Spirit (supernatural entity)

Spirit

The Plough and the Spirit of the Earth, painting by George William Russell.

A spirit —in the sense in which the word is used in folklore and ethnography— is an "immaterial being", a "supernatural agent", the "soul of a deceased person", an "invisible entity" or the "soul of a seriously suffering person". Often spirits have an intermediate status between gods and humans, sharing some properties with gods (immateriality, greater powers) and some with humans (finite, not omniscient).^[1]

Thus, a spirit would have a form of existing and thinking; it would exist without being generally visible; often popular traditions endow it with miraculous powers and more or less occult influences on the physical world.

It is not uncommon for a "living" person to feel the presence of a spirit shortly after a loved one dies, under conditions of grief and emotion related to the death. This presence sometimes manifests itself several years after the death.^{[citation needed]}