But that's not the same. No civilization claims that unicorns are real. Whereas every civilization in the world admits that spirits are real. It's only in the last few decades that - in the West - we say they aren't. But there are many things that can't be explained, or, more accurately, can only be explained as spirit visitations. This is one of them.
Every civilisation in the world believed in dumb **** especially when it comes to comforting or scaring the living with ideas of the universe specially storing the conciousness of some talking apes in eccentric ways for reward, punishment, revenge etc...
Humans are special because humans say so, now behave or the bad thing will happen instead of the good thing when you die.