Tuesday, 28 August 2012
James Thurgill --- Placing the Paranormal
Placing the paranormal
James Thurgill
As interest in the paranormal continues to grow, the practice of ghost hunting is becoming far more prevalent within popular culture; from an abundance of television shows aimed at locating the spectral to a rise in ghost tours and amateur led investigations, ghost hunting is ubiquitous within contemporary cultural activity. Paranormal investigation forces a confrontation with history, with its permeable nature; time and place become ‘out of joint’. However, there have been seldom attempts to analyse ghost hunting as an engagement with the landscape.
The practice of ghost hunting calls for the development of what might be determined as a spectral ecology, a specific vista of the environment as reiterated, temporally unstable, uncanny even. The ghost is a revenant, a return of the past in the present; ghosts are bound to places, anchored to precise locations. As such, we might want to think about place hauntologically; that is, as performative reiteration. Ghost hunting itself could be analysed through the same framework; the paranormal finds itself in vogue on a cyclical basis throughout history. This work aims therefore; to place the paranormal, moreover ghost hunting, as a conduit for engaging with place and time, locating the practice within the wider context of a spectral fetishism that mobilises hauntology.
Monday, 27 August 2012
Angela Voss ---- Making Sense of the Paranormal: A Platonic Context for Research Methods
Making Sense of the Paranormal: A Platonic Context
for Research Methods
Angela Voss (University of Exeter)
Summary for Website
Judging by the
number of academic conferences, research centres and publications now focussed
on ‘paranormal’ experiences, it is clear that there is both an upsurge in
scholarly interest in this challenging field and a wide variety of
methodologies harnessed to address it.[1]
From psychical research and parapsychology, anthropology and social sciences,
to literature, film and the arts, transpersonal and depth psychology and
experiential frameworks based on participator observation, a vast range of
extraordinary and anomalous phenomena is open to investigation by all, whether
sceptic or sympathiser. However, whilst this can lead to a refreshing display
of interdisciplinarity, there is also a danger that a lack of discrimination
concerning the merits or appropriateness of methods used to address this
non-rational realm may result in a ‘free for all’ hotch potch of contending
positions and convictions, with no clear rationale with which to assess the
deeper philosophical or epistemological issues involved. In my contribution to
this volume, I am suggesting an approach to these issues which may inform and
elucidate usages and engagements with the paranormal through providing a
framework which both recognises multiple ways of knowing, and also situates
them within a coherent whole. This model is essentially derived from Platonic
and neoplatonic philosophy.
Platonism has been denounced by the positivistic
strand of twentieth century philosophy and science, partly because of its
association with fascism and communism (Hedley & Hutton 2008: 269-282)[2]
but mainly because it champions the potential of noetic cognition, a mode of perception which tends to be denied, if
not destroyed, by the stronghold of the rational mind (Peter Atkins 2011, Ian
McGilchrist 2009: 347, David Stove 1991: ch.7).[3]
However writers such as Victoria Nelson (2001), Jeffrey Kripal (2010) and
Gregory Shaw (2011)[4] call
for scholars to intelligently explore hidden dimensions of experience through
building bridges between the public discourses of scepticism and the private
ones of authentic anomalous experience (Shaw 2011: 18). I posit that the
adoption of models derived from pre-modern religious philosophy may do this
through preserving the essential mystery of numinous encounters whilst also
providing route maps for their exploration.
[1] How one defines
‘paranormal’ depends on one’s definition of ‘normal’. For the purposes of this
essay I am using the OED definition: ‘supposed psychical events and phenomena
... whose operation is outside the scope of the known laws of nature or of
normal scientific understanding.’
[3] Atkins,
P. 2011. On Being – a scientist’s
exploration of the great questions of being. Oxford: Oxford
University
Press; McGilchrist, I. 2010. The Master
and his Emissary. Yale: Yale University Press; Stove, D. 1991. The Plato Cult and Other Follies.
Oxford: Blackwell
[4] Nelson,
V. 2001. The Secret Life of Puppets. Harvard: Harvard University Press;
Kripal, J. J. 2010. Authors of the Impossible: the Paranormal and the Sacred. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Shaw, G. 2011. ‘Iamblichean Theurgy: Reflections on the Practice of Later Platonists’. Unpublished paper given at Rice University, Texas, 16/2/11.
Kripal, J. J. 2010. Authors of the Impossible: the Paranormal and the Sacred. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Shaw, G. 2011. ‘Iamblichean Theurgy: Reflections on the Practice of Later Platonists’. Unpublished paper given at Rice University, Texas, 16/2/11.
