RRC Talk: Ghosts, poltergeists & hauntings 2013

Ghosts, Poltergeists and Hauntings:

A Romp through the History of Psychical Research

Nancy L. Zingrone, PhD

Presentation for the Rhine Research CenterMarch 8th, 2013

The talk:

O Selected Ghosts, Poltergeists and Hauntings Across Cultures and Time

O The Well-Heeled 19th Century Ghost Enthusiast & The Beginnings of Psychical Research

O 20th Century Methods

O Ghost Whispering, Ghost Hunters and Psychical Research

Some definitions:

O Ghost: an apparition of a deceased person

O Haunting: a recurrent set of phenomena that may or may not include an apparition

O Poltergeist: an unnerving, sometimes dangerous, sometimes destructive, set of phenomena, that may or may not include an apparition

O Apparition: a visual representation of a person or persons, who may or may not be deceased at the time they appear

Ghosts, Hauntings & Poltergeists

O Is a deceased individual at the center of the experiences?

O Is the phenomena place-centered or person- centered?

O Are the perceptions single or multi-sensory?

O Is the phenomena recurrent?

O Is it responsive or nonresponsive?

O Is there a “communicating” intelligence?

1998, University of Texas Press

1992, Prism Press

1984, Prometheus Press

1848, T.C. NewbyCovers retrieved from amazon.com

1979, Routledge, Kegan, Paul

1982, Heinemann

1963, University Books

2002, John MurrayCovers retrieved from amazon.com

2002, Parapsychology

Foundation

2004, Paraview Special

Education, original 1972,

Doubleday 2005, Atriad

Cornell & Roll Covers retrieved from amazon.com; Auerbachcover retrieved from tower.com

The divisions within the presentation:

O Ghostly Reenactments on a Grand Scale

O Ghosts with a Purpose

O Ghost without a Purpose (or with a Purpose We Don’t Quite Understand)

O Poltergeists

O Some comments on the impact of worldviews

Ghostly reenactments on a grand scale

O Begin soon after the event they depict is over

O Reoccur sometimes over centuries

O Might be only sounds, distant and faint but identifiable

O Might be complete visual suggestions of the original event with sounds, smells and identifiable individuals

O Seem to fade away as the memory of the event fades away

O Arising from profoundly emotional moments or something quiet, pastoral but elaborate

Pausanias2nd Century AD

Retrieved from wikipedia.com, “Pausanias, the Geographer”

Battle of Marathon, 490 BCERetrieved from ancientgreekbattle.net

The Battle of Edgehill, 1642Retrieved from heritage-history.com

The Petit TrianonRetrieved from my.opera.com

Annie MoberlyEleanor Jourdain

Retrieved from itdidntcostmeadime.com

Adventure retrieved from bookshop.unimelb.edu.auGhosts of the Trianon retrieved from rennes-le-chateau-rhedae.com

Field Museum of Natural HistoryChicago, Illinois

Retrieved from chicago.about.com

British soldiers in a Revolutionary War Re-enactment

Retrieved from notmytribe.com

Ghosts with a Purpose

O Seem to want to communicate

O Seem to be drawing attention to a need of their own or of the living around them

O Seem to show emotion

O May be dangerous or destructive

O May seem helpful or supportive

O Seem to be place-centered because they want to be or because they must be until they fulfill some purpose

By Henry Ford, “Athenodorus the Philosopher Rents a Haunted House”

Retrieved from wikipedia, “Athenodorus Cananites”

AthenodorusStoic Philosopher

(74-7 BCE)

Original source:Letters of Pliny the Younger

Traveled in the Greco-Roman world

Tutor of Octavian(later Caesar Augustus)

The haunted house was in Athens

The story of Alis de Telieux and Sister Antoinette

Titled “Benedictine Nunsof Denmark were not poor”

Retrieved from thyra2005.blogspot.com

The Abbey of St Pierre at ClunyRetrieved from NickKahler.tumblr.com

The Medieval City in Tours, FranceRetrieved from bugbog.com

Actually a painting of Charles d’Ambroise

in 1507Painted by

Andrea Solario, hangs in the Louvre

Retrieved from all-art.com

Giles Bolacre, suing to break a lease …

Ghosts without a purpose

O Appear in a place they frequented in life and seem to see you

O React negatively or positively

O React passively but seem aware

O Appear and go about their business

O Seem to show an awareness of the current surroundings

O Seem to be totally unaware of the current surroundings

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

Published in 1936in Country Life Magazine

and in 1937 in Life Magazine

Taken by Captain Hubert C. Provand

& Indre ShiraRetrieved from castleofspirits.com

Sightings from 1835 to 1936,

at least …

Captain Frederick Marryat1792-1848

Portrait by John Simpson, 1826Retrieved from en.wikipedia.com

Lady Dorothy Walpole1686-1726

Portrait by Charles JervasRetrieved by en.wikipedia.com,“Brown Lady of Raynham Hall”

And now the well-heeled Victorian Ghost Enthusiast …

The Cheltenham GhostRetrieved from art.com

SPR Researcher Andrew MacKenzie

Retrieved from ufopsi.com

SPR Leaders

Henry Sidgwick(1838-1900)

Eleanor Sidgwick(1845-1936)

F. W. H. Myers(1843-1901)

Edmund Gurney(1847-1888)

From the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research

ExperimentsRichet, C. (1889). Further experiments in hypnotic lucidity or clairvoyance.

