Since time immemorial, it has been assumed that aside from the empirical world where we live, there is another world where spirits live. Said inhabitants of the spirit world may have depended greatly on the imagination of ancient man producing a myriad of entities both anthropomorphic and beastlike. The anthropomorphic attributes are suggestive of the consciousness, deliberation and intellect said to be possessed by these beings. On the other hand, the beastly qualities may refer to the superhuman physical feats attributed to them.
In the rituals of ancient men, communication with spirits would involve poetic apostrophe wherein chants and spells would try to invoke beings of a higher realm which ought to be feared or at least respected because of the supernatural powers that they possess. A higher real will mean that these beings are superior to men in the way they think or reflect on things.
Evident in these rites are the instruments which would somehow gratify or satiate the animal nature of these beings. Perhaps there would be rods or wands to subjugate them or even swords or talismans that could temper their violent appetitions. The shaman or the magus would also depend on a protective covering such as a cape or an animal skin, whereby the one in charge of the ceremony is expected to possess the powerful qualities of the animal or beast he chose to use for the ritual. Food or sacrificial animal blood and meat may be necessary to appease also its appetitions even those which may simply be whimsical vices in accordance with the culture.
The spirit world as an ancient man imagined is quite similar to the experiential world. A great clue to how it is imagined is how for example, the Egyptian or the Chinese embalmed and provisioned for their dearly departed. The great extent to which ancient medicine tried to preserve the body, e.g. the ancient highlanders of Sagada in the Cordillera and the elaborate and great provisions the former examples were lavished, e.g. the clothing, utensils, food stuffs and even slaves and handmaids both real and representational tend to show that the spirit world they believed in is very similar to this world. In fact, all great civilization have provisions for the afterlife whereby the spirits are shown to possess the basic appetites.
Perhaps it would be easy for anthropologists and other behavioural scientists to relate these tendencies to man's ability to relate his material existence to the ideal he has about the afterlife or at least those who seem to have a certain influence on how he lived and died.
Hence, the imagined spirit world may have powerful beings like the Nordic Valhalla who can alreadybe attributed as gods or gentle benevolent spirits who can provide a much needed repose to the dead like the Elysian fields. But they may also have the markings of the great bottomless pit like Sheol where the dead would continue to suffer even after life on earth.
But is the ancient man's idea of a spirit would simply a product of his limited imagination? Was it a conscious effort to project a great need for another life after life on earth, a yearning for immortality which is a simple reaction to his fear of death and annihilation? Or would ancient belief systems in fact, suggest a greater truth that symbols and rituals of ancient cultures simply veil? The truth that there is indeed a spirit world.
