Halloween

All Hallow's Eve.  Sounds rather romantic.  It was never intended to be scary per se, however if it is indeed linked to Samhain as some historians believe, it would not be as unusual, because most of the modern day American holidays are based on paegan celebrations.



Since Halloween did not actually exist until the 1500s as All Hallows Evening, abbreviated as "Hallowe'en", for it to be the day before All Saint's Day where you celebrate the Saints both recognized and unrecognized as they are the way the dead can reach heaven.  The next day is All Souls day, or Dia de las Muertos, where you celebrate that the dead are on their journey to heaven. so you can see it was convenient to turn Samhain (a celebration of harvest and going from the light side of the year to the dark side, where bad spirits can cross over) into something the christian faith can celebrate too.



Strange, in Samhain, they would celebrate by dressing in ghoulish dress or costumes so the evil spirits couldn't tell they weren't one of them and take them away.  Hmmm sounds familiar. 




In some countries, like Portugal, it was/is a custom on All Saints day to have the children go door to door and receive cakes and fruit for which in return they would pray for the dead. curious how that works out.



Another derivation is Hallowmas, which actually is All Saints as well, or hallowed mass.  Some take it to the Celtic celebration of the Crone Moon which signifies the old wisened one, which usually occurs in the same time.  It signifies the new year in celtic times and many modern covens follow this.  It begins a dusk, the night before;  hmm like trick or treating at night...hmmm.  they also carved grotesque faces out of turnips  that had been hollowed out to distract evil spirits from the year's dead, which were slated to "cross over" if you will, the following day.



So; here is the rundown:
In celtic time, they celebrated Samhain; time of harvest at the Crone moon.  They feasted and lit a big fire to scare away evil for the dark part of the year.  They would then light their hearth fires with fire taken from the bonfire to protect them the remainder of the winter.



The Romans conquered them, they wanted all to celebrate their customes so they incorporated harvest day Celebration of the goddess Pomona (the apple) and their day of the dead and moved them to Samhain time so everyone would be celebrating together. 



Christianity took over that part of the world, but traditions were hard to break, so in the 800s they (the Pope) moved All Saints day, to celebrate the Saints from May to the same time as Samhaim.  They then created All Souls days to have the parades and bonfires for the dead.



By the 1500s Britan, who ran the church took the evening before All Saints day just like Samhain which starts at dusk the day before and made it all Hallows Eve, incorporating the feast of Pomona by bobbing for apples and giving fruit and nuts to the children creating a happy holiday for the church.



By the time we reach America who is a great melting pot of people to celebrate as they please, it did not catch on, at least not at first.  But with further emmigants coming to this lant the tradition began to meld into the celebration we have today.  by the mid 1800s they had Autumn festivals and Harvest Festivals but not yet halloween as we know it.

By 1846 after the flood of irish immigrants people began to shed the non-secular meaning and as a community they would have the children dress and ask for money and treats.  By the turn of the century when spiritualism was still high, it was a time for adults to have great parties, with divination (including the apple) being part of the games; food and costumes became grand.



Into the 20th century adults wanting to protect their children from frights made it more communal and more secular separating church from the celebration.



Halloween, sounds like candy to me, All Hallows Eve sounds romantic and mysterious, Samhaim sounds, odd and unusual.  which one will you celebrate?

Where Did this Ghost Equipment Come From?

Mostly from the presumption that there are electrical and magnetic forces that make up our lives and this planet.

Most of the more popular pieces are/were originally made for other professions, electrician takes a lot of them.  EMF ElectroMagnetic Field detectors (K2 meters et al.), Gauss meters, and the like.  Plumbers have temperature sensors as do window and insulation installers.  Infrared, once relegated to spy and military uses, is not only commonplace, but many know how to rough shod a camera or electronic binoculars at home.

Our cameras are only getting more intelligent, computer programs and depixelization is more commonplace and face recognition software, streaming video from phones.  Ghost investigation was not the original intent, but then again, Viagra was a mistake too.

On occasion you will find something more specialized... a dowsing rod for instance, originally believed to detect metals and then water for those 'sensitive' to a pointer; and there may be something to it.   Although Martin Luther in 1518 denounced it as witchcraft, some still practiced it and it became popular again.  Who is to say one person is or is not sensitive to the magnetics or even the static electrical influences of the earth and can feel when there is a change around them?  Just as some people are more susceptible to migraines or pain in their joints when the weather changes.

 There is also the newer “but not really” telephone to the dead.  Originally Francis Grierson (Jessie Shepherd ) and Thomas Edison had a patent on a phone that might talk to the dead.  It never worked.  Several years ago someone said they perfected it, and many variations of deciphering “white noise” has come up.  Whether there is any basis, the jury is still out.

 EVP (electronic voice phenomena) is a similar functioning white noise decipherer.  So how do we know we are right?  How do we know it means anything?  The same way all science (and that includes medicine) is proven or disproven, time and research.  Writing everything down or filming it to document what works, what doesn’t, can it be repeated consistently, can there be other factors at work? Or is it all a mistake?

For those who believe, no explanation is necessary, for those who do not, none will suffice.
Joseph Dunninger, mentalist, 20^th century.

Are You Actually Hunting Ghosts in a Ghost Hunt?

Are You Actually Hunting Ghosts in a Ghost Hunt?

A good question.  What do you do with a ghost after you capture it on your hunt?  Are you supposed to have one of the electrical lightning bolt gizmos like the ghostbusters? And store them away in some vault in a firehouse?

