Hauntings and ghosts
Among the oldest and most universal phenomena associated with life after death, accounts of hauntings and ghosts provide the gist for stories that intrigue us with questions as to whether they’re just fiction or could possibly be based in some kind of reality. The term “haunting” is usually used for those cases where apparitions are reported seen over a period of time and typically by more than one person. Usually they appear to be associated with a particular location and sometimes include mysterious sounds, smells, cold breezes, a sense of presence, or movement of objects. The ghosts believed responsible for a haunting are typically reported as carrying out repetitive actions such as appearing at the same spot, walking along the same corridors, or disappearing through closed doorways, and they often seem unaware of the presence of human witnesses.
While accounts of ghosts and hauntings provide fascinating stories, they do not provide good evidence for the survival of death primarily because their appearance relies on word of witnesses. They are extremely difficult to investigate. Sightings are quirky and unpredictable with an annoying habit of failing to appear when teams of investigators are present complete with cameras, tape recorders, image intensifiers, and the other paraphernalia beloved of ghost hunters. Ghosts refuse to appear to order, refuse to be photographed (the few pictures we have of their shadowy or wispy forms can all be dismissed as possible fakes), and may, in any case, only be visible to those with so-called clairvoyant abilities. Ghostly footsteps and other sounds can all too easily be dismissed as due to natural causes. Witnesses can be ridiculed by the determined critic who has made up his or her mind in advance that ghosts do not exist and that those who report them must therefore be untruthful, reporting mistaken memories of what was seen, under the influence of drugs, hallucinating, or given to an over-active imagination. The fear of attracting ridicule is often sufficient to deter people, particularly those with professional or social standing to protect, from admitting publicly to possible paranormal experiences of this kind.
A particularly interesting understanding of ghosts is offered by Julia Assante, a psychic/medium as well as a PhD scholar, in her 2012 book The Last Frontier: Exploring the Afterlife and Transforming Our Fear of Death.
We tend to equate ghosts, she says, with the deceased who may contact us. But there is a very big difference between dear dead Auntie Jean and a ghost. Auntie Jean will appear wherever our mind is, because she is coming expressly to communicate with us. Ghosts are associated with a specific place. They perform repetitious movements, like reruns of a video clip. A ghost might be seen going up the same staircase again and again with each sighting. Some habitually pass through walls at specific places where doorways once were.
They are compulsive and self-involved and have no real intention to interact. Most remain mute and unresponsive to the events and people around them. Unlike the deceased, they do not appear to tell us they love us, to say they’re okay, or to give advice. When we do see them, they tend to be almost colorless, wispy, and typically lack feet. Importantly, they don’t emit light. It’s very important to remember, Assante says, that they are harmless, and sightings are quite rare in comparison to visits from the dead.
Ghosts, Assante explains, are literally not all there. They are highly developed thought forms made and shed by the living at critical turning points, and their growth continues whether their creator is alive or dead. These fragments of a core personality can be packed with such power that they are able to affect the atmosphere yielding such phenomena as the well-known column of cold air.
She has worked with a lot of them and enjoys doing so. Her objective is not to destroy the ghost, as the term ghost busting suggests, but to liberate it. Because they are fixated, self-involved, resistant to human intervention, and almost never seek help, this can be very difficult. They need to be approached with respect and compassion.
Poltergeists
There is, however, a type of haunting phenomena that does yield to controlled investigation and thus does provide intriguing information bearing on the life after death question, that involving poltergeists. Poltergeist is a German word meaning “noisy spirit.” Poltergeists are associated with the apparently paranormal and often violent movement of physical objects, some of which has been observed in broad daylight. Unlike many other hauntings, poltergeists down through the centuries have been particularly well documented, and, in some cases, have been attested to by such seemingly reliable witnesses as the police.
A consistent feature of poltergeist hauntings involves what appears to be mischievous or malicious behavior. Reports are common of such activity as throwing stones at people or pulling their hair (though without much injury), causing objects to disappear and then be returned in the most unlikely places, upsetting furniture, scribbling on walls, breaking objects, and starting small fires, all to discomfort the inhabitants of the property they choose to haunt. These antics are often blamed on any children or adolescents who happen to be in the house at the time. (p. 63 – 64)
Although poltergeist phenomena continue to fascinate us as a source for spooky movie entertainment, there is a tendency for serious contemporary parapsychologists to be skeptical about such things actually happening in today’s world. While they may be prepared to believe, or at least suspend judgment, about accounts of poltergeist cases described by the founders of psychical research, they seem to draw the line regarding anything of this nature actually happening in today’s world.
