This chapter discusses the atomistic premises against the existence of
ghosts. According to the traditional Graeco-Roman religion and other philosophical
doctrines, such as the Pythagorean, the Platonic, and the Stoic, ghosts do exist and
serve as medium between the living world and the afterlife. Against this widespread
belief, the first Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, and their followers, Epicurus and
Lucretius, argued that ghosts are not the dead who return from beyond, but physical
and material emissions (simulacra) of people which persisted in the outside world and
sometimes inside the mind, having been previously printed on it. This interpretation
fits into the broader context of their philosophical system, which aims at delivering
men from fear of the gods, of death and of the afterlife, with the eudemonistic purpose
of achieving emotional peace.