Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maxilocks 
"You've all provided some good insight into how the muggle view of ghosts differs from ours," Jared said, nodding at each answer. Some of them had been quite excellent. "Take two points each."
"It seems that, as opposed to the average witch or wizard's take on ghosts, the average muggle fears or does not believe in them. There are exceptions, of course but, speaking on a general basis, fear of the unknown and uncertain is dominant. I believe that is one reason the muggle world has a larger market for ghost stories. But, all that aside, is it always ghosts that muggles are dealing with? Like Harper and Treyen have said, a large number of muggles tend to think 'ghost!' in the face of strange occurrences - such as items moving on their own - that a witch or wizard could find perfectly reasonable explanations for. For example --"
He cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself and, now invisible, picked up one of the boxes of chocolates on the ground and moved it from one spot to another. Then he cast the counter-charm, so that he could be seen again. "Now, all of you just saw the box of chocolates moving 'on its own.' But that was definitely not the work of a ghost. Can anyone explain what I'm getting at?" OOC: There are no right or wrong answers. Not really. 
Selina watched the Professor disappear and he posed his next question. She knew from growing up in the Wizarding World that he was not a ghost or anything bad, he was just invisible. Maybe that's what he was getting at. That the true horror in everything people fear is the actually fear itself. When something is invisible it cannot be controlled. The lack of control is scary and people do not know how to react. Therefore fear itself is the only truly scary thing.
"Sir, are you saying that even though we know that you are not going to harm us we still could be afraid? People's minds are a terrible thing. Fear is just a symptom of lack of control. When someone cannot control their lives or what they are going through they react in a way that is manipulated by fear. Although most of the time it is not cause for alarm the human mind does not like to be out of control.
That is similar to the Muggles creation of ghosts and their negative perspective on them. They are not in control of the Magical World so they create it to be this terrible place that is hateful. Hence all of the negative publicity about ghosts and witches and such. They are not afraid of us, but more that they cannot control us."