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Ghost Evolution

I do think that a lot of the 'black shadows' that people report may be an artifact of the brain and/or eye. Like I've said before, my migraines throw up 'black shapes', usually rectangular or square but sometimes just blobs - which must mean that the brain is causing them. So if there is a mechanism in the brain to create mysterious moving black shapes for migraine sufferers - just maybe it can throw them up at other times, even to people who don't suffer migraines.
 
catseye said:
I do think that a lot of the 'black shadows' that people report may be an artifact of the brain and/or eye. Like I've said before, my migraines throw up 'black shapes', usually rectangular or square but sometimes just blobs - which must mean that the brain is causing them. So if there is a mechanism in the brain to create mysterious moving black shapes for migraine sufferers - just maybe it can throw them up at other times, even to people who don't suffer migraines.
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Yes, I think you are right. Mobile phones could not account for every incidence of a black shape seen but I do still wonder if they have had an influence on the modern day increase in black shapes. Or perhaps there is also an increase in migraine auras caused by an increase in screen staring?
 
Ascalon said:
The theory goes that certain geological formations, as they undergo the kinds of stresses that are seen before earthquakes, particularly subduction types, produce some kind of ionisation that results in positively charged ion fields. This is theorised to give animals the warning that something is wrong. There are scientifically observed cases, as well as much folk reporting, of animals fleeing ahead of earthquakes.

It is also thought that infrasound emanations from pre-earthquake stresses might contribute to this effect. It could be that some elements might be around that 18.9Hz range that causes mammalian discomfort and alarm.
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My goodness, that's a lot pseudosciencey stuff there. It's incorrect to refer to that as a "theory".

Ionization or formation of aerosols (charged air particles) is unrelated to infrasound. Earthquakes can create infrasound and probably ionized air in some cases but that does not create hallucinations of the type described by Tandy. Very different concepts. The precursors for earthquakes are a complex and dubious topic that in all aspects seem unrelated to hauntings. (IOW, Persinger's Tectonic-Strain "theory" fails miserably to explain anything.)

The evidence for animals responding to earthquakes is extremely weak and unreliable. If it happens, it is specific to certain regions and particular events. The same factor may not be at play for all claims of animal responses. Infrasound may be more pertinent in cases of tsunami warnings. But we're off track here...
 
GerdaWordyer said:
A lot of the religious nuts here seem to be somewhat polytheistic--they believe in a real Devil as strongly as they believe in a real God. I guess their demi-deities are angels and demons.
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Yonks ago I read a study that showed that the more strongly people believed 'evil' is a tangible thing or force, the more likely they are to favour physical interventions and punishments. Damned if I can find it now, sorry.
 
I often wonder if there is something like Charles Bonnet syndrome that affects people with better sight. Charles Bonnet syndrome causes people with failing sight to see things that aren't there, flashing lights and patterns. If you didn't have anything badly wrong with your eyes and you didn't think you were mentally ill you might put seeing that misty figure down to 'one of those things' or a ghost.... You wouldn't necessarily hurry to an optician.
 
I wrote this years ago:
"This raises an intriguing point: the connection between eyesight and the brain. Charles Bonnet syndrome has been mooted as a possible mechanism for the sighting of spectres. Basically, aged related macular degeneration (AMD) of the eye leads to the brain filling in the gaps in its information "feed" with hallucinations. An interview on the BBC was conducted with the daughter of a (now deceased) lady who had started to experience hallucinations due to this condition. As this lady was already in her 80s, initially she attributed her experiences to failing mental health and possible dementia and her hallucinations included people sitting on her sofa, an entire Edwardian funeral taking place outside and a demonic looking gargoyle moving around her home. Another lady said that she was visited by her late relatives, which she found comforting."

I really must revisit this hypothesis.
 
Macular degeneration is horrendous. It hasn't affected me or my family directly but a good friend in the US is afflicted. He's an avid reader and researcher and it's heartbreaking to hear of his degenerating eyesight.
 
Tunn11 said:
Is it just me or are ghosts changing or evolving?

