THAT CONVERSATION ABOUT HAUNTED OBJECTS AND PLACES!
A while ago I had a little online conversation with Jayne Harris regarding haunted objects and places. In which we discussed the concept of how haunted objects and places maybe the same or different. This was generally based on the fact that there appears to be a general understanding that some see the two as being different and others see them as the same.
Initially I believe my position was that both objects and places must be the same as they carried the same attributes in regards to being haunted. There were similarities between them that made me see the haunting of an object to be pretty much be the same in principle as the haunting of a building say.
However as I continued to think about it I looked deeper into the actual understanding of a haunting! Oddly this is where the concept began to break down. It’s probably important to mention that I have investigated many a supposed haunted location over the years and at some actually encountered phenomena which remains unexplained. The problem really begins to arise when you evaluate the phenomena in relation to a location or object.
LOOKING AT HAUNTED LOCATIONS
Firstly, if you look at haunted locations then we can often list off many varying types of paranormal activity which may occur there. However it’s relationship is often based on two leading factors, time and space. The activity is said to occur in our present time, but either be a ‘recording’ of another time when it’s a ghost or an entity from another time when it’s a spirit. However the evidence to support this is circumstantial at best. Conclusions are perceived given what is seen or felt, sometimes even based on what is understood of the communication. There’s nothing that relates 100% between the experience and historical fact.
The reason for this connection to the locations history is simple in my mind, it helps to support the theory of us surviving bodily death and thus giving hope that there is more beyond our own death.
In all fairness it’s an approach and understanding that I have made in the past and won’t rule out either. After all it still could be a possible conclusion and I for one would quite welcome the possibility of life after death.
WHAT ABOUT OBJECTS?
Objects are slightly different, these seem to follow a pattern being related to a spirit and often that spirit maybe seen as a little darker in its intentions.
So why are objects like this, that’s actually not too hard either. An object is more personal, generally has a sentimental value to someone. So, rather than containing lots of varying possibilities of ghosts or spirits, they often are associated to one entity or at least multiple related entities.
WHEN A HAUNTING ISN’T QUITE WHAT WE THINK
What if neither locations/buildings or objects were actually haunted? It sounds mad I know, but hear me out.
So, let’s assume that ghosts, spirits and general paranormal activity doesn’t reside at a location or within an object of some description. Then how do we explain the reports of these very things? If we take into consideration Jungs theory of the collective unconscious and see it as the concept of all minds being connected. This connection under the right circumstances allows transference of information. This has been seen time and time again with Mediums, but also research into telepathy. The work of Targ and co in regards to remote viewing has shown this too. The Ganzfield Experiment has been utilised considerably to document and record data to back this up. Telepathic interaction occurs, but is still not accepted by mainstream science. Information can move from one mind to another, which is important.
ALL ABOUT THE TRIGGERS
Now let’s think of our haunted locations, buildings and objects as triggers. These triggers cause the unconscious mind to ‘google’ in way the related relative information. This search for information is very important and mostly resides in the unconscious mind as it occurs as a part of each of our natural behaviour. As each of us enters a location our senses are working overtime to gather information, a function which has evolved with us to protect us through time. Now some of this information makes it through to the conscious mind on occasion and its my assumption that is where reality begins to blur a little. Some of this information relates directly to the physical environment and like a kind of live risk assessment our minds evaluate the potential dangers we may encounter. This is nothing new and recognised by psychologists I’m sure the World over. However I believe that we also manage a more telepathic connection with others that have information related to the very environment we have entered. When that information reaches our conscious mind, be it regarding the location or individuals which resided there, it breaks our formulation of relativty! In order to normalise this we cross-reference according to our personal experiences, knowledge and belief system, the result is the conclusion of paranormal activity attributed to ghosts and spirits.
Obviously this is quite a large statement for a Paranormal Researcher and Investigator to make, but sometimes when you evaluate all the information you’re presented with the results may be a little unexpected!
