Ghosts and Hauntings 101
A Procedural Manual for the Investigation of the Paranormal

The Background

Paranormal activity has been with us all through the annals of written history—and before, if one counts the oral traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation. Bu But unquestionably, we have accounts all through the "historic" period, that time, spanning the last six to seven thousand years, in which the events of man have been recorded in writing. Writing, that's the difference between history and pre-history, you know. History is, by definition, the written record of mankind. It is also, in
many cases, the written record of the spirit world as well. One of the very earliest reports of ghosts or hauntings comes to us from Herodotus, a 5th century B. C. Gr Greek historian. According to his writings, Periander, a tyrant in the city of Corinth, was visited by his wife, who returned from the dead to help him find an object he had lost.
     The noted Ro Roman statesman and author Cicero (106-43 B. C.) told the
story of Simonides, who, in an act of kindness, buried the body of a stranger.The stranger returned the kindness later by appearing to Simonides and advising him not to board a ship on which he intended to sail. Simonides heeded the warning, and it saved his life—the ship was lost at sea.
     Over the centuries, ghosts and hauntings continued to appear in classical
Greek and Ro Roman literature. A few examples include:

— The spirit of Patroclus appeared to Achilles during the siege of Troy,
asking to be properly cremated. He also brought the bad news that Achilles,
himself, would die on the plains before the city.
— The wife of Aeneas was burned during the sacking of Troy but returned
from the dead to console her grieving husband.
— Ul Ulysses was visited by the ghost of Elpenor, one of his crewmembers
who fell to his death on Circe's island. Elpenor asked that Ul Ulysses return to the
island to properly bury his body.
— Ro Roman Emperor Caligula was assassinated and then quickly cremated.
He haunted the Lamian Gardens where his ashes were buried until he was
finally given what he considered a burial befitting an emperor. He also was
said to haunt the theater where he was murdered until that structure was
destroyed by fire some years later.
— The Ro Roman poet Ovid (43 B. C.–A.D. 18) speaks of the spirit of the
murdered Remus returning to name his killer.
— In "De Divinatione," Cicero describes two men staying at a tavern,
where the innkeeper murders one of the men. His ghost then appears to his
friend to tell him where his body is hidden, and who killed him, so that he
may be decently buried.
— The Gr Greek biographer Plutarch (A.D. 46?–120?), in his "Life of
Cimon,” writes that the baths at Chaeronea were haunted. The ghost was
reported to be that of Damon, a violent man who was murdered there and
who returned regularly to moan and make other noises that were so
disturbing the baths were eventually sealed up by nearby residents.
What may be the first written account of a haunted house can be found in a
letter written by Ro Roman author, statesman and orator Pliny the Younger (A.D.
62?–c.113). He wrote to his patron, Lucias Sura, about a villa in Athens no
one would rent because of its resident ghost, who would scare overnight
guests so badly they would abandon their belongings in a hasty escape from
the place.
     The spirit would awaken the household with the clanking of chains and
other horrific noises that would grow louder and louder until, suddenly, the
hideous form of an old man would appear, complete with a long, matted
beard and disheveled white hair. He was the very picture of abject filth and
misery. His thick legs were loaded down with heavy chains, which he was
cursed to drag wearily along with low, painful moans. His wrists were
shackled, and he would stop every so often to raise his arms and shake his
bonds in either an attempt to frighten those who saw him or in a show of
anger and frustration at his miserable state of affairs.
     The notorious reputation of the villa did not, however, stop Athenian
philosopher Athenodorus from leasing it. He was broke…and found the
inexpensive rent too much of a bargain to turn down. According to Pliny,
