Got ghosts? Interest in the supernatural has never been higher
The spirits are all around us.
Some of the hottest shows on TV have a ghostly orientation — from "Medium" and "Ghost Whisperer" to quasi-reality shows such as "Ghost Hunters" and "Paranormal State." The low-budget movie "Paranormal Activity" is filling theaters with its effective thrills and chills.
Locally, October brings haunted ghost walks, as well as two new books on this area's ghostly events.
The interest in the paranormal is huge, but writer and historian Mason Winfield, author of the new "Ghosts of 1812: History, Folklore, Tradition and the Niagara War," says it all has happened before — 161 years ago, to be exact.
In 1848, the three Fox sisters drew hordes of curiosity-seekers to their home near Palmyra with tales of spirits that communicated with knocking sounds. The events formed the basis of Spiritualism, the religion practiced today at Lily Dale, whose psychic mediums draw thousands of visitors yearly.
Winfield says, "More than 150 years ago, they were holding seances where people talked to spirits, and people believed that they would manifest on cue by rapping on tables or levitating trumpets. Today's tech industry of ghosthunting is that same thing. They are just using different gadgets."
High-tech haunt hunting
Two local gadget-using paranormal researchers, Dwayne Claud and Cassidy O'Connor, are co-authors of the new book, "Haunted Buffalo: Ghosts of the Queen City." The book contains historical tales and ghostly stories about 41 spooky sites throughout the region, ranging from the Goodelberg Cemetery in South Wales to the Thirty Mile Point Lighthouse in Barker.
Claud, of Leicester, is a professional hypnotist and author of three other books on regional hauntings. O'Connor, of North Java, says she is a paranormal investigator. "I don't say I am a ghosthunter," she says, because "it has become a Hollywood cliche" that attracts people without adequate knowledge or preparation.
Investigators active in this current spiritual exploration use two kinds of tools. The subjective ones can be as casual as goosebumps or as formal as the work of psychic mediums, who say they can communicate directly with the spirit world.
"A psychic can pick up historical information about a site or about the people who were there — names, dates, locations, things like that — which we will later go back and look up historically to see if there is any kind of correlation," says Claud.
The objective tools used by paranormal investigators include electromagnetic meters that investigators say can detect the energy of a spirit and digital recorders that can collect voices not heard by the human ear, called electronic voice phenomenon, or EVPs. Claud says these happen "when you go into a location and you're having a conversation with another person and when you listen to the tape, you hear another voice responding. The frequency that it's recorded at is usually well above human hearing, so it's not something you can audibly hear."
Spirits, O'Connor says, "seem to like to pipe in."
Investigators also use digital thermometers, flashlights, motion sensors, compasses, pendulums and dowsing rods, which O'Connor always carries. The two slender wire wands that move freely in wooden handles can be used to find water or to point to energy sources, as well as for communication, she says.
But after a long, dark night in an abandoned house or near an old graveyard with all the meters running, the work is just beginning, O'Connor says — every second of tape must be carefully examined.
"It's not what you see on TV," says Claud. "A lot of it is sitting in the dark, recording information and data, and it really doesn't get exciting until you go back and start to go through the stuff."
Tim Kulikowski, who works with O'Connor, owns an array of digital recorders, both still and video cameras and meters. Buying the equipment and spending time on the search for paranormal phenomenon is "just like any other hobby," he says, shrugging. "This is what I enjoy doing."
The world of a psychic
For a psychic medium, no meters or tapes are needed. Local medium Karyn Reece, who has appeared on TLC, Lifetime and the Discovery Channel, offers lectures, products and consultations in The Mystic Shop and Studio on Main Street in Snyder.
"There is growing interest in the paranormal for a lot of reasons," Reece says. "The public finds the unknown fascinating." Some may have experienced psychic connections themselves, she says, adding "You'd be surprised who has!," while others are just curious about the afterlife.
Claud says, "When we take a psychic medium into a situation, we don't tell them anything about it, so they're going in completely blind. I've had situations where a psychic medium tells me things, and then an EVP comes back confirming what she's saying."
On a recent raw day, "Haunted Buffalo" co-authors Claud and O'Connor, who now work on separate projects, got together for a visit to the Lockport Caves, one of the sites mentioned in their book. The caves, which include a man-made hydraulic system that once powered factories, are eerie in the best of times, but each October they are lighted and staffed for a chilling Haunted Cave attraction. Legends about the place include a photo showing a ghostly figure and a disembodied nudge felt by a staffer.
Because the cave has been wired with power, O'Connor and Kulikowski found their instruments unreliable. But Reece says she picked up strong vibrations from a spirit named Bob who spent a lot of time in the caves during his life — and that a murder may have been committed nearby in the 1930s.
Without more specifics, this particular bit of information probably cannot be corroborated by historical evidence.
