won Best Picture and Best Director. Julie Christie was not nominated for her role in "Doctor Zhivago", but won Best Actress in the same year, for her performance in "Darling".


title: Ghost

text: A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic, lifelike forms. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a deceased person is known as necromancy, or in spiritism as a "séance". Other terms associated with it are apparition, haunt, phantom, poltergeist, shade, specter or spectre, spirit, spook, wraith, demon, and ghoul.


title: Ghost

text: The belief in the existence of an afterlife, as well as manifestations of the spirits of the dead, is widespread, dating back to animism or ancestor worship in pre-literate cultures. Certain religious practices—funeral rites, exorcisms, and some practices of spiritualism and ritual magic—are specifically designed to rest the spirits of the dead. Ghosts are generally described as solitary, human-like essences, though stories of ghostly armies and the ghosts of animals rather than humans have also been recounted. They are believed to haunt particular locations, objects, or people they were associated with in life. According to a 2009 study by the Pew Research Center, 18% of Americans say they have seen a ghost.


title: Ghost

text: The overwhelming consensus of science is that there is no proof that ghosts exist. Their existence is impossible to falsify, and ghost hunting has been classified as pseudoscience. Despite centuries of investigation, there is no scientific evidence that any location is inhabited by spirits of the dead. Historically, certain toxic and psychoactive plants (such as "datura" and "hyoscyamus niger"), whose use has long been associated with necromancy and the underworld, have been shown to contain anticholinergic compounds that are pharmacologically linked to dementia (specifically DLB) as well as histological patterns of neurodegeneration. Recent research has indicated that ghost sightings may be related to degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. Common prescription medication and over-the-counter drugs (such as sleep aids) may also, in rare instances, cause ghost-like hallucinations, particularly zolpidem and diphenhydramine. Older reports linked carbon monoxide poisoning to ghost-like hallucinations.


title: Ghost

text: In folklore studies, ghosts fall within the motif index designation E200–E599 ("Ghosts and other revenants").


title: Ghost

text: The English word "ghost" continues Old English "gāst". Stemming from Proto-Germanic "*gaistaz", it is cognate with Old Frisian "gāst", Old Saxon "gēst", Old Dutch "gēst", and Old High German "geist". Although this form is not attested in North Germanic and East Germanic languages (the equivalent word in Gothic is "ahma", Old Norse has "andi" m., "önd" f.), it appears to be a dental suffix derivative of pre-Germanic "*ghois-d-oz" ('fury, anger'), which is comparable to Sanskrit "héḍas" ('anger') and Avestan "zōižda"- ('terrible, ugly'). The prior Proto-Indo-European form is reconstructed as "", from the root" ", which is reflected in Old Norse "geisa" ('to rage') and "*geiski" ('fear'; cf. "geiskafullr" 'full of fear'), in Gothic "usgaisjan" ('to terrify') and "usgaisnan" ('to be terrified'), as well as in Avestan "zōiš-" (cf. "zōišnu" 'shivering, trembling').


title: Ghost

text: The Germanic word is recorded as masculine only, but likely continues a neuter "s"-stem. The original meaning of the Germanic word would thus have been an animating principle of the mind, in particular capable of excitation and fury (compare "óðr"). In Germanic paganism, "Germanic Mercury", and the later Odin, was at the same time the conductor of the dead and the "lord of fury" leading the Wild Hunt.


title: Ghost

text: Besides denoting the human spirit or soul, both of the living and the deceased, the Old English word is used as a synonym of Latin "spiritus" also in the meaning of "breath" or "blast" from the earliest attestations (9th century). It could also denote any good or evil spirit, such as angels and demons; the Anglo-Saxon gospel refers to the demonic possession of Matthew 12:43 as "se unclæna gast". Also from the Old English period, the word could denote the spirit of God, viz. the "Holy Ghost".


title: Ghost

text: The now-prevailing sense of "the soul of a deceased person, spoken of as appearing in a visible form" only emerges in Middle English (14th century). The modern noun does, however, retain a wider field of application, extending on one hand to "soul", "spirit", "vital principle", "mind", or "psyche", the seat of feeling, thought, and moral judgement; on the other hand used figuratively of any shadowy outline, or fuzzy or unsubstantial image; in optics, photography, and cinematography especially, a flare, secondary image, or spurious signal.


title: Ghost

text: The synonym "spook" is a Dutch loanword, akin to Low German "spôk" (of uncertain etymology); it entered the English language via American English in the 19th century. Alternative words in modern usage include "spectre" (altn. "specter"; from Latin "spectrum"), the Scottish "wraith" (of obscure origin), "phantom" (via French ultimately from Greek "phantasma", compare "fantasy") and "apparition". The term "shade" in classical mythology translates Greek σκιά, or Latin "umbra", in reference to the notion of spirits in the Greek underworld. The term "poltergeist" is a German word, literally a "noisy ghost", for a spirit said to manifest itself by invisibly moving and influencing objects.


title: Ghost

text: "Wraith" is a Scots word for "ghost", "spectre", or "apparition". It appeared in Scottish Romanticist literature, and acquired the more general or figurative sense of "portent" or "omen". In 18th- to 19th-century Scottish literature, it also applied to aquatic spirits. The word has no commonly accepted etymology; the "OED" notes "of obscure origin" only. An association with the verb "writhe" was the etymology favored by J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien's use of the word in the naming of the creatures known as the Ringwraiths has influenced later usage in fantasy literature. Bogey or "bogy/bogie" is a term for a ghost, and appears in Scottish poet John Mayne's "Hallowe'en" in 1780.


title: Ghost

text: A "revenant" is a deceased person returning from the dead to haunt the living, either as a disembodied ghost or alternatively as an animated ("undead") corpse. Also related is the concept of a fetch, the visible ghost or spirit of a person yet alive.


