In Its Presence (by Rahul Roy)

We have many times read in ghost stories and have also seen in horror movies that upon entering a haunted house or room, the lights start to go on and off suddenly, strange sounds start to come from every corner and the only torch light that our lovely damsel is carrying goes off. Such scenes are not only common in horror movies but also in real life ghost haunting.

  During intelligent haunting, the intelligent paranormal entities, always try to interact with its immediate environment. It may welcome new visitors in its comfort space or try to scare them off. But whatever such an entity try to do, it has to make its presence felt. We know that during an intelligent haunting a spirit can interact with its environment and remain conscious of its surroundings. If it wants, it can make its presence felt to us. However, making itself suddenly appear out of the blue is no easy task, even for a spirit. Only a powerful spirit can do that. Weaker spirits can manage to make faint noises, appear as orbs, and only a powerful one can make a full body apparition. We all know that spirits are nothing but electromagnetic energy. As we use energy to perform work in our daily life, in the same way spirits also require energy to make their presence felt. They usually do it by appearing in the form of smoke, mist, shadows, orbs, streaks of light, on evp recorders etc. Some spirits are able to make faint creeks, knocks and bangs. All such activities require energy to perform. So where does a spirit gets its energy from? The answer is simple. They get it from their surroundings, like we humans do. A basic law of physics says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can be changed from one form to another. The same principle applies to spirits. There is a popular believe among us, that we feel cold in presence of a spirit. It is because a spirit which wants to manifest itself would draw the heat energy from its surroundings to make its presence felt and this would make us feel cold. And the temperature of a particular area would suddenly drop because of unexplained reasons while other areas would still continue to have normal temperature. Often it’s seen that people have reported a chill running down their spine or their hands and face becoming numb. It is because, that the spirit is trying to draw the heat from their body for its own use. Sudden occurrence of technical glitches in electronic equipments happen in presence of spirits. Light bulbs would suddenly start to flicker; TV sets and cameras would go on and off, battery charges would drain out, are few common examples encountered by paranormal investigators.  Researchers have considered such phenomenon as normal and regular during intelligent haunting. These serve as strong evidences for the presence of a paranormal entity.

So now we know what to look lout for and what experiences to expect while in presence of a spirit. Remember, If you make your presence felt in their space they will surely try to make their presence felt too.

The fear of being Haunted (by Rahul Roy)

Now that we have some ideas about what spirits are, let us give a thought to what they do. ‘They all scare the shit out of us ’, to be frank and precise. But to movie makers, it is a great ingredient for film making. We all are familiar with the popular Hollywood flick ‘Casper, the friendly ghost’. We just adore him. Unlike his three uncles who go around scaring people away from their haunted mansion. They also try to teach Casper different haunting and scaring tactics. But this is just a movie. Even in real life Ghosts do haunt. We come across numerous stories and pictures of haunted places from time to time. We think of haunting to be scary, terrifying and even occasionally posing danger to ones life. We prefer to keep a safe distance from haunted locations. So what is ‘haunting’ actually? Our very own oxford dictionary describes haunting as, ‘repeatedly visiting the same place by a person or thing’. Even the paranormal guys carry a similar opinion about haunting. However, to them all haunting are not same. The nature of haunting varies from place to place. Paranormal researchers have classified haunting into three basic categories. These are Residual haunting, intelligent haunting and Poltergeist activities, though further classifications are also provided by many researchers.

Residual haunting, as the name suggest, resides or take place at the same place. Such activities usually occur when something traumatic, stressful takes place, such as a murder or an accident. Negative energy is literally blasted into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to imprint or record the events. Like a recording tape, it will play the events over and over again. The entities involved in this residual haunting activity are unaware of their surroundings. There is no interaction between you and the entity. This haunting is completely harmless. It is like you favorite television show that comes on your TV channel everyday at the same time. People often see glimpses of a battle or hear cry of dying soldiers at places where such events have taken place a long time ago. Residual haunting activity can also be caused by positive energy blasted into the atmosphere. Many times you have heard ghost stories, where people can hear the sounds of a party. They hear music, singing, dancing, and laughter and when they enter the room where they hear the party, there is no one there. People have also reported seeing an event from the past unfolding in front of their eyes. The entities in such haunting are not aware of your presence. They would enact the same event over and over again even if you are not present in that location at that exact moment.

