Five Days of Halloween: Skepticism
Oct. 29th, 2007 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lazypadawan"I don't believe in ghosts but I've been running from them all my life"--Edgar Allan Poe
When it comes to the paranormal, I'm not exactly Mulder and I'm not exactly Scully. On the one hand, I've known far too many people from all different walks of life who have experienced unexplained phenomena to believe for certain there's no such thing as ghosts or other paranormal activity. On the other hand, I don't necessarily think that everybody who thinks they've encountered spirits has actually run into the restless souls of the dead. Some people do have overactive imaginations. Others are too quick to label things as paranormal in nature. Even if there is unexplained phenomena, there could be a psychological or environmental reason why people perceive them that has nothing to do with a displaced human spirit.
I come from a cultural/religious background that believes in spirits and it's ingrained in me. While intellectually I know that when you use a Ouija board yours is mostly likely the guiding hand spelling out messages, I won't mess with it. I knew a guy who had a really bad and frightening experience with one and bogus or not, I'd rather not take any chances.
Regardless, there are people who are flat out fakin' it. For one thing, I'm completely unimpressed with psychics when it comes to investigating hauntings. Anybody can stand there and make stuff up. Whenever I read Hans Holzer's books (they're always really cheap at Barnes & Noble), I get annoyed that Holzer does nothing more to investigate a haunting than have some psychic sit there and babble. Of course they can never verify anything the psychic says.
http://www.badpsychic.co.uk is chockful of psychic exposes and debunking (ditto for its sister site BadGhosts). One of the funniest bits on there is its video of Most Haunted's Yvette Fielding moving tables during seances and tossing a quarter to make you think a ghost did it:
http://badpsychics.com/thefraudfiles/modules/news/article.php?storyid=45
Personally, I think it's better to be skeptical about these things unless all other practical explanations have been ruled out.
When it comes to the paranormal, I'm not exactly Mulder and I'm not exactly Scully. On the one hand, I've known far too many people from all different walks of life who have experienced unexplained phenomena to believe for certain there's no such thing as ghosts or other paranormal activity. On the other hand, I don't necessarily think that everybody who thinks they've encountered spirits has actually run into the restless souls of the dead. Some people do have overactive imaginations. Others are too quick to label things as paranormal in nature. Even if there is unexplained phenomena, there could be a psychological or environmental reason why people perceive them that has nothing to do with a displaced human spirit.
I come from a cultural/religious background that believes in spirits and it's ingrained in me. While intellectually I know that when you use a Ouija board yours is mostly likely the guiding hand spelling out messages, I won't mess with it. I knew a guy who had a really bad and frightening experience with one and bogus or not, I'd rather not take any chances.
Regardless, there are people who are flat out fakin' it. For one thing, I'm completely unimpressed with psychics when it comes to investigating hauntings. Anybody can stand there and make stuff up. Whenever I read Hans Holzer's books (they're always really cheap at Barnes & Noble), I get annoyed that Holzer does nothing more to investigate a haunting than have some psychic sit there and babble. Of course they can never verify anything the psychic says.
http://www.badpsychic.co.uk is chockful of psychic exposes and debunking (ditto for its sister site BadGhosts). One of the funniest bits on there is its video of Most Haunted's Yvette Fielding moving tables during seances and tossing a quarter to make you think a ghost did it:
http://badpsychics.com/thefraudfiles/modules/news/article.php?storyid=45
Personally, I think it's better to be skeptical about these things unless all other practical explanations have been ruled out.