Theory/ConceptsSidgwick, H. (1889). The canons of evidence in psychical research.

Reports, Analysis, and Discussions of Many CasesSidgwick, Mrs. H. (1885). Notes on the evidence, collected by the Society, for phantasms of the dead.

Report of a Single CaseMarillier, L. (1891) Apparitions of the Virgin in Dordogne.

Morton, R.C. (1892) Report of a haunted house.

Reports of SéancesHodgson, R. (1892). A record of observations of certain phenomena of trance.

Methodological DiscussionsEdgeworth, F.Y. (1885) The calculus of probability applied to psychical research.

Morton, R.C. (1892) Report of a haunted house.O Rosina Clara Despard (1863-1930)

O Moved into St. Anne’s, then Garden Reach, in 1882 with her family, she was 19

O From 1882 to 1884, she encountered the ghost

O In 1886 while taking her preliminary scientific examination for medical school, she met Frederic Myers, was encouraged to write up her investigation

St. Anne’s — “Garden Reach” — CheltenhamRetrieved from ghostsofbritain.com

Primary facts 1:

• Rosina experienced personally

more than 6 sightings

• One sister saw the ghost, mistook her for a “Sister of Mercy”

• One housemaid mistook the ghost for an intruder

• Her 6 year old brother and another boy saw the ghost through a window and ran to find her

• Another sister passed the ghost on the stairs

• Footsteps heard by servants, family and visitors, 20 people in all

• Seen by the cook passing by the kitchen window in the daylight, walking through the garden

Primary facts 2:

• Father never had an experience

• Family recognized the ghost’s characteristic footsteps and stayed in their rooms

• A neighbor mistook the ghost for Rosina’s sister

• Collective sightings were frequent

• One sequential as the ghost walked out of the house and through the garden to the street

Primary facts 3:

• Seen in daylight, and darkness

• Seen in the upstairs hallway, on staircase, in drawing room, in the garden, on the road to the orchard, coming up the kitchen steps

• Also reports of bumps into bedroom doors, doorknobs turning with no one visible

• Attempts to photograph her failed

• Attempts to engage her in conversation failed

Primary facts 4:

• A bright light seen once

• Occasionally a candle flame seemed to move through the hallway flickering

• One of the family dogs, a retriever, was often found terrified in the kitchen in the morning

• A Skye terrier ran to closed doors when the footsteps passed, twice ran to a point in a room and jumped up as if to greet someone, yelped and ran away with his tail between his legs

• Horses and cats were not seen to react to anything seen or unseen

Principle Characteristics:

• Always in “widow’s weeds”

• Always with a handkerchief near her face

• Often mistaken for a real individual

• Often heard weeping

• Often seen weeping

• Sometimes when cornered seemed to be ready to speak but never did

Rosina’s Investigation:

• Consisted of detailed descriptions of specific sightings

• Attempts to follow her, corner her, speak to her, photograph her

• Maps of her habitual movements

• Corroboration from other witnesses

• Results of inquiry in the property’s reputation

• Attempts to quantify number of witnesses, types of phenomena, length of sightings

One of Rosina’sthree maps

The History of Garden Reach 1:

• House built in 1860

• Owned by an “Anglo Indian”, Mr. Henry Swinhoe

• First wife died, Mr. S became alcoholic

• Married second wife, Imogen Swinhoe, stormy relationship, she became alcoholic

• They separated, she went to live elsewhere

• He died in 1876 in the house

• She died in 1878, was brought back and buried near by

The History of Garden Reach 2:• Second owner, Mr.

Littlewood, bought it, remodeled it, died 6 months later in the room in which Mr. Swinhoe had died (ghost never seen in that room)

• Widow of Mr. Littlewood moved away, never reported sightings

• Mr. Littlewood’s gardener reported frequently seeing a tall lady in widow’s weeds at the back of the garden

• Some evidence the ghost was seen as early as a month after Mrs. Swinhoe’s death

History of the house from 1882:

O 1882-1893, Despards in possession of the house

O House empty from 1893-1898

O 1898-1907, a boys school

O Empty until 1910

O 1910-1970, housed a convent, a training school for nannies, and a diocesan house

O Empty 1970 to 1973

O 1973 reopened as an apartment house

O No hauntings reported within the house from 1907 to the present but ….