title: Ghost

text: A notion of the transcendent, supernatural, or numinous, usually involving entities like ghosts, demons, or deities, is a cultural universal. In pre-literate folk religions, these beliefs are often summarized under animism and ancestor worship. Some people believe the ghost or spirit never leaves Earth until there is no-one left to remember the one who died.


title: Ghost

text: In many cultures, malignant, restless ghosts are distinguished from the more benign spirits involved in ancestor worship.


title: Ghost

text: Ancestor worship typically involves rites intended to prevent revenants, vengeful spirits of the dead, imagined as starving and envious of the living. Strategies for preventing revenants may either include sacrifice, i.e., giving the dead food and drink to pacify them, or magical banishment of the deceased to force them not to return. Ritual feeding of the dead is performed in traditions like the Chinese Ghost Festival or the Western All Souls' Day. Magical banishment of the dead is present in many of the world's burial customs. The bodies found in many tumuli (kurgan) had been ritually bound before burial, and the custom of binding the dead persists, for example, in rural Anatolia.


title: Ghost

text: Nineteenth-century anthropologist James Frazer stated in his classic work "The Golden Bough" that souls were seen as the creature within that animated the body.


title: Ghost

text: Although the human soul was sometimes symbolically or literally depicted in ancient cultures as a bird or other animal, it appears to have been widely held that the soul was an exact reproduction of the body in every feature, even down to clothing the person wore. This is depicted in artwork from various ancient cultures, including such works as the Egyptian "Book of the Dead", which shows deceased people in the afterlife appearing much as they did before death, including the style of dress.


title: Ghost

text: While deceased ancestors are universally regarded as venerable, and often believed to have a continued presence in some form of afterlife, the spirit of a deceased person that persists in the material world (a ghost) is regarded as an unnatural or undesirable state of affairs and the idea of ghosts or revenants is associated with a reaction of fear. This is universally the case in pre-modern folk cultures, but fear of ghosts also remains an integral aspect of the modern ghost story, Gothic horror, and other horror fiction dealing with the supernatural.


title: Ghost

text: Another widespread belief concerning ghosts is that they are composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material. Anthropologists link this idea to early beliefs that ghosts were the person within the person (the person's spirit), most noticeable in ancient cultures as a person's breath, which upon exhaling in colder climates appears visibly as a white mist. This belief may have also fostered the metaphorical meaning of "breath" in certain languages, such as the Latin "spiritus" and the Greek "pneuma", which by analogy became extended to mean the soul. In the Bible, God is depicted as synthesising Adam, as a living soul, from the dust of the Earth and the breath of God.


title: Ghost

text: In many traditional accounts, ghosts were often thought to be deceased people looking for vengeance (vengeful ghosts), or imprisoned on earth for bad things they did during life. The appearance of a ghost has often been regarded as an omen or portent of death. Seeing one's own ghostly double or "fetch" is a related omen of death.


title: Ghost

text: White ladies were reported to appear in many rural areas, and supposed to have died tragically or suffered trauma in life. White Lady legends are found around the world. Common to many of them is the theme of losing a child or husband and a sense of purity, as opposed to the Lady in Red ghost that is mostly attributed to a jilted lover or prostitute. The White Lady ghost is often associated with an individual family line or regarded as a harbinger of death similar to a banshee.


title: Ghost

text: Legends of ghost ships have existed since the 18th century; most notable of these is the "Flying Dutchman". This theme has been used in literature in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge.


title: Ghost

text: A place where ghosts are reported is described as haunted, and often seen as being inhabited by spirits of deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property. Supernatural activity inside homes is said to be mainly associated with violent or tragic events in the building's past such as murder, accidental death, or suicide—sometimes in the recent or ancient past. However, not all hauntings are at a place of a violent death, or even on violent grounds. Many cultures and religions believe the essence of a being, such as the 'soul', continues to exist. Some religious views argue that the 'spirits' of those who have died have not 'passed over' and are trapped inside the property where their memories and energy are strong.


title: Ghost

text: There are many references to ghosts in Mesopotamian religions – the religions of Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, and other early states in Mesopotamia. Traces of these beliefs survive in the later Abrahamic religions that came to dominate the region.


title: Ghost

text: Ghosts were thought to be created at time of death, taking on the memory and personality of the dead person. They traveled to the netherworld, where they were assigned a position, and led an existence similar in some ways to that of the living.


title: Ghost

text: Relatives of the dead were expected to make offerings of food and drink to the dead to ease their conditions. If they did not, the ghosts could inflict misfortune and illness on the living. Traditional healing practices ascribed a variety of illnesses to the action of ghosts, while others were caused by gods or demons.


title: Ghost

text: The Hebrew Bible contains few references to ghosts, associating spiritism with forbidden occult activities cf. Deuteronomy 18:11. The most notable reference is in the First Book of Samuel (I Samuel 28:3–19 KJV), in which a disguised King Saul has the Witch of Endor summon the spirit or ghost of Samuel.


title: Ghost

text: The soul and spirit were believed to exist after death, with the ability to assist or harm the living, and the possibility of a second death. Over a period of more than 2,500 years, Egyptian beliefs about the nature of the afterlife evolved constantly. Many of these beliefs were recorded in hieroglyph inscriptions, papyrus scrolls and tomb paintings. The Egyptian "Book of the Dead" compiles some of the beliefs from different periods of ancient Egyptian history.


title: Ghost

text: In modern times, the fanciful concept of a mummy coming back to life and wreaking vengeance when disturbed has spawned a whole genre of horror stories and films.


title: Ghost

text: Ghosts appeared in Homer's "Odyssey" and "Iliad", in which they were described as vanishing "as a vapor, gibbering and whining into the earth". Homer's ghosts had little interaction with the world of the living. Periodically they were called upon to provide advice or prophecy, but they do not appear to be particularly feared. Ghosts in the classical world often appeared in the form of vapor or smoke, but at other times they were described as being substantial, appearing as they had been at the time of death, complete with the wounds that killed them.


