by Joe Nickell
Published 2012 by Prometheus Books
The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead. Copyright © 2012 by Joe Nickell. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Cover image © 2012 Jill Battaglia/Archangel Images
Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nickell, Joe.
The science of ghosts : searching for spirits of the dead / by Joe Nickell.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978–1–61614–585–9 (pbk.)
ISBN 978–1–61614–586–6 (ebook)
1. Ghosts. I. Title.
BF1461.N53 2012
133.1—dc23
2012004780
Printed in the United States of America
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION: TOWARD A SCIENCE OF GHOSTS
PART 1: THE HAUNTING IMPULSE
Chapter 1. Ghosts: A Brief History
Chapter 2. Naked Ghosts!
Chapter 3. Headless Ghosts I Have Known
Chapter 4. Experiencing the Other Side
Chapter 5. Entombed Alive!
Chapter 6. Ghostly Lore and Lure
Chapter 7. The Doctor's Ghostly Visitor: Tracking “the Girl in the Snow”
Chapter 8. Elvis Lives! Investigating the Legends and Phenomena
Chapter 9. Encountering Phantom Soldiers
Chapter 10. Conjuring Ghosts: The Haunting of Van Horn Mansion
Chapter 11. Animal Spirits
PART 2: SPIRITED TRAVELS
Chapter 12. Ghost of an Alaska Murderer?
Chapter 13. Lighthouse Specters
Chapter 14. The Storied Lighthouse Ghost
Chapter 15. Pirates’ Ghosts: Aar-r-gh!
Chapter 16. An Austrian Castle Haunted by Paracelsus?
Chapter 17. Incarcerated Ghosts: Haunted Dungeons, Prisons, and Jails
Chapter 18. Convict Specters at Alcatraz
Chapter 19. Ghosts in the Mirror
Chapter 20. Haunted Dutch Mines
Chapter 21. Stage Fright: Theatrical Hauntings
Chapter 22. Worldwide Hauntings
PART 3: COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEAD
Chapter 23. A Skeleton's Tale: The Origins of Modern Spiritualism
Chapter 24. Spirit Search: William James and the SPR
Chapter 25. Ghostwritten Texts?
Chapter 26. The Séances of “Hellish Nell”: Solving the Unexplained
Chapter 27. Séance Undercover
Chapter 28. “Messages” from the 9/11 Dead
Chapter 29. Synchronicities: A Pathologist among the Spirits
Chapter 30. John Edward: Spirit Huckster
Chapter 31. The Real “Ghost Whisperer”
Chapter 32. Sylvia Browne: Does She Talk to the Dead?
PART 4: GHOST HUNTING
Chapter 33. Ghost Hunting
Chapter 34. Ghost Hunters
Chapter 35. Scientific Investigations vs. Ghost Hunters
Chapter 36. Ghost Hustling in Connecticut
Chapter 37. Ghost Forensics
Chapter 38. Photoghosts: Images of the Spirit Realm?
Chapter 39. Ghostly Experiences: Magnetic Fields or Suggestibility?
Chapter 40. Ghost Hunting's Other Side
Chapter 41. Ghostly Endeavor: Ethical Issues Haunt Kentucky Press
Chapter 42. Catching Ghosts
Chapter 43. Poltergeist Attacks!
Chapter 44. Rampaging Mind: The Seaford Poltergeist Case
AFTERWORD
APPENDIX: THE HAUNTED MIND—A GLOSSARY OF MENTAL STATES, ATTITUDES, AND PERCEPTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH GHOSTLY ENCOUNTERS
NOTES
REFERENCES
INDEX
Numerous people deserve credit for helping to make this book possible.
Paul Kurtz, chairman and founder of Prometheus Books, believed in this project, and the skilled staff at Prometheus Books were again a pleasure to work with, including Steven L. Mitchell, Cate Roberts-Abel, Jade Zora Ballard, Brian McMahon, and Nicole Sommer-Lecht.
