What Does A Ghost Look Like?

Aalthough we don’t know for certain whether ghosts are real, we do know what they look like thanks to scientific surveys of 1,800 people who claim to have seen them. The surveys were conducted in 1968 and 1974 by Britain’s Institute of Psychophysical Research, and the results were reported in the 1975 book Apparitions, by Celia Green and Charles McCreery.

The researchers found that over 80 percent of ghosts were in the form of people, with the remainder taking the shape of animals and, occasionally, inanimate objects. The vast majority of animal ghosts were cats.

One surprising result of the surveys was that, rather than being transparent or translucent, most ghosts were described by people who had seen them as opaque—in other words, solid enough to block the view of whatever was behind them. The majority of apparitions also contained some color. However, a minority of ghosts are translucent or transparent, and it is also common for an opaque ghost to fade to transparency as it begins to disappear. [Read more…] about WHAT DO GHOSTS LOOK LIKE?

What Color Is A Ghost?

No, ghosts are not always white, or black, or translucent—and they’re certainly not always invisible.

And how do we know, one way or the other? Because, regardless of whether ghosts are “real,” thousands of people have seen them, and some of those people have shared the details of their experiences with scientific researchers. Between 1968 and 1974, the Institute of Psychophysical Research in Britain interviewed 1,800 people who said they had seen one or more ghosts. The fascinating results were published in the 1975 book, Apparitions, by Celia Green and Charles McCreery. [Read more…] about WHAT COLOR ARE GHOSTS?

Did Ghosts Form The Basis Of All Human Thought?

In several of his books, the so-called father of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud, speculated about the role that ghosts played in the human psyche, as well as in our development as a species. And while we now know that much of what Freud said about human sexuality was probably wrong, many of the things he wrote about the ghostly still seem accurate.

In The Uncanny, for instance, he remarked on the powerful grip in which the ghostly continues to hold us in spite of all our technological advancements: “To many people, the acme of the uncanny is represented by anything having to do with death, bodies, spirits, revenants, and ghosts. . . . in hardly any other sphere has our thinking and feeling changed so little since primitive times or the old been so well preserved, under a thin veneer, as in our relation to death.” [Read more…] about SIGMUND FREUD AND THE GHOSTLY

When We Began Talking To Ghosts

Acording to the central belief of the religious and philosophical movement known as Spiritualism, not only is it possible to contact the spirits of the dead, but such contact can be beneficial, with the living receiving comfort, information, and advice from the departed. These communications frequently are exchanged through the intercession of facilitators known as mediums—people who have a special sensitivity for talking to, hearing, and even seeing spirits. Traditionally, spirits speak through a medium during a ceremony called a seance, which usually involves several people including the medium sitting around a table in the dark. However, contemporary mediums can give “spirit readings” in almost any setting, and people can even contact spirits on their own through such means as a Ouija board.

Spiritualism traces it roots to the Rochester area of upstate New York, where in 1848 three sisters, Kate (1838–92), Leah (1814–90), and Margaret (or Maggie) (1836–93) Fox, began claiming they could communicate with people who had died. Kate, the youngest Fox sister, was the most prominent medium of the three, and she allegedly received paranormal messages through coded knocks or “rappings” that she elicited from spirits during group sessions in houses that supposedly were haunted. These sessions—the first seances—became extremely popular, and soon a number of charismatic mediums including the Fox sisters were making a living traveling the country and helping people speak to the dead. By the early 1850s, seances had caught on in other English-speaking countries as well, especially in Britain, and the simple “table rappings” soon evolved into elaborate performances involving musical instruments that played by themselves and visible spirits who floated in the air. [Read more…] about SPIRITUALISM

They Once Were Equally Haunting

Perhaps we should call it folkloric evolution. Or maybe we ought to see it as a spontaneous paranormal makeover. But whatever term we use, it’s clear that fairies are viewed far differently today than they were hundreds of years ago. Back then, they weren’t always radiant, or even particularly friendly; in fact, in some places they were associated with graveyards, and the dead.

In his book The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts, author Owen Davies tells us that as late as the 1800s, especially in Scotland but perhaps also in a few other areas of Britain, there was frequent confusion concerning what was a fairy, and what was a ghost. Both “were considered by some to be departed spirits who lingered on the earth.” [Read more…] about GHOSTS AND FAIRIES

A Shroud, By Any Other Name

Why does a person “dress up” as a ghost by cutting eye-holes in a bed sheet and then draping that sheet over his or her head? Does a traditional ghost really wear sheets?

Well, people in the English-speaking world have been “doing” ghosts in just this way for hundreds of years, and there is a good reason for it. In Britain, until relatively recently, a wooden coffin was a post-mortem luxury that was far too expensive for many people. In fact, only the relatively well-to-do could afford coffins in which to bury the remains of their departed loved ones. That meant that the corpses of poor people—and there were a lot of those—had to go coffinless. [Read more…] about WHY DO GHOSTS WEAR SHEETS?

Ghosts vs. Aliens vs. God: Ghosts Win!

Elsewhere on this site we have ascertained that Britain is the most haunted nation on earth, hosting approximately one ghost per square mile, according to British experts on such matters. And according to a new survey conducted by Ripley’s Believe It or Not, the Brits themselves are every bit as haunted as their castles and their countryside: More British adults believe in ghosts than believe in God.

Ripley’s survey of 1,500 Britons, published on October 28, 2014, revealed that 55 percent believe in ghosts, as opposed to only 25 percent who believe in God. Other supernatural beings included in the survey were aliens (51 percent), UFOs (42 percent), and angels (27 percent). [Read more…] about BRITISH BELIEF IN GHOSTS

What Are Seances?

Quite simply, a seance, or séance, is an attempt to communicate with the dead, something people have been trying for thousands of years. In Homer’s epic Greek poem, the Odyssey, written nearly 3,000 years ago, the hero, Odysseus, spills the blood of a bull near the entrance to Hades in order to lure out the shades of the dead, several of whom he wishes to speak to. And in the Old Testament of the bible (Samuel 28:7-20), King Saul asks the Witch of Endor to summon the spirit of the prophet, Samuel, in order to ask him about the outcome of an upcoming battle.

Throughout most of history the vast majority of people have been afraid of ghosts, and contacting ghosts intentionally was usually the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. However, this attitude changed a bit in the mid-1800s with the rise of the Spiritualist movement. Spiritualists believe that not only is contact with the dead possible, but that it can also be beneficial, with spirits including those of departed friends, loved ones, and historical figures providing comfort and even practical advice. It was during the early days of Spiritualism that that the term “seance”—French for sitting together or gathering—came into popular use in the U.S. and Britain. [Read more…] about WHAT IS A SEANCE?