title: Ghost

text: By the 5th century BC, classical Greek ghosts had become haunting, frightening creatures who could work to either good or evil purposes. The spirit of the dead was believed to hover near the resting place of the corpse, and cemeteries were places the living avoided. The dead were to be ritually mourned through public ceremony, sacrifice, and libations, or else they might return to haunt their families. The ancient Greeks held annual feasts to honor and placate the spirits of the dead, to which the family ghosts were invited, and after which they were "firmly invited to leave until the same time next year."


title: Ghost

text: The 5th-century BC play "Oresteia" includes an appearance of the ghost of Clytemnestra, one of the first ghosts to appear in a work of fiction.


title: Ghost

text: The ancient Romans believed a ghost could be used to exact revenge on an enemy by scratching a curse on a piece of lead or pottery and placing it into a grave.


title: Ghost

text: Plutarch, in the 1st century AD, described the haunting of the baths at Chaeronea by the ghost of a murdered man. The ghost's loud and frightful groans caused the people of the town to seal up the doors of the building. Another celebrated account of a haunted house from the ancient classical world is given by Pliny the Younger ( 50 AD). Pliny describes the haunting of a house in Athens, which was bought by the Stoic philosopher Athenodorus, who lived about 100 years before Pliny. Knowing that the house was supposedly haunted, Athenodorus intentionally set up his writing desk in the room where the apparition was said to appear and sat there writing until late at night when he was disturbed by a ghost bound in chains. He followed the ghost outside where it indicated a spot on the ground. When Athenodorus later excavated the area, a shackled skeleton was unearthed. The haunting ceased when the skeleton was given a proper reburial. The writers Plautus and Lucian also wrote stories about haunted houses.


title: Ghost

text: In the New Testament, according to Luke 24:37–39, following his resurrection, Jesus was forced to persuade the Disciples that he was not a ghost (some versions of the Bible, such as the KJV and NKJV, use the term "spirit"). Similarly, Jesus' followers at first believed he was a ghost (spirit) when they saw him walking on water.


title: Ghost

text: One of the first persons to express disbelief in ghosts was Lucian of Samosata in the 2nd century AD. In his satirical novel "The Lover of Lies" (circa 150 AD), he relates how Democritus "the learned man from Abdera in Thrace" lived in a tomb outside the city gates to prove that cemeteries were not haunted by the spirits of the departed. Lucian relates how he persisted in his disbelief despite practical jokes perpetrated by "some young men of Abdera" who dressed up in black robes with skull masks to frighten him. This account by Lucian notes something about the popular classical expectation of how a ghost should look.


title: Ghost

text: In the 5th century AD, the Christian priest Constantius of Lyon recorded an instance of the recurring theme of the improperly buried dead who come back to haunt the living, and who can only cease their haunting when their bones have been discovered and properly reburied.


title: Ghost

text: Ghosts reported in medieval Europe tended to fall into two categories: the souls of the dead, or demons. The souls of the dead returned for a specific purpose. Demonic ghosts existed only to torment or tempt the living. The living could tell them apart by demanding their purpose in the name of Jesus Christ. The soul of a dead person would divulge its mission, while a demonic ghost would be banished at the sound of the Holy Name.


title: Ghost

text: Most ghosts were souls assigned to Purgatory, condemned for a specific period to atone for their transgressions in life. Their penance was generally related to their sin. For example, the ghost of a man who had been abusive to his servants was condemned to tear off and swallow bits of his own tongue; the ghost of another man, who had neglected to leave his cloak to the poor, was condemned to wear the cloak, now "heavy as a church tower". These ghosts appeared to the living to ask for prayers to end their suffering. Other dead souls returned to urge the living to confess their sins before their own deaths.


title: Ghost

text: Medieval European ghosts were more substantial than ghosts described in the Victorian age, and there are accounts of ghosts being wrestled with and physically restrained until a priest could arrive to hear its confession. Some were less solid, and could move through walls. Often they were described as paler and sadder versions of the person they had been while alive, and dressed in tattered gray rags. The vast majority of reported sightings were male.


title: Ghost

text: There were some reported cases of ghostly armies, fighting battles at night in the forest, or in the remains of an Iron Age hillfort, as at Wandlebury, near Cambridge, England. Living knights were sometimes challenged to single combat by phantom knights, which vanished when defeated.


title: Ghost

text: From the medieval period an apparition of a ghost is recorded from 1211, at the time of the Albigensian Crusade. Gervase of Tilbury, Marshal of Arles, wrote that the image of Guilhem, a boy recently murdered in the forest, appeared in his cousin's home in Beaucaire, near Avignon. This series of "visits" lasted all of the summer. Through his cousin, who spoke for him, the boy allegedly held conversations with anyone who wished, until the local priest requested to speak to the boy directly, leading to an extended disquisition on theology. The boy narrated the trauma of death and the unhappiness of his fellow souls in Purgatory, and reported that God was most pleased with the ongoing Crusade against the Cathar heretics, launched three years earlier. The time of the Albigensian Crusade in southern France was marked by intense and prolonged warfare, this constant bloodshed and dislocation of populations being the context for these reported visits by the murdered boy.


title: Ghost

text: Haunted houses are featured in the 9th-century "Arabian Nights" (such as the tale of "Ali the Cairene and the Haunted House in Baghdad").


title: Ghost

text: Renaissance magic took a revived interest in the occult, including necromancy. In the era of the Reformation and Counter Reformation, there was frequently a backlash against unwholesome interest in the dark arts, typified by writers such as Thomas Erastus. The Swiss Reformed pastor Ludwig Lavater supplied one of the most frequently reprinted books of the period with his "Of Ghosts and Spirits Walking By Night."


