Spirits do not exist, but their absence does not disappoint those who call them. 45% of Americans believe in spirits. Only 20% in Spain. There are more, but they are misdiagnosed. Dozens of commentators believe in the spirit of 1977 and refer to it before it even appears. Some practice ouija because they know what the spirit of the 77 is saying about current reality. Political spirits should not be underestimated: they have lived for years in government palaces, old parliaments and twisted constitutions.
At the age of 13, when the head of government, Carlos Arias Navarro, spoke of the “Spirit of February 12,” I believed in spirits. I didn’t know what it was, but I felt the cold of the spirits in my bones. Years later I learned that this was a Francoist threat of openness. He was already a spirit because he was stillborn, and two months later there was a carnation revolution in Portugal and the spirit of February 12 was gone as he had a place to settle and a pang of conscience. Twenty months later, Carlos Arias Navarro announced the death of Franco, a living ghost for some Spaniards 47 years later.
A ghost story written by Mateo, Marcos, Lucas, Juan and Carlos Dickens, the spirit of Christmas is invoked every year. For the first time this year, I paid attention to the Christmas psychophonies: I heard the lottery draw, which rains dandruff, superstition and casteism from the royal palace in all the media, and the speech of the king who said something about it. at a very long and starchy address. The Christmas spirit didn’t get to me to listen to the ghost Raphael who appears in Prado del Rey every Christmas Eve. With what RTVE has recorded, it won’t matter if the singer dies or lives forever because she has more material for the future than the planet has left. Everything that is modern is turned into “little bits of iron and chrome” every Christmas because modernity always dies. I don’t remember seeing Raphael on that show. I don’t believe in ghosts, but if they exist, it’s Raphael.