Modern history:

O Persistent reports of the ghost in the neighborhood around the house from the first sightings in the 1870s to today

O Between 1958 and 1961, on the grounds of a hotel across the street, same description from waist up but bottom half “fading”

O In 1933 and during WWII she was reported in Weston House about a half mile away from Garden Reach

O In the 1960s Weston House housed doctors offices, no visual sightings, but unexplained noises, sense of being watched

O In 1979, a report of footsteps that drove a staff member from the house in a panic

The SPR Method as apparent in

Rosina Despard’s reportO Detailed observations including feelings of witnesses

(predominantly a sense of loss of power to the ghost)

O Attempts to determine the “reality” of the experiences

O Attempts to intervene

O Gathering of observations from others, including letters of corroboration in the report

O Drawing conservative conclusions on the meaning of the sightings

O Set up an experiment to see if they could identify photos from life of the ghost, the photo of Imogen’s sister was chosen

Poltergeists …

O Reports from antiquity / from every culture

O Frequent focus on adolescent in home as “focus person” or “agent”

O Important to rule out fraud

O Important to make careful observations of events, position of all individuals when events occur

Poltergeists …O Noisy spirits,

targeting an individual

O Short duration

O Frequently dangerous

O Cease naturally, through moving, changes in family situation

O Psychokinetic outburst of the ‘focus person’

O Short duration

O Frequently dangerous

O Ceases naturally or when “stressors” on the focus person are lessened or removed

Tony Cornell(1924-2010)

Retrieved from mobygames.com

Carrying on the SPR tradition with a twist …

O Healthy skepticism but openness to experience

O Detailed observations

O Development of technology

O Corroboration:

O Witness testimony

O Independent evidence

O Consciousness of alternative explanations

O Willingness to help experiencers

O Detailed reports

O 30+ events

O No “focus person” identified conclusively

O All breakage confined to goods purchased from a specific estate sale

The Antique Shop Spuk

Bill Roll(1926-2012)

Retrieved from pflyceum.org

Retrieved from goodreads.com

The Miami Poltergeist

O More than 200 incidents of movement/breakage of objects

O Measurement of trajectory/condition

O Julio Vasquez identified as focal person

An aside …

Take home: Haunting cases with apparitions have more features than those without

Alvarado, C. & Zingrone, N. (1995). Characteristics of haunting with and without apparitions: An analysis of published cases. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 60,385-397.

Why?

o Are hauntings with apparitions more likely to be what they seem: noisy spirits attempting to interfere or communicate with the living?

o Or are experiencers who report hauntings with apparitions more likely to project/produce experiences that are more complex?

Depends on your worldview:

o Are you a ghost whisperer?

o Are you a ghost hunter?

o Are you a psychical researcher, academic or scientific parapsychologist?

o Are you a psychologist with a skeptical but otherwise open interest in what seem to be paranormal experiences?

Ghost whisperers, ghost hunters and psychical researchers …

O Differences

O In purpose: What questions are we asking and what do we do with the answers?

O In method: Are we getting the details to verify a theory? Are we constructing a story to fit our worldview? Are we seeing if there is someone there who needs our help whether the someone is the experiencer, or a “person” who seems to inhabit the apparition?

O In ultimate goal: Are we working to add to knowledge, to rack up another case history for the website, or are we trying to the light?

The bad news for psychical researchers:

O While the Cheltenham Ghost is seen as the best researched single case in the history of the SPR:

O What about Imogen Swinhoe? Can we worry about her and still be seen as scientific?

O What do we do with Edgehill, Athenodorus and all the old unverifiable cases can be convincing but:

O Is it safe to draw conclusions from them?

O Is it enough to just say, this is “inexplicable” or this is “culturally interesting”?

O If we are theory-driven, we may miss some meaning because we just don’t see it.

O If we fail to verify, we may be building a false picture of what is actually going on.

O If we define own point of view as the only path to understanding, we will miss the insights of those who hold a different point of view.

The consequences for all of us:

And finally, the good news:

O 21st century researchers who operate in academic/scientific parapsychology have a wider view than their predecessors:

O We are open to other ways of knowing.

O We are also worried about the essential questions about what it means to be human.

O There are forums where ghost whisperers, ghost hunters and psychical researchers and even skeptics are in the same room:

O So there is a chance for mutual influence on our methods as well as a chance to share our assumptions and our stories.

Thank you …Email me: nancy@theazire.org

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Visit: The AZIRE Learning Center in Second Life

Website: www.theazire.org

Powerpoint is available here:

http://www.slideshare.net/NanZingrone/rrc-talk-ghosts-poltergeists-hauntings-2013