Zack's establishing a world with a well-defined set of mechanics and rules that will eventually explain everything we've seen. But there's still unsolved paranatural phenomena that demand examination!

Max starts wondering about how coincidental it is that a spirit with paint powers ended up in a paintbrush, and a spirit with paper powers ended up in a book, and extrapolating, why a spirit with magnet powers ended up in a metal bat. Johnny interrupts that line of thought, but it's a good question.

Possible answers might include:
Dying spirits are drawn to objects that resemble their powers
Spirit's powers are filtered and modified by the object
It's just a coincidence, ya dingus

Why isn't the world filled up with insect ghosts?

Probably:
Only people make ghosts

Let's hear any more paranatural questions that you guys have, and your speculative answers!

First of all: Why are they hiding the existence of spirits? It's clearly not anything new, so unless there is a reason to hide, spectrals would be openly superpowered people. My guess is that it would lead to attempts to engineer spectrals, which would result in attempts to mass-produce tools, which would lead to spirits poltergeisting and killing regular humans, but there could be another more sinister reason.

Secondly: have spirits, acting through spectrals, influenced culture in any way? I'm almost entirely certain they would, but theres no indication that most of the world is any different from out own. What's up with that?

My theory for the whole "Tool-Power Coincidence" is that spirits are naturally drawn to objects or people that would best suit their powers.

For instance, Whale Frog. His power was to pull out reflections of things. He went into a plunger. What do plungers do? Pull things out of things! It all makes sense.

Asssprite wrote:

First of all: Why are they hiding the existence of spirits? It's clearly not anything new, so unless there is a reason to hide, spectrals would be openly superpowered people. My guess is that it would lead to attempts to engineer spectrals, which would result in attempts to mass-produce tools, which would lead to spirits poltergeisting and killing regular humans, but there could be another more sinister reason.

I believe we'll get some answers on that front when we meet whatever group Spender is dealing with and/or working for.

Paranaturist wrote:

Why isn't the world filled up with insect ghosts?

Probably:
Only people make ghosts

Let's hear any more paranatural questions that you guys have, and your speculative answers!

I doubt this explanation. Here you can see Isaac basically confirming the existence of bat ghosts. Of course, it hasn't been conclusively proven yet (Isaac may only have been attempting to explain the ghost-spirit distinction in simpler terms to the newcomer, Max), so who knows.

I like to think that bug ghosts are eaten or destroyed by the larger spirits. In this page the Sphinx says "ghosts", not "spirits", and in the very next sentences it mentions "consumption" as well as "delicious", therefore proving that at least some spirits eat some ghosts.

Yeah, anything living makes ghosts it seems.

I'm gonna say the insect ghosts live below the earths surface. Why not?

Maybe only mammals make ghosts, who knows.

Considering that the first spirit max killed was a problem because it was eating ghosts/spirits, I would say that its almost definite that spirits can eat ghosts and weaker spirits. I'm assuming this results in some sort of dramatic increase in power, because it's pretty clear that spirits only die if they don't tool up or possess someone.

Wealthy Lord Asssprite wrote:

Secondly: have spirits, acting through spectrals, influenced culture in any way? I'm almost entirely certain they would, but theres no indication that most of the world is any different from out own. What's up with that?

I haven't gotten the impression that the normal side of this world is exactly like our own at all. Pretty much anything that appears outside the main plot is strange in some manner, like the wall posters*, the products in Max' Dad's shop, the over-the-top personalities of nearly every character, and even the unusual layout of the town itself; but these could all just be attributed to Mayview being inherently kind of weird in a sort of plausible and ultimately semi-realistic manner.

The point is, we haven't really seen enough of the non-spectral world to say either way. Personally, I expect to see more kinds of cultural oddities if/when Max finally visits Baxborough.

(*Death by a Salesman sounds especially like the kind of influence you're asking about, but there's no hard evidence it has anything to do with spirits, and we have no reason to believe it's not just Mr. Starchman being a terrible English teacher)