While looking for something to watch one day I found one of those ghost hunter programs on TV. I was intrigued right up to the moment I saw the crew running from the very thing they were allegedly hunting. A number of things crossed my mind, why were they in the dark? What exactly were they looking for? Why were they searching in a graveyard? Then it dawned on me, dramatic effect. It is, after all, made for show. In real life it is rare to see objects fly across a room, or ghostly mists appear out of nowhere, so rare in fact that these occurrences stand out as unique when they do happen. But let’s take a closer look at the ghost hunting mythos.
When you think about spooky things the images most people think of are castles, cemeteries, and moonlit foggy places. More recently dark hallways and dusty basements have become the theme, but these locations are all visions brought to you by tv and the movies, we have been taught to fear these places because something there might grab us, more often than not something demonic or something dead. In reality dark basements are just that, dark. Turn on a light, light won’t go on? Change a bulb. Of the many investigations I’ve been on, it didn’t really matter to the spirit in question whether it was day or night, summer or winter, or stormy or sunny, a disembodied spirit has no concept of time as we know it and a poltergeist really doesn’t care. Either way they will make their presence known, it just sounds more dramatic if you say it happened at night, you know, like a movie.
Cemeteries are another place that have gotten a bad reputation, (don’t forget to whistle as you walk past) because movies told us that the ghosts of the current residents haunt the places where they are laid to rest. But then how can they be haunting the places where they died? Theoretically spirits are bound to the people and places they are familiar with, so why would they want to stay with a coffin in the ground? So far the only activity I’ve seen after dark in a cemetery has been from the spirit of an anonymous resident, who for obvious reasons has nowhere to go and wanted to make their presence known. Either that or a living vagrant looking for a place to rest.
If you really think about it, people visit dead relatives at cemeteries to honor them and to say how much they cared about them, so why then would there be negativity there? I have been to one such graveyard where a sorrowful spirit allegedly mourned the loss of her child, some even had photographic evidence of it. Although a child did die at such a place, historical records show mother was still alive and well. This is how legends are made.
I guess the lesson here is to detach from what TV has taught you before going on that ghost hunt, not every home has a demon, and not every disembodied spirit is looking to do you harm. But those that do…...
Dan Guzman is a Paranormal Researcher based in Chicago.
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