Halloween and Ghost Hunting

It is interesting that during Halloween week, ghost hunting is the focus. In fact Ghost Hunters, the TV show is going live tonight. They bring in viewers interactively by having connection to their web site in which viewers can press a button to let the investigators know if they saw something. That opens up a lot of doors to pranksters – they said last year they got 10,000 hits on that button! How annoying would that be to have people pranking them. But at the same time, the show is 7 hours long tonight – from 7 pm to 2 a.m. and hopefully it will be better than the Geraldo live show looking for Al Capone’s treasure.

What is interesting to my study is that people are getting information from a mediated event and they are participating with the television show through the Internet, another mediated aspect of the experience. So it is an event in which possibly millions of people are coming together to watch and/or interact around a paranormal-based reality event – to share a lived experience, discuss it, investigate it (albeit through the representation of the show’s experts and their visitors), and be able to determine among themselves if there is evidence, what the evidence is, and what that means to them. It brings to mind the idea of taking “science” into their own hands… something perhaps blasphemous to a trained scientist, but it is in the same vein as when the bible was put into the hands of the masses (via Gutenburg’s press) and people, rather than priests, were allowed to read and interpret for themselves the words of the bible. In a way, television and other forms of media are allowing people to look at this controversial “pseudo-science” as paranormal research has been called, and to determine for themselves if they think there is something to it.

However, the use of media can make the evidence suspect because there is always the possibility of doctoring the video or audio footage. It would be great if the show would occasionally focus on the steps they take to make sure that these images and sounds are legitimately captured and not added or created by the production company – a topic of discussion I have seen on Internet chat groups about the show. They do have investigators, like Donna LaCroix , who are scientists – she is an engineer, apparently, and it would be helpful if the show played up the more objective and scientific (to whatever degree they can) aspects of what they do. They say what the theories are, but who came up with these theories about EMFs and cold spots? That is a big criticism by skeptics that there is no “proof” – and that is a misguided term, they should say “evidence”—that entities give off high EMFs. But perhaps they do, and this show is making an effort to show that evidence. If there are scientists that they work with, it would be great to see input from those scientists and to know who they are and what their credentials are.

While Ghost Hunters does appeal to those who may too easily believe, it also appeals to those who are well-read in these areas and the just-plain-curious among us who want to see what they are doing. There are even web sites that show amateurs who try to do the same thing themselves. But there are also web sites that show people playing pranks on those watching looking for real footage of entities and then doing something on camera to make them jump, like the video Whoopi Goldberg showed on The View. But Ghost Hunters does not, in my opinion, bring itself credibility when it has investigators who think everything is paranormal, like Brian Harnois did. While I liked his enthusiasm and imagine he had a good friendship with the TAPS people, he was a bit too quick to jump to conclusions that a place was haunted or that an event was paranormal.

The show Ghost Hunters is becoming increasingly popular, at least according to a press release from Sci Fi, the station that airs the show. They don’t, however, say what organization has published those stats (Nielsen or otherwise). But at least at this time of year, there is more interest in things paranormal. And people look for things to watch on television related to hauntings and demons, etc. More channels offer shows about famous places that are supposedly haunted, And newspapers, like The New York Times, as I mentioned in my previous post, are featuring stories about hauntings, real and put on.

From that Times article, there is mention of Bonnie Vent of the San Diego Paranormal group, who channels dead people, many of whom are celebrities. The article mentions her channeling of a message from comedian George Carlin who died in June of this year. This video shows her channeling the "lovely stranger" ghost at the Coronado Hotel in San Diego who apparently was murdered and appears to people at the hotel. This is the kind of programming that Halloween inspires. But, as with the widespread popularity in the Christmas season of generosity and good will, these things are appropriate to focus on year ‘round.

I am posting a video of Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson from Ghost Hunters when they appeared on The View this year. They talk about the way they go about debunking sounds and activity and what tools they use to investigate.

So I'm anxious to see them working live -- as I've missed them doing it the last two years.

More comments later this weekend....