Melvyn J. Willin --- Music and the Paranormal
The paranormal continues to intrigue people throughout many sections of
society and it might be argued that mankind’s belief system requires a
striving for matters beyond human comprehension. Music plays a role in many
aspects of life and in most religions. The singing of popular songs and
well-known hymns has long been thought conducive to binding a group of
people together and, in the case of Spiritualism, to encourage the
communication of spirits. Mediums have spoken of direct contact with the
spirits of departed composers and performers. They have played their music,
written it down under dictation from these discarnates, and provided
information about composers and their works conveyed from an allegedly
spiritual source. Although not necessarily claiming spirit contact directly
as the source of their inspiration, many well known and respected composers
have undergone psychic experiences which have brought them into contact with
an external source which has been described as ‘divine’. For the purpose of
this chapter I decided to explore the realm of musical mediumship through
Spiritualism and spiritualistic sources. This will include the claims of
19th Century believers such as Jesse Shepard, Florizel von Reuter, Charles
Tweedale and Jelly d'Aranyi as well as details of interviews given to me by
20th and 21st Century composers and performers such as John Tavener and John
Lill. So-called ‘musical mediums’ will be discussed with reference to the
validity of their music and the claims attached to their works - the main
person studied being Rosemary Brown. A number of well-known classical
composers and famous performers will be examined including Beethoven, Liszt,
Chopin and Caruso. Throughout the chapter the intangibility of both music
and the paranormal will be highlighted. Musical mediums are viewed by the
society in which they operate as rather special people. They fulfil a need
for the existence of something that lies outside of the material world that
we all live in. They allegedly produce music from a spirit world that (they
believe) provides proof of survival beyond death. Furthermore, because
musical ability is viewed by many as being a ‘gift’ from some unknown source
when it is displayed by seemingly normal people then a divine origin can be
more easily suggested. These ideas will be examined.
Sarah Sparkes ---- Guests, Hosts & Ghosts and how to make them: The GHost project – manifesting ghosts through visual art and creative research.
Guests, Hosts & Ghosts and how to make them: The GHost project – manifesting ghosts through visual art and creative research.
Sarah Sparkes
GHost is a visual arts and creative research project which, in homage to Marcel Duchamp’s artwork, “A guest + a host = a ghost”, takes on and explores the conceit of guests, hosts and ghosts, both metaphorically and practically, in its activities. To date, the project has had two central strands. Firstly, a consideration of the relevance of ghosts in contemporary culture which is centred around a programme of interdisciplinary seminars – so-called Hostings – held in Senate House at the University of London. Secondly, Ghost is composed of a series of exhibitions, screenings and performances designed to make manifest and, by extension, examine the aesthetics of ghosts and haunted spaces.
Drawing on a number of case studies from GHost exhibitions and Hostings this chapter will explore how ghostly charactereistics are manifested in contemporary culture and art practice. The chapter will look at the ghosts of video art and film – literal apparitions as well as the more abstract notion of technology becoming the medium which channels the spirits – and the creation of the uncanny in installation and performance art. Particular reference will be made to the use of audiovisual and mechanical technologies as well as performance art to manifest ghostly apparitions and simulate haunted atmospheres. Drawing on the GHost exhibitions and Hostings, this chapter aims to provide some insights into the manifestation of ghostly aesthetics.
Sarah Sloane ---- Whilhelm Reich and Etheric Warriors
Etheric Warriors Don and Carol Croft and the Legacy of Wilhelm Reich
North American activists Carol and Don Croft call themselves “etheric warriors” and join thousands of contemporary believers in “orgone energy,” a bioenergetic substance first posited by Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. Through close readings of “The Adventures of Don and Carol Croft” and other online documents, we can see the principles of Reich’s theories wrenched by the Crofts and others into a homegrown conspiracy theory that funds its paranoia with an arsenal of resin-based products for sale on several websites.