At the Center for Inquiry I am grateful to Timothy Binga, director of the Center for Inquiry Libraries for research assistance, aided by librarian Lisa Nolan; Paul E. Loynes for typesetting; Thomas Flynn for photographic expertise and other advice; my assistant, Ed Beck, for scanning and organizing illustrations; and indeed the entire CFI staff for help at all levels—especially Ronald A. Lindsay, president and CEO; Barry Karr, executive director of CFI's Committee for Skeptical Inquiry; Kendrick Frazier, editor of Skeptical Inquirer (CFI's science magazine); and Patricia Beauchamp, Chris Fix, Julia Lavarnway, and many others. Special thanks to Ed Behr of the James Randi Educational Foundation.
I am also grateful to my wife, Diana Harris, for her assistance, and for the support of my daughter, Cherie Roycroft, and grandchildren, Chase, Tyner, and Alexis Jo, as well as my cousin John May.
In addition to those mentioned in the text, I am also indebted to the many scholars, scientists, popular writers, and other generous folk who assisted me at numerous sites around the world over the many years of this investigative effort. To all I am most appreciative.
What is a ghost? Numerous, often confusing, even contradictory definitions are advanced, but most commonly a ghost is held to be a type of revenant, an entity that returns from the dead. If in solid form—that is, one of the “walking dead”—the revenant is usually said to be either a vampire (a corpse that rises from its grave at night to drink the blood of the living), a ghoul (a revenant that inhabits graveyards and other isolated places and feeds on human flesh), or a zombie (a corpse reanimated by a voodoo sorcerer). However, if the revenant is in nonsolid form, it is typically viewed as a type of spirit. Spirits are alleged discarnate beings that range from angels and demons to elves, fairies, and some types of monsters, among other alleged entities.
Most people think of ghosts as spirits of the dead. Anciently, these were held to be disembodied souls. In Western religious belief, on death the soul departs for heaven or hell or, in Catholic dogma, perhaps an interim place called purgatory (from which the “poor souls” might return in phantasmic form to request prayers from the living). Protestants did not generally believe the dead could return, and so revenants were regarded as diabolical beings that masqueraded as the dead—a belief that continues, especially among Christian fundamentalists (Guiley 2000, 150–52, 158, 354–55, 356–57; Nickell 2011, 121–25, 151–55; Stravinskas 2002, 626–27).
Ghosts are, by definition then, allegedly paranormal—that is, supposedly beyond the range of nature and normal human experience. The term paranormal encompasses all of the alleged supernatural, as well as those things—like flying saucers and Bigfoot—that, if they actually exist, might be perfectly natural phenomena after all.
But are ghosts real? Do they actually exist in
some otherworldly realm? Or are they merely figments of the human imagination? I have spent more than four decades investigating the widespread belief in ghosts, looking for solid evidence that can answer those questions. I have approached the subject with an open mind, convinced that paranormal claims should be carefully examined with the intent of explaining them.
To that end, I have applied my background as a professional stage magician and mentalist (including three years as resident magician at the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls, Ontario). Later, I studied and worked as a private investigator and undercover operative for a world famous detective agency, hence my insistence on the investigative approach and the rules of evidence. Still later, I returned to university for advanced studies, receiving a doctorate in English literature with an emphasis on literary investigation and folklore.
I trust that the fruits of this relevant background will be evident in my work, which began in 1969 and continues to the present. For many years I worked closely with psychologist Robert A. Baker (1921–2005), and we were dubbed the “Original Ghostbusters.” In the process, Bob designated me an honorary psychologist.
Since 1995 I have been senior research fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry in Amherst, New York, becoming apparently the world's only professional—that is, full-time, science-based—paranormal investigator. My findings have not only appeared in our own Skeptical Inquirer science magazine but also in some thirty books, including Entities, Looking for a Miracle, Real-Life X-Files, and Tracking the Man-Beasts. I have also been featured in documentaries on the Discovery, History, and National Geographic channels, among many others.
