- January 26th, 2006
Although my title for this document is apt, I could also say If you heard one... or even If you've experienced one... because we noticed something about our witness reports... and the reports we read from other sites online.
Effectively, it is rare to find someone who's experienced only one ghost at one location and never experienced another one.
Most witnesses and "experiencers" have had multiple sightings/events happen to them... which begs the question, why?
The most common "popular" belief is that ghost witnesses have some sort of "wiring"... perhaps they are "sensitive"... maybe they are "psychic" in a way.
...but then you'd have to explain something...
Why do people who've witnessed more than one thing in their life witness things in places where other people have in the past (sometimes without knowing of previous reports)? Is the phenomena all based in the mind... and only those who CAN witness/experience things do?
These ideas can be disputed on a few accounts... the easiest being if the phenomena is ONLY in the mind, why do we have multiple witness sightings of some events (more than one person at the same time)?
Do we need a "medium" to make things happen? If so, why are some mediums better adept at making things happen at some places than others? Why don't they "make" the same things happen again and again? If they initially "conjured" up the "spirit" of a woman in red in one place, why did they "conjure up" a laughing man at another?
Now, here's a GOOD thought... and one that I often discuss... is it possible certain "mediums", either knowingly or unknowingly create extra things in some places?
This idea is one that noted author and president of Britain's "Ghost Club", Peter Underwood, has floated.
He documented cases where something like a "historical repeater" was seen by many... a "historical repeater" is a phantom that seems to "go through the motions" of what a person who has passed on went through oblivious to the change in surroundings... but then, a certain person enters this site and suddenly, we have poltergeist activity and far more things happening... which is blamed on the historical repeater... but should it be?
Did the historical repeater suddenly become aware of the "new person"... or did the "new person", aware of the "paranormal past" of the site effectively trigger new things via something like RSPK (Recurrent Spontaneous Psycho Kinesis) which would jive with what The Philip Experiments and the Scole Experiments seem to show?
To be honest, we don't know yet...
What we do know is that, indeed, some people SEEM to be "ghost magnets".
Once you allot (and you must) for those who's will to believe overrides possibly needed scepticism and the witness will interpret "natural" things for the "supernatural", you're still left with a sizable amount of witnesses with more than one sighting under their belt... are these people all mediums?
My hypothesis is that they aren't.
My thought is that, like a pheasant hunter with experience, when he or she looks into what appears to others to be nothing more than brush and forest, they'll see and pick-out seven birds. They know what to look for and how.
As much as many people say they are "frightened" of ghosts, most of us know that the reports tend not to be frightening... but curious.
Over the last few hundred years, the total (possible) documented cases of a ghost killing a person is one - and it's debatable - The Bell Witch case. (Sadly, the total number of deaths because of exorcisms is exponentially higher.)
Most people, when they encounter a "ghost" aren't aware of it until something triggers that they have indeed encountered something odd.
For example, most apparitions are actually very solid looking... like "normal people". Witnesses see them, assume it's a person until something... like "funny clothes" or on second glance, the "person" seems to have vanished even though they should not have been able to... happens.
This being more the norm than anything, it's not at all unusual that a witnesses first experience is a little frightening... more unnerving than anything else... if they have a second experience, they tend to want answers, but are still wary. If they have a third instance, they're likely to run towards whatever it is and not away from it.
These events almost "trigger" a desire to re-experience things and try to get some sort of answer...
Now, there are those who feel they already know the answer to what they experienced... and therefore attribute pretty much every experience to the same thing.
I don't know if this is the correct way of looking at things as there doesn't seem to be a "generic ghost", but multiple types of experienced phenomena... which leads me to feel that the word "ghost" is like the word "animal". A mouse is an animal... as is a grizzly bear... but despite some similarities, it's unlikely that most people would truly categorise them as "the same". A cold is a virus... so is ebola... yet again, they have some similarities, but rarely are considered to be in the same category.
That said, we lump so much into the term "ghost"... strange noises, things moving about on their own, apports (or things disappearing and reappearing in a strange spot), and apparitions... Are they all the same and from the same source?
If they are, then sure, I suppose like the pheasant hunter, someone could be more "tuned in" than others...
...but my thoughts are that the witness now is tuned in in a different way.
Once you've gotten to the multiple (or even one "large" or "weighted") experience, you are less likely to write-off that strange shadow you saw... or the odd noise you heard. Your senses are pricked to see/hear/feel/smell/whatever everything... and therefore, when something odd happens, you'll notice it.
Ergo: The witness of multiple phenomena may not be "more psychic" or "more sensitive" than the next person... but more likely to notice something odd.
Now, this is a hypothesis... and an ongoing study. I can't say we've got anything concrete yet... but to be honest, our findings sure seem to indicate that this is something that should not be ignored...
The better point to this is - those people who WANT to have an experience but haven't MIGHT be literally taught how to improve their chances... and not by psychical means... but by simply being more observant and questioning everything in their surroundings.
Realistically, this could be a double-edged sword, because if someone was to be completely open to all variations in an environment, they would be apt to think every insect crawling in a wall space is a ghost... but with an appropriate amount of legitimate scepticism, analysis, and genuine investigation when "anomalies" seem to be found, we might just be on to something...
Time, will of course, tell.
