Page 44 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

24 Ghosts and Phantoms

far all attempts at scientific explanation have distinguished professor of logic at Oxford Uni-
been unsuccessful. versity, put forth his “psychic ether” theory of
hauntings. Price hypothesized that a certain
M Delving Deeper level of mind may be capable of creating a
Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. Unexplained Mysteries of mental image that has a degree of persistence
the 20th Century. Chicago: Contemporary Books, in the psychic ether. This mental image may
1989. also contain a degree of telepathic ability by
Clark, Jerome. Unexplained! Detroit and London: Vis- which it can affect others. Price’s theory holds
ible Ink Press, 1999. that the collective emotions or thought
Floyd, Randall. Ghost Lights and Other Encounters. Lit- images of a person who has lived in a house
tle Rock, Ark.: August House, 1993. some time in the past may have intensely
Gaddis, Vincent H. Mysterious Fires and Lights. New “charged” the psychic ether of the place—
York: Dell Books, 1968. especially if there had been such powerful
Steiger, Brad. Beyond Belief. New York: Scholastic, emotions as fear, hatred, or sorrow, super-
1991. charged by an act of violence. The original
agent, Price theorized, has no direct part in
the haunting. It is the charged psychic ether
which, when presented with a percipient of
Famous Haunted Houses suitable telepathic affinity, collaborates in the
and Places production of the idea-pattern of a ghost.
Ghosts, according to Price, may be mani-
n a Gallup Poll conducted in May 2001, 42 festations of past events that have been
percent of the respondents said that they brought to the minds of persons sensitive
Ibelieved that houses could be haunted by enough to receive a kind of “echo” from the
ghosts or spirits of the dead. Psychoanalyst Dr. past. These sensitive individuals receive
Nandor Fodor theorized that genuinely haunt- impressions from those emotion-charged
ed houses were those that had soaked up emo- events that have left some trace of some ener-
tional unpleasantness from former occupants. gy in the inanimate objects at the place where
Years, or even centuries, later, the emotional they occurred. This information, or memory,
energy may become reactivated when later may be transmitted as telepathic messages
occupants of the house undergo a similar emo- that can be received at some deep level of the
tional disturbance. The “haunting”—mysteri- human subconscious. These impressions then
ous knocks and rappings, opening and slam- express themselves in the conscious mind in
ming doors, cold drafts, appearance of ghostly
such a form as an uneasy feeling or a ghost.
figures—is produced, in Fodor’s hypothesis, by
Perhaps every old house, courtroom, hos-
the merging of the two energies, one from the
pital ward, apartment, or railroad depot is
past, the other from the present. In Fodor’s
“haunted.” Any edifice that has been much
theory, the reservoir of absorbed emotions,
used as a setting for human activity almost
which lie dormant in a haunted house, can
certainly has been saturated with memory
only be activated when emotional instability is
traces of the entire gamut of emotions. But it
present. Those homes which have a history of
may be this multiplicity of mental images that
happy occupants, the psychoanalyst believed,
works against the chances of a ghost popping
are in little danger of becoming haunted.
up in every hotel room and depot lobby. An
Psychic investigator Edmund Gurney put over-saturation of idea-patterns in the majori-
forth the hypothesis that the collective sight- ty of homes and public places may have left
ing of a ghost is due to a sort of telepathic only a kaleidoscopic mass of impressions that
“infection.” One percipient sees the ghost combine to produce the peculiar atmosphere
and, in turn, telepathically influences another one senses in so many places. It is only when
person, and so on. an idea-pattern that has been supercharged
In his presidential address to the Society with enormous psychic intensity finds the
for Psychic Research in 1939, H. H. Price, a mental level of a percipient with the necessary

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