title: Ghost

text: The Child Ballad "Sweet William's Ghost" (1868) recounts the story of a ghost returning to his fiancée begging her to free him from his promise to marry her. He cannot marry her because he is dead but her refusal would mean his damnation. This reflects a popular British belief that the dead haunted their lovers if they took up with a new love without some formal release. "The Unquiet Grave" expresses a belief even more widespread, found in various locations over Europe: ghosts can stem from the excessive grief of the living, whose mourning interferes with the dead's peaceful rest. In many folktales from around the world, the hero arranges for the burial of a dead man. Soon after, he gains a companion who aids him and, in the end, the hero's companion reveals that he is in fact the dead man. Instances of this include the Italian fairy tale "Fair Brow" and the Swedish "The Bird 'Grip'".


title: Ghost

text: Spiritualism is a monotheistic belief system or religion, postulating a belief in God, but with a distinguishing feature of belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world can be contacted by "mediums", who can then provide information about the afterlife.


title: Ghost

text: Spiritualism developed in the United States and reached its peak growth in membership from the 1840s to the 1920s, especially in English-language countries. By 1897, it was said to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe, mostly drawn from the middle and upper classes, while the corresponding movement in continental Europe and Latin America is known as Spiritism.


title: Ghost

text: The religion flourished for a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, attaining cohesion by periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many prominent Spiritualists were women. Most followers supported causes such as the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage. By the late 1880s, credibility of the informal movement weakened, due to accusations of fraud among mediums, and formal Spiritualist organizations began to appear. Spiritualism is currently practiced primarily through various denominational Spiritualist churches in the United States and United Kingdom.


title: Ghost

text: Spiritism, or French spiritualism, is based on the five books of the Spiritist Codification written by French educator Hypolite Léon Denizard Rivail under the pseudonym Allan Kardec reporting séances in which he observed a series of phenomena that he attributed to incorporeal intelligence (spirits). His assumption of spirit communication was validated by many contemporaries, among them many scientists and philosophers who attended séances and studied the phenomena. His work was later extended by writers like Leon Denis, Arthur Conan Doyle, Camille Flammarion, Ernesto Bozzano, Chico Xavier, Divaldo Pereira Franco, Waldo Vieira, Johannes Greber, and others.


title: Ghost

text: Spiritism has adherents in many countries throughout the world, including Spain, United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, England, Argentina, Portugal, and especially Brazil, which has the largest proportion and greatest number of followers.


title: Ghost

text: The physician John Ferriar wrote "An Essay Towards a Theory of Apparitions" in 1813 in which he argued that sightings of ghosts were the result of optical illusions. Later the French physician Alexandre Jacques François Brière de Boismont published "On Hallucinations: Or, the Rational History of Apparitions, Dreams, Ecstasy, Magnetism, and Somnambulism" in 1845 in which he claimed sightings of ghosts were the result of hallucinations.


title: Ghost

text: David Turner, a retired physical chemist, suggested that ball lightning could cause inanimate objects to move erratically.


title: Ghost

text: Joe Nickell of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry wrote that there was no credible scientific evidence that any location was inhabited by spirits of the dead. Limitations of human perception and ordinary physical explanations can account for ghost sightings; for example, air pressure changes in a home causing doors to slam, humidity changes causing boards to creak, condensation in electrical connections causing intermittent behavior, or lights from a passing car reflected through a window at night. Pareidolia, an innate tendency to recognize patterns in random perceptions, is what some skeptics believe causes people to believe that they have 'seen ghosts'. Reports of ghosts "seen out of the corner of the eye" may be accounted for by the sensitivity of human peripheral vision. According to Nickell, peripheral vision can easily mislead, especially late at night when the brain is tired and more likely to misinterpret sights and sounds. Nickell further states, "science cannot substantiate the existence of a 'life energy' that could survive death without dissipating or function at all without a brain... why would... clothes survive?'" He asks, if ghosts glide, then why do people claim to hear them with "heavy footfalls"? Nickell says that ghosts act the same way as "dreams, memories, and imaginings, because they too are mental creations. They are evidence - not of another world, but of this real and natural one."


title: Ghost

text: Benjamin Radford from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and author of the 2017 book "Investigating Ghosts: The Scientific Search for Spirits" writes that "ghost hunting is the world's most popular paranormal pursuit" yet, to date, ghost hunters cannot agree on what a ghost is, or offer proof that they exist; "it's all speculation and guesswork". He writes that it would be "useful and important to distinguish between types of spirits and apparitions. Until then it's merely a parlor game distracting amateur ghost hunters from the task at hand."


title: Ghost

text: According to research in anomalistic psychology visions of ghosts may arise from hypnagogic hallucinations ("waking dreams" experienced in the transitional states to and from sleep). In a study of two experiments into alleged hauntings (Wiseman "et al.". 2003) came to the conclusion "that people consistently report unusual experiences in 'haunted' areas because of environmental factors, which may differ across locations." Some of these factors included "the variance of local magnetic fields, size of location and lighting level stimuli of which witnesses may not be consciously aware".


title: Ghost

text: Some researchers, such as Michael Persinger of Laurentian University, Canada, have speculated that changes in geomagnetic fields (created, e.g., by tectonic stresses in the Earth's crust or solar activity) could stimulate the brain's temporal lobes and produce many of the experiences associated with hauntings. Sound is thought to be another cause of supposed sightings. Richard Lord and Richard Wiseman have concluded that infrasound can cause humans to experience bizarre feelings in a room, such as anxiety, extreme sorrow, a feeling of being watched, or even the chills. Carbon monoxide poisoning, which can cause changes in perception of the visual and auditory systems, was speculated upon as a possible explanation for haunted houses as early as 1921.