Wilhelm Reich first developed the theory of orgone energy, a “primordial energy” that enlivens healthy people and breaks apart their “body armor” and releases blockages. A variation on Freud’s notion of libido, Reich’s theory of orgone energy sees it as related to orgasm, the basis of psychosexual and physical health in all life forms. Clouds, galaxies, individual cells, primitive life forms, and human beings are influenced by the presence or absence of orgone. Reich also built “orgone accumulators,” which healed their users of illnesses such as cancer, neurosis, or other diseases formed by blockage of their orgasmic energy. The Crofts use Reichean principles of orgone energy to guide their attempts to neutralize deadly orgone radiation (DOR) which is present in cell phone towers, universities, government buildings, and post offices. Carol Croft, “a high-level empath” and psychic, communicates with dolphins who have helped her and Don Croft know how to proceed in their fight against DOR. Today the Crofts make and sell Chemtrailbusters, St. Buster Buttons, Rainbow Zapper Eggs, Tower Busters, and Holy Hand Grenades in online shops also selling orgone jewelry, healing stones, chakra-cleansing stones, aura photos, and healing bracelets. Through these devices, orgone energy can be “gifted” to places that harbor DOR, as explained on the thousands of postings on the many discussion forums on www.ethericwarriors.com
Gareth Rees ---- The Monsters of Hackney & Walthamstow Marshes: Prehistoric Ghosts that Haunt East London’s Lower Lea Valley
The Monsters of Hackney & Walthamstow Marshes: Prehistoric Ghosts That Haunt the Lower Lea Valley
On the 27th of December 1981, four boys leave their homes to play on the snow. In this weather, Hackney Marshes’ playing fields become an irresistible plateau of bright white possibility. They build snowmen. They throw snowballs. They do what young boys do. And when they find a mysterious set of footprints they follow, wondering what could possibly make such huge impressions.
Little Tommy Murray, 13, is walking a little ahead of his friends when he comes upon something. At first glance it looks like a dog. But this thing is gigantic. It turns and rears up at him, growling, all teeth and claws. Tommy screams. His friends’ mouths open in horror.
A bear is roaming Hackney marshes. This is not the first time an incident like this has been reported, (and perhaps not the last). Whether the tale of the 1981 bear is a hoax, a true account of a wild bear or a paranormal vision, it’s not surprising that such stories take hold in this particular part of London. Bears, crocodiles and wild cats have all been spotted here. The scientific evidence stacked against the existence of these creatures does little to dispel these rumours, which gain their own narrative momentum and quickly become artifacts of local urban folklore.In this essay I want to explain why the lower Lea Valley is haunted by spectres of the past; how it challenges perceptions of linear time and space in a modern city; and why its peculiar topography makes a fertile ground for paranormal beast sightings.
If you examine how the surrounding roads and water channels interlock, this zone is almost an island. Or, the way I look at it, the opposite of an island. This is not a place surrounded by nothing. It’s a nothing surrounded by place.
María del Pilar Blanco ---- Mexico’s La Ilustración Espírita: Toward a Transatlantic Understanding of a Spiritualist Archive
‘La Ilustración Espírita: Toward a Transatlantic Understanding of a Spiritualist Archive’
Dr. María del Pilar Blanco
(maria.blanco@ucl.ac.uk)
The publication of John Gray’s The Immortalization Commission (2011) represents a very recent and popular example of how contemporary criticism and philosophy continues to show a deep interest in the relations between humanity’s desire for immortality and the modern age of scientific confidence. Like Gray, other authors like Roger Luckhurst (The Invention of Telepathy, 2002) describe how subjects in Anglo-American industrial cultures in the nineteenth century, having broken the codes to some of the most enduring of mysteries of life, envisaged applying the same methods to dispel the shadows surrounding the afterlife. However, the narratives about the material cultures that contributed to a spectral turn of the nineteenth century have mostly focused on how this was predominantly a European and North American phenomenon. This essay seeks to shed new light on this transatlantic network of spiritualism through an analysis of Mexico City’s La Ilustración Espírita, one of the country’s magazines devoted to this doctrine. Published for over two decades, the magazine was contemporaneous with similar publications in the global north, and represents an excellent repository of the debates between spiritualists and materialists in the dawn of Mexico’s liberal age. Spiritualism and ultimately spiritualist journalism were practices that went hand in hand with the opening of transatlantic exchanges about science in the last decades of that century. I argue that by opening these archives we can start building a more historically and culturally nuanced methodology that addresses how global societies came to terms with dreams of immortality and the ghosts of an expanding scientific age. Opening the archive of La Ilustración Espírita is therefore an example of how we can begin to understand haunting as a historical phenomenon that asks to be examined at both local and global levels.
Esther Peeren ---- Other Visions: The Politics of Mediumship
ABSTRACT
Esther Peeren, “Other Visions: The Politics of Mediumship”
The paranormal is supposed to exceed the ordinary, the rational and the explicable, yet it is not without its own expectations and conventions. There is, in Michel Foucault’s terms, an ‘archive’ or ‘system of enunciability’ that governs what can and cannot be said – or, more aptly, seen – in the paranormal paradigm. In relation to mediumship, which is my focus here, certain visions and materializations make sense – enabling them to appear with enduring brightness – while others, considered senseless, cannot attain event-status. Looking at two contemporary British novels featuring female mediums from different centuries – Sarah Waters’s Affinity (1999), set in the 1860s, and Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black (2005), which unfolds in the 2000s – I ask what counts as a psychic vision in each historical context and when such visions become too “other” to be considered sensible as emanations of the suprasensible. When does the paranormal shift to the abnormal, leaving intelligibility behind? And what potential does the medium’s supposedly superior eye have for illuminating not just the credible-incredible (the amazement expected of the supernatural) but also the archive’s truly unanticipated and unarticulated outside? It is my contention that the medium’s claim to an “other,” superior vision can amount to a political act in Jacques Rancière’s sense, capable of challenging the existing partage du sensible, the partition or distribution of the sensible that determines what can and cannot be perceived (sensed) and what is and is not intelligible (make sense) in a particular community.
