As much as we might think we have an open mind during our investigations, deep down in our subconscious our inherent beliefs lie waiting to unknowingly affect our observational decisions. In other words, the very idea that a place is perceived as haunted depends not on objective observation but on something other than the physical characteristics of the location, be it indoors or outside.
Using ghost tech certainly doesn't provide context nor help in any conclusion worthy of consideration of evidence of the paranormal. Concerning tech such as Ovilus, talkers, ghost boxes, etc. and their functionality, according to a brilliant engineer associate of mine: "hardware is assigned to channels which detect the environmental changes, then close switch contacts (relays or opto-isolators) that actually cause the speech synthesizer to give the related message. That is what is missing from "ghost talker" devices; they lack any hardware to allow a spirit to interface with the speech synthesizer in any way."
Determined to not rule out possibilities of intelligent spirit contact through such devices, he then went on to build a sensor array using both static and EMF sensors arranged in a manner that any spirit could cause a speech synthesizer to speak phonemes assigned to each sensor. As each sensor was activated the synthesizer was setup to immediately speak the phoneme, thus any spirit could hear what was being generated so a feedback was possible. The hypothesis was that after a brief learning curve, a spirit could learn by hearing which sensor would create which sound and thus build words. The system also recorded activations so once learned, time was not really a factor; the message generated could be played back with all phonemes assembled in order and connected together like normal speech.
The end result was failure. This array was placed in a location where supposedly communication via EVP was commonly reported. It was active 24/7 for a 30 day period. I'm going to repeat that last sentence: "It was active 24/7 for a 30 day period." In the end, there were only a few scattered activations, likely attributed to people who came near the sensor array. Analysis further revealed no concerted effort made to create any speech, nor was any activation made following an initial random hit. One would expect that if a spirit caused a sound, curiosity if nothing else would cause it to activate other sensors.
This casts doubt on these types of attempted, electronic spirit communication. If you logically think this out, it makes sense that if a spirit was presented an opportunity to use something this user friendly to them, and they did not do so, why on Earth would they be expected to actually go into a spirit box and manipulate circuitry in a manner to make a message? Such action would require the spirit actually having an understanding of electronic theory and physics, instead of just activating a sensor. It makes no sense if they had this ability that they couldn't figure out how to manipulate a sensor which was actually designed to be manipulated. Perhaps the only good use for the popular ghost devices is to measure environmental factors in an area of investigation in support of analysis conclusions based on particular data collection.
Conclusion concerning ghost tech: The investigators set and control the conditions of the situation with their equipment, claiming variations to their initial, baseline readings, if they do indeed take those readings at all! The baseline readings may consist of a single instance of measurements... not exactly ideal! These readings, when compared to subsequent equipment responses during an investigation are considered 'evidence,' the variations of which dictate the alleged level of a haunting.
So, what about an alternative path for answers to paranormal claims? The following hypothesis lends credence to attempts "outside" of using devices.
According to Beau Lotto, a Professor of Neuroscience... The world exists. It’s just that we don’t see it as it is. We can never see it as it is. In fact it’s even useful to not see it as it is. And the reason is because we have no direct access to that physical world other than through our senses. And because our senses conflate multiple aspects of that world, we can never know whether our perceptions are in any way accurate. It’s not so much do we see the world in the way that it really is, but do we actually even see it accurately? And the answer is no, we don’t… So at this most basic level, we don’t represent even the information we’re getting in any accurate way. And the reason is because it was useful to see it this way. So what are you seeing [is] the utility of the data not the data.”