title: Ghost

text: People who experience sleep paralysis often report seeing ghosts during their experiences. Neuroscientists Baland Jalal and V.S. Ramachandran have recently proposed neurological theories for why people hallucinate ghosts during sleep paralysis. Their theories emphasize the role of the parietal lobe and mirror neurons in triggering such ghostly hallucinations.


title: Ghost

text: The Hebrew Bible contains several references to "owb" (), which are in a few places akin to shades of classical mythology but mostly describing mediums in connection with necromancy and spirit-consulting, which are grouped with witchcraft and other forms of divination under the category of forbidden occult activities. The most notable reference to a shade is in the First Book of Samuel, in which a disguised King Saul has the Witch of Endor conduct a seance to summon the dead prophet Samuel. A similar term appearing throughout the scriptures is "repha'(im)" (), which while describing the race of "giants" formerly inhabiting Canaan in many verses, also refer to (the spirits of) dead ancestors of Sheol (like shades) in many others such as in the Book of Isaiah.


title: Ghost

text: In the New Testament, Jesus has to persuade the Disciples that he is not a ghost following the resurrection, Luke 24:37–39 (some versions of the Bible, such as the KJV and NKJV, use the term "spirit"). Similarly, Jesus' followers at first believe he is a ghost (spirit) when they see him walking on water.


title: Ghost

text: Some Christian denominations consider ghosts as beings who while tied to earth, no longer live on the material plane and linger in an intermediate state before continuing their journey to heaven. On occasion, God would allow the souls in this state to return to earth to warn the living of the need for repentance. Christians are taught that it is sinful to attempt to conjure or control spirits in accordance with Deuteronomy XVIII: 9–12.


title: Ghost

text: Some ghosts are actually said to be demons in disguise, who the Church teaches, in accordance with I Timothy 4:1, that they "come to deceive people and draw them away from God and into bondage." As a result, attempts to contact the dead may lead to unwanted contact with a demon or an unclean spirit, as was said to occur in the case of Robbie Mannheim, a fourteen-year-old Maryland youth. The Seventh-Day Adventist view is that a "soul" is not equivalent to "spirit" or "ghost" (depending on the Bible version), and that save for the Holy Spirit, all spirits or ghosts are demons in disguise. Furthermore, they teach that in accordance with (Genesis 2:7, Ecclesiastes 12:7), there are only two components to a "soul", neither of which survives death, with each returning to its respective source.


title: Ghost

text: Jewish mythology and folkloric traditions describe dybbuks, malicious possessing spirits believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person. However, the term does not appear in the Kabbalah or talmudic literature, where it is rather called an "evil spirit" or "ru'aḥ tezazit" ("unclean spirit" in the New Testament). It supposedly leaves the host body once it has accomplished its goal, sometimes after being helped.


title: Ghost

text: "Rūḥ" (; plural "arwah") is a person's immortal, essential self — pneuma, i.e. the "spirit" or "soul". The term is also used for ghosts. The souls of the deceased dwell in barzakh. Only a barrier in Quran, in Islamic tradition this refers to an entire intermediary world between the living and the afterlife. The world, especially cemeteries, are perforated with several gateways to the otherworld or barzakh. In rare occasions, the dead can appear to the living. Pure souls, such as the souls of saints, are commonly addressed as rūḥ, while impure souls seeking for revenge, are often addressed as afarit. An inappropriate burial can also cause a soul to stay in this world, whereupon roaming the earth as a ghost. Since the just souls remain close to their tomb, some people try to communicate with them in order to gain hidden knowledge. Contact with the dead is not the same as contact with jinn, who alike could provide knowledge concealed from living humans. Many encounters with ghosts are related to dreams supposed to occur in the realm of symbols.


title: Ghost

text: Belief in spirits have not ceased to exist in Muslim belief. Smile of new-born babies is sometimes used as a proof for sighting spirits, like ghosts. However, the connection to the other world fades during life on earth but is resumed after death. Once again, smiling of dying people is considered as evidence for recognizing the spirit of their beloved ones. Yet, Muslims who affirm the existence of ghosts, are carefully when interacting with spirits, as the ghosts of humans can be as bad the jinn. Worst of all, however, are the devils.


title: Ghost

text: Muslim authors, like Ghazali, Ibn Qayyim and Suyuti wrote in more details about the life of ghosts. Ibn Qayyim and Suyuti assert, when a soul desires to turn back to earth long enough, it is gradually released from restrictions of Barzakh and able to move freely. Each spirit experiences afterlife in accordance with their deeds and condictions in the earthly life. Evil souls will find the afterlife as painful and punishment, imprisoned until God allows them to interact with other others. Good souls are not restricted. They are free to come visit other souls and even come down to lower regions. The higher planes are considered to be broader than the lower ones, the lowest being the most narrow. The spiritual space is not thought as spatial, but reflects the capacity of the spirit. The more pure the spirit gets, the more it is able to interact with other souls and thus reaches a broader degree of freedom.


title: Ghost

text: The Ismailite Philosopher Nasir Khusraw conjectured that evil human souls turn into demons, when their bodies die, because of their intense attachment to the bodily world. They were worse than the jinn and fairies, who in turn could become devils, if they pursue evil. A similar thought is recorded by Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi.


title: Ghost

text: The ghosts of saints are thought to transmit blessings from God through the heavenly realm to whose who visit their graves. Therefore, visiting the graves of saints and prophets became a major ritual in Muslim spirituality.


title: Ghost

text: In Buddhism, there are a number of planes of existence into which a person can be reborn, one of which is the realm of hungry ghosts. Buddhist celebrate the Ghost Festival as an expression of compassion, one of Buddhist virtues. If the hungry ghosts are fed by non-relatives, they would not bother the community.


