GHOSTLY GOINGS ON
Posted by anthonynorth on December 16, 2007
Click Diary of a Writer. Meet me up close and personal
So many people take it for granted that ghosts are spirits of the dead. Whether this is true or not is unlikely ever to be proved one way or the other. And perhaps that is the beauty of a mystery.
We need mysteries to be fully human, and nothing satisfies this factor more than a ghost. But the reality is there ARE psycho-sociological mechanisms that can account for the vast majority. Let’s have a few examples from Britain.
GHOSTLY TALES
Seen on many occasions in St James’s Palace is the ghost of valet to the Duke of Cumberland, Sellis. Usually seen propped up in a bed with a slit throat, this gruesome ghost seems to be a remembrance of Sellis’s death in May 1810. According to his master, Sellis tried to kill him, but, failing, committed suicide. A pertinent rumour of the time had it that the Duke was the murderer, killing Sellis to stop him blackmailing him after he had had an affair with the valet’s daughter.
Past residents of the Cumbrian village of Eden Hall used to speak of a ghostly skeleton that swung from a rotting gallows on stormy nights. The ghost is said to be that of Thomas Nicholson, hanged in August 1767 for robbing and murdering his Godfather. His body was left on the gibbet for two days as a warning to others.
Screams are said to echo through Marsden Grotto, a series of caverns between South Shields and Sunderland. Once used by smugglers to hide their booty, one smuggling gang was betrayed by a man known as John the Jibber. A friend of the smugglers heard of the betrayal and warned the gang before they were arrested. Later, they got John the Jibber, took him to the cavern, put him in a barrel, hoisted him to the roof and left him to starve.
SOCIAL FUNCTION
Most of these stories we can dismiss in terms of producing real ghosts. But within most ghost stories we can see an important social function. For in the main, the classic ‘true’ ghost story usually held an important moral message, warning of the dangers of such things as murder or infidelity.
Thus, by allying the moral aspect to the supernatural, the morality is enforced by scaring a superstitious population into thinking twice about being immoral. Indeed, not only did ghost stories become the vehicle for the moral tale. Sometimes fame would be achieved and remembered by the famous becoming ghosts.
Typical is Grace Darling, one of England’s greatest heroines. Born in 1815, she was the daughter of William Darling, keeper of the Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands off Northumberland.
In 1838 the ship Forfarshire floundered. Grace and her father took their small rowing boat into stormy seas and rescued five crewmen. Grace then made a second trip with two of the crew and saved a further four seamen.
Grace died of consumption four years later. Seen as a darling of the nation, it was evident she would not be forgotten, and it seems her ghost walks the lighthouse to make sure of it. As late as 1976, two lighthouse keepers appeared on television, telling of their separate sightings of the heroine.
THEORIES OF HAUNTINGS
Most people, today, appear to be scathing of ghost stories, yet in private, most people have experienced something ‘strange’ enough to be classed as a ghostly experience …
This essay has now moved to Anthony North’s new website. Read more of it here, including his own theories and more data.
© Anthony North, December 2007
BEYOND THE BLOG 
Giath Olabi said
Hi.
Thank you for your effort and time.
when I read your essay , I have remembered an experience ,I have done with my college ,where I guess a card that he keep looking on it , and we have a results more than probability science expected , during this experience I could see in my mind what he is looking for.
Brain can receive thoughts and feelings by means tools more than five senses, but question is what is this tools and how it works?
My be when man is tired or in REM then consciousness will be weak ,and unconsciousness can use his tools producing a lot of confusion and maybe some good receiving.
Electromagnetic fields can cause depressed feeling and maybe can have real thoughts also which brain can receive and transmit.
poseidonsmuse said
Wonderful and thorough essay on the paranormal side of ghostly phenomenon Anthony (As per Poetman’s previous comment made some time ago – I do wonder if you ever sleep given the intensity and length of your writing…!). 😉
With that said…I was wondering, from your research, if you have you encountered any evidence to support whether or not the female brain may be more susceptible to such phenomena (apart from the widows in Rees’ study of 1971)? Just curious.