David Fontana notes that this might well be a fear of these parapsychologists that if they were to accept as genuine paranormal phenomena occurring outside the laboratory, and these phenomena were subsequently discovered to be susceptible to explanations in normal terms, they would lose their credibility.
He points out that “in psychical research, there is no substitute for direct experience of paranormal events as they happen, spontaneously and unpredictably, in the real world.” For all of the contributions to parapsychological research that have come from the laboratory, it is in fact an artificial controlled environment and, thus, the phenomena observed there are of limited value. For anyone to truly know and appreciate that “paranormal energies, whatever they may be,” can sometimes produce effects in the everyday world, actual observation of them is indispensable
Fontana emphasizes that although investigations of real world phenomena can rarely be as well controlled as those within the laboratory, investigators can take a range of precautions against fraud, poor observation, mistaken inference, or other factors that could be attributed to normal explanations. Good rigorous observation is readily accepted as part of the methodology in other areas of science, and it should be equally acceptable in parapsychological research.
Fontana offers the following account of what came to be called the Cardiff Poltergeist Case, which he personally investigated from June 1989 to early 1992. His careful consideration of how the events might be interpreted and why he sees this case as strong evidence supportive of a life after death explanation is noteworthy.
The Cardiff Poltergeist Case
In June of 1989 John Matthews, the proprietor of a lawnmower repair workshop and adjoining garden-accessories shop, contacted the British Society for Psychical Researchv to ask for assistance because of inexplicable disturbances occurring in his shop. He was concerned that these disturbances, which mainly involved stone throwing and the inexplicable movement of objects, could frighten away customers and might even result in someone being injured. Fontana agreed to visit on a day the shop would be closed but did not give the exact time he would be there. His arrival was unseen as there were no windows.
Mr. Matthews and a visiting salesman, the only occupants when Fontana entered, were seated opposite each other on low boxes, their hands completely visible on their laps. Just as he entered a small stone hit a piece of machinery on the floor near their feet with a highly audible “ping.” The salesman told him that at first he had been skeptical, but he had seen enough in the workshop to convince him there really was some kind inexplicable force that was responsible.
John had started somewhat affectionately calling this force “Pete.” Pete had first shown up, according to John, a number of months before by throwing large stones onto the roof of a shed at the back. This became so persistent that the police were called to investigate, but they did not find anyone who might be responsible. Soon afterward unusual phenomena began to occur inside the workshop. Coins, bolts, and small stones the size of granite chippings were thrown against the walls of the workshop. Objects of unknown origin (called in the literature “apports”) such as a pen, keys, and old pennies either appeared to fall from the ceiling or were found on the work surfaces. Tools on racks started swinging with no apparent cause. An ornamental brass shell case was sometimes thrown violently around the room, and planks of wood, apparently too heavy to be thrown by hand were hurled from the yard through the open door of the workshop.
Stones were thrown at John’s wife while she was in the toilet at the back of the workshop with the door locked. These events sometimes took place when John was by himself in the workshop, sometimes when others were there with him, and sometimes when others were there and he wasn’t. These objects were seldom seen in actual flight but became apparent only when they hit the wall or landed on the floor. Fontana not only interviewed John but four other people closely involved in the case who had witnessed many of the events that John reported. All were respectable, practical and unpretentious, middle-aged people.
Fontana during the months of his investigation observed many of the strange occurrences that John and othesr had described as well as some even more startling. One day John became irritated by the stone throwing and threw a small stone into the far corner of the workshop from where many of the phenomena appeared to originate. Immediately a stone apparently came back from the same corner striking a nearby wall. John, then his wife, repeated this, again with the same result. When Fontana was told about this a few days later, he tried throwing a stone, aiming into the same corner of the workshop about 20 feet away. A stone came back hitting the wall behind him. The same thing happened with another stone throw. For several weeks Fontana, John, and his wife continued this stone throwing activity. Sometimes a stone was returned, sometimes not. Only stones thrown into one corner prompted a response.