Athenodorus met the ghost during his first night in the villa. Awakened by the
rattle of chains, he was met by the specter of the ragged, bound old man.
Deciding it was better to be frightened than to be homeless, Athenodorus
stood his ground. The old man beckoned for the philosopher to follow him,
but Athenodorus refused. No Not to be denied, the old man clanked his chains
and moaned pitifully until Athenodorus gave in and accompanied him. The
spirit led him into the garden and pointed to a spot on the ground. Then, he
vanished.
     The next morning, Athenodorus visited the local authorities and told his
story. The group returned to dig up the garden. There, exactly where the spirit
had indicated, they found a human skeleton, bound in chains. The bones were
reburied properly, the house was purified and the ghost never returned.
No Nor are Gr Greek and Ro Roman writings alone in their accounts of ghosts and
hauntings. In fact, there is not a single culture—not one—worldwide that
does not have its accounts of visitations by and communication with the spirit
world. The Orient, especially China and India, are gold mines of accounts of
paranormal activity, and No Norse mythology and tradition is full of stories of
ghosts, hauntings and communication with the spirit world. In fact, one of the
hallmarks of the No Norse religion is the belief that the honored dead went to
Valhalla and would, in the final battle, return to earth and fight on the side of
the gods at the battle of Ra Ragnarok—the Gotterdamerung.
     Let's face it—the most widely told stories of spirit encounters known to
Western man are found in the Bi Bible. From Saul's consultation with the Witch
of Endor to the resurrection of Jesus to Paul's experience on the Damascus
Road the Bible is full of accounts of communication with the dead. Nor should
we fail to mention the many visitations to Earth made by the Virgin Mary and
numerous saints.
     Yet for the most part, Christianity denies the possibility of communication
with the spirit world, and in fact, most fundamentalist Christians label any
such contact as inherently evil or satanic. Of course, there are sometimes
good reasons for this.
     Most early writings had spirits visiting to request a proper burial, to assist
loved ones and so on. However, ghostly objectives seem to have changed with
the advent of Christianity, which seems to have turned many hauntings to its
own use. Apparitions reported in the Dark Ages frequently returned to beg the
pardon of those sinned against or to atone for their own sins. These ghosts
usually appeared in human form and often bore marks, such as burns and
scars, showing the suffering they were enduring in Purgatory. Almost all of the
ghosts of the era warned the living of the need to honor the sacraments and
obey the laws of the Church. According to Ro Roman Catholic theology, Purgatory
is an ethereal state or place between heaven and hell. The souls of those who
have died in grace must suffer while being cleansed of their pardonable sins.
Only then are they granted admission to heaven.
     The first official use of the word purgatory is sometimes credited to an
ecclesiastical letter written to Pope Innocent IV in 1254. Purgatory was
discussed at the Council of Lyons in 1274 and again at the Council of Florence
(1438–1443). The Councils declared that communication with the dead and
messages from the dead were a reality.
     However, the wheels of change began to turn during the 16th century,
when Protestant writers and Re Reformation thinkers began to question the very
nature of the afterlife—and the nature of ghosts and hauntings.
The Council of Trent (1545–1563) confirmed the Catholic Church's belief
in a spirit-inhabited purgatory. However, as a counter move, Protestants began
preaching that ghostly apparitions were merely illusions caused by angels or,
more likely, demons.
     Catholic writer N. Taillepied (d. 1589), a Capuchin monk and Doctor of
Theology, also suggested the presence of satanic spirits, saying they could take
the form of deceased loved ones; and he listed several ways to tell if one was
dealing with a demon, as opposed to a good or neutral spirit. According to
Taillepied, an evil spirit was more likely to:

— Hurt you, such as by biting or pinching, or cause physical damage to
your house or belongings.
— Flatter or tempt you. Apparently, angelic spirits either won't or don't
need to do so.
— Appear as a lion, bear, black dog, toad, snake or cat. A good ghost
would manifest itself as a dove, lamb, handsome man with a halo or person
dressed in white.
— Have loud, harsh voices, speak heresy and with conceit, particularly if
speaking ill of the Church. Go Good spirits have soothing, musical voices and
admit to their sins with tears and groans.
     Taillepied did offer suggestions as to what to do if an evil spirit was
encountered. While he explained that a sword would have no more effect on
an apparition than a pin in a pincushion, a prayer and the sign of the cross on
one’s forehead could work miracles. Quite naturally, he concluded that, just
to be safe, it also didn't hurt if one would avoid speaking any blasphemy and,
of course, spend the rest of one's life obeying and taking part in the
sacraments of the Church.
     It is easy to see that Protestant and Catholic took differing sides in the
controversy regarding contact with spirits, partly from genuine religious
conviction but also, at least in part, as a way to support their own doctrines in
a time of religious contention and outright warfare. Naturally, the Protestants,
who rebelled at almost every teaching of the Catholic Church, would develop a
position on this subject which would be diametrically opposed to the Catholic
view.
     Judaism, on the other hand, readily admits the existence of a spirit world,
and although it is opposed to "sorcery" and "necromancy,” it readily admits
that contact with spirits is possible. Islam has no set policy concerning these
matters but, like Judaism, readily acknowledges that contact with the spirit
world is not only possible but can be a rather frequent occurrance.
     Louis Lavatar, Swiss reformer and Protestant author, said in his 1750 book
on ghosts De Spectris that most "Catholic" ghost sightings could be explained
away as trickery, human error or natural causes. He also dismissed all reports
by women because they were "given to fear more than men" and are more
prone to hallucinations. He did not, however, discredit all reports by drunken
men. He was certainly open-minded about the subject, but while the
Protestant church's official position was that apparitions could be explained
away, most of its followers believed differently—until the reign of King James.
When King James I (1566–1625), who had ruled Scotland, came to the
throne of England at the beginning of the 17th century, the Inquisition was in
its final days. James, however, remained a fervent enemy of sorcery and, in
fact, penned the anti-witchcraft book Demonologie (1597).
     According to James, neither the spirits of the dead nor angels appeared as
ghosts. Ra Rather, Satan was the source for all apparitions. James believed that
Satan could assume the form of any deceased person, even reanimate the
actual corpse, in an attempt to coerce the living into sin. The influence of King
James also accounts for the sometimes violent anti-spiritualist attitude seen in
many of today's fundamentalist Protestant Christian churches, those that take
the King James Version of the Bible to be the only inspired word of Go God. In
fact, it’s a very poor translation, and deliberately so, as it was written in fear of
the king and pandered to his personal beliefs.
     With such sentiments abounding, the belief in ghosts and spirits went
underground, and with this, the "occult" was born.
One must bear in mind that this was the time of the Salem Witch Trials, an
event which mirrored an outgrowth of persecution then taking place in
Europe, especially in King James's England.
     Following the Re Restoration in 17th century England, several important
collections of ghost stories were assembled, including one by Joseph Gl Glanvill
(1636–1680), an Anglican minister and chaplain to Charles II, but the stigma
of the occult remained. The Enlightenment of the 18th century gave further
rise to skepticism and disbelief in ghosts. However, during the Ro Romantic era
of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, society embraced the emotional, and
a spiritualistic movement began.
     In 1848, two sisters in upstate New York allegedly began receiving
messages from the dead. The Fox sisters were immediately proclaimed
mediums—those who can communicate with spirits on behalf of the living—
and Spiritualism, as it came to be known, was born.
Kate and Margaret Fox held séances for the great and the near-great, with
Mary Todd Lincoln, William Cullen Br Bryant, James Fennimore Cooper and
Harriet Be Beecher Stowe among their clientele. Eventually, they were accused of
trickery, to which they confessed; and even though they later recanted their
confessions, they never again achieved credibility. Spiritualism, however,
remains active today, especially in the Un United Kingdom and some parts of the
United States.
     Up until fairly recently, any group which acknowledged any attitude of
acceptance toward the possibility of communicating with the dead was
considered occult or outright satanic. This now includes several established
religious groups, not the least of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints, whose founder, Joseph Smith, was accused of sorcery partially
because of his belief that the spirits of the departed could communicate with
the living, and vice-versa.
     As humanity's beliefs about science and religion have changed so, too,
have their beliefs about the soul, the possibility of survival after death, the
existence of ghosts and the ability to communicate with the dead. Today, many
of the old prejudices remain ingrained in our minds, especially those fostered
by religion, which is always slow to accept any new development which
contradicts an accepted doctrine. Bo Both Galileo, forced to recant his "heresy"
that the sun and not the earth was the center of the solar system by the
Inquisition, and Ne Newton were ridiculed for their theories. Historically
speaking, it has been only slightly more than five hundred years since the
official view of the Church was that the Earth was flat.
     There are still those who deny that man has ever set foot on the moon.
Ne Needless to say, those who look at ghosts and hauntings as being of the
Devil consider those who investigate them evil, sinful or Satanists. Still, we are
fortunate to live in a time in which we are allowed to think freely, and
question such issues.

author: Dr. J.Lee Choron