Matthew James Didier
Although my title for this document is apt, I could also say If you heard one... or even If you've experienced one... because we noticed something about our witness reports... and the reports we read from other sites online.
Effectively, it is rare to find someone who's experienced only one ghost at one location and never experienced another one.
Most witnesses and "experiencers" have had multiple sightings/events happen to them... which begs the question, why?
The most common "popular" belief is that ghost witnesses have some sort of "wiring"... perhaps they are "sensitive"... maybe they are "psychic" in a way.
...but then you'd have to explain something...
Why do people who've witnessed more than one thing in their life witness things in places where other people have in the past (sometimes without knowing of previous reports)? Is the phenomena all based in the mind... and only those who CAN witness/experience things do?
These ideas can be disputed on a few accounts... the easiest being if the phenomena is ONLY in the mind, why do we have multiple witness sightings of some events (more than one person at the same time)?
Do we need a "medium" to make things happen? If so, why are some mediums better adept at making things happen at some places than others? Why don't they "make" the same things happen again and again? If they initially "conjured" up the "spirit" of a woman in red in one place, why did they "conjure up" a laughing man at another?
Now, here's a GOOD thought... and one that I often discuss... is it possible certain "mediums", either knowingly or unknowingly create extra things in some places?
This idea is one that noted author and president of Britain's "Ghost Club", Peter Underwood, has floated.
He documented cases where something like a "historical repeater" was seen by many... a "historical repeater" is a phantom that seems to "go through the motions" of what a person who has passed on went through oblivious to the change in surroundings... but then, a certain person enters this site and suddenly, we have poltergeist activity and far more things happening... which is blamed on the historical repeater... but should it be?
Did the historical repeater suddenly become aware of the "new person"... or did the "new person", aware of the "paranormal past" of the site effectively trigger new things via something like RSPK (Recurrent Spontaneous Psycho Kinesis) which would jive with what The Philip Experiments and the Scole Experiments seem to show?
To be honest, we don't know yet...
What we do know is that, indeed, some people SEEM to be "ghost magnets".
Once you allot (and you must) for those who's will to believe overrides possibly needed scepticism and the witness will interpret "natural" things for the "supernatural", you're still left with a sizable amount of witnesses with more than one sighting under their belt... are these people all mediums?
My hypothesis is that they aren't.
My thought is that, like a pheasant hunter with experience, when he or she looks into what appears to others to be nothing more than brush and forest, they'll see and pick-out seven birds. They know what to look for and how.
As much as many people say they are "frightened" of ghosts, most of us know that the reports tend not to be frightening... but curious.
Over the last few hundred years, the total (possible) documented cases of a ghost killing a person is one - and it's debatable - The Bell Witch case. (Sadly, the total number of deaths because of exorcisms is exponentially higher.)
Most people, when they encounter a "ghost" aren't aware of it until something triggers that they have indeed encountered something odd.
For example, most apparitions are actually very solid looking... like "normal people". Witnesses see them, assume it's a person until something... like "funny clothes" or on second glance, the "person" seems to have vanished even though they should not have been able to... happens.
This being more the norm than anything, it's not at all unusual that a witnesses first experience is a little frightening... more unnerving than anything else... if they have a second experience, they tend to want answers, but are still wary. If they have a third instance, they're likely to run towards whatever it is and not away from it.
These events almost "trigger" a desire to re-experience things and try to get some sort of answer...
Now, there are those who feel they already know the answer to what they experienced... and therefore attribute pretty much every experience to the same thing.
I don't know if this is the correct way of looking at things as there doesn't seem to be a "generic ghost", but multiple types of experienced phenomena... which leads me to feel that the word "ghost" is like the word "animal". A mouse is an animal... as is a grizzly bear... but despite some similarities, it's unlikely that most people would truly categorise them as "the same". A cold is a virus... so is ebola... yet again, they have some similarities, but rarely are considered to be in the same category.
That said, we lump so much into the term "ghost"... strange noises, things moving about on their own, apports (or things disappearing and reappearing in a strange spot), and apparitions... Are they all the same and from the same source?
If they are, then sure, I suppose like the pheasant hunter, someone could be more "tuned in" than others...
...but my thoughts are that the witness now is tuned in in a different way.
Once you've gotten to the multiple (or even one "large" or "weighted") experience, you are less likely to write-off that strange shadow you saw... or the odd noise you heard. Your senses are pricked to see/hear/feel/smell/whatever everything... and therefore, when something odd happens, you'll notice it.
Ergo: The witness of multiple phenomena may not be "more psychic" or "more sensitive" than the next person... but more likely to notice something odd.
Now, this is a hypothesis... and an ongoing study. I can't say we've got anything concrete yet... but to be honest, our findings sure seem to indicate that this is something that should not be ignored...
The better point to this is - those people who WANT to have an experience but haven't MIGHT be literally taught how to improve their chances... and not by psychical means... but by simply being more observant and questioning everything in their surroundings.
Realistically, this could be a double-edged sword, because if someone was to be completely open to all variations in an environment, they would be apt to think every insect crawling in a wall space is a ghost... but with an appropriate amount of legitimate scepticism, analysis, and genuine investigation when "anomalies" seem to be found, we might just be on to something...
Time, will of course, tell.
Matthew James Didier