They never saw a returned stone in flight but would hear it strike the wall with a “ping” and then clatter to the floor. Fontana carefully observed the hands of John and his wife Pat and never observed anything suggesting that they were faking these things. One day, when they were some 300 miles away on a holiday, Fontana visited the workshop unannounced. Michael, a business associate, was there by himself and said there had been no poltergeist activity since John and Pat had left. He offered the opinion that the energies of two people were necessary to enable anything paranormal to take place.
Fontana threw stones into the active corner, and stones were immediately returned. Michael then left the workshop, but this made no difference. When Fontana was alone and threw stones, they continued to be returned. This seemed to rule out the possibility of faking on the part of anyone associated with the workshop. Fontana observed that during his investigation no one was ever injured by the thrown objects. He was hit several times but with what appeared to be “almost exaggerated gentleness.”
Attempts were made to contact “Pete” by such time-honored methods as asking questions and inviting one rap for “yes” and two for “no,” with no results. However, other attempts did succeed. One day John placed the shell case mentioned previously at the far end of the workshop, and attempted to hit it with some of the many small stones often found on the floor when the workshop was opened in the morning. He couldn’t hit it and on impulse called out, “All right Pete, you hit it.” Immediately a stone ricocheded off the case with a loud “ping.” Fontana upon hearing about this tried it for himself. Standing on the far side of the workshop he attempted unsuccessfully to hit the case then called out to “Pete” to hit it. Immediately he heard a stone ricochet off the case and fall to the floor. Fontana and John were never able to hit the case from 20 feet away, but “Pete” seemed to be able to do it at will.
Once John and his family playfully asked “Pete” if he could bring them some money. The result was that three old pennies dated 1912 showed up. John then asked for something larger, and over the next weeks crumpled £5 notes were found in the workshop and the retail shop when he opened up in the morning. They were either on the floor or pinned to the ceiling with the needle of a carburetor float. No one could figure out where the money came from, but clearly it wasn’t taken from cash held in the shop.
Fontana points out that if faking were involved in the phenomena that occurred, it would have had to involve John, his wife, or two others that worked there. In spite of his continuing close observation of their movements, he was never given any reason to suspect their honesty. He extensively searched the workshop and retail premises and found no mechanical devices that could have been responsible for the stone throwing. The fact that stones hit the shell case on demand only deepened this puzzle. Fontana also considered and ruled out such low-tech. procedures as sticking stones to the ceiling so that they could fall as the glue dried. Careful observation of the floors indicated the tight-fitting boards had not been disturbed. The suspended ceilings were too fragile to bear any weight. The workshop and retail shop were each only 30 feet by 15 feet, and there were no secret cupboards. There were clearly no places where an accomplice could hide. Furthermore, there was no motivation for faking. The family was concerned that the poltergeist phenomena could affect their business. In fact, one customer was so alarmed when a stone clattered to the floor that he fled without picking up his change. Fontana on occasions took two of his psychology students with him to help with his observations. No phenomena occurred when one was present, but the other did witness stone-throwing and was confident it couldn’t be explained by any kind of trickery
Due to his very careful observations and the fact he himself witnessed many poltergeist phenomena, Fontana concludes that it would be difficult, even for the most determined critic, to argue that any kind of fraud was involved that could explain what occurred. He points out that one further possibility might be offered to account for some of the phenomena involving natural environmental events such as vibrations caused by traffic or physical or electromagnetic activity. However, these could easily be ruled out. The shop was located at the back of the premises, and no vibrations were observed, even when large trucks passed. The existence of geophysical effects such as seismic activity and ground water could not possibly account for such things as the fact that some objects in the workshop moved and some did not or that such movement often seemed purposeful.
Having described the case thus far as an “intriguing example of a poltergeist haunting,” Fontana then turns to the question as to what light it throws on the possibility of survival of bodily death. Given the fact that the phenomena could not be explained by naturalistic causes, two possibilities need to be considered. Was “Pete” in any sense a separate personality, or was he in some way a projection from the minds of one or more of the people involved? If he was a separate personality, then it seems that at least some part of his living personality survived. The second possibility (known as the super ESP hypothesis) supports the existence of paranormal abilities on the part of the living but says nothing directly about survival.
Superpsi is sometimes suggested as an explanation for some kinds of paranormal activity. In this way of thinking, poltergeist phenomena result from some kind of exteriorized emotional energy, usually rage and frustration, of a living person typically going through some kind of emotional crisis at the time.. This person represses the desire to act out with anger at those responsible, but the urge eventually finds expression through a form of unconscious psychokinesis. Often disturbed adolescents going through the emotional upheaval of puberty are said to be those responsible.