Speaking of ley-lines. Trying to get hold of a copy of Watkin’s (1922) other book, “Early British Trackways” is like trying to extract molasses through a straw. Fascinating read I would imagine (as would be “The Old Straight Track”). You are rather fortunate to live in the UK – your environment is dripping with ancient history…
Selma said
This was such an interesting post.A friend of mine is studying ‘near death experiences’ at the moment and the white light phenomenon. He believes it is caused by electromagnetic fields, not by seeing God. I know he would support the images of ghosts caused by electromagnetic residue as a theory. Yet, a medium I met long ago said that ghosts were evidence that there is life after death. That they were messengers from ‘beyond the grave.’ I would love to hear your thoughts on the afterlife in a future essay!
Kevin said
Interesting speculations on a timeworn subject but I find them all problematic, as they fail to explain my own experiences. The one which caused me greatest pause was the death apparition of my father, which occured in August of 1995. At the time, he was at a hospital receiving his weekly transfusion (he was dying of myelodisplasia and needed transfusions to bolster his white cell count;doctors assured us he’d probably live through the end of the year), accompanied by my sister. I was some 35 miles away when, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, my father appeared beside me for a moment, then vanished. This quite startled me, as I’d never had such an experience before or since. About 20 minutes later my sister called with the news that our father had passed on while the transfusion was in progress, the doctors later discovering that he had died of pneumonia resulting from his blood/bone disease. A lifelong smoker and asthmatic, his ubiquitous breathing difficulties masked the fluid build-up. My sister and I were later able to deduce that my apparitional experience coincided with the time of my father’s passing, as she was at his side throughout the ordeal. The explanations proffered by the various sources in your essay do not seem to relate to what are known as “death apparitions”, particularly in cases such as mine wherein the time factor can be so closely affixed. Such ad hoc explanations as “coincidence” strike me as unsupportively dismissive and offering nothing toward understanding such fundamentally profound concepts as consciousness and its continuation after bodily death. The nature of Mind strikes me as THE core mystery, the questions of existence and the purpose of meaning.
Shirley said
Good evening, Anthony–
A thorough and most interesting essay. I personally have never seen a ghost or anything resembling such a specter. I believe in the Bible and understand it to teach against divination and witchcraft, although by so mentioning I am not implying that ghost sightings are a product of sorcery. I have no knowledge of that. I wonder though, if a person such as I who has a bias against witchery would be less prone to observe “spirits.”
It’s a curious world we inhabit, and so many things beyond a certain knowing.
Thank you for your writing.
rome said
ANOTHER GHOSTLY TALE…..
I find this one particularly fascinating…it’s about a popular Roman ghost which is said to appear at night on a black coach on Ponte Sisto heading towards Trastevere area. The black coach is driven by Olimpia Maidalchi a very ambitious woman who married rich men in order to become powerful. With her second marriage she even became the Pope’s sister in law. She lived in the famous Pamphili Palace, situated south of Piazza Navona from which she acted like a real queen. Her husband, 30 years older than she was, died and when Pope Innocenzio X, her brother in law was dying too, she understood her power was about to end since she was not at all loved by the Romans. Therefore she stole two boxes full of gold and ran away to never return to Rome. She was exiliated by the new Pope Alessandro VII and died of Plague 4 years later. According to the legend, she is seen at night with her gold running towards her former palace on Ponte Sisto.
anthonynorth said
Hi Giath Olabi,
Thanks for that. The experiment you mention is one of the most used for telepathy, etc. I write about the subject here, if you’re interestyed:
Hi PM,
Yes, the UK is fascinating for this kind of stuff. The village I live in now has an old church with a 12th century knight buried there. According to legend he was one of the old dragon slayers – such stories are everywhere.
Honestly, I do sleep. I’ve been researching the paranormal for over twenty years so such essays come easy. And when I think of writers such as Colin Wilson, with over 80 books, many over 600 pages – well, I’m not as prolific as people think.