LOOKING AT THE BIGGER PICTURE
There’s obviously a lot more to this that the information contained within this post, but that will come soon enough. In fairness some of it is already out there for you all to discover. Take the Ganzfield Experiment for example, that has been done to death, pardon the pun! The point being though that there is a lot of successful accounts of the Experiment which present the possibility of telepathic interaction to exist beyond chance. The work of Russel Targ on the subject of ESP equally presents strong cases for the possibility of information transference between individuals. Targ’s work and that of those who worked on the CIA Black Budget Project Star Gate have seen for themselves the potential of the human mind and its ability to stretch beyond the confines or our understanding. One of the results was something called Remote Viewing and it is this approach which actually begins to support the understanding I have of haunted objects and locations. You see during Remote Viewing the subject attempts to communicate information of a target location based on a code that only those running the experiment know relates to a certain location. Over the years the process for this has been refined and there are now many out there treading the same path as Ingo Swann. Now obviously Remote Viewing is a process and the scenario where individuals pick up on information or witness information based on what they pick up is more random, but the very fact that we can train our minds to do such a thing suggests to me the possibilities our minds have naturally.
LOOKING AT PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND POLTERGEIST
Of course all this talk of Remote Viewing may cover the transference of information, but hasn’t touched on the element of physical activity during a haunting or at a haunted location. In order to answer this we must bear in mind another type of haunting which has hit the press and cinemas again recently, a poltergeist type of haunting. These kind of cases were the ones that first questioned the ‘source’ of the paranormal activity, rather than simply attributing it to a spirit they became associated with young girls generally entering puberty. The theory being that this time of their life was associated to increased emotional and hormonal change, which in turn generated increased levels of psychical energy too. I’m not inclined to disagree with that just yet, but on reading Playfairs ‘This House is Haunted’, which is he’s account of the Enfield Poltergeist case, I realised there was a lot more to such a case and indeed the Enfield story.
What’s interesting is that Playfair equally questions the concept of the poltergeist and also brought up the source of the ‘haunting’ too. However in relation to he’s experience at Enfield he also likened some (not all) of the activity that was directly related to Janet to Tourette’s Syndrome. This was based around the beginnings of the ‘voice’ which started as barks and swearing. Now I dont know a lot about Tourette’s Syndrome, but what little I do know makes sense to me. Tourette’s is a neurological condition (affecting the brain and nervous system), which is characterised by a combination of involuntary noises and movements called tics. Now if some has higher psychical abilities and energy perhaps when they develop something similar to Tourette’s it could be possible that unconsciously they could be responsible for the physical activity too.
HOW IT WORKS
So, how does that all work when you’re investigating a haunted location. Well in that scenario we are already searching for activity even if we are there to debunk it, the element of belief exists. Add into the mix that there may be multiple people at a location looking for the same thing, then the focus is increased. The collective unconscious has a localised focal point. Expand that more or work with the same people and often this can develop in to physical activity.
If a group of ten people sit around a circular table and each focus on asking the same spirit to move an object at the centre of that table, then if the object moves is that power of spirit or power of the collective minds?
Focus is an important part of this too. Like an internet search algorithm, its my opinion that the more people focus on one thing the more the consciousness of it is increased and its potential to reach reality is increased. However dont take my word for it, take a look at the Philip Experiment which took place in the 70’s in Canada (if memory serves me well). During this experiment the group worked in a seance type fashion in order to communicate with a spirit. The oddity of this experiment wasn’t paranormal, but that the group created the entity themselves with such a back story that appeared to actuate into reality. This particular experiment is similar to the Scole Experiment where the spirits weren’t created by the group. However the Scole Experiment occurred at the Foy’s home and between entities with no relation to the location. So, good focus and process can present some interesting results regardless of the location being haunted.
So, you see the concept of somewhere or something actually being haunted could more so be a product of our minds ability to gather information from the collective unconscious, but also its ability to actuate that information into our physical reality. Ghosts for example could be that information being visually represented as an overlay to the information our own eyes see or indeed presented in an audible fashion. If we can physically affect our environment that could equally extend to our devices too.
Now whether this weird and wonderful idea, which isn’t necessarily just my own is provable is another matter. However if we are willing to attribute strange goings on to the spirits of those that have passed, then perhaps this idea isn’t so far fetched!