Christopher Partridge ---- Haunted culture: the persistence of belief in the paranormal
Haunted culture: the persistence of belief in the paranormal
Christopher Partridge
While contemporary civil societies in the post-industrial West have witnessed a decline of Christian hegemony and a distaste for deference to traditional authorities, they have also experienced a widespread nurturing of the subjective life. This has, particularly since the 1960s, allowed the persistence of a ‘haunted culture’ – haunted in the sense that, while, at a relatively superficial level, the dominant discourse in the West privileges the ‘normal’ and the ‘natural’ and relegates the ‘rejected knowledge’ of the paranormal and the supernatural to the periphery of society, at a deeper, primal, gut level, there is a fascination with this shadow side of Western culture. This is reflected in, and stimulated by popular culture. Consequently, regardless of the assertions of dominant secular discourses in the West, it would appear that belief in the paranormal is not the preserve of premodern societies, but rather continues to press in upon the human spirit and to disturb the ordered rationalism that comforts the late-modern mind. Drawing on analyses of secularization and sacralisation, this study provides an overview of the theory of occulture, which, it is argued, helps us to understand this persistence of belief in paranormal phenomena in late-modern, Western societies.
Elisa Oliver ---- Man Weasel Mogoose: Exploring site and meaning in the tale of the Dalby Spook
ABSTRACT
‘VANISHED’ AND ‘RETURNED’:
RETRACING THE STEPS OF THE DALBY SPOOK
This contribution approaches the idea of paranormal tourism from the perspective of debates around return and re-tracing in cultural studies and contemporary art practice: in particular their relation to memory, history and the fictionalisation of experience. The text asks what happens to the experience and interpretation of a site and events relating to it when anticipation, in relation primarily to something that never happened, is central to its engagement? That anticipation also furthers continued return, either to the site itself and/or, the material surrounding it, continuing to destabilize and re-position us in relation to its meaning, often moving between fact and fiction in the re-telling. Taking the 1930s tale of ‘Gef, the talking Mongoose, or the ‘Dalby Spook’, as its core, the text maps artistic strategies such as a ‘forensic aesthetic’ and the privileging of failure in recent art practice and theory to look again at these paranormal happenings and the way they have come to be performed.
Heather Nunn and Anita Biressi ---- ‘There’s Something in My House’: Television and the Politics of the Paranormal
‘There’s Something in My House’:
Television and the Politics of the Paranormal
Heather
Nunn and Anita Biressi
This
chapter attends to this political dimension of the ghostly and the paranormal
by considering the ways in which ghosts and haunting in TV drama work to draw
attention to the those who are often disenfranchised, marginalised or
ill-treated; rendering them both visible and central to the culture and spaces
from which they have been earlier excluded. As María del Pilar Blanco and
Esther Peeren (2010: x) explain in their survey of the haunted spaces of
everyday culture, there are in fact two kinds of ghosts operating in culture:
the figurative and the non-figurative. The non-figurative is most commonly
understood as the soul or spirit of a deceased person and the figurative ghost
can be many things including a designation for social outcasts, the neglected
and the unwanted in the social realm. It is the interaction between the two
that works to reveal the silences and oppressions of the lived world and which
renders the invisible visible. In Nicholas Mizroeff’s (2002: 239) words:
..the
ghost is that which could not be seen...and it has many names in many
languages: diasporists, exiles, queers, migrants, gypsies, refugees…The ghost
is from one place among many from which to interpellate the networks of
visibility that have constructed, destroyed and deconstructed the modern visual
subject.
Focusing
on the BBC’s drama series Sea of Souls (2004-7), which deploys an
investigative paranormal format, our own analysis of popular TV aims to
illustrate how in many television treatments of the paranormal it is the ghost
– both figurative and non-figurative – that calls to account and makes visible
the ways in which their living counterpart has been mistreated, maligned or
misunderstood.