There have been many tests, etc, on the differing ‘wiring’ of male/female brains. Conan Doyle once noted, about mediumship, that the female mind was more vacant, thus allowing …
… well, I won’t go further 🙂
To me, such studies are pointless in this field, because the simple fact is women tend to be more open in admitting such experiences. No test has yet managed to measure this gender difference.
Hi Selma,
Thanks for that. I’ve already written on the afterlife here:
It’s a subject I’ll be coming back to some time, with more to say, but it features my initial thoughts on the subject.
By sheer coincidence – whatever that is – I’m working on an OBE post at the moment, which features near death experiences. Don’t know when it will be posted, but certainly in the next couple of weeks.
anthonynorth said
Some marvellous comments this morning – I’ve had to answer in two comments myself. That’s great! Keep ’em coming …
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for that experience. It is quite common for this to happen, and tends to come under the subject of ‘crisis apparitions’. Usually it is seen as an externalisation of a form of clairvoyant experience. I actually deal with it in this post:
Hope it offers some kind of explanation.
Hi Shirley,
Thanks for the comment. In my many years of research one thing that seems a definite is that a person only sees what their ‘culture’ suggests they will see. So it is highly likely that your belief would debar you from experiencing such things.
There was a marvellous experiment done many years ago by researcher Prof Arthur Ellison. During a lecture in front of a mixed audience, he rigged a bowl of flowers by his lecturn to rise into the air during his lecture. He never mentioned or acknowledged this ‘event’.
In questions afterwards, someone mentioned the flowers rising. A sigh of relief came and people began to talk about it. Spiritualists in the audience saw ‘spirit hands’ lift the flowers, whilst, most interestingly, some sceptics didn’t see the event at all. Their mind couldn’t accept it, so it was blanked out.
You are right. It IS a curious world we inhabit.
Hi Rome,
This kind of ghost is, I’m sure, connected with communal moralising. It is to do with the power of the story to provide taboo. Many such tales have this theme, and I write about them, and their purpose, here:
I hope it sheds some light. Thanks for the story.
vimal said
I think, dismissing these experiences as simply hallucinations, geomagnetic phenomenon, cultural thing, crisis appiration etc is too simplistic in approach specially in the light of such highly scietific and technical enquiries (http://www.newsmonster.co.uk/mysterous-ghostly-orbs-perplex-researchers.html) into this subject. Anybody seriously interested in exploring this subject might like to have a look at the works of such luminaries as Prof David Fontana (http://www.amazon.com/There-Afterlife-Comprehensive-Overview-Evidence/dp/1903816904/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197946022&sr=1-3),
Victor Zammit(http://www.victorzammit.com/index.html), Slone Experiment etc. And who can contest the work of Late Prof Ian Stevenson on Reincarnation. So often we come across incidences where a kid has such profound memories of having lived before(http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/dailycourier/news/s_463166.html) that its hard to explain it with anything other than continuation of life after death. One of the most profound case that was discovered only recently is this one (
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2001290023-2006410683,,00.html) and you can watch the associated documentary here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5cGSUBU8-w
One can keep going on and on with such examples which are so hard to dismiss. I think, having a typical reductionist view does not help the our eternal quest to solve the mystery of life. However the good thing is that now a days at least mainstream science also has started taking interest in this topic which once used to be considered a taboo.
Vimal
Craig said
I was looking into information on seeing your loved one after they die, as in walking around, and I came across this site: http://www.signfromlovedone.com/
It had a nice feel good message to it and I recommend checking it out.
anthonynorth said
Hi Craig,
Thanks for that.
Hi Vimal,
I have an initial essay on Reincarnation here:
There will be more to come on the subject. You said:
‘However the good thing is that now a days at least mainstream science also has started taking interest in this topic which once used to be considered a taboo.’
Really? In over 20 years of research I’ve never seen this happen. True, the occasional scientist will be brave enough, but they are very few, and usually suffer in terms of reputation by doing so.
And this is why a more reductionist approach is so important. I’m not saying I’m right, and I hope that in future more understanding will come. But knowledge can only advance by taking our existing knowledge with us, and simply nudging it ahead.