In terms of the “Pete” phenomena there were no adolescents involved in the case. There was no evidence that any of the people involved were experiencing any particular emotional frustration. If that had been the case there would have had to be some way it lingered on or was paranormally transmitted to the premises in some way when the person with whom it was associated was not present. Fontana points out that as far as he knows there is no evidence suggesting macro psychokinetic effects, such as stone-throwing can be accomplished by persons not physically present at the time. He also is unaware of any evidence that the energy lying behind the small psychokinetic effects apparent in the laboratory can be sufficiently strong to cause the large-scale disturbances that he witnessed in Cardiff. Fontana concludes that, on balance, the idea that Pete was no more than a living person unconsciously venting his or her inner turmoil in a paranormal manner can be ruled out.
Turning to the possibility “Pete” was a surviving personality, Fontana marshals considerable supporting evidence. As previously discussed, the poltergeist activity occurred in the absence of each of the five people associated with the case. Intelligent behavior appeared to take place while the premises were locked and unoccupied overnight such as the arrival of the £5 notes. Often the activity appeared contrary to the wishes of those people involved. Furthermore, there is no evidence that living agents are able to produce the kind of psychokinetic effects that were witnessed at Cardiff.
“Pete” displayed a number of the qualities that are normally associated with a separate
personality. He made apparent attempts to be helpful, as in the money episodes, and responded playfully to the stone-throwing experiments. Many of his activities were surprising, such as hitting the shell case with stones. He showed evident kindness in refraining from hurting anyone with his stone throwing. The family members became impressed with his apparent distinct existence. Although on many occasions he was annoying, they grew fond of him and rejected any suggestion that attempts should be made to try to get rid of him.
Fontana concludes that the evidence from the case supports an explanation that “Pete” was indeed a separate personality who had survived death and was able to make his presence felt. The question was, who he might be. Much of his behavior, Fontana notes, suggested a young boy rather than a mature adult. This possibility was strengthened by several occurrences. One time John and his brother-in-law Paul heard what sounded like a ball bouncing in the space above the ceiling. Upon investigation, they discovered a large rubber ball and a teddy bear that had disappeared from the workshop some months before. The possible connection to a child was further suggested when Paul reported seeing the apparition of a boy in the workshop on three occasions.
On the first, when he entered the workshop the boy was sitting on the top shelf in the corner where the stones seemed to come from. He appeared to Paul to be around 12 years old and looked solid and detailed, except for the face which was seen simply as an oval shape. Paul reported he wasn’t afraid and called out “What are you doing here?” A carburetor float was immediately thrown towards him from the active corner, and the apparition disappeared.
On the second occasion Paul and John were on their hands and knees in good light working on an engine on the floor. Paul happened to look up and saw the apparition behind John. When he called out to John to look up, the apparition vanished. At that moment, a large stone hit the engine with great force. John confirmed the incident, but did not see the apparition.
On the third sighting, Paul was leaving the workshop prior to locking up. He had turned off the light and on his way across the room saw the apparition silhouetted against the light from the kitchen. The boy appeared to be waving, as if saying goodbye. Although Paul hadn’t been bothered by the two prior sightings, this deeply disturbed him, and he found it difficult to discuss the apparition or any other aspects of the case with anyone for several days.
During the investigation John told Fontana about a local rumor involving a small boy who had been killed in a traffic accident close by some years previously. Towards the end of his involvement, to the alarm of Fontana and the family, a national newspaper discovered the case and publicized it. He was contacted by the boy’s elder brother, who confirmed the death and wondered whether it might be connected with the haunting. Fontana points out that no concrete information was available to help determine whether or not such a connection might be justified, but that it was possible.
The poltergeist activity persisted during the two years of Fontana’s investigation which is longer than most poltergeist hauntings. Shortly after Paul’s third sighting of the apparition, John and Pat opened a larger facility, and sold the old workshop and retail shop, which were converted to a restaurant. No further reports of poltergeist activity surfaced. Fontana speculates that if “Pete” were indeed the young boy killed close by, he might have been attracted by the family who were noted for their kindness and compassion. Paul’s possible psychic abilities might have also played some part. Although no real answers are ever likely to be known, Fontana emphasizes that the case made a strong impression on all of those involved.