... ghosts ... looked like people or were described as if they had some colour or substance e.g. Red ladies, etc. Photos showed effects that, if one were being uncharitable, looked like intentional or unintentional double exposures.
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Two thoughts on this:

1) Now that pretty well everyone has a smart phone with digital camera, double exposures, which were an artefact of the film not winding onto the next frame properly, no longer occur (except deliberately for artistic effect).

2) People tend to be more rational and less superstitious than in previous generations. So if you spot an unexpected figure, you will tend to assume it's a real person, rather than a ghost. Nowadays, it takes something extraordinarily weird - like shadow people, to make the modern sceptic feel that something genuinely supernatural is happening.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
2) People tend to be more rational and less superstitious than in previous generations. So if you spot an unexpected figure, you will tend to assume it's a real person, rather than a ghost. Nowadays, it takes something extraordinarily weird - like shadow people, to make the modern sceptic feel that something genuinely supernatural is happening.
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Define 'previous generations' though. I remember when I was young (and I'm only 61, not that many generations old) ghosts were proper ghosts. The 'shadow people' thing seems to be an artifact of the recent computer age (possibly because 'shadow people' can be a product of slow frame rates on security cameras, are featured in many horror films which seem to be a feed for ghost stories, and are also quite easily mocked up in CGI). What was the rate of apparition of shadow people pre, say, 1990?
 
"People tend to be more rational and less superstitious than in previous generations"

Unless they're ghost hunters in which case, the first and only explanation to be pounced upon is a paranormal one.
 
DrPaulLee said:
"People tend to be more rational and less superstitious than in previous generations"

Unless they're ghost hunters in which case, the first and only explanation to be pounced upon is a paranormal one.
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Well indeed.
Perhaps the adjective I was seeking was gullible, rather than superstitious!
 
DrPaulLee said:
I don't think the shadowy figures seen by many people can be dismissed as artefacts of security screens etc., as many people have seen them with the naked eye.
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But they are also an artifact of vision. See my posts about seeing 'black shapes' before a migraine. If it can happen to me, then it can happen to others, who may not realise that what they are 'seeing' is a product of their brain.
 
catseye said:
But they are also an artifact of vision. See my posts about seeing 'black shapes' before a migraine. If it can happen to me, then it can happen to others, who may not realise that what they are 'seeing' is a product of their brain.
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Perhaps the "ghost" works directly on the brain?
 
catseye said:
But then how would we ever know what was a ghost and what was a brain fart?
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We wouldn't but it would explain; clothed ghosts, ghost cars, etc.
If some intelligence could communicate in that way then ghosts could evolve with our thoughts or expectations or show as UFOs, ABCs or whatever.
 
Tunn11 said:
We wouldn't but it would explain; clothed ghosts, ghost cars, etc.
If some intelligence could communicate in that way then ghosts could evolve with our thoughts or expectations or show as UFOs, ABCs or whatever.
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Well, that's the John Keel / Jacques Vallee way of looking at it - there is an 'intelligence' which seems to specialise in messing with our brains, often by playing on our existing expectations. It's behind the idea that UFOs in some way parody our current ideas of advanced technology, hence their evolution from airships to rockets to saucer-like craft etc.

Pre-car ghost vehicles seem to have been quite common, judging by the number of East Anglian stories of ghost carriages which are seen to crash into (often very small) ponds.
 
BS3 said:
Well, that's the John Keel / Jacques Vallee way of looking at it - there is an 'intelligence' which seems to specialise in messing with our brains, often by playing on our existing expectations. It's behind the idea that UFOs in some way parody our current ideas of advanced technology, hence their evolution from airships to rockets to saucer-like craft etc.

Pre-car ghost vehicles seem to have been quite common, judging by the number of East Anglian stories of ghost carriages which are seen to crash into (often very small) ponds.
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Might explain the "Oz factor" as well.
 
