The Paranormal Blog

Not too long ago, I whined... wait, that sounds bad... I complained... no, worse... I expressed the opinion (better!) that many people who report to be investigating and/or researching ghosts and hauntings spent pretty much all their time interested in what came during or after the fact in terms of something deemed to be "ghostly", and not enough time looking into the causation of what made the event to happen.

When I wrote this, I was being rather "nuts and bolts" about the whole thing and suggested as opposed to trying to simply record "something weird" and then break into paroxysms of joy about what they "captured", many would-be ghost hunters should try to figure out what caused the thing they got to happen. What was experienced is important, but so to is what happened before the experience... What was the witness doing? What was their state of mind? What were (as many as possible) the environmental conditions like not just during, but before the event happened.

Figuring out these elements could help try to predict events... and therefore lead to possible answers as we could start actually figuring out what needs to be in place for these things to occur.

This written and posted, it led to what I should have realised was inevitable... and that is more than a handful of people started writing to me explaining what they knew needed to happen for a ghost to occur at all... not about the witnesses (which is what I meant, and I do apologise if that wasn't clear,) but a "ghost" in general.

These included such familiar things as...

#1: A violent death.

Nope. There are many "ghosts" that are attributed to people that went quietly and at a very old age.

#2: A sudden death.

Again, this doesn't stand up to historical/folkloric scrutiny... as stated before, there are many "ghosts" that are pegged as people that went after long illnesses who knew they'd be going... some, as I said before, at very ripe old ages.

#3: A death of someone with an incomplete goal.

How could we know? We even have many "ghost" reports that are attributed to people that passed away with no record of any sort (even word of mouth) of unfinished tasks... so this can't be all of them.

#4: A death. Period.

Okay... but if this was a simple rule and nothing else can be "pinned" to it, then we should be up to our eyeballs in ghosts... and we're not.

#5: A death of someone with an attachment to the place where the haunting is happening.

This is a possibility... but again, we have many people that don't seem to be loitering about places post mortem that we should, by dint of their own diaries and whatnot, expect them at.

These are all fine speculations... but they do all involve the newly named (as far as I'm aware... credit to Eric Oullet...) the DPH or "dead person hypothesis".

In essence, the DPH is that a "ghost" must somehow be the remnant of a dead person or dead people.

Of course, I did also get...

#6: Demons and/or Angels.

Okay, that's based on faith... and I can't say it's impossible... but again, this seems to be more a cultural or spiritual "fit" for things rather than a cold look at the data. Not all ghosts act demonic... Not all ghosts are angelic.

...and, of course...

#7: Some form of RSPK or PSI phenomena.

The only truly non-DPH option in some ways... but none-the-less, a "paranormal" answer to things.

The idea, for those that don't know AND in a very small nutshell is that the ghosts are manifestations from witnesses... basically, their beliefs, desires, fears, whatever literally create "something". The most tantalizing bit about this hypothesis is that there's enough cases where multiple witnesses have experienced things -and- uncorrupted witnesses (those that weren't expecting something as they'd not heard of any "ghosts" in the site where they experience it OR are simply not expecting what does happen and it matches earlier reports,) to float the notion that RSPK events can last after the initial "producer" of the effect is not there... meaning, quite literally, a ghost was "conjured" and has hung around.

If you're not really familiar with this, I really suggest reading about The Philip Phenomena or The Scole Experiments... it's a very interesting and (in some cases,) likely hypothesis.

As a quick note, I also got a handful of so-called sceptics who told me ghosts were all "fake", "frauds", "lies", "imagination", "hallucinations", and even they are all things like effects from one thing or another... like the hypnopompic and hypnogogic states... of course, these REALLY don't stand up to any sort of universal model for what's experienced, but they still cling to their stances.

Through my discussions with people that put forward the above seven notions (and even some of the pseudo-sceptics)... which, I'd remind, was still not REALLY my point in the original article... but I complain... er... digress... I posed to most of them the other hypothesis as to causation.

I can tell you now, to many people, (easily about 7 out of 10 people I discussed this with,) suggesting their political stances are possibly wrong or their religious beliefs might be slightly off goes down better then suggesting their pet hypothesis about "what a ghost is" might be missing some elements.

As an investigator and researcher, I examine all possibilities... so I am very open to the DPH... and PSI... and almost any possible answer... and until I have empirical evidence to suggest one is right or wrong, I neither adopt them as my sole hypothesis or discard them as being incorrect.

Personally, I believe one issue is that all of the above are correct... that different cases seem to suggest different things at work.

I've often said I liken the word "ghost" to the word "animal".

A mouse, a water buffalo, a grizzly bear, and a human are all animals... but one hopes most folks recognise the differences there.

That said, a poltergeist that tosses furniture in a new home, an apparition that floats around in historical garb and goes up a wall where a staircase once laid, and a passed-on relative that comes to a person's bed at night to comfort them are all labelled "ghost".

I could add a host of other things that get tossed into the mixed salad of what is called a "ghost" above... but you probably are doing that in your head so I'll save the typing.

Are all these things caused by the DPH?

Does the DPH play a part in PSI?

Does the DPH have to be a part of some things at all?

Again, let me tell you, woe be to the one who, to some people, suggest that a deceased person might not be involved with all ghost reports.

To be fair, I don't know myself... the DPH seems a very likely possibility in some cases... and in others, not so much.

So, in those cases... and even when discussing the things as a whole, why do some people battle so hard against an incident (or even all incidents) being dead-person bereft? Does it remove something from the experience? Does it make it "less" than it was because it might be a thought-form or "Tulpa" like entity? Is there a stigma attached to an event not being the disembodied spirit of someone who's passed on?

Does it make a witnesses experience "less" real or "less" factual?

I don't believe so... in fact, the idea of RSPK (recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis in long form,) is quite amazing, fascinating, and exciting when you think about it... that *WE* (the witnesses) can literally create not just a situation, but manifest something tangible to others.

Granted, this is only one part of RSPK... but it's still plays a big role in it.

So, why not examine all possibilities? Why not wonder if that "ghost" falls into the DPH? It still could... many do... but why toss out other possibilities?

After all, as investigators... as people looking for possible questions, should we corrupt our own efforts by only clinging to one hypothesis of initial causation?

Even if the idea of anything DPH or non-DPH is personally difficult for you, shouldn't we all remember what Aristotle once said?

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

Oh, and if you think this ONLY goes for those somewhat opposed to the non-DPH side of things... or to those who have trouble with the DPH in general... it also goes for any sceptic... real or pseudo... because to knee-jerk denial or to lambaste something out of hand really reeks of not being what dear old Aristotle said above.

Just some food for thought.