In these works and elsewhere I have tried to avoid the approach of “believers” and “debunkers” who too often start with an answer and work backward to the evidence, looking just for that which seems to support their prior convictions, thus exhibiting what is termed confirmation bias. I have sought instead to discover the best evidence and let it lead to the most likely solution, following the precept known as Occam's razor, which holds that the simplest tenable explanation—the one requiring the fewest assumptions—is most likely correct. And I have recognized that the burden of proof is always on the claimant—not on someone else to prove a negative.
I have naturally taken a hands-on approach. For the investigations in this book, I have visited sites around the world, spending days and nights in “haunted” places. I have also gone undercover (in disguise when necessary) to reveal deceptions, applied various forensic sciences to the evidence, conducted linguistic analyses and folkloristic studies, delved into psychological realms, and so on, believing that we serve humankind when we investigate—and hopefully solve—mysteries at the very fringes of science.
Here, then, is The Science of Ghosts. I have grouped the chapters into four parts as follows:
Part 1, “The Haunting Impulse,” looks at the history, phenomena (such as auras, apparitions, and near-death experiences), and cultural and psychological forces that relate to belief in ghosts.
Part 2, “Spirited Travels,” presents case studies that take us to numerous supposedly haunted places, from an Alaskan bordello to lonely lighthouses, European castles, Australian jails, and more.
Part 3, “Communication with the Dead,” studies spiritualism and the claims of mediums who allegedly make contact with those from the other side.
And part 4, “Ghost Hunting,” examines the evidence of those who visit allegedly haunted places in an effort to detect phenomena they believe are associated with ghosts.
In addition, an appendix, “The Haunted Mind,” provides a glossary of mental phenomena associated with supposed otherworldly encounters.
So let us begin our journey into this life-and-death subject, entering whatever dark and mysterious realms we find, but in doing so always holding aloft the lamp of reason and seeing the progress of science as a series of solved mysteries.
Among humankind's persistent beliefs is the conviction that ghosts, or spirits of the dead, actually may exist, may return to haunt a particular place, or can even be communicated with. Polls show that approximately a third of the American public holds such beliefs, although the number appears to be declining (Moore 2005).
In Appearances of the Dead: A Cultural History of Ghosts, R. C. Finucane (1984) observes that, over time, different cultures have had very different beliefs about spirits, and as those changed so did the spirits themselves.
For example, in the Old Testament, the dead could be called up—as “gods ascending out of the earth”—by someone with occult powers. The raised entities might express annoyance with having been thus “disquieted”—as did Samuel when King Saul had the Witch of Endor conjure him forth. He appeared as an “old man…covered with a mantle” (1 Samuel 28).
What may be “the first record of the classic chain-clanking ghost” (Guiley 2000, 25) has also been “regarded as the first investigated ghost story” (Finucane 2001, 17). It involved a house in Athens (about 1 CE) haunted by the phantom of an emaciated man in fetters. Rattling its chains at night, it supposedly brought disease and death to visitors, and it scared even skeptics who came to mock. Then a stoic philosopher named Athenodorus purchased the house. According to the story, he tried first to ignore the beckoning specter, but finally he followed it into the garden, where it disappeared. The next day he had local officials dig at the site, whereupon—the tale concludes—they discovered the skeleton in rusty chains. Following a proper burial, which appeased the ghost, the haunting ended (Cohen 1984, 39–41; Guiley 2000, 25; Finucane 2001, 17).
Now this hearsay story, related by Roman writer Pliny the Younger (ca. 100 CE) was already a century old when he told it. It had probably been retold many times, like so many folktales. It is what folklorists call a “legend”—that is, a narrative reflecting a folk belief, in this case belief in the reality of ghosts. Indeed it is a subtype called a “proof legend,” one that supports a belief with alleged evidence. (In this case skeptics are supposedly discredited by the discovery of bones and chains that confirm the reality of the ghost.) The story is also an example of a “legend trip”: a visit, to a site that has a legend about uncanny events there, made to test the legend (Brunvand 1996, 437–40).