Taking huge steps into the darkness of knowledge proves only the imagination of the thinker. It does nothing for knowledge in the end. So slowly goes, hopefully convincing sceptics along thew way.
It will be a long road.
vimal said
Hi Anthony,
Its surprising that you haven’t seen that happen in last 20 years. I would advice if you do some more research by looking at some of the works that I have quoted above, you will find what is going on. If you seriously study some of the works that like that Dr. David Fontana, Victor Zammit and Dr. Pim van Lommel, you will realize that there are lot of people who have kept the windows of their minds open to allow the fresh air of new knowledge to come in. In my opinion reductionist approach represents a shear arrogance. All these folks who are advancing the frontiers of our knowledge, are people of eminence in their respective fields and they are indeed taking existing knowledge into account while pursuing this journey of discovery. In my opinion, had Galileo not made some bold diversions from the ‘existing knowledge’, we would still be living in a ‘flat world’. Bottom line is one has to keep the mind open with a sense of acceptability of the possibility of existence of something which our current knowledge falls short of explaining rather than just deny it. I wonder if you are familiar with the possibilities of existence of other dimensions (10 in all) which mainstream physists have been postulating for so long and now all out efforts being made to discover those dimensions? If one were to take the reductionist approach such effrots would never be made. So again, my friend, in my opinion, having a reductionist approach represnts nothing more than a medieval mindset. Please believe me, I am not trying to start a flame war or targeting these comments on the intellectual capability of anybody. If anybody feels offended, I offer my humble apologies in advance.
Vimal
anthonynorth said
Hi Vimal,
Fontana is doing good work, I admit, but he isn’t a ‘scientist’ as such. He’s a psychologist, a practice itself dismissed by most mainstream science as irrelevant.
Yes, as I said, there are some brave scientists working on this area. In the past we had Crookes and Rhine. Ellison comes to mind, and Sheldrake is marvellous. I think also of Jahn, and the consciousness studies of Penrose and Hameroff are exceptional.
But this isn’t mainstream science – it’s the occasional maverick, who I applaud. As for fringe science, yes, they theorise on 11 dimensions, and the role of consciousness, not to mention spontaneous action at a distance, in quantum theory will, I’m sure, lead to more understanding of the paranormal. But despite these theoretical concepts, mainstream science still refuses to adapt it to the paranormal.
The reason why is, I suspect, this.
Let’s take Galileo, who you put on a pedestal as a great scientist. But the reality is, everything he worked on had been theorised on before, but never proved.
This is the problem. New knowledge must ride on the back of the old. This is the way we advance. Taking massive leaps into new knowledge is not knowledge, but belief. We have to go slowly, taking the thread of past knowledge with us.
Sadly, reductionism is with us, so we must begin with this. Believe me, it annoys me as much as it annoys you. I think the difference is I’m a realist. Grasping for shadows too far ahead of the rest usually results in falling flat on your face, remembered by history as a crank, or not remembered at all.
vimal said
Hi Anthony,
I really appreciate your response and width and depth of your knowledge and you have a valid point. When you say mainstream science still refuses it, I would agree with you with a qualification that that the acceptance has not reached the level where these concepts would become textbook matter. When I use the word mainstream science I really meant that if I compare the situation say with 50 years ago, people were simply afraid to risk their reputation. But at least now, quite a few eminent scientists, doctors etc are conducting research, making it public. In my opinion, that represents a big change and change always starts small. This change, howsoever small, makes me pretty excited as it leaves the field wide open. Yup, I know Fontana is not a scientist, but if you read his book, he does quote the works of lots of scientists. Similarly if you look at Victor Zammit’s book and site, you will see what so many scientists are upto. And for that matter, Victor Zammit is not a scientist, he is a retired Attorney General! Moreover, I feel, being a scientist represents a state of mind rather than holding some PhD in physics chemistry etc and that mindset is being open to the possibility. I think basically we agree, its just that probably I should have used the expression ‘mainstream science’ with a qualification attached to it.
