The Science Of Bad Vibes: Can Places Retain Negative Energy?

[maximus otter]

Visitors to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland report feelings of tightness in their chests, nervousness in their hands, and feelings of depression—it’s almost like the place is haunted by tremendous amounts of bad energy. According to some scientists, there’s a high chance it’s one of many sites containing “negative energy.”

That means our habitat may not be as neutral as we perceive it to be, explaining the goosebumps and sick-to-your-stomach feeling you may experience in haunted houses or sites where horrific violence took place. There are three predominant theories for this phenomenon: ​

​

a) The presence of emotional residue, or leftover evidence of past emotions that are still lurking around.​

b) “Geopathic stress” emanating from Earth itself ​

c) The power of our mind’s own expectations.​

The Emotional Residue Theory​

Emotions have the potential to “infect” or “brighten” their physical surroundings even after their source has physically moved to a new location, according to the emotional residue phenomenon. Though the theory likely originates from early beliefs in the contagious nature of magic, it has nevertheless become the focal point of several legitimate studies in the field of psychology.

A possible explanation is that the human nervous system is able to pick up on chemical signals the body gives off through sweat and tears. Studies have found, for instance, that men’s libido declines in the presence of women’s tears and that these “chemosignals” persist in the surrounding environment.

The Geopathic Stress Theory​

In 1929, German baron and medical researcher Gustav Freiherr von Pohl conducted a study in the Bavarian town of Vilsbiburg, concluding that certain geological faults (fractures between two pieces of rock) of “Earth-radiated energy” were linked with cancer. All the people who had died of cancer in Vilsbiburg since record-keeping began had slept in beds along these “geopathic” stress lines, leading von Pohl to the unfounded claim that cancer was a disease of location and to the genesis of the term “geopathic stress.”

According to geopathy advocates, Earth emits energies that can cause ill health in humans—the very definition of geopathic stress.

The Power of Expectation​

Still, our own associations and expectations could be even more powerful than emotional residue or geopathic stress.

If we expect something to feel a certain way—say, happy or sad—that can strongly influence our perceptions; such is the power of expectations. If you have positive or negative associations when it comes to certain landscape features, for instance, this could have an impact on how you feel and function beneath your ability to understand it.

“Studies in which participants predicted the mood of a character based on the emotions of a person who previously lived in their apartment, or chose a room based on a sign on a door, reinforce an old point in psychology, which is that we quickly and automatically form associations, and those can influence attitudes and behavior,” says John Coley, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a39505882/can-places-really-have-negative-energy/

maximus otter

 

[charliebrown]

I assume this means Karma.

Being a person or a building, I feel vibrations immediately and my wife is even more sensitive than me.

I know someone who claims they can see the color of the aura around people being the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

I think most people can feel when a person is up no good, or sense danger.


.

 

[Victory]

Emotional Residue

I have been in places where people prayed very hard for many hundreds of years, and they definitely had a special feel about them.

The Power of Expectation

I have also been to places where I knew what had happened there in history and was "psyched up" for them.

As for The Geographic Stress Theory, might there be places where gases escape from under the earth's crust, gases which are carcinogenic?
Or places where rocks emit radiation which causes higher cancer rates than other areas?

I do not have data to hand, but I think of Radon levels in Cornwall.

https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/environment/environmental-protection/radon/

There has been a study into the links between Radon and Cancer in Cornwall, I could not find it's results.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-19558666

 

[charliebrown]

I have mentioned this before but I live near an American Civil War Battlefield were 25,000 men died in one day.

When I walk the battlefield I feel strangeness in the air, and I have seen gravel skip around on the foot paths.

I feel someone is watching me behind the trees and battle trenches.

Maybe some soldiers are not at peace?

 

[Cochise]

I'm interested in this because - vary rarely - I have experienced a strong negative reaction to a location. And, even more rarely, a strong positive reaction

 

[Tunn11]

I think the power of suggestion has to be a huge factor, although not the only one. You’d have to be a particularly insensitive moron to walk round Auschwitz with a grin on your face, and everyone else looking solemn would add to any already existing atmosphere.

I wonder if the physical layout of a location may have an effect. I find rooms with a “restricted” access can be spooky, e.g. via a corridor or flight of stairs. Having said that I have stayed in a holiday cottage where one bedroom just felt wrong from the moment I looked at it. We just used it to store the cases in the end. There is also the ultrasound argument, that some places may generate sound waves which induce a feeling of panic, being watched, etc.

I have visited battlefields which felt no better or worse than anywhere else; Hastings, Glencoe and Culloden although the battles were much older than American Civil War ones – could effects fade with time?

I have also worked alone for hours in locations that other people were nervous of even entering because of the “atmosphere”, without any qualms at all. I have also, as I’ve posted elsewhere, been somewhere where I’d never felt anything before and experienced a very strong need to leave – and quickly.