References
Gerhard Mayer ---- A Sample Phenomenology of the Ghost Hunting Scene in the USA and in Germany
Abstract. – Over
the past few years, Ghost Hunting Groups (GHGs) were founded, particularly in
the United States, which have committed themselves to the investigation of
haunted sites. This article will focus on the analysis of this movement and its
remarkable development, which results from three major factors: (1) the
presence of ghost-hunting-related themes in the media, such as on television
and in movies, (2) the popularization of the internet and the possibilities
that emerge in the area of information access, general exchange and networking,
as well as (3) easy availability and manageability of high-tech equipment along
with the simplification of data processing due to data digitalization. First,
this article will dimensionalize the field of GHGs according to various
criteria. Subsequently, an attempt is made to reconstruct the emergence of the
movement. Next, the most important methodological approaches (equipment,
procedures) will be outlined. And finally, the main part of the text will focus
on the situation in the United States. It is based on self-portrayals of the
GHGs on their webpages, the analysis of the Ghost Hunters TV series that plays
an important role in the emergence of the movement and is closely linked to the
GHG The Atlantic Paranomal Society (TAPS), as well as on the few scientific
studies that exist on the movement. In a second step, the paper will look at
GHGs in Germany, which adopt the American model on the one hand, but in many
cases use a different culture-dependent framing, on the other. The article
concludes by highlighting problems this form of non-professional research pose
to scientific anomalistics.
Josephine Machon ---- Immersed in Illusion, Haunted by History: Marisa Carnesky’s Ghost Train
Immersed
in Illusion, Haunted by History: Marisa Carnesky’s Ghost Train
Josephine Machon
Abstract
 |
| Figure 1: Marisa Carnesky’s Ghost Train Blackpool Winter Gardens, Pleasure Beach Promenade, UK, 2011. Image copyright courtesy of Marisa Carnesky. |
In this chapter I discuss how Marisa Carnesky’s Ghost
Train (2004, 2008-), an immersive and truly ‘sensational’ populist
performance event, accentuates the spectral potential of such rides and plays
with the multifarious possibilities of ‘haunting the imagination’ that the form
offers when employed as an artistic intervention. I will consider specifically
how she exploits the unheimlich (literally, ‘unhomely’; uncanny or
eerie) aspect of illusion, the visceral impact of fairground rides and the
affective possibilities of ‘the haunted house’, to instil an immediate, live
and ‘lived’ – thus ‘live(d)’ - response in the audience-participants;
specifically to the historical, the mythologised, the political and the
personal narratives of displaced and sex-trafficked women from recent history.
The discussion draws on (syn)aesthetic analysis
(Machon, 2009, 2011), a recent manifesto for ‘New Magic as Contemporary Art’, (various,
Straada, 2010) and Jacques Derrida’s
ideas around ‘hauntology’ (2006), to illustrate how Carnesky’s idiosyncratic
fusion of disciplines across theatre, cabaret, film and fairground, extends
forms of representation and invites the audience to experience the
historical ‘identities’ of silenced, migrant women across the 20th
and 21st centuries by using aspects of illusion as ghostly
apparition, to sensual and metaphorical ends; gendered historiographies that
are felt as much as intellectually
understood. Carnesky’s
Ghost Train takes a journey through the uncanny time-place
continuum of the historical, the imaginative, the architectural and the
durational to establish a paranormal artistic activity that makes manifest
these ‘lost’ lives.
 |
| Figure 2: Marisa Carnesky. Publicity image for Marisa Carnesky’s Ghost Train, 2008. Photo Credit Marcus Ahmad. Image copyright courtesy Marisa Carnesky. |
Annette Hill ---- Paranormal Cultural Practices
The Paranormal in Popular Culture
Annette Hill
Why
study the paranormal in popular culture? First, historical research tells us
that ghost belief and spirit forms have long been a part of culture and
society. There is an historical tradition to spirit forms, such as magic lantern
shows, phantasmagoria, the spirit telegraph and photograph. Second, at this
historical juncture in time there is a paranormal turn in popular culture.
Beliefs are on the rise in contemporary Western societies. Almost half of the
British population, and two thirds of American people, claim to believe in some
form of the paranormal, such as extra sensory perception, hauntings and
witchcraft.
Entertainment, leisure and tourism industries have turned paranormal beliefs
into revenue streams. From television drama series such as Fringe, reality TV Most Haunted, to ghost tourism, paranormal ideas offer new twists
on ‘things that go bump in the night.’ A third reason to research the paranormal in popular culture is that
people’s practices can tell us a great deal about participation. As one person put it ‘people produce beliefs.’ The paranormal as it is experienced within
popular culture involves seeing an audience not as spectators or viewers but as
participants. People co-perform and co-produce their individual and collective
cultural experiences.
