The Hungry Ghost

Here is a curious paradox inherent in the notion of a body-soul duality. Such a duality (I here note) only signifies something meaningful if we assume that the soul is immortal. But if the soul survives the body’s passing, what role does the body play? I like to ponder such mysteries without reference to revelation, thus, as it were, as a scientific problem; by “science,” here, of course, I understand a strictly rational approach rather than hypothesis formation followed by confirmation or falsification by experiment. The hypothesis of duality cannot be tested experimentally—not while we continue to breathe. But suppose that it is true?

One strictly rational hypothesis would be to say that the soul needs the body for some very practical, down-to-earth reason. A corollary is that this need is temporary; all bodies die, and that we know as a matter of fact.

This line of thought recurred to me reading Maxine Hong Kingston’s memoir, The Woman Warrior, in which she speaks of a curious entity. It is the hungry ghost of Chinese folk belief. Who is this ghost? This ghost is a departed soul, an ancestor deprived of proper worship by neglectful descendants—and is thus starved of a kind of spiritual nourishment. It becomes a potent symbol if you think about it sitting in the summer shade watching the bees and butterflies visiting the herbs and flowers. Suppose that souls need food of a certain subtle kind, if not to live at least to unfold their higher potentials. And then suppose that subtle energy occurs quite naturally but very, very thinly in the dimension in which we find ourselves; never mind how we got here. It may be a—to us—immeasurable part of ordinary energy especially potently present in material situations that manifest complexity. Thus the hungry ghost able to link itself to complex bodies may gain access to a nutrient it needs—needs in order to develop, first of all, and then to develop those organs that enable it, by spreading wings, even to depart this dimension for realms where “grace” flows richly and unimpeded by the coarser energies that dominate at the diminishing end of an ever out-flowing reality.

Reading Kingston’s book coincided with our discovery of a wonderful green-black caterpillar feeding on our dill plants here. We soon learned that it is the larva destined to become the magnificent Black Swallowtail butterfly (black wings, golden dots). The caterpillar and the butterfly, earthbound and then, transformed, taking flight, has long served humanity as an apt symbol for what may be our destiny.

Returning to my starting thought, we may need the temporary body—not to be, not to persist. For that, no matter what our condition as a soul, we may always have enough. But to achieve our natural ends we may need the body to realize our full potential. Here is another interesting thought. It might be that the whole vast structure of our civilization—of our moral, spiritual, artistic, and intellectual life—may be an early and primitive manifestation of what happens when we are enabled to exist in our normal, grown-up way.