It is difficult to explain but it is a different feeling from when you can spook yourself. For example the other night I thought I’d left a greenhouse door open so out I went at one in the morning, wind blowing clouds over a half moon, tree branches rattling, etc. and I’d just been watching some reality paranormal investigation programme. It felt “spooky” but not in the way my other examples did.

I’d guess that all three factors may have an effect maybe at different times for different people, unfortunately it has become a lazy way for reality programmes to try to generate a feeling of unease in their audience and to offer an “explanation” for too many things.

As a blurb on a horror anthology I once read said; “There are certain whispers at noonday that are far worse than things that go bump in the night.”

 

[Cochise]

I have visited battlefields which felt no better or worse than anywhere else; Hastings, Glencoe and Culloden although the battles were much older than American Civil War ones – could effects fade with time?

Glencoe is one if the places I had a negative reaction. Also one corner of Caernarfon Castle. There are others.

St Peter's Bradwell, the Avebury complex and the Merry Maidens in Cornwall all positive, and in the first and last cases accompanied by a physical feeling or warmth which seemed to extend to the walls of the first and the stones of the last as well.

 

[Tunn11]

Glencoe is one if the places I had a negative reaction. Also one corner of Caernarfon Castle. There are others.

St Peter's Bradwell, the Avebury complex and the Merry Maidens in Cornwall all positive, and in the first and last cases accompanied by a physical feeling or warmth which seemed to extend to the walls of the first and the stones of the last as well.

Visited Glencoe on a bright windy day so I wonder whether the weather may have an effect? The light seems to change very quickly there and I imagine it can look very different at certain times. Although I don't like cities I've always liked York, feel very relaxed there. Hermitage castle in Scotland has a very lonely, moody feel to it. Caernarfon Castle was heaving with tourists when we went, difficult to feel anything much in the noise and bustle!

 

[Endlessly Amazed]

Thaks, MO, for starting such an interesting thread.

I have no clear opinion about specific places or structures having a good or bad vibe. I vaguely think it is likely, but can’t think of how to design evidence for it, because human response is so mixed with our preconceptions, our mood at the start of the experience, our physical state, who we are with, the weather, etc.

My husband and I went to visit the Saint Meinrad retreat center in southern Indiana, USA, about 20 years ago. We both had been in many Catholic churches and structures of the same dimensions before. The St. Meinrad church was very different in “feel” from those equivalent buildings. Upon entering the church, we were both struck by the sense of calm beneficence in the church. It is not very old; the Benedictine monks started it in the 1850s. However, it is prayed in continually by the monks in shifts, and the main goal of the place is to contemplate God.

We went back once or twice to see if our original impression of calm beneficence was still in effect. It was, unwaveringly, but since we had the expectation of it on the subsequent visits, we did not think this effect was conclusive.

 

[staticgirl]

When I was little we visited Alton Towers, including the great house. I took a big exception to the house it scared me rigid. No idea why.

There was also a layby that the family stopped in, in Scotland. Mum and dad had been travelling for 12 hours and needed a break. I was really scared. I looked at a map afterwards and I think we stopped near one of the less significant battle sites, I wish i could remember where but I was just a tweenager at the time. Culloden had no affect on me.

 

[pandacracker]

St Peter's Bradwell

With you there, mate. A really atmospheric place. Use to be my favourite day trip when I lived in Essex.

 

[Sharon Hill]

There seems to be so many factors that could influence a personal impression of a place. No one thing that is measurable has been identified.

"Sciencey" ideas don't hold weight. As discussed in the Stone Tape thread, there is no mechanism for "emotion" to be recorded or retained in the environment. You could test this premise - and to some degree it has been done before (I'd have to dig out the references from Wiseman, French ??). But the results are highly dependent on expectations. There is no reasonable evidence for geopathic stress/earth energies.

But there is no doubt that certain places have inherent spookiness. http://spookygeology.com/category/places/

 

[Coal]

There seems to be so many factors that could influence a personal impression of a place. No one thing that is measurable has been identified.

"Sciencey" ideas don't hold weight. As discussed in the Stone Tape thread, there is no mechanism for "emotion" to be recorded or retained in the environment. You could test this premise - and to some degree it has been done before (I'd have to dig out the references from Wiseman, French ??). But the results are highly dependent on expectations. There is no reasonable evidence for geopathic stress/earth energies.

But there is no doubt that certain places have inherent spookiness. http://spookygeology.com/category/places/

I suspect infrasound might play a part in some spooky feelings, magnetic fields might, but they'd need to be very strong.

Conversely I recently found a (deliberately) planted circle of trees that was uncannily quiet in the middle - but like all gratings, they only allow the passage of wavelengths as a function of the spacing. I did a quick ‘back of the envelope’ on sound wavelengths and the 1-2m spacing of the trees would mostly likely have attenuated the transmission of sounds of under (about) 200Hz inside the circle.