Line Henriksen ---- Here be Monsters
Ever heard of smile.jpg? It is said that it appeared online for the first time in the 1990's, and that it is supposed to be a picture of a dog-like creature with a broad grin, a human hand reaching out from the darkness behind it. Anyone who has ever seen the jpeg is rumoured to have been visited by the creature, smile.dog, in their nightmares. It tells them to “spread the word” by showing the jpeg to others. Then it will leave them alone.
Promise.
'The Curious Case of Smile.jpg' is a so-called creepypasta. These are online urban legends, which often claim to be stories of ‘real’ encounters with the paranormal. In this sense, creepypastas have a lot in common with many other contemporary narratives of the paranormal found in for example web series [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_series ], Alternate Reality Games [Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game ] and so-called point of view/found footage horror films, most of which flirt with documentary-style aesthetics.
In this chapter I would like to explore monstrous encounters in narratives of the ‘authentic’ paranormal through the lens of materialist feminisms. Most materialist feminists argue that the materiality of the world is never still, but always engaged in active processes of materialization. In the midst of such movement and transformation, one will encounter monsters, that is, the strange(r) and the ‘other’ that cannot be completely anticipated nor fully known, but which one must learn to live with and respond to in respectful ways. This is the beginnings of a posthuman ethic as well as an opening up of what Donna Haraway calls the ‘promises of monsters’ : the possibility of changing the world by disturbing it with accounts of virtual, liveable elsewheres.
But how does one respond to ghosts and ghouls, monsters and phantoms? And how does one explore and navigate in worlds that are in constant transformation? These are some of the questions I would like to touch upon in this chapter. In the meantime, if you are looking for an encounter of your own, just follow this link [insert link to picture] and spread the word. You will be doing me a favour, and it is really not that bad.
Promise.
1.See for example: http://www.creepypastaindex.com/creepypasta/the-curious-case-of-smile-jpg Last accessed on 7 May 2012.
2.Donna Haraway: The Promises of Monsters – A Regenerate Politics for Inappropriate/d Others, in: Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, Paula A. Treichler, eds., Cultural Studies, 1992, Routledge
John Harvey ---- The Ghost in the Machine: Spirit and Technology
OVERVIEW
The Ghost in the Machine: Spirit and Technology
The chapter deals with the relationship between the Spiritualist ‘apparitions’ and modernist apparatus. It argues that the western ‘image’ of disincarnate spirits produced since the 1860s has been shaped significantly by the devices used to discern and document them. The study focuses upon the contribution that the camera and audio recorder has made to both the fabrication of spirit entities and the endeavour to contact the dead. Photography and ‘audiography’ were, in the context of Spiritualism, the technological equivalents of clairvoyance and clairaudience (the supernatural abilities to see and hear the departed). Whereas the spiritualist medium could receive and send information to and from this world and the next, technological communication with the dead was unidirectional. The camera and audio recorder were merely depositories for the visible and audible presence of the dead, with whom one could no more interact than with the actors on a television and radio. While these new mechanical and electrical devices were, in this respect, far less serviceable than the older and more modest contrivances of the ouija board and planchette, they offered, it was supposed, a more objective and reliable demonstration of the reality of spirits. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, technologies such as the camera, radiograph, phonograph, electron microscope, deep-space telescope, and parabolic microphone brought what was previously invisible and inaudible into the realms of perception and permanence. Spiritualism redirected these facilities from the natural to the supernatural world. In so doing, technology was requisitioned to not only legitimize anomalous phenomena but also bridge the divide between antiquity and modernity, superstition and empiricism.
In this context: The study examines the iconography and reception of spirits as mediated by technology. Uniquely, it presents a comparative analysis of so-called spirit (or psychic) photographs and Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP). This in order to discern how their distinctive formal conditions (the one static and visual, and the other kinetic or time based and audible), and their means of encoding (sensitised emulsion and magnetic tape initially, and digital media subsequently) contributed to a cultural understanding of death, the afterlife, and the nature of spirits. The study also explores the commonalities of process (ordinarily, neither the image nor voice of the spirit was evident when the ‘recording’ was made; they were manifest only after the ‘image’ on the photograph or tape was ‘played-back’). Furthermore, it explores the commonalities of perceptual and auditory pareidolia – the viewer’s or listener’s propensity to interpret vague stimulus (the blurs and slurs on the surface of a negative or the interference of white noise on the soundtrack) as something known (a figure or a voice). Finally, the chapter examines the discourse on spirit, (haunted) technology, and mediation presented in popular cultural forms, including films such as Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) and Nakata’s Ring (1998).
