Hauntings
The repeated manifestation of strange and inexplicable sensory phenomena - smells, sounds, tactile sensations and hallucinations - said to be caused by ghosts or spirits attached to a certain locale.
The term 'haunt,' comes from the same root as 'home.' Typically, a haunted location is the former home of the deceased, or the spot where the deceased died. Haunted sites also include places that apparently were frequented or favoured by the deceased, and sites of violent death. Other hauntings are 'aimless,' occurring without explanation.
There is no general pattern to a haunting. Some phenomena manifest periodically or continually over durations that may be short - a matter of days - or long, going on for centuries. Some hauntings occur only certain "anniversary" dates: the ghost of Sir Christopher Wren is said to be heard hurrying up and down the stairs of Hampton Court every February 26, the date of his death in 1723.
Not everyone who visits or lives in a reputedly haunted location will experience phenomena. Hauntings sometimes can be brought to an end through exorcisms conducted either by clergy or by mediumistic individuals who reportedly can communicate with the ghost or spirit believed to be responsible for the haunting. Some hauntings end of their own accord for reasons not known. Those that seem to be 'psychic readings,' or impressions that certain people can receive, do not respond to exorcisms. Such hauntings seem to be endless re-enactments of events.
It is popularly assumed that most hauntings involve visual apparitions, or ghosts, of the dead. In fact, apparitions are associated with a minority of reported cases. Most hauntings involve noises, such as mysterious footsteps, rustlings, whisperings, animal sounds and howlings, thumps, tapings and rapping's; smells, especially of flowers, perfume, burned wood or rotting flesh or matter; tactile sensations such as a cold prickling of the skin, cold breezes and feelings of being touched by an invisible hand. Some hauntings feature poltergeist activities such as rearranged furniture, stopped clocks, smashed glassware and mirrors, and the paranormal movement of objects.
Percipients often experience negative emotions at a haunted site, including anger, fear or hatred. They also may sense a presence of evil. Other hauntings seem to involve friendly or benign ghosts. Some mediums say they can contact trapped spirits of the dead who are haunting sites, and are able to send them on their way to the other side.
Some hauntings also feature phantom animals, such as pet dogs, cats and horses, which are seen, felt or heard in familiar spots.
Objects as well as sites may be haunted. In Britain, for example, numerous tales exist of haunted skulls that seem to cause unearthly screaming whenever they are removed from their places in a home.
Poltergeist hauntings are characterized by violent physical disturbances such as flying and levitating objects, banging doors, assaults on humans, and rapping and thumping noises. These disturbances often seem to be caused by living persons; there is evidence that some poltergeists may be discarnate spirits.
Little is known about why or how hauntings occur. Thousands of hauntings have been systematically investigated by researchers and parapsychologists since the late 19th century. Many explanations have been proposed, but there is no conclusive evidence to support one more strongly than another. Federic W. H. Myers, one of the founders of the Society For Psychical Research (SPR), London, who did extensive research of apparitions in the late 19th century, believed that most hauntings are fragmentary and meaningless, the bits and pieces of an energy residue left by the living after their death. Others who have built on Myers' theory propose that hauntings do not involve ghostly personalities, but are those recordings of energy that take on personalities to percipients who are psychically sensitive. Psychic sensitivity may account for diverse experiences phenomena and another does not.
Elenor Sidgwick, former secretary of the SPR, theorized that hauntings are a form of psychometry. Just as an object appears to absorb and retain the 'vibrations' of it's owner, which manifest as impressions when the object is handled by a medium or psychic, then houses might also retain memories or psychic impressions. A house could incorporate the thoughts, actions and feelings of it's former occupants, which then manifest as a haunting to psychically sensitive.