The real challenge for a paranormal investigator comes during an Intelligent haunting. Unlike the former here the ghost is able to interact with us, it is aware of our presence in its environment. It can touch us and can also communicate with us. However, how well such spirits are able to make their presence felt to humans wholly depends on their abilities to manifest. The movie ‘Sixth Sense’ nicely depicts interactive haunting, as the young boy is able to communicate with ghosts. In such haunting, investigators use equipments like night vision cameras, magneto meters, emf recorders, thermal sensory gadgets etc. to detect their presence. The surrounding environment also plays a big role in detecting such haunting.

The last of its kind is a Poltergeist phenomenon. A poltergeist is a German word meaning ‘noisy spirit’. It is traditionally described as a troublesome spirit or ghost that moves objects in a person's house and puts them in different places, enjoys terrorizing humans and animals. Typically poltergeists make loud, unexplainable sounds, bangs, and move objects around. Such entities are able to bring about physical changes in our environment. Some examples of high level poltergeist activities are opening and closing of doors from their own, banging on walls, rocking of chairs, shaking of beds and many others. Sporadically poltergeists have also been associated with demonic possession, oppressing, terrifying families, or worse physical damage, depending on its power and are not considered to be benevolent.

So it is evident that all haunting are not same. Depending on their nature, origin and place of occurrence they vary widely. In spite of such revelations and understanding a lot still remains in the dark when it comes to paranormal. But the will to try and understand the unknown, remains. And who knows what greater insights the paranormal study still holds for us. So the next time you visit a haunted location you will surely know what to expect and be able to understand it. Though often events do not occur as we expect them to.

What is a ‘SPIRIT’, have you ever wondered? (by Rahul Roy)

“As I say, I have always considered my dear friend Arka to be, a young man with a high spirit, who always inspires me. Just to remind, he is the driving spirit behind the blog and has also encouraged me to write this column. His encouragement has definitely fostered a spirit of enthusiasm in me and I am very glad to have him as a friend”

You might feel that the above paragraph is quite unusual and out of context for a column that is aiming to understand the term ‘Spirit’ in the light of the paranormal. If you take another look you will find that the word ‘spirit’ comes several times in different context, in the above paragraph. It describes mental energy, vitalism and enthusiasm. This shows how regularly we use the word in different situations in our daily life without paying any heed. But the same word, takes an all new connotation, when referred in context to the paranormal. Now the same word ‘Spirit’ spooks us out. It reminds us of ghosts and other evils. This scares and freaks us. Paranormal researchers all over the globe have tried to understand and explain what a Spirit actually is. The word spirit should not be taken at face value as it has been widely defined, classified and explained by experts in this field. Numerous experiments have been performed to understand them. But have you ever wondered what spirits and ghosts are actually? What are they made up of?

A widespread belief concerning spirits and ghosts (spirit of an unknown person) is that they are composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material. This is true to an extent and common in horror movies, which all of you have seen. A ghost can be described as the spirit or soul of a deceased person that has in some way made its presence known to the living. The term ghost can also be used to describe an imprint or impression, of people, animals, or objects from the past acting unconsciously, in the same ways as those real people, animals, and things did years ago when they were alive.  Spirits are thought to be made up of the natural electromagnetic energy that the human body has inside itself. The idea of IMPRINT will become clear when I will explain types of haunting in my later articles.

 A popular experiment was once performed by weighing a person who was about to die. After the person expired he was weighed again and to every ones surprise he weighed much less. Scientist concluded that it was the spirit that left the body after the person had died, resulting in the weight loss. Though this theory has been challenged by many but the experiment carried by Dr. Crawford in 1910 became a landmark one in the field of paranormal research. Spirits are nothing but concentrated electro magnetic fields because very often during ghost hunts in haunted places, EMF (electro magnetic field) readings that are unexplainable and erratic are caught on magnetometers. Spirits appear in photographs commonly in the form of orbs (circular specs and blurs of light), apparitions (shadowy and misty figures of a known person), and streaks of white lights across the photo.  Voices of spirits have been caught on EVP recorders (electronic voice phenomenon), a sort of a tape recorder. Though you will find hundreds of photos on the internet, only a fistful of them are genuine. So the next time your friend surprises you with a photo of a spirit, take it with a pinch of salt.

Spirits have always been an object of fantasy in every religion and society. Each have tried to explain them in their own way.  Some consider spirits to be good while other consider them sinister. Many of us have a misconception that spirits are always of a deceased human. But actually a spirit can be inhuman and diabolical (demonic) in nature. Spirits of animals also do exist. These explanations have been subjected to several criticisms but these are the only logical reasons that paranormal investigators have managed to come up with, till date. This was a small insight into the understanding of spirits and have I tried my best to keep it simple.  So the next time u bump into a spirit or a ghost, I think you will need no introduction.