Ghosts: trick or treat?
This elusive question was addressed last week in total seriousness by Professor Archie Roy, at the Union's Halloween Forum. Halloween was hardly the perfect occasion for serious proponents of the paranormal to argue their case, being renowned for its reputation as a night for fun, weird games and trick or treating. Nevertheless, this is precisely what members of the panel chose to do, and from early in the evening it was clear that the variety of subjects discussed was as diverse as the theories propagated to explain them.
As President of the Oxford UFO Research Society I am naturally intrigued by phenomena that seem to defy rational attempts of explanation; and although psychic phenomena do not constitute my primary area of interest, the paranormal is a subject that has perpetually drawn my attention throughout life. Imbued with mystery and unknown potential, the paranormal intrigues our imaginations, provoking unparalleled wonder and teasing our natural desires to understand.
The first speaker, Professor Archie Roy, addressed the evidence which has accumulated after more than 100 years of psychical research that some component of the mind may survive after death. As one would expect from a researcher of his experience, Archie's presentation was detailed and enlightening, focusing on four specific aspects of parapsychology; possession, apparitions, reincarnation and mediumship. Taken collectively, these phenomena, he argued, present a powerful affront to the assertion that the mind is simply the brain in action. For if this were the case, how would we explain spectral apparitions of the deceased that appear in bodily form and convey messages to the living?
Of greater interest was the presentation delivered by Maurice Grosse, who is one of the most experienced poltergeist and psychical investigators in the country. Grosse is convinced of the reality of such phenomena, due largely to his investigation of the famous Enfield Poltergeist case of 1977, in which the Harper family became the focus of an unknown presence for the duration of two long years.
The haunting began relatively benevolently; a spontaneous knocking on walls and floors became an almost nightly occurrence, furniture slid across the floor and was thrown down the stairs, and drawers were wrenched out of dressing tables. But as time passed, the events became increasingly violent. On one occasion, Janet, the 11-year old daughter of the family, was pulled from her bed by an unseen entity and flung about her bedroom, witnessed by several neighbours passing by and looking up into the girl's bedroom. On another date, a passing gentleman noticed a red cushion lying on the roof of the house. What he did not know, however, was that the family inside were busily searching for it, unaware how or when it had materialised on the roof outside.
Maurice Grosse personally spent over six months living with the family, checking their testimonies and gaining first hand experience of the phenomena. First a marble was thrown at him by an unseen hand, he saw doors open and close by themselves, and claimed to feel a sudden breeze that seemed to move up from his feet to his head.
No satisfactory explanation for the happenings at the house was ever found.
As someone who is not solely a reporter of oddities, but who also has an active involvement in investigating sightings, I can personally vouch for the sincerity of many who make such reports. Something is being seen but it isn't known what. In the words of Carl Jung, "this formation leaves the question of 'seeing' open. Something material could be seen, or something psychic could be seen. Both are realities, but of different kinds." But which reality?
During the forum, Dr. Richard Wiseman, who runs a parapsychological Research Unit at the University of Hertfordshire, delivered a lively, humorous lecture designed to answer this very question. In most cases, he argued, witnesses of paranormal events are misled or mistaken, sometimes influenced by the embellished stories of others.
A sceptical perspective of the evidence is undeniably important if parapsychology to become a serious area of study. However, Wiseman's few well-selected cases of fraud and mistaken interpretation might demonstrate these mental capacities of the human condition, but they do not, certainly, effectively negate the case for the existence of paranormal phenomena. For ultimately, the very existence of such phenomena implies that the picture we have formed of the world is incorrect, or at the very least, incomplete.
9th Nov 2000