According to this statement, should the ability to not see the world as it is, be a possible key to understanding the paranormal? In the words of my Cajun Medicine Man Friend, Omolkhua, he describes this as "THE UNSEEN." He goes into more detail as follows:
"The unseen world is not like ours, yet you would see people, people who have passed on exist as spirits or ghosts... we just call them "the unseen." But in that realm there are other things that surpass our world. Our world and their world are one. So, the unseen exist in our plane and we exist in theirs. Its not two separate places, but still non-tangible. They actually overlap one with the other. We walk among ours and they in theirs. They enter the world of their own choosing. they exist, and if they break the law, that they're bound by our physical world, by our rules. You command them because now they've entered our realm. They look the same as any other person, but there's a strange sense or feeling, why does this person look different or feel different? Always trust gut instinct. Those are your guardians. We call them "helpers." The helpers will warn you not to get close to a certain person. If you do get close to a certain area and you feel goosebumps, it means they have brushed you. In other words, they have gone through you, or brushed you or part of them passed through you. If you feel bumps on your arm, legs or half of your body, it is because they brushed you. So when you feel that uncomfortable feeling in your mind, because now they've broken the law, you tell them inside your mind to stay away. You say it in a tone that you would chastize a child. You can say it as loud as you want in your head, and in their realm it just resonates. When the "crier" sings, we hear it with our ears. When he or she starts singing, the voice or the prayer resonates like your voice would be in a cavern. It's amplified. Imagine something like that. When the singing begins, the sound resonates and is deafening in their world because now we are using the medicine that the Great Spirit had granted us, the gift of prayer."
"The power is within your faith, your strength of belief. If you believe in something greater than yourself, God in whatever religion it may be, and your faith is solid, you hold onto that for dear life. When you speak with your heart, not being mechanical, take a deep breath and think of the great spirit, and you open your heart, letting the words come out and you mean it, it is an amazing gift. Some people say a prayer before dinner or before they go to sleep. That's fine. You have to mean it. That medicine is beyond the strength of the darkness. They cannot break that realm. They cannot go beyond the law of the Creator."
Based on the above, there is no need to conjecture the hypothetical 'portal' for spirits to move in and out of our physical world. I'll repeat what Omolkhua explains above, "Our world and their world are one. So, the unseen exist in our plane and we exist in theirs. It's not two separate places, but still non-tangible." If you really want to talk about portals, wouldn't a portal require two doorways... one for the spirit world and one for our physical world? How is it we have never heard of someone from our physical world being able to enter a portal from the physical world's side? What would the connecting tunnel between the two doorways consist of and how could it be constructed? Surely it takes more than the hypothetical suggestion of portals on TV shows to justify their existence and a connection between two planes of existence that are claimed to be separate?
What might be needed then, to detect a paranormal presence? Perhaps, scientifically speaking, we unknowingly possess abilities that enable such detection. A common characteristic of a "shadow person" is one of the alleged anomaly darting quickly by, the eyewitness unable to convince themselves with certainty of what they think they have seen. A condition called Riddoch Syndrome exists. It happens from injury or malfunction of a particular area in the back of brain, the medial occipital lobe. One definition: This is a condition when patient is blind and does not detect a stationary image, but is able to detect the outline of a moving object. It is also called statokinetic dissociation, meaning dissociation of stationary and moving image perception. Sometimes it is also called blindsight, meaning ability to see something in motion but otherwise blind. Is it possible that those not blind can access this ability unknowingly, allowing for occasional observing of the elusive shadow person?
Scientific study suggests our brain naturally adapts to our experiences. This could explain why even blind people can have a visual experience. "These results suggest that, in the absence of external visual input, a build-up of spontaneous fluctuations in early visual cortex may activate the visual hierarchy, thereby triggering the experience of vision."
Ever hear voices with no one around? The brain's ability to boost our hearing is well documented in blind people. In effect, they 'see' with their ears. Dr. Olivier Collignon of the University of Montreal's Saint-Justine Hospital Research Centre compared the brain activity of people who can see and people who were born blind, and discovered that the part of the brain that normally works with our eyes to process vision and space perception can actually rewire itself to process sound information instead.
IMHO, we all possess untapped abilities and utilize them at times, unknowingly. I submit to you the following:
One example is daydreaming while driving. Haven't you performed some type of driving function and not realized you did it, like not remembering making a turn, observing traffic signals & signs, blanking out for a short period but still remain perfectly in your lane, etc.? They were done subconsciously. Another example would be what happens when you are reading. Countless times I have found the need to go back to read again parts of a book where my mind wandered. I somehow read the words but my attention was distracted enough so I really didn't know what I read. Sound familiar? Through our daydreaming, we had tapped into an ability we didn't realize we had. The study contends that though daydreaming generally encourages a relaxed state of mind, when we float down our inner stream of consciousness our brains actually become highly stimulated, with many areas, including the pre-frontal lobe and executive centre becoming active. It doesn't seem so far-fetched to assume the indigenous were gifted with and perfected such an ability, obviously not by all, but by some, such as Oracles, Sensitives and Shamans.