What if the name were really Ghost searchers, or Ghost researchers?  Sounds more applicable to what we really do.  If you look at the current understanding of "ghosts" they are here all the time, wandering, WATCHING, just "hanging".  So do they need to be found? Maybe we are Ghost discoverers, like Christopher Columbus, finding and claiming things that were there all the time.

So it still begs the question of what do we do when we have located one?  Take a picture? Record your findings, tell a friend?  Sounds more and more like research.  To me, this is where the research really begins.  Who is that lady? Or that gentleman or child or cowboy?  Don't you want to know more?

It takes time, a lot of time, and sometimes you will be very disappointed, but never deterred.  Perhaps the excitement is in finding something no one has discovered before, or confirming a previous finding, but isn't it all complete when you can finally tie up all of the loose ends?  You feel complete.  You understand.  You know.  what a feeling.

One ghost hunt (and I use the term loosely) we did, had unusual findings.  We knew about the cemetery, we knew about the people, where the bodies were buried, but we were in the single male section and only one instrument started going off.  Obviously a malfunction, right?  That would be my first guess.  But when you looked around at the section of people in this group, they were all female.  Oh yes we are in the SINGLE male area. 

So we asked of course.  All other machines stayed silent, the temperature did not vary more than 2 degrees, yet when all the women laughed, the machine would go off.  If we attempted to leave the section in any direction the machine would go off.  It did not matter who held it, who asked the questions the answers were repetitious and consistant.  After 2 minutes we had to go searching for other non-warm bodies to bother.  Silly as it sounds we said our goodbyes and went to the family plot section.

That is where the other machines acted normally, some blips, some reaction, then more normal active reactions.  Then out of the blue the original machine starting going off in fits and starts.  Another K2 device stared going off as if answering the 1st.  Almost humorous.  What was really interesting is, if we got the 2 machines near each other, they would start going very fast and very high readings.  It was not relational to the ground, only to each other.

Ok, the only thing we could not really conclude was if it were a fight or happy to see each other.  My best guess would be jealousy.  If indeed the first reactionor were from the single men's area, and reacted well when the ladies all laughed, do you really think they want to share the attention?

We will never know for sure, but we took pictures, we have written it down, we have succeeded in our research.

A happy ghost hunt.

Ghostly Tours in History.

Silly things at a seance

Have you been to a séance?

We do them, so we are used to them. Nothing is made up, no trickery, as much like the Victorian era as possible. Mostly we get answers from the flickering candles, occasionally a guest will be talked to, or touched, and once the curtain even wrapped itself around someone's leg, but then there are the ones where a case of the giggles is very contagious. True it can be a very nervous situation, but I really can't tell you if it was nerves, a sign, or just the silliness of giggles.


Séances are supposed to be theatrical for some reason, but if you are just welcoming someone into your circle in a place popular to "other siders", does it really matter if there are comments or giggles? As they say it is what it is and is what it is supposed to be.

You can record it if you want, it doesn’t change anything, however you must do it hand’s free because you cannot break the circle, the flow of energy. So far, one person recorded it on a tripod and there is something that walked behind someone in the circle but it was fleeting.

Another day, another séance.

A day in the life of San Diego's favorite ghost tour and ghost experience.  Ghostly Tours in History. 

Why? because it is all real.

What about a Ghost Tour?

Well what about a ghost tour?  What about the paranormal? 
Why would anyone go?

It seems the unknown is deliciously, macabrely attractive.  Something you can't take your eyes off of, even if you are unsure or frightened. 

Things that cannot be explained happen all the time.  Is that ghostly?  Is that paranormal? Or is that just something, well, unexplained...yet?

In my many years with the subject I have found it is always best to start skeptically.  Always search for the answers.  Sometimes in history.  You know what they say, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana)  So maybe we already know and are just running in circles trying to explain it when it was in front of us all the time.  Skepticism is good as well, as long as it does not come from fear.  Fear of being wrong, fear of what could happen, or fear of being called a nut.

You know, Margaret and Kate Fox, 2 little girls with the help of their older sister Leah, told a story and stuck to it, until their husbands said they would have nothing to do with such nonsense. So they stayed quiet, but the legend grew in leaps and bounds. When they did the impossible in those days, left their husbands, they were offered very big money to tell how it all was a lie.  They had fooled, effectively, the world. 

Other "experts" came out and confirmed what was happening to the 2 girls and made big money and careers based on this.  It changed society as a whole.  You weren't crazy to believe, just one of the "in" crowd.  As usual, scams and scammers appeared, but the world was secure, they still had living proof in the girls that this was real.  After all it had been tested by doctors and scientists.

http://www.prairieghosts.com/foxsisters.html
http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/Fox%20sisters.html
http://www.worldspirituality.org/fox-sisters.html
http://www.geohanover.com/docs/fox2.htm

However, fear of ridicule (from their husbands in particular) kept them from continuing and created a drinking issue, and fear of poverty made them give it all up.  For a mere $5000 (in 1888 money mind you) they went on a great stage and told how they had made fools of the world that snapping or cracking were the noises that sounded like "bumps in the night", and poof the popular world of spiritualism faced a large chasm, those who were thought fools who still believed and those who were the intelligent ones and said they had never believed in such tomfoolery.

For their deed which they soon recanted, the ladies died paupers and in pain. Ah, fear...

Hollywood came along and found that sex sells, but so does fear.  Fear of the unknown.  The more dangerous the better.

So, I guess it comes down to this, do you want a thrill?  Do you want to be frightened? Or do you just want to find out for real?  That is how you pick your ghost tour.  That is how you go on your paranormal adventure.  It is anyone's choice. And it is all fun.

As for me, I can go to a movie or rent one for that matter, I want to know the history, I want to find out what is real, what are the secrets, without having to repeat the past.  How about you?