A stone circle might exhibit the same effect, depending on spacing.

 

[pandacracker]

I did a quick ‘back of the envelope’ on sound wavelengths and the 1-2m spacing of the trees would mostly likely have attenuated the transmission of sounds of under (about) 200Hz inside the circle.

What does that mean practically? (for I am a pandacracker of very little brain)

 

[Coal]

What does that mean practically? (for I am a pandacracker of very little brain)

It means that evenly 2m spaced trees would tend to block sound waves that have a wavelength of 2m or more (around a G3 note and lower).

The tree trunks filter out the bass.

 

[Coal]

So like this...this circle is near a motorway and inside the circle the lower frequency sounds from the motorway are much diminished. The foliage also deadens other sounds, so it's noticably quieter.

...although thinking about it a bit more, sounds are not blocked completely (I'd got the model for EM radiation shielding effectiveness in my mind, not quite the same) but the sounds inside the circle are diffracted by the trees and will form an interference patterns, so there will be 'dead spots' inside the circle and these will be larger and more noticable at low frequencies.

 

[Mikefule]

View attachment 54489

So like this...this circle is near a motorway and inside the circle the lower frequency sounds from the motorway are much diminished. The foliage also deadens other sounds, so it's noticably quieter.

Perhaps it is an artefact of the way the photo was taken or put together, but the shadows and light patches imply it was taken on a world with 2 suns. Is this perhaps on Tatooine?

Back to the spooky vibes thing: I have had one experience that loosely falls into this category. My later experiences in the same place apear to confirm that it was my reaction to the circumstances rather than anything inherent in the place.

In my days as an insurance assessor, I was once asked to visit an area of disused land near Mansfield, Notts (UK) to see if I could find evidence of a particular stolen car that may have been taken there and burned out.

I knew Mansfield well, but had never visited this particular area, known to locals as "The Desert." There was a large area of fairly flat sand left over from quarrying. A big dark spoil heap towered over it, and the track that I had to drive down was muddy, deeply rutted, and had bits of broken car, and dumped washing machines etc. scattered along its edges.

I drove for some distance on a surface that was more or less at the limit of what I thought my small saloon car was capable of handling. I was splashing through deep muddy and oil puddles, and having to divert around fallen branches and piles of abandoned builder's rubbish.

Eventually, I reached a small "clearing": an area wider than the track, with a high earth bank on one side, and trees on the other. In the clearing was a sizeable pond which was opaque, oily, and lifeless. The roofs of rusted and burned out cars could be seen breaking the surface of the sludgy water.

Some of the trees next to the pond were dead — probably poisoned by the pollution — and some had been burned. I remember seeing a car tyre hanging high in the branches of one dead tree, far higher than I could imagine anyone throwing it.

All around, there were damaged and burned out cars, some upside down, some on their sides, others in heaps, perhaps where the land owner had pushed them to one side to maintain access. There were deeply rutted 4 wheel drive tracks carved into the side of the embankment of a disused railway. The arch of the railway bridge was blocked with refuse, and covered with graffiti.

I sat there in my car and looked around. All I could see was deliberate wanton destruction: destruction of the cars, of course, but also of the fresh clean water in the pond, the trees, the environment, even the bridge. People had clearly invested time and energy into causing this mindless devastation.

I am not usually a sensitive type, but the word that came unbidden into my mind was "Evil".

I sat there in silence for a few minutes, then started the car engine and drove back the way I had come. I usually listen to music in the car, or sing to myself, but I drove in complete silence for probably 20 minutes before the cloud of gloom lifted from me.

A year or two later, I rediscovered this place when I was out on my unicycle, riding from the nearby Sherwood Pines. This time, my reaction was less profound.

I was in the habit of writing up my more adventurous rides in the unicycle forum. Rides past this pond and onto the "Desert" and a nearby black and lifeless area of colliery waste I christened the "Cursed Earth" became a regular feature. The pond became The Black Lagoon.

Readers of 2000AD comic will understand the source of the name, the Cursed Earth.

It was only that first visit that gave me the powerful emotional reaction and the feeling of Evil. On later visits, I had no strong reaction except that I was wary of meeting the sort of people who might have caused the damage.

I passed the site most recently in March this year. The Black Lagoon has long been filled in. Large parts of the Desert and Cursed Earth are now greened over. It's not beautiful, but it is no longer a lifeless wasteland.

I had a look back through some of my unicycle forum posts and found this picture of the Black Lagoon, taken some years after that first visit. It proves it existed, but it does not do justice to the desolation I experienced on that first visit.

Also, for comparison, here is the unedited text of something I wrote in the unicycle forum in 2007, which I found after writing the above description:

The Black Lagoon was until recently a shallow, grey black slimy oily pond, dotted with the roofs of burned out cars, and surrounded by dead trees. I am not superstitious, but the first time I went there, I shuddered and thought it an evil place. Stupid hate-filled people had destroyed every living thing, and wantonly burned and smashed stolen cars and motorcycles.