Dreaming is another example. Many of us have had unusual dreams that explanations thereof imply a connection or communication with those who have already passed. Is this same untapped ability within us making a communicative connection? As argument for this supposition, I offer the following personal experience:
My particular story about dreaming is about a connection between two people, one alive and the alleged other passed on. My wife & I were staying overnight in a small historical town of America's old west. It was a 140-yr old hotel that had been part of a stagecoach route and frequented by 'outlaws' in their travels. The investigator in me compelled me out of curiosity to leave a game camera running on the bureau through the night (I always carry some type of audio/video equipment with me), with full view of the room from the corner it was positioned in. In the middle of the night my wife started talking in her sleep, which she rarely does. She said something aloud, enough to wake me, but at that time incoherent to me. I myself was not awake enough to grasp it clearly. As I woke from my sleep I said to her, "what did you say?" In the morning when we were awake and realizing I had recorded the room on audio & video while we slept, I examined the captured audio and discovered a whisper-type EVP that sounded like it was saying "get out." Immediately, and I do mean immediately thereafter, as if in reply to that EVP, my wife is seen and heard on video while still asleep saying, "yeah but I don't have anywhere to go." These were the words that woke me up.
Without knowing the key to accessing these abilities, they lie within us undiscovered and unused... except by people like the Cajun Medicine Man, Omolkhua. He uses a medicine methodology passed down for generations, one of utilizing the power each of us may have locked within us. If only we would take heed of such things and not be distracted by the overwhelming disinformation and manipulation of paranormal discovery by the typical ghost TV show industry.
It is often said that when we see an apparition or have a dream about someone who has passed, they look as we either remember them or as they were culturally, i.e. period clothing. Omolkhua once told me this concerning his grandmother: "grandmother grew up traditionally and her faith was very strong. I've been having dreams about her lately, which is very interesting. In my dreams, she is still the same person that was when alive. She had not aged as we do. In the dream, she comes to like she was before she became ill and left us. My grandmother would say that we age as the trees age. We die sooner than them but they do not change, and neither do we when we move forward. Do we believe that trees have a spirit? Yes. Do they hear us? Always. Do they guide us? Only if we let them. The same thing applies to those who have passed on... relatives... they're willing to guide us as long as we are willing to listen. But the world is not a one way road. There is the good and the bad. The medicine circle speaks about birth and death, the four medicines, the plants, the cedar being male, sage being female, tobacco being male, sweetgrass being female. So there's a balance. In this balance of our world and theirs, there's always something willing to cause you ill, disrupt your life.
The above from Omolkhua certainly gives one pause to think about the popular term, "rest in peace." "When a newborn enters this world, he or she does not touch the earth until the parent introduces the child for the second time. The first time is when the umbilical cord falls off and the parent will bury the cord, introducing the new two legged to the mother earth. When we move on from this world, the mother already knows us from the beginning of our journey and we are welcome to rest. When you die, you only take with you what you know, and the only thing you carry is in your heart, the love of your loved ones, or the hate that you foster. The latter is when you become a tormented soul, and over time you change, becoming this deranged, disfigured entity. Those we call the Wenagiis, dark ones. The hardest part about exploring native medicine is the concept how it does not fit the mold of western thinking."
If you're stuck totally in a belief of need for scientific proof concerning contact between the spirit world and our physical one, consider the power of our brain and a technological advancement of late called "The Luke Arm", named after the Star Wars character Luke Skywalker. It is a prosthetic arm that operates by mind control. It is described as "allowing the patient to feel by sending information from the arm's sensors by a device that connects to the wearer's nervous system. Wearers of the arm control it by using their thoughts, and feel sensations from applied pressure, temperature, vibration, pain and muscle contractions. Let's see a TV ghost manipulate this device!
You won't find me doing an investigation with any of the popular ghost tech devices simply because, as per one of my favorite quotes, source unknown: "Reality doesn't play by our rules."
- MoonJoey