But it's that elusive nexus, where information gleaned from folklore or anecdotes can be linked with historical research, that fascinates author Winfield. "Ghosts of 1812," his sixth book, starts with true stories of the war that wracked the Niagara Frontier. Winfield says,"I tried to write a good history, but I did toss in a bunch of ghost stories."
Historical backup
Western New York, Winfield says, accumulated a particularly bloody history during the War of 1812, which raged until 1815. "Besieged forts, scouting missions, knife fights in the woods, bushwhacks, massacres — so many of us are living on top of a clash point and we don't even know it," he says
Blood-soaked sites in his book include Elmwood and Virginia, where a red-coated soldier ghost has been reported, and Porter and North streets, which Winfield calls "one of Buffalo's most haunted lanes."
Winfield's company, Haunted History Ghost Walks, has expanded its professionally guided ghost walks and haunted pub crawls from Buffalo and East Aurora to Canandaigua, Lewiston, Lyons, Saratoga and Williamsville. On the tours, Winfield says, "We try to get people thinking about things that have objective value, like history, culture and folklore, architecture, geology, geography.
"I do not talk to spirits," he says. "I try to look at things like a scientist — I am not a scientist, but I try to look at things objectively."
Winfield says he considers much of the evidence collected by ghost hunters "very ambiguous. The photography results are almost invariably murky; they don't look like ghosts. And when they get sound effects, they are almost invariably overcooked."
Still, the interest in the supernatural, fanned by television and movies, shows no sign of slowing down, he says. "I keep expecting ghosthunting to flop, and it keeps going," says Winfield. "Ghosthunting is a real gonzo pursuit; there are a lot of thrill-seekers in it."
Orbs, EVPs and ghosthunting equipment will be demonstrated by Chris Conlon and Justin Chernogorec of Eastern Paranormal Society at 6 p.m. Saturday, Halloween night, in the Riviera Theater, 67 Webster St., North Tonawanda. A mini-ghost hunt will follow. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door; www.rivieratheatre.org.
WNY investigators of the paranormal
In the fall of 2005, members of Western New York Paranormal investigated reported sightings of ghosts at the Winery at Marjim Manor in Appleton.
"The team stationed infrared cameras along the porch along with audio recorders in attempt to capture any recordings of potential ghost voices in the form of electronic voice phenomenon," says Dwayne Claud. "A small mobile team worked their way through the home taking photographs, temperature readings and attempting to pick up psychic impressions. In the basement, the team could feel a heavy presence. Nothing negative but just a strong energy force. At one point a team member stated that something touched him and at that time a sudden temperature drop was recorded. Several photographs were taken but due to the high dust content of the area had to be disregarded as any form of evidence."
In the cupola of the building, during an audio recording session, a psychic asked, "Why are you up here?" and on tape, a voice responded, "Cause I can see better."
Jennifer Edmiston, working on an investigation at the Starry Night Theatre on Schenck Street in North Tonawanda with Western New York Paranormal, recorded a voice in the building, which was once a German Methodist church. In the bell tower, she recorded a voice saying, "Vince is coming." Claud says, "A little historical research showed that there was once a gentleman that worked at the church of that name. Could the voice in the tower be that of a spirit trying to hide from Vince or maybe it was a bell ringer for the church?"
A skeptic investigator's view
Joe Nickell, an investigative writer for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, says wishful thinking is the impetus behind the current social interest in paranormal communication.
"Most of the paranormal promises something wonderful," he says. "Ghosts bring the happy message that we don't really die, UFOs that we are not alone in the universe, psychic power that we can glimpse the future. These are great promises, but it's just a false hope. I find ghosts fascinating, they are a very romantic idea, but it is not an objective reality."
Nickell, senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, who visited his first haunted house in the late 1960s, says he "used the name "paranormal investigator' with pride for years, until it started becoming fashionable for every ninny, with no training and no science and no knowledge of what they're doing, to call themselves that."
Nickell, who has investigated crimes and forgeries as well as reports of supernatural contact, is frustrated that ghost hunting, which he calls a "pseudoscience," has become so popular.
"This is taking over television, and every little hamlet in America now has its ghost club," he says. "How likely is it that mainstream scientists can't find this ghost energy, and these amateurs, with Radio Shack equipment, can? The ghost hunter types are going to bring in all this glitch-prone equipment, which they have no training in how to use. They may know how to operate it, but it's not made to detect ghosts, and in fact, as far as the best science on this planet can tell, it does not detect ghosts. What utter arrogance it is, that they know better than all of science."
Nickell notes that the writers of "Haunted Buffalo" recommend using dowsing rods.
"Oh, it just makes you want to cry for the scientific illiteracy between the covers of that book," he says. "It's a fool's errand, and I don't say it in a mean-spirited way, but I do say it with some exasperation. They are not detecting ghosts."
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