Even the NY Times is talking about ghosts today

Yes, well---Halloween gives the general American public license to talk about ghosts and the supernatural (aka paranormal activity). Here is an article in today's New York Times on Supernatural Cleaning Methods with some great references to books about ghost hunting and cleansing your home (burning sage aka smudging is mentioned).

I'm going to write up something about the Saints for Saturday, All Saints Day. In my belief system about spirits and spirit guides, I (and others) see saints as some of those in spirit who help us in our day-to-day lives. I have certain saints I consider to be helpful to me -- and I've sought them out from the general Catholic understanding of patron saints. More later...

ghost stories 1

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My grandmother telling about one experience in which she experienced a ghost on Brindley Street in Ithaca, NY

Grandma's ghost stories 2

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Stories about ghosts at Grandma's house on State Street in Ithaca, NY

Grandma Playing Piano

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A demonstraton of my grandmother playing piano for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren around 1988.

Science and "The Will to Believe"

Have been reading about the resistance to belief on the part of scientists -- an editorial written by Arthur Hastings, Director of the William James Center for Consciousness Studies at the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology. He discusses a near-death experience (NDE) case in which a patient being operated on had her eyes taped, ears plugged, her brain drained of blood and her body temperature lowered to 58 degrees. She was hooked up to an external heart and lung machine and her brain showed no electrical activity and it was unresponsive to sound. Yet after the operation she claimed to have been outside of her body and described special surgical instruments that were used, conversations she had overheard, and events that occurred during surgery (that were confirmed as true). She also described things corresponding with other NDEs such as a life review, meeting non-physical beings, and moving to an otherwordly place. Yet when scholars were asked to comment on the case, they would not.

Hastings speculates that even in the face of reasonable evidence to support a possible idea, without absolute proof those in the science community are resistant to belief. Reasonable evidence is not simply someone saying they experienced something, but data that indicate a good reason to conclude something, and yet there seems to be a determination not to believe.

Why?

The scientific community is built on credibility and acceptance. If researchers deviate from the paradigms that have been absorbed as truths, they risk loss of credibility, sometimes for life. Examples of that in other fields of science -- medicine and physics, for example -- indicate that scientists who have contributed theories based on findings that go against prevailing ideas and paradigms have been ostracized and unsupported in further research.

But Hastings says NO EMPIRICAL CONCLUSIONS CAN BE ABSOLUTELY PROVED, and every scientific conclusion is believed on less than complete logical proof. The ironic part of trying to establish the paradigm of the existence or possibility of a non-physical world is that in order for it to be accepted, it has to be explained by the use of the physical because the rationale is often "something that is not physical simply is not real because "real" means "physical." So how do you show the existence of a non-physical realm within those methods?

Measurement. Matching an experience that does not fit within the accepted paradigm by use of a well-accepted part of the paradigm. Lucid dreaming was not taken seriously until electroencephalography was used to confirm the consciousness state of lucid dreaming.

In late September an announcement of a study on out-of-body experiences (OBEs) that will be done was made by researchers in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

It makes me wonder if the use of measurement equipment in modern day ghost hunting (electromagnetic field detectors, thermal imagers, and digital voice recorders, as well as new tools that translate digital voice recordings immediately --those that are not picked up by the human ear), will constitute or are constituting now scientific evidence of the possibility of non-physical beings or activity or even communication with a non-physical world. One writer noted that there is no "proof" (or should we say evidence) that spirits emit high electromagnetic fields so we cannot say that unexplained high EMF levels are evidence of spirit activity. What I believe Ghost Hunters personnel usually say is that "the theory is that..." high EMF readings that are not attributable to anything physical may mean there is spiritual activity.

What I Believe, Part 2

Beyond the sense of spiritual guides and physical displays of spiritual activity in my home, I do believe it is possible to communicate with those who have died. My grandmother, who died in 2000 at the age of almost 92, often spoke of her own experiences -- seeing spirits, knowing when someone would be born or when someone would die, and having vivid dreams of visiting her mother in a heavenly place. Her sister also had similar experiences of her dead husband coming to see her and being prevented from speaking with her. As a young girl, I felt these stories were partly normal and partly fantastic. I was just glad I was not experiencing these dead people, myself, but completely believed the information my grandmother was telling me.

She would often visit me in my Long Island home and I used to say to her that when she died she should come and stay with me forever -- in spirit. I don't have any crisis apparition stories to tell (where she would have appeared to me at the time of her death), but as is reportedly the case with people who have passed trying to communicate with their families and friends, there have been interesting signs that lead me to believe she is around. Often, people report smelling a scent associated with the person, or hearing a song, or seeing that person's name in an unlikely place. After my grandmother died, my mother would smell my grandmother's favorite scented powder, even though my mother had given away all that powder when she died. My grandmother loved perfume and covered herself heavily with scented powder or lotion. The scent of the perfume was so strong in my grandmother's old bedroom that my mother was sure she was there. Now, my mother smells cigarette smoke and has seen a mist in the room. No one else will smell the smoke at the time my mother smells it.

For me, the signal that I gave my grandmother to let me know she is around is to let me hear her favorite piano music "Claire de Lune". She used to play it on the piano, and when I made a video of her life, that was the song I used as the introductory song. It is very interesting that I hear this song in many iterations in so many unique situations.

I broke my wrist and my mother had to come up from Florida to help me for a couple of weeks right after my grandmother died. I said to her in my mind, "If you are with us, play Claire de Lune when my mother and I are together." While driving me home from the doctor's office one day, my mother said she did not like the radio station we were listening to and asked me to change it. I said, "Okay, I'll put on the classical station" not even thinking about Claire de Lune. I was chatting away when my mother said, "Oh, listen, they're playing Claire de Lune." I was amazed! I had not even told my mother about the request I made to my grandmother before she came to stay with me.

After that, Claire de Lune was my signal. When I got a Fulbright to go to Germany, I was so grateful and astonished at having that experience. I thought it would have been so wonderful to be able to tell my grandmother about it. On the plane ride home, while watching the movie, Oceans 11, the song came on during the scene of the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel. Since that time, almost every time I go to Europe, I hear that song. The first time I was in Hungary, my friend was changing channels on his television when we saw a woman with a harp preparing to play. When she began playing, it was Claire de Lune. One time, I mentally told my grandmother how amazing it was that I was in Budapest every year -- the home of her parents -- and I said, "Hey, I haven't heard the song!" The next evening, I was walking down a Budapest street that I had not been on before and I noticed a comedy club. Thinking I should go there sometime, I walked past and inside was someone playing the piano, and the song they were playing was Claire de Lune. I even asked her to call me on the telephone (I had read that people claim to have gotten phone calls and messages from dead relatives -- so I asked her to call me). The next day, I got a message on my phone at work and there was no one on the line. Only the song Claire de Lune playing on the other end.

Only one time did I wonder about not hearing the song in Hungary and instead I heard Ravel's Pavan for a Dead Princess, which we played at her funeral, because it is one of my favorite pieces of music, which I hope will be played at my own funeral. (I know, morbid, but I am, after all, a princess).

My last story regarding Claire de Lune relates to a dream I had recently in which I was at a party and saw my grandmother there, sitting in a large upholstered rocking chair, as she always had in life. She was animated and laughing and nibbling on something (probably a mint). A woman at the party said it was funny that the rocking chair was moving on its own. Astonished, I said, "No, my grandmother is there!" The woman did not see her, and at that moment, my grandmother became transparent to me with a bright white light around her. She kissed me and laughed that the woman could not see her. I then partially woke up and said in my head, "Was that a dream or a vision of my grandmother?" And then I asked her to give me a sign if it was really her. When I got out of bed I went in to my living room and turned on the television. It was tuned to a PBS station on which a special about Victor Borge, the pianist, was on. At that moment in the program, he began to play Claire de Lune.

My brother has more vivid visits -- in his dreams -- from dead relatives, who bring him messages or show him they are still around and in good "spirits".

More later...