In medieval Europe, ghosts were often portrayed—in accordance with Roman Catholic doctrine—as souls suffering in purgatory (a state or place wherein those who have died in God's grace atone for their sins). By 1527, at the latest, such ghosts were reportedly communicating with the living through physical rapping sounds, as happened when the spirit of an expelled French nun tapped out messages to a novice. These supposedly confirmed the reality of purgatory, thus discrediting the skepticism of heretical Protestants. It was also reported that she had seen the devil and had asked that she be absolved from her sins and that her bones be buried in the convent (Finucane 1984, 106–108, 223).
Allegedly paralleling such pious ghosts were evil spirits—devils or demons. The Catholic Church had methods for distinguishing ghosts from demons (and keeping the latter away), but Protestants generally believed that souls of the dead went immediately to heaven or hell and never returned. Therefore, apparitions—if they were not frauds or illusions (inspired, say, by fear or drink)—were likely to be either good angels or demons masquerading as ghosts, not actual spirits of the dead (Finucane 1984, 92–93).
One type of alleged spirit, usually more mischievous than malevolent, was the poltergeist (after the German term for “noisy spirit”). Invariably unseen, poltergeists have since ancient times thrown objects, made noises, engaged in vandalism, or otherwise wreaked havoc. However, the phenomena have typically centered around youngsters, who have sometimes been caught and confessed that they were simply playing pranks on superstitious adults (Nickell 2001, 219).
A skeptical view of evil spirits was offered by English writer Reginald Scot, who was concerned less with the ghost controversy than with a more dangerous consequence of emotional belief in the supernatural, the witch mania. In his Th
e Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), Scot devoted only a single chapter to ghosts, but therein he pilloried the beliefs of Catholics and his fellow Protestants alike. He held that only those apparitions and visions that came from God, Christ, or angels were to be considered; devils, he insisted, could not affect humans physically, since they were only spiritual beings.
King James (1566–1625) regarded Scot's views to be heretical and ordered the burning of his book, although copies survived and it became an important work in the next two centuries. Kings James's opinion—that there was a “feareful abounding” of witches and that all ghostly apparitions came from the devil—prevailed for a time (Scot 1584; Summers 1930; Finucane 1984, 93–95).
In Elizabethan culture—as reflected in the plays of William Shakespeare (1564–1616)—ghosts began to adapt to England's having made the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism (Finucane 1984, 111–14). The dead continued to have otherworldly, even old-fashioned trappings, yet they were purposeful and part of the psychological situation. For example, in Hamlet (where, states one scholar, “Shakespeare makes by far the fullest use of the belief in ghosts current in his own day” [Moorman 1905]), the ghost of Hamlet's father demands revenge for his foul murder (Benet's 1987, 421).
In the seventeenth century certain religious figures, like Anglican minister Joseph Glanvill (1636–1680), began to collect ghost accounts. This was with the intention of combating materialism (the philosophical doctrine that nothing exists but matter and the effects it produces), using supposed evidence of the supernatural.
One such story was published by Richard Baxter (1615–1691) in his The Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits. The story centered on an English servant who robbed and murdered his master, afterward fleeing into the military service in Ireland. However, at night a headless ghost would stand beside his bed and ask, “Wilt thou yet confess?” Eventually he became so depressed that he did confess to his commanding officer (Finucane 1984, 128). (Today a knowledgeable psychologist or neurologist would recognize the incident as a “waking dream,” which occurs in the twilight between being fully asleep and awake. Such experiences typically include ghosts, aliens, angels, and the like. An encounter of this type can seem quite real, and the person experiencing it often insists that he or she was not dreaming [Baker and Nickell 1992, 226–27].)