I remember that first visit, and not speaking or even humming a tune to myself for half an hour after I left, so deep was the impression it made on me. Now the landowners have started to reclaim it, removing the worst of the debris, draining the pool, and filling it with sand.

 

[Coal]

Perhaps it is an artefact of the way the photo was taken or put together, but the shadows and light patches imply it was taken on a world with 2 suns. Is this perhaps on Tatooine?

I used the panorama setting on the phone to take it, but it does loook weird I agree.

Apologies by the way, I got my transverse and longitudinal waves mixed up.

 

[pandacracker]

I got my transverse and longitudinal waves mixed up.

Ohhhh...

So thats why I had trouble understanding.

 

[Fenn Lost]

I like the Geopathic Stress Theory. It's akin to my (relatively poor and under studied) understanding of leylines and dowsing rods.

I have always believed ghosts to be echoes or disturbances of the past rather than physical manifestations in the present. I find more substance in the Earth holding energy (or releasing it) than the lost spirit that still lingers.

Places that tend to give me bad vibes are usually people related, I know which pubs to avoid

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

I sat there in my car and looked around. All I could see was deliberate wanton destruction: destruction of the cars, of course, but also of the fresh clean water in the pond, the trees, the environment, even the bridge. People had clearly invested time and energy into causing this mindless devastation.

I am not usually a sensitive type, but the word that came unbidden into my mind was "Evil".

Yes. I think I would too. There’s an awful kind of dead-eyed nihilism that goes into acts of wanton destruction.

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

Avebury, to me, always has a string and welcoming feeling. Like being hugged my my nan as I remember it, and I’ve been there at all times of year including a misty winter night after a meal in the Red Lion.

Bryn Celli Ddu on Anglesy felt electric. I went there feeling quite poorly, as if about to go down with flu’, but it was liking stepping into a kind of cold electricity and I realised in the car back that I felt fine.

My uncle felt the Glencoe atmosphere. He said he’d only experienced that in two places, and one of them was there.

We hear about well known places having atmospheres but I am fascinated by the little areas that could be anywhere, and normal houses — that bend in a road, that tree, that corner of a field, that one part of a walk where you feel uneasy, that one room.

 

[Coal]

We hear about well known places having atmospheres but I am fascinated by the little areas that could be anywhere, and normal houses — that bend in a road, that tree, that corner of a field, that one part of a walk where you feel uneasy, that one room.

Yes, exactly, those places. Otherwise unremarkable, but...something is off.

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

Yes, exactly, those places. Otherwise unremarkable, but...something is off.

This! Yes! I find them far more interesting than the places everyone knows about.

 

[Coal]

This! Yes! I find them far more interesting than the places everyone knows about.

I have a personal list of those, place where you keep checking nothing's there. One, for instance, was a short bank-side path on a lake between two fishing pitches. Utterly unremarkable. But I just dont like it.

 

[Bad Bungle]

A few years after I left my old Grammar School I went back as an adult (can't remember why). The corridor passing the Head's Office and Staff room was as oppressive and sombre as it had ever been - hundreds of years of despair and humiliation ingrained into the walls

 

[Coal]

A few years after I left my old Grammar School I went back as an adult (can't remember why). The corridor passing the Head's Office and Staff room was as oppressive and sombre as it had ever been - hundreds of years of despair and humiliation ingrained into the walls

You're not an old RGS'er?

 

[Bad Bungle]

You're not an old RGS'er?

Not familiar with the acronym so probably not.

 

[Sharon Hill]

If places really had an inherent "vibe" that was genuine (and not just subjective), why have these circumstances not been measured objectively?
The mystical connotations of "earth energies" are like nails on a chalkboard to geologists who study the earth. If it exists, it can be measured. We can measure the most minute energy releases, yet there is nothing in leylines, dowsing, or earth energies that have ever been documented - even though they supposedly occur worldwide. If "energy" was real, why is it so subjective and unmeasurable? IMO, if there was something to this, it would have already been documented (and exploited - other than via paranormalists).

Edit: I'm only talking about "earth energy" mystical places here, not ones where the "vibe" seems weird because there are plenty of natural factors that can go into that.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

If I may be permitted to bump a post I made to the Crossroads Spirit thread back in 2016:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/crossroads-spirit.12811/#post-1617580

I sensed something - a sort of contemplative melancholy, when I stood on the spot of the old gibbet where the murder took place in 1786 and where the perpetrators were hung in chains. I suspect though, that it was due to my expectations and the almost palpable feeling of occupying the very spot where a grim historical event occurred. Had I not known the brutal history of the location, I would probably have walked right past the spot, insouciant of any negative vibes.