BS3 said:
Pre-car ghost vehicles seem to have been quite common, judging by the number of East Anglian stories of ghost carriages which are seen to crash into (often very small) ponds.
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I wonder if these are folk memories. After all, in the era of horses and carts, accidents involving a spooked horse running away and ending in with a crashed cart and possibly deceased people (and horse) must have been reasonably common. And then the story enters the local memory as 'remember that time we were standing here and old Hoskins bay mare went mad and ran off with the trap with the little 'uns in it? That was a bad day.' And from there to 'grandad always told us about standing at the gate and seeing a horse and trap go by with people screaming and then it crashed and they all died'. Which becomes 'there are stories about people seeing a horse and trap gallop past and vanish around the corner; and it is said that a whole family died in an accident when a cart overturned there'.
 
catseye said:
I wonder if these are folk memories. After all, in the era of horses and carts, accidents involving a spooked horse running away and ending in with a crashed cart and possibly deceased people (and horse) must have been reasonably common. And then the story enters the local memory as 'remember that time we were standing here and old Hoskins bay mare went mad and ran off with the trap with the little 'uns in it? That was a bad day.' And from there to 'grandad always told us about standing at the gate and seeing a horse and trap go by with people screaming and then it crashed and they all died'. Which becomes 'there are stories about people seeing a horse and trap gallop past and vanish around the corner; and it is said that a whole family died in an accident when a cart overturned there'.
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I think that's exactly what they are. In fact, I think many of them are probably 'transplants' of the memory of one original incident which then became attached to other ponds. In this case an additional ongoing social function might also be to get children to stay away from ponds by claiming they were haunted.

I've coincidentally just posted about the 'communal' commemorative function of this type of story with regards to a well known 20th century apparition, the Skye ghost car. It's particularly interesting in this case, as a story of a phantom car dating from the 1940s - which may even have originated as a tall tale put about by the local doctor - was later attached to a real accident that occurred in 1959, as an example of foreshadowing. The story has evolved further since as the details of the accident have been (perhaps deliberately) forgotten.
 
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This thread is considering how `ghosts` have evolved over the distance of time - but it can be just as revealing to look into how `ghosts` change over geographical distance.

One of the reasons why I'm not so hot on the whole spook thing is that I am very conscious of just how much of a localised and culture specific phenomenon it is.

If you live in the UK - even if in a council tenancy - you can guarantee that there will be a reputed `haunted house` somewhere in your vicinity. This is most decidedly not the case in other countries - indeed not the case in most other countries.

I can tell you about Russia. Yes, if you dig you will find ghost legends around various buildings in Moscow and St Petersburg and some other Russian cities. However, these are not widely known about and discussed. For example, an ancient, atmospheric and touristy city like St Petersburg does not have `Ghost tours` and the like (or if it does, this will be a new fangled thing filched from the West).

But look closer to home at nearer European cultures. One of the best ghost stories I have read was by Maupassant, the French author, but I feel that this was untypical of French writing - I am not aware that they have a `ghost story ` tradition there in fiction or fact. (Please do correct me if I'm wrong!) Ditto Italy, Spain ,Germany etc.

The South East Asian nations do have a long and embedded ghost tradition lore however (to the chagrin of the Chinese Communist Party!). Even so, I have been reliably informed, by someone who has spent time in Japan, that their conception of what a ghost is is somewhat at odds with the Western one and is somewhat closer to what we would characterise as `orbs` or `balls of light`.

One can speculate that the British attachment to apparitions is the residue of their Celtic ancestry which was then overlaid by the polytheistic paganism of the Romans. Moreover, our cheery interest in such things may, ironically, be a reflection of the fact that we are a much more secular society than many others - as the first nation to fully industrialise. We then exported this mentality to North America and the other colonies.

As a language teacher I am sometimes required to `get students talking` in order to enhance their discussion and debating skills. The subject of `ghosts and the paranormal` is one of the standard topics which one can reach for.. I am therefore in a position to do a sort of modest (unscientific) cross-cultural comparison of how different cultures react to this issue.

With British kids it's a breeze. Just ask: `Who gas seen a ghost?` and - voila! - you have an instant `heated debate`. Someone will have a ghost tale to tell. someone will set themselves up as a hard-headed sceptic and someone will be an open-to-persuasion-agnostic. It will all be rather jolly.

