Philip Pullman has a great essay in the Op-Ed section of the NYTimes today.

Why I Don't Believe In Ghosts

By Philip Pullman

Oxford, England
Tonight is Halloween, All Hallows' Eve, a time of ghosts and spirits walking by night . . . which leads me naturally to think about literary realism, and about politics. How can you write in a truthful and realistic way about something that doesn't exist?

I don't take much notice of critics, except when they praise me extravagantly. But one of the remarks they sometimes make about my work does coincide with a mild puzzlement I feel about it myself: in common with some other writers whose work is read by children, I am chided for writing fantasy, because fantasy is a lesser form than realism, and everyone knows that there are no such things as elves or hobbits or, for that matter, ghosts and disembodied spirits, so nothing interesting or truthful can be said about them.

My usual response to that is to deny that I'm writing fantasy at all, and to maintain that all my work is stark realism. But that implicitly accepts the basic stance of the critic: that fantasy is a lesser kind of thing, and that realism is the highest form of literary art. [NYTimes]

I'm not sure if I believe in ghosts or not. I think on most levels I don't, but there's still a part of me that thinks they might exist. Just enough that I get easily creeped out and sometimes have to sleep with the lights on. I can be horribly afraid of things that go bump and creak and "greg I'm going to kill you" in the night.