The Lunheng (Balanced Discourses) by Wang Chong (Wang Ch’ung) (25—100 C.E.) features a robust criticism in Lun si (Discussion Concerning Death) of contemporary belief in ghosts, using three arguments :
2) population - if people become ghosts when they die, there should be more ghost sightings than living people, as the number of people who have lived in the past and died is far greater than the number of people now living. However, 'ghost' sightings are uncommon.
3) efficacy - when someone is harmed, that person will seek a magistrate and bring a case against the party who harmed them. If people become ghosts when they die and can interact with living humans, every ghostly murder victim would be visiting the magistrate, identifying the killer and the means of murder, and leading the magistrate to the body and evidence. The visits are never witnessed.
1) embodiment - death results from the body losing the animating qi (vital essence). Once the qi is separated from the body, the body decays. If the qi is still existent, how can it manifest in the form of a physical shape? It is not a body, it is qi. When we see a ghost, we see a body. If people have died, they no longer have a body, so where could they get another one? They cannot take over another living body, which already has its own qi. The belief that people become ghosts on their death is nonsensical.