Russians will approach the matter as a sort of interesting hypothesis - and their contributions will often revolve around figures from Russian folklore such as various wood nymphs and the domovoi (a sort of domestic pixie).

West Africans and South East Asians however will take the matter rather seriously and may even feel troubled by it - to the point where it becomes questionable that it is even worth proceeding with this topic for the debate.

As for `continental Europeans` - well, I once worked for a summer School in the UK. Most of our students were teenage Italians. One evening we, the teachers, all decided to do a sort of mock ghost hunt. We dimmed the lights of the suitably old building we were in, put candles around, put on some spooky music and lead the students around the place - with some of us got up to play `ghosts` which would spring out of cupboards and so on.

We thought it was all a bit of a tongue in cheek wheeze - but the next day we heard that many of the students were unable to get a wink of sleep that night!
 
I disagree about Spain, Spanish friends have told me of first-hand experiences of hauntings that are fairly similar to tales told in Britain. There are plenty of ghost stories bouncing around in Guatemala, a country I know particularly well.
 
Zeke Newbold said:
This thread is considering how `ghosts` have evolved over the distance of time - but it can be just as revealing to look into how `ghosts` change over geographical distance.

One of the reasons why I'm not so hot on the whole spook thing is that I am very conscious of just how much of a localised and culture specific phenomenon it is.

If you live in the UK - even if in a council tenancy - you can guarantee that there will be a reputed `haunted house` somewhere in your vicinity. This is most decidedly not the case in other countries - indeed not the case in most other countries.

I can tell you about Russia. Yes, if you dig you will find ghost legends around various buildings in Moscow and St Petersburg and some other Russian cities. However, these are not widely known about and discussed. For example, an ancient, atmospheric and touristy city like St Petersburg does not have `Ghost tours` and the like (or if it does, this will be a new fangled thing filched from the West).

But look closer to home at nearer European cultures. One of the best ghost stories I have read was by Maupassant, the French author, but I feel that this was untypical of French writing - I am not aware that they have a `ghost story ` tradition there in fiction or fact. (Please do correct me if I'm wrong!) Ditto Italy, Spain ,Germany etc.

The South East Asian nations do have a long and embedded ghost tradition lore however (to the chagrin of the Chinese Communist Party!). Even so, I have been reliably informed, by someone who has spent time in Japan, that their conception of what a ghost is is somewhat at odds with the Western one and is somewhat closer to what we would characterise as `orbs` or `balls of light`.

One can speculate that the British attachment to apparitions is the residue of their Celtic ancestry which was then overlaid by the polytheistic paganism of the Romans. Moreover, our cheery interest in such things may, ironically, be a reflection of the fact that we are a much more secular society than many others - as the first nation to fully industrialise. We then exported this mentality to North America and the other colonies.

As a language teacher I am sometimes required to `get students talking` in order to enhance their discussion and debating skills. The subject of `ghosts and the paranormal` is one of the standard topics which one can reach for.. I am therefore in a position to do a sort of modest (unscientific) cross-cultural comparison of how different cultures react to this issue.

With British kids it's a breeze. Just ask: `Who gas seen a ghost?` and - voila! - you have an instant `heated debate`. Someone will have a ghost tale to tell. someone will set themselves up as a hard-headed sceptic and someone will be an open-to-persuasion-agnostic. It will all be rather jolly.

Russians will approach the matter as a sort of interesting hypothesis - and their contributions will often revolve around figures from Russian folklore such as various wood nymphs and the domovoi (a sort of domestic pixie).

West Africans and South East Asians however will take the matter rather seriously and may even feel troubled by it - to the point where it becomes questionable that it is even worth proceeding with this topic for the debate.

As for `continental Europeans` - well, I once worked for a summer School in the UK. Most of our students were teenage Italians. One evening we, the teachers, all decided to do a sort of mock ghost hunt. We dimmed the lights of the suitably old building we were in, put candles around, put on some spooky music and lead the students around the place - with some of us got up to play `ghosts` which would spring out of cupboards and so on.

