ghosts

"Edward Kelly, a Magician. in the Act of invoking the Spirit of a Deceased Person" via Wikipedia

Here’s a recent Q&A at AllExperts.com about ghosts. Seems I’ve been getting a lot of these lately…

• Paranormal Phenomena/ghosts

Related Articles

• Top 10 Ghost Ships (uniquedaily.com)
• We Need Your Help! (purestrange.wordpress.com)
• Henrik the Ghost (sporeflections.wordpress.com)
• Our New Site ‘Ghost Vids’ (purestrange.wordpress.com)
• Ghost Encounters (mysteryofiniquity.wordpress.com)
• Are Ghosts Real? (socyberty.com)
• “Ghost Rider 2″ will beat the flaming ass of “Ghost Rider” [Rumors] (io9.com)
• The Ghostly Hauntings of the City of Chester (epages.wordpress.com)
• Exorcism and Social Combat: from Unofficial Games (zzarchov.blogspot.com)
• Paranormal Activities and Ghosts. Do You Believe? (socyberty.com)

Paranormal Phenomena/Graveyards…

The Spirit of the Dead Keeps Watch via Wikipedia

The topic of Ghosts and the paranormal seems to be hot right now. Maybe it’s a way to keep the winter blues away. Or maybe….

In any case, here’s another Q&A at AllExperts.com, where I really enjoy doing volunteer work:

• Paranormal Phenomena/Graveyards…

Related Articles

• Paranormal Phenomena/My child says our house is “dark” (mclark.wordpress.com)
• Armchair skeptics (cubiksrube.wordpress.com)
• Somber and (Occasionally) Sober (pinkbananaworld.com)
• Disneyland Is Basically A Giant Graveyard (thefrisky.com)
• An amnesiac zombie teams up with a hyperactive paranormal detective [Webcomics] (io9.com)
• “Men Hate to Die” (chessiesphotos.wordpress.com)
• Glastonbury Tor UFO Caught On Camera? (purestrange.wordpress.com)
• Intelligent vs Residual Hauntings: A Way to Tell the Difference (epages.wordpress.com)
• Paranormal Activities and Ghosts. Do You Believe? (socyberty.com)
• Investigate the Paranormal at the Pumpkin Morgue (dreadcentral.com)

Paranormal Phenomena/My child says our house is “dark”

Example of a subject in a Ganzfeld experiment via Wikipedia

One of the more interesting things about volunteering at AllExperts.com is that I’ve come to realize that quite a few everyday people experience paranormal phenomena.

Perhaps because these folks can be anonymous, a virtual outpouring of the unusual comes in on a fairly regular basis.

Here’s a Q&A that involves several possible paranormal phenomena and my comments about individual difference.

• Paranormal Phenomena/My child says our house is “dark”

Related Articles

• The Influence of Paranormal Television (epages.wordpress.com)
• Intelligent vs Residual Hauntings: A Way to Tell the Difference (epages.wordpress.com)
• Believe It or Not! (mohighlibrary.wordpress.com)
• Book Talk: Tale of part-angel teen a gift for author (reuters.com)
• Is ‘Atrocious’ the Next ‘Paranormal Activity?’ (moviefone.com)
• Chicago Paranormal and History tour Tuesday Nights at The Irish Legend in Willow Springs, IL (chicagonow.com)
• Ryan Buell leaving Paranormal State beacuse “we need some freedom to be and to grow” (realityblurred.com)
• What are some real-life mysteries? (ask.metafilter.com)
• Paranormal Activities and Ghosts. Do You Believe? (socyberty.com)
• Off-Season for the Witch (kestalusrealm.wordpress.com)

Review – Real Ghosts U.K., DVD 1: The Mermaid Inn

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Title: Real Ghosts UK: Ghosts Aren’t Real? – Think Again!
Genre: Documentary, Paranormal
Production Company: Reality Entertainment

Real Ghosts U.K. is a 3 DVD set bound to astonish ghost hunters and anyone wanting to believe that there’s more to life than meets the eye.

Disc 1, The Mermaid Inn, takes us straight into the heart of a fascinating, centuries old inn, located in Southeast England. Here, an unabashed medium, Patrick McNamara, claims to see a wide variety of otherworldly presences.

Among the dead we vicariously meet are a hard-nosed tobacco importer, a comely yet melancholic woman, a sheep dealer, a baby stuck in time, a dog, and many other “incidental spirits,” as McNamara puts it.

But what makes The Mermaid Inn truly remarkable is the fact that not just McNamara, but several employees at the inn and the innkeeper, herself, seem fully convinced that the beguiling old place is haunted. Accordingly, they relate several ghost stories and other strange happenings that have been reported by startled guests.

Even if we don’t believe in the stories, just seeing the interior of this enchanting old inn is good enough, and might bring about that mysterious “old time feeling,” as Hank Williams Sr. once described it.

As with most paranormal accounts, skeptics will likely sneer as fans cheer. This seems particularly so with the rest of Disc 1, where McNamara leads a so-called physical circle recorded under infrared.

What’s a physical circle?

For the uninitiated, it’s a group of people, seated in a circle, interested in becoming attuned with supposed spiritual presences and ethereal vibrations. Some call it a magic circle, an idea roundly denounced in the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917 but treated more academically in the 2003 version.

I found this part of the disc slightly less compelling than the opening segment. The main shortcoming here, as I see it, is that we’re told the cameras can’t pick up the spooks and other anomalies which participants in the circle seem to confront. So we’ve got to go on blind faith.

For me, however, seeing is believing.

Still, ardent spiritualists and the merely curious will enjoy watching participants seeming to encounter all sorts of odd things at the inn. In addition, visible orbs as well as audible voices and creaks are apparently captured on camera.

