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.