Ghosts

Ghosts are the spectral beings produced when a living being dies in the fictional world of Paranatural.

A ghost that haunts Mayview Middle School, depicted while he's conjuring up butterflies with his spectral energy.

Overview

Ghosts are similar to spirits, but they retain the appearance and identity they had in their previous life; some of them are also able to remember their past. Like spirits and spectrals, they possess spectral energy of a distinctive color, which makes up the entirety of their bodies; the lower half in particular consists of an amorphous plume of spectral energy. Animals also form ghosts upon death.

Ghost are able to fly and float at will. Like spirits, they interact with any creature or object imbued with spectral energy, but they generally phase through the material world; similarly, they can be recorded on film, although they remain visible only to people who can see the spectral world. Particularly willful ghosts may be able to interact with the physical world, earning the distinction of "poltergeists", similar to spirits capable of the same feat.

Demise

Mr. Spender explains the life cycle of spectral entities.

Ghosts don't linger forever; they are often consumed by spirits who feed on their spectral energy, and even if they survive, after long they degradate into a "white n' forgetty" wisp and fade away, with their energy dispersing into the ambient. Isabel tells Max that ghosts can linger for longer if they're "exceptional": "They have exceptionally unfinished business... or they're exceptionally stubborn jerks."

Alternatively, fading spirits can undergo a mutation that turn them into a spirit wisp or, on rare occasion, a fully formed spirit. Presumably, this is what happened to Gwen Burger.

Abilities

The author once stated that a ghost's spectral energy is often locked to one specific purpose (such as creating butterflies), but this has since been retconned^{[citation needed]}; ghosts have the same capacity to manipulate their energy as spectrals do, although the only ghosts to demonstrate this ability in the comic are former spectrals who learned their skills in life.

According to Mr. Spender, most ghosts cannot use tools because as a being of pure spectral energy, a ghost would be absorbed completely by the spirit in the tool to fuel its recovery. Exceptionally powerful ghosts such as Francisco Guerra have the ability to use tools without being immediately absorbed, however.

Notable Ghosts

• PJ
• Lefty
• Francisco Guerra
• Crush
• While not yet shown, it believed by several characters that Max's mother may exist somewhere as a ghost.

Trivia

• Some statements PJ makes to Max suggest that people with particularly violent deaths are more likely to leave ghosts after death, or at the least lengthen the time their ghost exists.
• Ghosts can't sleep and can't eat, but they can cry.
• In early stages of the worldbuilding, all ghosts were supposed to have purple trails, regardless of spectral energy; this was later revised.