title: Ghost

text: For the Igbo people, a man is simultaneously a physical and spiritual entity. However, it is his spirited dimension that is eternal. In the Akan conception, we witness five parts of the human personality. We have the Nipadua (body), the Okra (soul), Sunsum (spirit), Ntoro (character from father), Mogya (character from mother). The Humr people of southwestern Kordofan, Sudan consume the drink Umm Nyolokh, which is prepared from the liver and bone marrow of giraffes. Richard Rudgley hypothesises that Umm Nyolokh may contain DMT and certain online websites further theorise that giraffe liver might owe its putative psychoactivity to substances derived from psychoactive plants, such as Acacia spp. consumed by the animal. The drink is said to cause hallucinations of giraffes, believed by the Humr to be the ghosts of giraffes.


title: Ghost

text: Belief in ghosts in European folklore is characterized by the recurring fear of "returning" or "revenant" deceased who may harm the living. This includes the Scandinavian "gjenganger", the Romanian "strigoi", the Serbian "vampir", the Greek "vrykolakas", etc. In Scandinavian and Finnish tradition, ghosts appear in corporeal form, and their supernatural nature is given away by behavior rather than appearance. In fact, in many stories they are first mistaken for the living. They may be mute, appear and disappear suddenly, or leave no footprints or other traces.


title: Ghost

text: Belief in the soul and an afterlife remained near universal until the emergence of atheism in the 18th century. In the 19th century, spiritism resurrected "belief in ghosts" as the object of systematic inquiry, and popular opinion in Western culture remains divided.


title: Ghost

text: A "bhoot" or "bhut" (, , , , ) is a supernatural creature, usually the ghost of a deceased person, in the popular culture, literature and some ancient texts of the Indian subcontinent.


title: Ghost

text: Interpretations of how "bhoot"s come into existence vary by region and community, but they are usually considered to be perturbed and restless due to some factor that prevents them from moving on (to transmigration, non-being, nirvana, or heaven or hell, depending on tradition). This could be a violent death, unsettled matters in their lives, or simply the failure of their survivors to perform proper funerals.


title: Ghost

text: In Central and Northern India, "ojha" or spirit guides play a central role. It duly happens when in the night someone sleeps and decorates something on the wall, and they say that if one sees the spirit the next thing in the morning he will become a spirit too, and that to a headless spirit and the soul of the body will remain the dark with the dark lord from the spirits who reside in the body of every human in Central and Northern India. It is also believed that if someone calls one from behind, never turn back and see because the spirit may catch the human to make it a spirit.


title: Ghost

text: Other types of spirits in Hindu mythology include Baital, an evil spirit who haunts cemeteries and takes demonic possession of corpses, and Pishacha, a type of flesh-eating demon.


title: Ghost

text: There are many kinds of ghosts and similar supernatural entities that frequently come up in Bengali culture, its folklores and form an important part in Bengali peoples' socio-cultural beliefs and superstitions. It is believed that the spirits of those who cannot find peace in the afterlife or die unnatural deaths remain on Earth. The word "Pret" (from Sanskrit) is also used in Bengali to mean ghost. In Bengal, ghosts are believed to be the spirit after death of an unsatisfied human being or a soul of a person who dies in unnatural or abnormal circumstances (like murder, suicide or accident). Even it is believed that other animals and creatures can also be turned into ghost after their death.


title: Ghost

text: Ghosts in Thailand are part of local folklore and have now become part of the popular culture of the country. Phraya Anuman Rajadhon was the first Thai scholar who seriously studied Thai folk beliefs and took notes on the nocturnal village spirits of Thailand. He established that, since such spirits were not represented in paintings or drawings, they were purely based on descriptions of popular orally transmitted traditional stories. Therefore, most of the contemporary iconography of ghosts such as Nang Tani, Nang Takian, Krasue, Krahang, Phi Hua Kat, Phi Pop, Phi Phong, Phi Phraya, and Mae Nak has its origins in Thai films that have now become classics.


title: Ghost

text: The most feared spirit in Thailand is Phi Tai Hong, the ghost of a person who has died suddenly of a violent death. The folklore of Thailand also includes the belief that sleep paralysis is caused by a ghost, Phi Am.


title: Ghost

text: There is widespread belief in ghosts in Tibetan culture. Ghosts are explicitly recognized in the Tibetan Buddhist religion as they were in Indian Buddhism, occupying a distinct but overlapping world to the human one, and feature in many traditional legends. When a human dies, after a period of uncertainty they may enter the ghost world. A hungry ghost (Tibetan: , ; ) has a tiny throat and huge stomach, and so can never be satisfied. Ghosts may be killed with a ritual dagger or caught in a spirit trap and burnt, thus releasing them to be reborn. Ghosts may also be exorcised, and an annual festival is held throughout Tibet for this purpose. Some say that Dorje Shugden, the ghost of a powerful 17th-century monk, is a deity, but the Dalai Lama asserts that he is an evil spirit, which has caused a split in the Tibetan exile community.


title: Ghost

text: There are many Malay ghost myths, remnants of old animist beliefs that have been shaped by later Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim influences in the modern states of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei. Some ghost concepts such as the female vampires Pontianak and Penanggalan are shared throughout the region.


title: Ghost

text: There are also many references to ghosts in Filipino culture, ranging from ancient legendary creatures such as the Manananggal and Tiyanak to more modern urban legends and horror films. The beliefs, legends and stories are as diverse as the people of the Philippines.


title: Ghost

text: After death, a person's ghost normally traveled to the sky world or the underworld, but some could stay on earth. In many Polynesian legends, ghosts were often actively involved in the affairs of the living. Ghosts might also cause sickness or even invade the body of ordinary people, to be driven out through strong medicines.


title: Ghost

text: There are many references to ghosts in Chinese culture. Even Confucius said, "Respect ghosts and gods, but keep away from them."