So who knows…

To add to the mystery, the proprietor, herself, is part of the physical circle, along with her employees.

It’s doubtful that publicizing ghost stories and eerie apparitions would be particularly good for her business. After all, this is no hole in the wall but a highly respected inn, well-ranked by its diverse clientele.

Indeed, it seems that the individuals in this film really do believe what they’re saying, and it’s not just a clever hoax.

The Mermaid Inn also spells out some core concepts in parapsychology, such as photoplasm and etheric body. And it forwards a theory to explain the documented psi phenomenon of objects seeming to move by themselves.

Too bad we can’t witness most of what the participants in the physical circle seem to see. Instead, we’re compelled to give the benefit of the doubt.

But that’s okay.

Believe it or not, The Mermaid Inn is literally oozing with old world charm and numinous power. And that, alone, makes it well worth watching.

–MC

Discs 2 and 3 are reviewed here!

To add to the mystery, the proprietor, herself, is part of the physical circle, along with her employees.

Related Articles

• Ghost hunters guests at Alexander Inn (knoxnews.com)
• Five Haunted Bed and Breakfast Inns of Massachusetts (trifter.com)
• Are Ghosts Safe? Two Strong Reasons Ghosts Can’t Hurt You (socyberty.com)
• The ghost at the Heartland Cafe is still haunting (westseattleherald.com)

Review – Real Ghosts U.K., DVDs 2 & 3: Scotland’s Haunted Bunker & The Guy Fawkes Inn

Image courtesy Reality Entertainment

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Title: Real Ghosts UK: Ghosts Aren’t Real? – Think Again!
Genre: Documentary, Paranormal
Production Company: Reality Entertainment

Real Ghosts U.K. is a 3 DVD set bound to astonish ghost hunters and anyone wanting to believe that there’s more to life than meets the eye.

Because there’s a lot of material here, I reviewed these discs over the span of a few weeks. Disc 1, The Mermaid Inn, is fully reviewed here.

Disc 2, Scotland’s Haunted Bunker, takes us deep underground into an actual Scottish bunker, built to preserve government leaders in case of a massive military attack.

This is interesting footage. We see old radio equipment and other electronic gear, designed, I guess, to enable the rulers to broadcast an SOS.

Soon we learn that the place is known to be haunted. So two paranormal researchers lead us through some supernatural accounts and, as in disc 1, the alleged medium Patrick McNamara heads a physical circle.

What’s a physical circle?

For the uninitiated, it’s a group of people, seated in a circle, interested in becoming attuned with supposed spiritual presences and ethereal vibrations. Some call it a magic circle, an idea roundly denounced in the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917 but treated more academically in the 2003 version.

Much like in disc 1, I found this part of the program slightly less compelling than the opening segment. The main shortcoming here, as I see it, is that the cameras can’t pick up the spirits and other anomalies which participants in the circle seem to confront. So we’ve got to go on blind faith.

For me, however, seeing is believing.

Still, ardent spiritualists and the merely curious will enjoy watching participants seeming to encounter all sorts of odd things.

Disc 3, The Guy Fawkes Inn, begins by showing us the enchanting Guy Fawkes Inn, along with a smattering of related history and provocative questions. Patrick McNamara returns again, this time telling us about a panoply of spirits and spiritual presences that are said to haunt the inn.

This DVD tends to emphasize, even more than the previous two, the idea that spiritual presences of the dead can draw energy away from the living.

McNamara also suggests that a physically hot kitchen can feel spiritually chilly, and that he smells spiritual odors – some pleasant, some sickening – that the ordinary senses can’t pick up.

Employees are guided through another physical circle, and all sorts of fantastic things seem to happen–to include, no less, the appearance of Michael Jackson’s face. As with the first two discs, however, we can’t really see most of the strange claims. So many do sound a bit strange.

But we should keep an open mind. I suspect that if I panned this part of the DVD I’d probably start seeing something weird just like the stuff described in this video. It’s easy to close off the mind and accept a materialistic paradigm. It takes a bit more insight and, perhaps, imagination to consider that there just might be more to this world than green eggs and ham.

Green eggs and ham? Whaaaa?

Just checking to make sure you’re reading carefully…

But seriously, we all know about radio waves going through the air, quite invisibly. So it’s not such a huge stretch to suppose that some gifted individuals can inwardly “see” other types of energy and presence that most of us cannot. The ability may be genetic, possibly spiritual or, perhaps, some combination.

I have no problem with that. And furthermore, the employees at the Guy Fawkes Inn give a final wrap up of the experiment, seeming to verify their experiences, even though we can’t witness them via the infrared camera.

Altogether, the three discs of Real Ghosts UK should please ghost hunters and those wanting more coverage of all things paranormal. Although we don’t literally see most of the alleged supernatural phenomena, this 3 DVD set opens a forum for discussion, which is always better than close-minded nay saying.

–MC

Disc 1 is reviewed here!

Related Articles

• A Reputation For Being Haunted (ourstrangeworld.net)
• Bisbee Journal: A Hotel Where Some Guests Have Been Dead for Years (nytimes.com)
• Exorcise an Emotional Haunting (lifescript.com)
• Watercooler: Ghost Hunters Catch the Creepy on Camera (seattlepi.com)
• Ghosts of California: A Paranormal Documentary (brighthub.com)
• On The Haunt (ourstrangeworld.net)
• Haunted Cemeteries of New England (neustravel.suite101.com)
• Paranormal Investigations, A Modern Day Seance? (chicagonow.com)
• More Haunted New England Sites (neustravel.suite101.com)
• Haunted Houses in America (socyberty.com)