In the end, I must admit, your posts are very informative and very well written. Please keep up the good work.
Vimal
anthonynorth said
Hi Vimal,
Thanks for the kind words. I do love this type of exchange. So often contrary views are not really contrary at all, but sadly too many people fall out before realising this.
Yes, we’re on the same side – perhaps with different interpretations, but the same side nonetheless.
Your participation, here, is appreciated.
red pill junkie said
You know? thinking about these “phantom hitchhiker” events, along with a whole plethora of weird phenomena that seem to happen to some folks while driving those lonely highways, makes one think if while driving we are able to enter some sort of altered state of consciousness. I know that while I’m at the wheel doing my daily commute only a small fraction of my mind is actually concentrating on the task of avoiding an accident and following the rules of the road, while the rest is free to wander on my usual thoughts, kind of like letting the auto-pilot on.
Factor that the sleepiness or weariness some drivers might experience, along with the trance-like exposure of those white lanes marked on the pavement, and you have the right ingredients for a fringe experience without the need of meditation or the ingestion of power plants! 🙂
Shirley said
Hi again, Anthony. I find this discussion intriguing.
In response to my first comment you wrote this interesting response:
“There was a marvellous experiment done many years ago by researcher Prof Arthur Ellison. During a lecture in front of a mixed audience, he rigged a bowl of flowers by his lecturn to rise into the air during his lecture. He never mentioned or acknowledged this ‘event’.
In questions afterwards, someone mentioned the flowers rising. A sigh of relief came and people began to talk about it. Spiritualists in the audience saw ’spirit hands’ lift the flowers, whilst, most interestingly, some sceptics didn’t see the event at all. Their mind couldn’t accept it, so it was blanked out.”
While I have quite definite opinions about many things, I consider myself open-minded, and certainly know I am far from having anywhere close to “all the answers.” But you know something: I don’t like the thought of my sitting in that room and being involved in the experiment of Ellison and being one whose mind “blocked” the rising of the basket. I am uncomfortable with thinking my mind would betray me in that way–would conceal truth from me.
Hope I made myself clear. Interesting, indeed.
anthonynorth said
Good morning Red,
A good point. I’ve only dealt briefly so far on this blog about alien abduction, but on this subject on the UFO-tastic category (see left sidebar) I write:
‘Intriguingly, in alien car abductions, the abductee usually realizes they have lost time and are some distance on in their journey. Have they merely fantasized while they continued driving?’
I’m quite convinced that this is a time when much phenomena can occur. As to the ‘mechanism’, I think we all experience it in a slight way. Have you ever been reading a book and suddenly realised that you haven’t been taking in the words, your mind elsewhere? But you HAVE actually continued reading and have to go back to where your mind started wandering.
The great Colin Wilson argued that we all have a ‘robot’ inside us who takes over the boring tasks of life without thought, leaving us to go ‘elsewhere’.
Hi Shirley,
This can seem a worrying influence, but I think it is more common than we think. I spent nine years in the Royal Air Force, and during that time I can remember many military exercises where some ‘intruders’ made life very difficult for us.
A good intruder is an expert in deception, and can have the most rational of people chasing shadows. I remember being in a guard command post as the most conflicting reports of the same thing would come in.
It was the philosopher, Kant, who argued that we each have a ‘filter’ in the mind that defines the world in our own particular way. Hence, a large slice of our perception of reality can be very much subjective.
Science itself has had, since 1926, the ‘uncertainty principle’, devised through quantum theory to show that an outside reality can be always hidden from our absolute perception.
Sometimes this can seem to sit uncomfortably with, say, a ‘knowing’ of the certainty of the existence of God. But I don’t think it does. The history of the human race shows that we need beliefs to be fully human. I suppose the task of the seeker of knowledge is to form a balance between those things that seem to conflict.
I would add that I’m never in the business of trying to knock someone’s peacefully held belief. I simply ask questions regarding the state of our knowledge. And I accept that the real delusion could well be not seeing God in the world.