title: Ghost

text: The ghosts take many forms, depending on how the person died, and are often harmful. Many Chinese ghost beliefs have been accepted by neighboring cultures, notably Japan and southeast Asia. Ghost beliefs are closely associated with traditional Chinese religion based on ancestor worship, many of which were incorporated in Taoism. Later beliefs were influenced by Buddhism, and in turn influenced and created uniquely Chinese Buddhist beliefs.


title: Ghost

text: Many Chinese today believe it possible to contact the spirits of their ancestors through a medium, and that ancestors can help descendants if properly respected and rewarded. The annual ghost festival is celebrated by Chinese around the world. On this day, ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm. Ghosts are described in classical Chinese texts as well as modern literature and films.


title: Ghost

text: An article in the China Post stated that nearly eighty-seven percent of Chinese office workers believe in ghosts, and some fifty-two percent of workers will wear hand art, necklaces, crosses, or even place a crystal ball on their desks to keep ghosts at bay, according to the poll.


title: Ghost

text: are figures in Japanese folklore, analogous to Western legends of ghosts. The name consists of two kanji, 幽 ("yū"), meaning "faint" or "dim", and 霊 ("rei"), meaning "soul" or "spirit". Alternative names include 亡霊 (Bōrei) meaning ruined or departed spirit, 死霊 (Shiryō) meaning dead spirit, or the more encompassing 妖怪 (Yōkai) or お化け (Obake).


title: Ghost

text: Like their Chinese and Western counterparts, they are thought to be spirits kept from a peaceful afterlife.


title: Ghost

text: There is extensive and varied belief in ghosts in Mexican culture. The modern state of Mexico before the Spanish conquest was inhabited by diverse peoples such as the Maya and Aztec, and their beliefs have survived and evolved, combined with the beliefs of the Spanish colonists. The Day of the Dead incorporates pre-Columbian beliefs with Christian elements. Mexican literature and films include many stories of ghosts interacting with the living.


title: Ghost

text: According to the Gallup Poll News Service, belief in haunted houses, ghosts, communication with the dead, and witches had an especially steep increase over the 1990s. A 2005 Gallup poll found that about 32 percent of Americans believe in ghosts.


title: Ghost

text: Ghosts are prominent in story-telling of various nations. The ghost story is ubiquitous across all cultures from oral folktales to works of literature. While ghost stories are often explicitly meant to be scary, they have been written to serve all sorts of purposes, from comedy to morality tales. Ghosts often appear in the narrative as sentinels or prophets of things to come. Belief in ghosts is found in all cultures around the world, and thus ghost stories may be passed down orally or in written form.


title: Ghost

text: Spirits of the dead appear in literature as early as Homer's "Odyssey", which features a journey to the underworld and the hero encountering the ghosts of the dead, and the Old Testament, in which the Witch of Endor summons the spirit of the prophet Samuel.


title: Ghost

text: One of the more recognizable ghosts in English literature is the shade of Hamlet's murdered father in Shakespeare's "The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark". In "Hamlet", it is the ghost who demands that Prince Hamlet investigate his "murder most foul" and seek revenge upon his usurping uncle, King Claudius.


title: Ghost

text: In English Renaissance theater, ghosts were often depicted in the garb of the living and even in armor, as with the ghost of Hamlet's father. Armor, being out-of-date by the time of the Renaissance, gave the stage ghost a sense of antiquity. But the sheeted ghost began to gain ground on stage in the 19th century because an armored ghost could not satisfactorily convey the requisite spookiness: it clanked and creaked, and had to be moved about by complicated pulley systems or elevators. These clanking ghosts being hoisted about the stage became objects of ridicule as they became clichéd stage elements. Ann Jones and Peter Stallybrass, in "Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory", point out, "In fact, it is as laughter increasingly threatens the Ghost that he starts to be staged not in armor but in some form of 'spirit drapery'."


title: Ghost

text: The "classic" ghost story arose during the Victorian period, and included authors such as M. R. James, Sheridan Le Fanu, Violet Hunt, and Henry James. Classic ghost stories were influenced by the gothic fiction tradition, and contain elements of folklore and psychology. M. R. James summed up the essential elements of a ghost story as, "Malevolence and terror, the glare of evil faces, ‘the stony grin of unearthly malice', pursuing forms in darkness, and 'long-drawn, distant screams', are all in place, and so is a modicum of blood, shed with deliberation and carefully husbanded...". One of the key early appearances by ghosts was "The Castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole in 1764, considered to be the first gothic novel.


title: Ghost

text: Famous literary apparitions from this period are the ghosts of "A Christmas Carol", in which Ebenezer Scrooge is helped to see the error of his ways by the ghost of his former colleague Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come.


title: Ghost

text: Professional parapsychologists and "ghosts hunters", such as Harry Price, active in the 1920s and 1930s, and Peter Underwood, active in the 1940s and 1950s, published accounts of their experiences with ostensibly true ghost stories such as Price's "The Most Haunted House in England", and Underwood's "Ghosts of Borley" (both recounting experiences at Borley Rectory). The writer Frank Edwards delved into ghost stories in his books of his, like "Stranger than Science".


title: Ghost

text: Children's benevolent ghost stories became popular, such as Casper the Friendly Ghost, created in the 1930s and appearing in comics, animated cartoons, and eventually a 1995 feature film.


title: Ghost

text: With the advent of motion pictures and television, screen depictions of ghosts became common, and spanned a variety of genres; the works of Shakespeare, Dickens and Wilde have all been made into cinematic versions. Novel-length tales have been difficult to adapt to cinema, although that of "The Haunting of Hill House" to "The Haunting" in 1963 is an exception.


title: Ghost

text: Sentimental depictions during this period were more popular in cinema than horror, and include the 1947 film "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", which was later adapted to television with a successful 1968–70 TV series. Genuine psychological horror films from this period include 1944's "The Uninvited", and 1945's "Dead of Night".


