ounds and noises, and spooky atmospheres.
Thousands of hauntings have been investigated by psychical researchers and parapsychologists over the last hundred years or so. Numerous theories have been advanced, all inconclusive. Some early psychic researchers thought that ghosts were meaningless fragments of energy left behind in death. Others have theorized that hauntings are a form of psychometry, vibrations of events and emotions imbued into a house, site, or object.
One popular spiritualist theory holds that hauntings occur when the spirit of the dead person or animal is trapped on the earth plane for various reasons, doesn't know it is dead, or is reluctant to leave. Gentle exorcisms will send the spirit on to the after-world.
Researchers employ three basic techniques to investigate a haunting:
1. Description - involves taking eyewitness accounts.
2. Experimentation - involves bringing a psychic to the site to corroborate the eyewitness accounts or provide new information.
3. Detection - involves the observation or recording of phenomena using a ghost-hunter's kit, including camcorders, infrared cameras and tape recorders, as well as heat sensors and Geiger counters to measure changes in the atmosphere.
Such methods are at best imprecise and interpretation of results is often subjective. Critics say ghost investigation is imprecise and not a true science because it is heavily reliant upon eyewitness testimony.
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Sources: (1) Allen, Judy, Unexplained: An Encyclopedia of Curious Phenomena, Strange Superstitions, and Ancient Mysteries, Kingfisher Publishers; (2) Spence, Lewis, An Encyclopedia of Occultism, Carol Publishing Group; (3) Dictionary of the Occult, Caxton Publishing.
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