John Harvey
Kristen Gallerneaux Brooks ---- The Gizmo and The Glitch: Telepathy, Ocular Philosophy, and other Extensions of Sensation
The Gizmo and The Glitch:
Telepathy, Ocular Philosophy, and other
Extensions of Sensation
Kristen
Gallerneaux Brooks
This chapter will investigate the byproducts
and doctrines of paranormal culture, as it is conflated with technology and its
connective sensory tissues, in both analog and digital forms. Perspectives from
material culture and folklore studies, parapsychology, critical art theory, and
other forms of inquiry will be directed towards discussions of the ocular
philosophies scattered throughout the history of paranormal research,
specifically those areas most concerned with non-normative sensation. The first
half relates to “analog” instances connected to non-retinal and telepathic
vision, with discussions in the second half focusing on aspects of the
“digital,” especially spectral matters narrated by the Google Street View
feature.
My own position in this dialogue is not to
validate or deny the authenticity of the cases presented within, but is rooted
in the opinion that the
visual and material facets of paranormal culture are overlooked artifacts that
have the ability to act as active entities that encourage the development of narrative,
and as catalysts for debate concerning the rhetoric of truth. All of this is
inspired by, yet occurs outside of, the pictorial frame. This relates to the
concept of visual legends and visual memorates, terms I use to
describe processes of narrative, supported through the use of the invisible
attributes of tangible artifacts as opposed to oral histories.
How fitting a topic then, considering that psychical
research has often placed an emphasis on the visual in tandem with narrative.
These byproducts of psi research exist in the form of documentation and devices
of the research environment and its experiments, taking form in drawings, photographs,
and films. I hope to
show that the aesthetic and philosophical considerations of the metaphorical
and metaphysical thresholds present in paranormal culture have the potential to
uncover intersections of belief, science, and modes of human creativity that
can create new forms of shared experience, visual, spiritual, and otherwise.
Diane Dobry ---- Online Fan Groups Using Paranormal Reality Television Programs to Interpret Representations of Paranormal Phenomena and Their Relationship to Death and the Afterlife
American cultural practices related to death and dying often involve denial, discomfort, or avoidance even, at times, in the face of imminent death. Death education in America, once the subject of controversial debate, is now primarily limited to preparing those in healthcare who deal with the dying and their families. What happens beyond death is normally considered to be the domain of religious organizations. Popular culture, however, is one area where speculation about death, dying and the afterlife more frequently and openly takes place.
Paranormal television programming is one of the primary sources of such speculation. Over the entire course of the existence of American television, the paranormal has been an ongoing theme, however, prior to the introduction of cable television, most programs were fiction. In more recent years, what is called paranormal reality television (PRTV) has grown more popular. The oldest format of this genre (if PRTV can be considered a genre), is documentary re-enactment programming. Others feature psychics or mediums who claim to read minds, tell the future or talk to the dead. More recent formats include investigative “objective” inquiry with a connection made between the paranormal and spirits of the dead but in a way that appeals to those seeking a more “scientific” approach using measurement, documentation and technology.
Observation of online discussions related to these programs reveals viewers engaged in discussions about the programs and the key protagonists, and also in discussions about what constitutes evidence, personal beliefs regarding death and the afterlife and other unknowns, and how contributors assess reality television programs as to their relevance, authenticity and believability.
This chapter examines three PRTV program formats and associated online discussions related to the programs’ authenticity, viewers’ questions about death and the afterlife, and beliefs and ideas about these issues. The chapter also presents findings that came out of the research.
William J. Dewan ---- Skeptic Culture: Traditions of Disbelief in New Mexico
Skeptic Culture: Traditions of Disbelief in
New Mexico
Author: William J. Dewan
Academic studies of paranormal belief traditions
provide a myriad of perspectives on their genesis, dissemination, and meaning
in various cultural contexts. However, these studies have too often neglected
to examine the social role of disbelief and its impact on popular conceptions
of the paranormal or anomalous. In this study, I examine ‘traditions of
disbelief’ as part of a broader folk spectrum of paranormal belief language in
contemporary American society, with a focus on interviews conducted with a community
of self-identified ‘skeptics’ in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I sought to find
patterns, codings, and themes in their responses to a variety of topics
including religion, the paranormal, education, and the role of skepticism in
the modern world. Individuals provided Ideological commonalities that were
indicative of their shared ideas about the various dangers faced within 21st
century American culture. Specifically, these skeptics positioned themselves as
localized defenders of rationalism and empiricism in the American Southwest
while treating paranormal beliefs as byproducts of a broader national increase
in religious fundamentalism, irrational thought, and deficiencies in science
education. Furthermore, skeptic rhetoric repeatedly presents images of
epistemological warfare between skeptics and paranormal advocates. I contend
that this overarching concern has less to do with paranormal beliefs per se and
more to do with the extent to which alternative, competing models of physical
reality are allowable in public discourse.