title: Ghost

text: The 1970s saw screen depictions of ghosts diverge into distinct genres of the romantic and horror. A common theme in the romantic genre from this period is the ghost as a benign guide or messenger, often with unfinished business, such as 1989's "Field of Dreams", the 1990 film "Ghost", and the 1993 comedy "Heart and Souls". In the horror genre, 1980's "The Fog", and the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series of films from the 1980s and 1990s are notable examples of the trend for the merging of ghost stories with scenes of physical violence.


title: Ghost

text: Popularised in such films as the 1984 comedy "Ghostbusters", ghost hunting became a hobby for many who formed ghost hunting societies to explore reportedly haunted places. The ghost hunting theme has been featured in reality television series, such as "Ghost Adventures", "Ghost Hunters", "Ghost Hunters International", "Ghost Lab", "Most Haunted", and "A Haunting". It is also represented in children's television by such programs as "The Ghost Hunter" and "Ghost Trackers". Ghost hunting also gave rise to multiple guidebooks to haunted locations, and ghost hunting "how-to" manuals.


title: Ghost

text: The 1990s saw a return to classic "gothic" ghosts, whose dangers were more psychological than physical. Examples of films from this period include 1999's "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others".


title: Ghost

text: Asian cinema has also produced horror films about ghosts, such as the 1998 Japanese film "Ringu" (remade in the US as "The Ring" in 2002), and the Pang brothers' 2002 film "The Eye".


title: Ghost

text: Indian ghost movies are popular not just in India, but in the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia, and other parts of the world. Some Indian ghost movies such as the comedy / horror film "Chandramukhi" have been commercial successes, dubbed into several languages.


title: Ghost

text: In fictional television programming, ghosts have been explored in series such as "Supernatural", "Ghost Whisperer", and "Medium".


title: Ghost

text: In animated fictional television programming, ghosts have served as the central element in series such as "Casper the Friendly Ghost", "Danny Phantom", and "Scooby-Doo". Various other television shows have depicted ghosts as well.


title: Ghost

text: Nietzsche argued that people generally wear prudent masks in company, but that an alternative strategy for social interaction is to present oneself as an absence, as a social ghost – "One reaches out for us but gets no hold of us" – a sentiment later echoed (if in a less positive way) by Carl Jung.


title: Ghost

text: Nick Harkaway has considered that all people carry a host of ghosts in their heads in the form of impressions of past acquaintances – ghosts who represent mental maps of other people in the world and serve as philosophical reference points.


title: Ghost

text: Object relations theory sees human personalities as formed by splitting off aspects of the person that he or she deems incompatible, whereupon the person may be haunted in later life by such ghosts of his or her alternate selves.


title: Ghost

text: The sense of ghosts as invisible, mysterious entities is invoked in several terms that use the word metaphorically, such as ghostwriter (a writer who pens texts credited to another person without revealing the ghostwriter's role as an author); ghost singer (a vocalist who records songs whose vocals are credited to another person); and "ghosting" a date (when a person breaks off contact with a former romantic partner and disappears).


title: Astrology and the classical elements

text: Astrology has used the concept of classical elements from antiquity up until the present. In Western astrology and Sidereal astrology four elements are used: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water.


title: Astrology and the classical elements

text: In Western tropical astrology, there are 12 astrological signs. Each of the four elements is associated with three signs of the Zodiac, which are always located exactly 120 degrees away from each other along the ecliptic and said to be in "trine" with one another. Most modern astrologers use the four classical elements extensively, (also known as triplicities), and indeed it is still viewed as a critical part of interpreting the astrological chart.


title: Astrology and the classical elements

text: Beginning with the first sign Aries which is a Fire sign, the next in line Taurus is Earth, then to Gemini which is Air, and finally to Cancer which is Water. This cycle continues on twice more and ends with the twelfth and final astrological sign, Pisces. The elemental rulerships for the twelve astrological signs of the zodiac (according to Marcus Manilius) are summarised as follows:


title: Astrology and the classical elements

text: In traditional astrology, each triplicity has several planetary "rulers", which change with conditions of sect – that is, whether the chart is a day chart or a night chart. Triplicity rulerships are an important essential dignity – one of the several factors used by traditional astrologers to weigh strength, effectiveness, and integrity of each planet in a chart.


title: Astrology and the classical elements

text: "Participating" rulers were not used by Ptolemy, as well as some subsequent astrologers in later traditions who followed his approach.


title: Astrology and the classical elements

text: In ancient astrology, triplicities were more of a seasonal nature, so a season was given the qualities of an element, which means the signs associated with that season would be allocated to that element. The seasonal elements of ancient astrology are as follows:


title: Astrology and the classical elements

text: Using the seasonal qualities accounts for the differences in expression between signs of the same element. All the fire signs are by their nature hot and dry. However, the addition of the elemental qualities of the seasons results in differences between the fire signs. Aries being a Spring sign is wet (hot & dry, hot & wet), Leo being the midsummer sign gets a double dose of hot and dry and is the pure fire sign, and Sagittarius being an Autumnal sign is colder (hot & dry, cold & dry).


title: Astrology and the classical elements

text: These associations are not given any great importance in modern astrology, although they are prominent in modern Western ceremonial magic, reconstructionist neopagan systems such as neodruidism and Wicca.


title: Astrology and the classical elements

text: Sidereal (Vedic) astrology shares the same system as Western astrology of linking zodiac signs to elements.


title: Astrology and the classical elements

text: In addition, in Vedic thought each of the five planets are linked to an element (with space as the fifth). It was said in the Veda that everything emanated from the one basic vibration of "Om" or "Aum". From "Om" the five elemental vibrations emerged representing the five different tattwas (or elements). The five planets represent these five vibrations – Jupiter for Space, Saturn for Air, Mars for Fire,