We thought it was all a bit of a tongue in cheek wheeze - but the next day we heard that many of the students were unable to get a wink of sleep that night!
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I think I mentioned earlier in the thread the idea that the British (well, English, specifically) enthusiasm for ghosts has its roots in the unique way the Reformation played out here.

As for Japanese ghosts, I did see the interesting suggestion that their appearance might have something to do with the fact that until fairly recently people were traditionally buried much shallower than was customary in Europe, meaning that will-o-the-wisps were a common sight in graveyards there.
 
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Zeke Newbold said:
(...)

But look closer to home at nearer European cultures. One of the best ghost stories I have read was by Maupassant, the French author, but I feel that this was untypical of French writing - I am not aware that they have a `ghost story ` tradition there in fiction or fact. (Please do correct me if I'm wrong!) Ditto Italy, Spain ,Germany etc.
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"Comparative ghost study" is indeed a good idea.

Regarding France, I am French and I can tell you there are plenty of ghost stories, but it is true that the phenomenon is not as popular as in the British Isles. As BS3 pointed out in a previous post, there may be historical explanations for that.

I suspect that in France, the philosophy of the "enlightened" thinkers of the 17th and 18th century (Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot) and the French revolution contributed to the French lack of passion for ghostly tales. Descartes for instance was a rationalist. Voltaire probably thought himself as enlightened too, and used to mock whatever he found superstitious. During the times of the last French kings, those who wanted to be popular at the court had to display their intelligence and despise for traditional thinking. Of course, there were also people who searched for fantasy in occultism, kabbala, and so on, but overall, the general mood seem to have been bent towards rationalism.

It got worse after the revolution, because the Republican State went into open conflict with the Catholic Church. As with many other and later revolutions, it spurred a great drive to clean out what were considered as remnants of a corrupted past. Traditional religion was replaced by a "civic religion" worshipping a nameless "Supreme Being". Every month of the year got renamed according to the cycle of nature (for instance, the month when grain germinated was called "Germinal"). And of course, lots of aristocrats and rich people had to flee the country for political reasons. Their properties (and along, the history of these properties) were sold and their furnitures scattered. So it was really a kind of great "reset". By essence, ghosts are "traditional" : they fit into a local history, as their tales are told from father to son, neighbour to neighbour. So I suspect that, in spite of all its violence, the French Revolution did send many ghostly tales into oblivion. And in any case, with the revolutionary and napoleonic wars raging, the French did not have time to waste with ghosts. It was simply not compatible with the mood of the 19th century.

The impacts of the revolution decreased as time passed, but a kind of proud rationalism kept striving in France. At the end of the 19th century / beginning of the 20th, the 3rd Republic was intent on forming generations of loyal republican citizens. Through Jules Ferry's reforms, a generation of young republicans was formed. The idea was not so much to prevent them believing in ghosts but to defeat militant catholicism, which was suspected of favouring the monarchy. There was also a very strong drive towards abolishing regional differences. Whether you came from Brittany or Southern France, you had to abandon your native language and speak only in French. Those who didn't comply would be beaten. Besides, something like one sixth of the population was uprooted and came to live in just one central city : Paris. This did not favour the perpetuation of local traditions about ghosts. All the more so when a whole generation of those people who had stayed in rural areas got slaughtered by the million in WW1.

All in all : scientific positivism, an uprooted society, a scattered heritage and so on, did not favour the popularity of ghost stories ... Of course, locally, or within the familial circle, you would still tell ghost stories, but it would generally not be a fashionable topic for socializing.

As a French, I do admire how, in spite of its own bloody revolutions, Great Britain has managed to lovingly protect her cultural heritage. When you visit a castle in England or Scotland, you immediately see the difference with France : in a way, British castles or old stately homes, are still full of life. They preserve an amazing quantity of their original furniture, which tells a lot about the history of their successive owners. I think this creates a far more favourable climate for hauntings. France may have the huge and hollow palace of Versailles, but it doesn't possess such a background, and it probably makes a great difference.
 
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