Oxford philosopher Henry Habberly Price and American parapsychologist William G. Roll are among those who have elaborated upon Sidgwick's theory. Price's theory, called "deferred telepathy," posits that there exists a "psychic ether" that is a bridge between mind and matter and impregnates all matter and space. Certain thoughts and events are impressed upon this ether and remain on it for long periods, even years. When tragedies occur, the appropriate psychic conditions are created and lasting impressions result. Sensitive persons coming into contact with a haunted house might telepathically contact these thoughts and emotions which are then "replayed" as hauntings. "Deferred telepathy" has been criticized by others for not explaining movements of objects that are sometimes reported in hauntings.
Roll has proposed that all objects have a psi field that pervades and exudes from them. A sensitive individual contacts and reads the impressions of a house from it's psi field during a haunting. This theory had suffered some of the same criticism as Price's theory, particularly since persons who have little or no demonstrable psychic ability have witnessed hauntings.
Italian parapsychologist Ernesto Bozzano studied several hundred cases of hauntings and analyzed their characteristics, relating them to different theories of hauntings and to his Spiritistic theory. Bozzano came to five conclusions in support of his belief that hauntings were spirits of the dead: phantoms of the dead can haunt sites where they did not de and had not lived; hauntings consist of telekinetic movement of objects that suggests some type of physical presence; hauntings are associated with deaths to a greater extent than other types of tragedies or emotions; hauntings are intermittent; and when such actions as exorcism and prayers for the dead are preformed, the hauntings end.
An explanation for at least some hauntings favoured by many ghost investigators is that of the "portal," an opening to other dimensions that allows spirits to enter the physical world. Belief in portals is ancient and universal. Certain places that are sacred serve as natural portals. Wells have often been recognized as natural entryways for spirits. Other portals can open at places associated with death, such as cemeteries, battlefields and natural disaster sites; places associated with trauma and intense emotions, such as hospitals, hotels, schools, churches and theatres; and lonely places such as lighthouses.
Numerous remedies to end hauntings exist around the world. Some are simple, such as sweeping out the offending spirits with a broom. Others are more elaborate, such as formal rites of exorcism. Such measures do not always succeed.
Types of Hauntings
General Hauntings
Hauntings occur with no regularity and for no particular reason. Some weird occurrences may manifest on occasion or even continually for a few days or hundreds of years; others may only occur on certain anniversaries; and others may be totally random.
It is generally assumed that hauntings involve apparitions, or ghosts, of the deceased. In fact, apparitions are seldom seen. Most hauntings involve noises like footsteps, a tapping or knocking sound, strange smells, sensations like the cold prickling of the skin, cold breezes, and the feeling of being touched by an invisible hand. Other hauntings involve poltergeist-like activity such as solid objects being moved, broken glass, doors that open and close by themselves, and manipulation of lights and electrical devices.
People who visit haunted locations also report a variety of emotions, including anger and fear. Many cases like this are mistakenly called "evil" or "demonic." Other places seem to involve friendly, or at least harmless, emotions.
Poltergeist Activity
A variety of phenomena can be connected to poltergeist activity: knocking and tapping sounds, noises with no visible cause, disturbance of stationary objects like household items and furniture, doors slamming, lights turning on and off, fires breaking out, etc.
The widely accepted theory behind poltergeist phenomena is that it's usually caused by a person. This person is usually an adolescent girl who is going through an emotionally troubled time. The theory is that this person may be unconsciously manipulating the items in the house by psycho kinesis, which is the power to move things by energy generated in the brain.
Kinetic energy remains unexplained, but even mainstream scientists are starting to admit that it may exist. It is unknown why this energy appears in puberty-age girls, but it has been documented. When the activity begins to occur, the girl is usually in the middle of emotional or sexual angst. It is also possible for young boys, and even adults, to manifest this odd ability. The majority have no idea they're causing the activity.
Of course, not all hauntings can be so easily explained. In some cases, people aren't the cause of the situation. Sometimes it's possible that the source of the activity is an intelligent spirit. These entities try to make their presence known by moving objects. (If this is the case, then it's time to think about moving).
Residual Hauntings
This type of haunting is much more common than people realize.
