I got an old claw-foot cast iron tub out of an empty house once (swapped it for $36 worth of horse shoeing).  It came with it's own old lady ghost.

She hung around and bugged me if I wasn't keeping it clean enough, but eventually faded away - I guess she decided she could trust me with her pride and joy (it was all painted pretty, only thing in the house that was really decorated).

After my husband died all my ghosts left - he probably ran 'em off...but she'd already moved along by them.

Tibetan Buddhism is quite clear on this too. The divination guy (Yogi) I saw will often identify items in a person's possession that somehow carry a negative charge and suggest that they be disposed of. It can be positive too - as in the case of positive objects, the use of prayer flags, the red strings many wear that have been blessed and so on.

It's quite highly shamanistic (has it roots in a blending of Indian Buddhist thought and native Bon traditions) - they are very serious about spirits and the like inhabiting trees, rocks, rivers, lakes, mountains and so on - and on the need to keep them on side by not doing wrong things like being disrespectful to the environment.

I guess expressed at a higher level this thinking is really about the way that everything (both you and the apparently external reality you inhabit) is inseparable and created by mind. Partly by that aspect of mind you identify with, partly by others and also by the multiple aspects that in Buddhism are described as manifesting as demons, daikinis, asuras, the many Buddhas and so on.

Tibetan medicine (which seamlessly blends spiritual and physical healing) for example names  hundreds of emanations of the healing aspect of mind, the medicine Buddha, and links these with body parts/systems and healing plants.

I guess its ultimately all about the power of intention, and ways of working with mind (not just that of the individual, but ALL mind). These very traditional representations are I suppose just a language - a way of representing a very complex picture to people who were often illiterate, and who thought most easily in terms of beings and entities.

It's hugely sophisticated though, and implies a cosmos that (animate and inanimate objects included) is comprised of interacting emanations of mind. Everything is alive, although not necessarily in the way sentinent beings are. It's like prmordial mind (God?) takes some sort of fundamental raw material and continuously creates/shapes it by his intention.

I guess Dave's maths may be another way of expressing this same picture. Although I can't help thinking that to some of these people we're still in the sand box given the subtlety and sophistication of their understanding of the way our we and the total reality works...

I saw a post about this on the Onion recently.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/most_items_at_garage_sale