Anyone who has lived in Myanmar for any period can probably tell a story or two about ghosts. If they have not experienced a visitation themselves, they usually know someone who has done so. Indeed, so ubiquitous are such tales that, even among foreign circles in Myanmar, where one might expect a fair degree of scepticism, there is often a quiet acceptance that there are phenomena in the country that simply cannot be explained in terms of the rational calculations that usually govern daily life.

Such beliefs have been the subject of several scholarly studies. In 1967, for example, the American anthropologist Melford Spiro wrote a book titled Burmese Supernaturalism that not only explored the world of animist spirits called nats, but also devas, witches, wizards and ghosts. In 2014, Jane Ferguson published an article in the Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology that described how workers at airports in Myanmar currently manage ghostly influences. The same year, Susan Conway published her fascinating study, Tai Magic: Arts of the Supernatural in the Shan States and Lan Na.

All three authors were struck by the diversity of supernatural beings in Myanmar, and their easy acceptance as natural phenomena by members of the local population.

• Tags: Andrew Selth, Issue 16, Myanmar