The easiest way to explain this type of haunting is to compare it to an old film loop. Imagine an old movie tape is stuck in the VCR and the same clip keeps repeating itself. In locations where these hauntings take place, a powerful event or a series of events may be imprinted on the atmosphere. It can then suddenly pop up and play itself at random. But it's not necessarily visual; they are often replayed as unexplained sounds. The famous "phantom footsteps" reported in many haunted locations are a perfect example of this.
How does this kind of thing happen? The sounds and images are related to traumatic events that took place at the location, causing some sort of disturbance sometimes called a "psychic impression." This is the reason why so many battlefields have become famous for their hauntings over the years. In other situations, the images have been created by events or actions that were repeated, which caused an impression. Reputedly, that is why so many haunted staircases exist, because of the number of times people go up and down them and the amount of energy that is expended in doing so.
These kinds of haunted places act as giant storage batteries, saving up the impressions of sights and sounds from the past. As time goes by, these impressions appear again as if the VCR had been turned on. While apparitions are most commonly connected to these types of hauntings, much of the activity may be in the form of sounds, and even smells.
Portal Hauntings
The idea of a "portal" or a "doorway" to another dimension is not a new one--though it may be a wild one. These doorways may provide access for entities to enter our world. They may be the spirits of people who've died, or they could be something else altogether--perhaps otherworldly beings from another dimension? Hmmm...
One of the most common locations for these "doorways" seems to be in cemeteries. As a rule, most cemeteries are not haunted, but recently, ghost hunters have collected dozens of anomalous photographs taken in graveyards. There seems to be no explanation why many of these cemeteries would become haunted unless they provide access for spirits, or entities, to pass from one world to the next.
It is possible that these sites were "haunted" long before a cemetery was located there. It is also possible that the psychic draw of the area was what caused our ancestors to locate a cemetery there in the first place. Native Americans chose their burial grounds in this manner, although they did it consciously. They found a place to bury and honour the dead that they felt was more closely connected to the next world.
*A Portal can also be known, or referred to as a 'Vortex' or 'Spiritual Passageway'. Vortexes are connected together by a world-wide internet of energy lines, commonly referred to as ley-lines. Paranormal, mystical, and supernatural occurrences are claimed to happen in areas where these vortexes - or high concentration of ley lines are present.
Traditional or Intelligent Hauntings
This type of haunting is perhaps the most widely accepted kind of ghostly activity, although it's not as common as you might think. Here, the spirit or entity involved is an "intelligent" presence in a haunted location. It is there because of a connection to the site or to the people in the location. This ghost is best (and most simply) described as the personality of a person who once lived and who has stayed behind in our world instead of passing over to the other side.
This sometimes happens in the case of a murder, traumatic event or unfinished business. At the time of death, the spirit refuses to pass over because of these events. The spirits often linger because of emotions that tie them to the earth, from anger to love. Or perhaps the person does not pass not because they couldn't, but because they did not want to. In other cases, there is the chance the spirit does not even realize they are dead (like Patrick Swayze in Ghost). This can occur when the death is sudden.
These spirits are made up of the energy that once made up the personality of a living person. These intelligent spirits are not evil or demonic, as some would have you believe. Spirits are simply human personalities, or souls, and if the spirit was a kind and caring person in life, the spirit will most likely be in death. On the other hand, angry and cruel people will also keep those same nasty qualities as spirits. These negative spirits can be frightening, especially to people not trained in the paranormal. In very rare cases they have been able to harm the living, but that is generally not the case. It is much more common to hear of an encounter with a benevolent spirit than with a negative one. That's a relief, isn't it?
*'Live' Haunting EXTRA:
*Sometimes a house could be accidentally "haunted" by a living person. Some people astral or mental project to a place while they sleep, meditating, etc., and their personality and thoughts radiating while their astral/mental body is invisible (though a clairsentient might see them).
& The Enchanted World of Ghosts
Also see our:
