Terrestrial Shadows

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

There is speculation far and wide as to whether or not ghosts exist. If they truly are real, then why do they inhabit the places they do? And what exactly are they? The walking dead? Forlorn spirits with unfinished business destined to wander the earth until their karmic debt is repaid? An imprint of energy left over from a traumatic event? And if we are lucky enough to witness an apparition, why are we unable to directly communicate with the spirit? Researchers have identified several different types of haunting that take place worldwide.

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed — but it can be left behind. There is a direct connection between a tragic, violent or untimely death and a haunting. An untimely passing robs the victim of a future, stops him from fulfilling his goals and dreams, cuts his life’s plans drastically short, rips him away from his soul mate. He doesn’t even have a chance to say goodbye. The shock of this sudden and unexpected departure is so intense that it leaves an imprint on the location, which results in a residual haunting. Residual haunting are by far the most common, and are often compared to the data stored on a video recorder. The extreme energy emitted at the time of the tragedy is recorded onto the environment. When you experience the sound of phantom footsteps, images, apparitions or scents, what you are actually experiencing is a recorded playback of what happened in the past. There is no interaction with the living — the ghost does not see or hear you because the ghost is not actually there. Only his energy remains, it is a remnant of his living form that you are seeing, just like when you watch a video. This cycle continues in the same place at usually the same time of day or year indefinitely until the energy is exhausted or diminishes to a low enough level that it is undetectable by human perception.

Traditional, or intelligent, haunting are extremely rare, and yet these are the haunting that people are most familiar with. If you’ve ever seen the movie “The Sixth Sense”, you’ll recall that Hayley Joel Osmond’s character could hear, see, and speak with the ghosts around him. These were actual human spirits that had not crossed over into heaven and had some unfinished business with a living person, or a message they wanted to deliver before they could move on. The spirit is either so emotionally connected to his loved ones that he refuses to pass, or his death happened so quickly that he has not yet realized he is dead, and thus continues to live as though he were not. These ghosts will unlock doors and open windows, run the faucets and even interact with you directly because they are an “intelligent” presence, the personality of a person who was once alive but has stayed behind rather than passing over.

The third type of haunting, and undoubtedly the most frightening, is a demonic, or inhuman, haunting. In this case, the entity is similar to a traditional haunting because the spirit is intelligent and is existing in the present moment with you. Unfortunately, the emotion that is tying them to the earthly realm is usually anger. These spirits are malevolent and hostile, suffering from psychological instability or distress stemming from an unresolved conflict with the people who are being subjected to the demonic activity. Demonic presences tend to be ‘unleashed’ in order for them to manifest. This is one reason why the use of a Ouija Board is customarily discouraged among many ghost hunters. As Carl Johnson of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) put it, “…while some of these devices may at first appear to be utterly harmless and regarded as tools to aid in tapping into one’s subconsciousness, the results can be likened to leaving open one’s back door in a country setting. Now, you may only have some little squirrels and chipmunks wander into your kitchen, but odds are that eventually you’ll find yourself facing down a bear, maybe a small cub, IF YOU’RE LUCKY. And keep in mind, where there’s one “bear,” others are lurking somewhere close by!”

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Have you ever seen a ghost? Or have you ever heard or felt something that felt creepy to you?

Ghosts are very popular subjects these days. About half the American people admit to believing in them, and there are ghost beliefs in nearly every culture in the world. People have told ghost stories and reported ghostly encounters for all of recorded history. Today, paranormal investigators are compiling film and audio evidence, and experimenting with changes in electromagnetic fields and temperature in allegedly haunted places to try to determine if there is objective evidence for the existence of something we might identify as a ghost. Growing evidence indicates that there is, indeed, some unexplained phenomena that can, for lack of a better word, be identified as a ghost or spirit. But what, exactly, is a ghost? In folklore, a ghost is the manifestation of a dead person, and many people belief this is so. But what are other theories of what a ghost might be?

Here are some popular ideas:

 1. A recapturing of some violent or deeply emotional event in the past. This is what is called a “residual” haunting, and appears to be the most common kind. The apparitions that are seen in these cases are always in the same place, doing the same thing, and show no awareness of their actual surroundings or of living beings who are present. These ghosts would have no personality or substance, but would be the psychic equivalent of holograms replaying one small bit of history. An example of this might be the well-known ghost of Alice, at the Hermitage near Myrtle Beach, SC.

2. A projection of our own thoughts. We use only a small part of our brains; some people theorize that certain circumstances combined with a certain frame of mind will trigger an extremely vivid vision that appears to be real in every way. Anyone who has ever experienced a hallucinogenic drug will concur that reality can often be a tricky thing. It is not explained how such a manifestation might be caught on film or tape, however. One of the reasons that paranormal research is so intriguing is that we do have to take into account that we usually are in a haunted place because we either really do or really don’t want to see something unexplained, and that can bias our experience. If we can catch phenomena through technology, that validates our experience.

3. Angels or demons. People of a particular religious background who laugh at the idea of ghosts may be much more willing to believe that something unknown is either supernaturally good or supernaturally evil. In most cases of haunting, there is little evidence of either extreme.

4. Creatures from outer space- though why they would take forms from throughout history or hang about in places that are often empty for most of the time (such as abandoned jails and hospitals) is hard to understand.

5. Glimpses into another dimension- String theory is responsible for the new popularity of this theory. In string theory, one conjecture is that there are many, many dimensions, and not just the ones we are familiar with. Some people theorize that there may be other beings inhabiting parallel dimensions, going about their lives in similar fashion to our own, and once in a while some circumstance will create a break between the dimensions, and we catch sight of one another. This would explain why apparitions who do appear to have intelligence and emotion sometimes seem so surprised to see us.

None of these theories, which do not include the possibility of intelligent interaction between the spirits of the dead and the living, explain why ghosts often seem to be emotionally involved with the place where they are or with people in the place. It seems from my research that much more often than a ghost seems angry or dangerous, the entity will seem lonely or concerned about someone or some place left behind. This is especially true in EVP work (electronic voice phenomena, where voices are captured on tape that could not have come from anyone present in the room.) In EVPs, it is not unknown for unseen entities to actually address people by name or refer to items in the room or the building.

Of course, it is all just theoretical, and no one can say for sure what causes ghostly phenomena. However, it seems difficult to explain away all evidence that in a small number of cases, there is intelligence, and at least a shadow of recognition and emotion, attached to what we choose to call ghosts.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!