Is There a Law for Becoming a Ghost?

Thanks to the Haunted Formula AutumnForest is working on over at Ghost Hunting Theories and Lisa Logan's Where Would YOU Haunt guest blog, I can't stop wondering: is there a law to becoming a ghost?


You know, like the Law of Gravity, the Law of Attraction...is there a Law of Lingering? (For lack of something else to call it.)


PHYSICAL CONSIDERATIONS


In a previous post I wrote about how AutumnForest is using six criteria to determine whether some places may be more predisposed to hauntings than others. Basically, she's trying to figure out if certain conditions must exist before a person's spirit could remain behind somewhere.


I've thought this is a very interesting way to examine haunted places, but now it really has me wondering some things. Especially after Lisa's post yesterday.


ASSUMING GHOSTS EXISTS

Maybe you can pick where you'd like to haunt. Maybe you don't have to die there necessarily. But can you only haunt places where the conditions will allow you to? (This is assuming you need certain conditions, such as proximity to water, sand/granite/limestone/or other such "conductors" that seem to appear in many environments where ghosts "live"...basically the criteria AutumnForest proposes in her Haunted Formula.)

So now I'm starting to think about how it is ghosts come to be differently than I was before. All of this has raised a whole new batch of questions, such as:

1. If there's something to the Haunted Formula, can ghosts still haunt places that don't have conditions conducive to letting them "live" there? (For instance, if someone dies in a place without the necesaary elements, can a ghost still manifest, or do they "feed" off certain elements to live?)
2. Why is it some people's spirits remain behind at all? I guess this is the question most ghost enthusiasts want the answer to, but now I'm thinking about it in a different way than I used to. I used to think you either died suddenly, or tragically, or with unfinished business, or just so much love for a place you wanted to stay there forever. But now I'm wondering if maybe there's physical properties about places that make it easier for people's spirits to remain behind...if they want to stay behind. But what if they don't want to stay behind? Which brings me to the next question...
3. Are ghosts made by choice or by circumstance? Meaning, when we die, do we have the option to become a ghost if we so choose? Or is it the place, specifically elements about the place, that sort of "trap" them and don't let people's spirits leave? (Maybe there's something about places with residual hauntings in particular that act as "recorders" instead of traps, but with intelligent hauntings...that's what I really wonder about. Are the spirits there by choice or because they can't leave?
4. And what if it's not about the physical elements of a place? What if ghosts don't want to go to the Beyond (for lack of knowing what's really After this life) so they stay Here. Or, what if the Universe is the greatest recycler of all and some ghosts exist because there wasn't a new body for them to go into at the moment of their death?
5. How would the major religions of our world reconcile their beliefs if somehow one day we are able to prove there are ghosts, we find a way to communicate with them, and we understand how it is they come to be and what it takes for them to exist?

I don't know if there's a law to becoming a ghost or not, but maybe one day with all these different people investigating the paranormal we might find out. (Who knows, the next Einstein or Newton might be out there right now as we speak on the verge of making the next great discovery!)