As I'm still working my way through Kuromajosan Ga Toru, we'll be taking a look at two more kanji that touch on the supernatural, though are perhaps are a bit more useful than 呪文: 幽霊 (ゆうれい, yuurei) and 死霊 (しりょう, shiryou).
We'll deconstruct 幽霊 first. The first kanji 幽 isn't a word by itself, but can carry the meaning of calm, dark, dim, or tranquil. Since it's an adjective, it needs an extra character to become the word 幽か (かすか, kasuka) which means faint, dim, or hazy. Interestingly, this kanji is also used in an archaic word for confining something in a room. The second kanji 霊 (たま, tama OR れい, rei) means soul or spirit and crops up a lot in the manga I read. Together, they take on the meaning of ghost, spectre, or phantom.
死霊 begins with the kanji 死 (し, shi) which means death. You'll run into the imperative form 死ね (しね, shine) often in shonen manga whenever characters rush to deliver the final blow to their opponent. Combine 死 with the familiar 霊 and we get a word meaning the spirit of a dead person or ghost.
So if both of these words can carry the meaning of ghost, the question becomes are they synonyms. Well, not quite. From what I gather 幽霊 is a general term for all incorporeal creatures, be they the vengeful spirit of your umbrella, a spectral animal, or some kind of monster. On the other hand, 死霊 is a term used exclusively to refer to the spirits of once living people. To put it another way, while all 死霊 are 幽霊, not all 幽霊 are 死霊.
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