Abby Day ---- Everyday Ghosts: A Matter of Believing in Belonging
The Monsters of Hackney & Walthamstow Marshes:
Prehistoric Ghosts That Haunt the Lower Lea Valley
On the 27th of December 1981, four
boys leave their homes to play on the snow. In this weather, Hackney Marshes’
playing fields become an irresistible plateau of bright white possibility. They
build snowmen. They throw snowballs. They do what young boys do. And when they
find a mysterious set of footprints they follow, wondering what could possibly
make such huge impressions.
Little Tommy Murray, 13, is walking
a little ahead of his friends when he comes upon something. At first glance it
looks like a dog. But this thing is gigantic. It turns and rears up at him,
growling, all teeth and claws. Tommy screams. His friends’ mouths open in
horror.
A bear is roaming Hackney marshes.
This is not the first time an incident like this has been reported, (and
perhaps not the last). Whether the tale of the 1981 bear is a hoax, a true
account of a wild bear or a paranormal vision, it’s not surprising that such
stories take hold in this particular part of London. Bears, crocodiles and wild
cats have all been spotted here. The scientific evidence stacked against the
existence of these creatures does little to dispel these rumours, which gain
their own narrative momentum and quickly become artifacts of local urban
folklore.In this essay I want to explain why the lower Lea Valley is haunted by
spectres of the past; how it challenges perceptions of linear time and space in
a modern city; and why its peculiar topography makes a fertile ground for
paranormal beast sightings.
If you examine how the surrounding
roads and water channels interlock, this zone is almost an island. Or, the way
I look at it, the opposite of an island. This is not a place
surrounded by nothing. It’s a nothing surrounded by place.
_____________________________
hi Abby, its not an advertising or
promotional site, its designed to be standalone and include material from the
book, so if you can do a shorter extract and if poss a photo that would be
great
This link will take you to a podcast of a
lecture I gave which covers this material, along with more general material:
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/crcs/research/belief_network
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/crcs/research/belief_network
that sounds relevant, but its strictly
about paranormal content, so perhaps some of your participants stories?
kind regards
Sally
Sally R Munt
Professor of Cultural Studies
Professor of Gender Studies
Director of the Sussex Centre for Cultural
Studies
BABCP Accredited Cognitive Behavioural
Psychotherapist
School of Media, Film and Music
Silverstone Building
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton
BN1 9RG
Tel 01273 606755
On 25 Apr 2012, at 14:03, Abby Day wrote:
Hi again
Many thanks for your kind thoughts. A little calmer, know.
Having reviewed this I don't really know what I can send as I don't have any dedicated photos. But would a link to my web pages help?
http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/thrs/staff/day.html
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/anthropology/people/peoplelists/person/210508
Or my book on Amazon?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/0199577870/ref=sr_1_3?p=S001&keywords=abby+day&ie=UTF8&qid=1335358091
This link will take you to a podcast of a lecture I gave which covers this material, along with more general material:
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/crcs/research/belief_network
I have written blogs about religious identity relative to the census http://abbyday.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/census/
and about young people and the summer riots: http://abbyday.wordpress.com/2011/08/
Dr Abby Day
Senior Research Fellow, Department of Religious Studies, School of European Culture & Languages, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NF, United Kingdom
Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Geography, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RH UK
Chair: SOCREL (Sociology of Religion study group, British Sociological
Association)
New book: Believing in Belonging
Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World
Available now through all good bookshops, or direct from Oxford University Press at:http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199577873.doc
Many thanks for your kind thoughts. A little calmer, know.
Having reviewed this I don't really know what I can send as I don't have any dedicated photos. But would a link to my web pages help?
http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/thrs/staff/day.html
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/anthropology/people/peoplelists/person/210508
Or my book on Amazon?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/0199577870/ref=sr_1_3?p=S001&keywords=abby+day&ie=UTF8&qid=1335358091
This link will take you to a podcast of a lecture I gave which covers this material, along with more general material:
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/crcs/research/belief_network
I have written blogs about religious identity relative to the census http://abbyday.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/census/
and about young people and the summer riots: http://abbyday.wordpress.com/2011/08/
Dr Abby Day
Senior Research Fellow, Department of Religious Studies, School of European Culture & Languages, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NF, United Kingdom
Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Geography, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RH UK
Chair: SOCREL (Sociology of Religion study group, British Sociological
Association)
New book: Believing in Belonging
Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World
Available now through all good bookshops, or direct from Oxford University Press at:http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199577873.doc
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