OK, so this isn’t what I planned on writing for this week. But I was sitting around watching a few episodes of a show about hauntings and this struck me as something interesting to bring up.
In most reports of hauntings I’ve seen portrayed on TV or that I’ve read about, there are a number of commonalities. Some of them are understandable, others are telling–either of the haunting experience itself or of how we choose to tell our stories.
The vast majority of hauntings that we hear about in mass media outlets happen to people who are Christian or generally agnostic in practice with Christian roots. This is not all that surprising since there’s so many Christians, practicing and non, out there. What is surprising, at least if your typically heard warnings are taken into account, is that more witches and pagans aren’t haunted. Even though they’re in the minority, you’d think they’d be more prone to having ghosts show up with all the mucking about in the metaphysical they do.
In fact, in the run of haunting stories I’ve been seeing lately, only one occult dabbler has shown up. He was dumb and summoned something without knowing what he was doing. He just read it in a book and thought it would be fun. I’m not afraid to say he got exactly what he deserved for being that dumb. Luckily, it didn’t wreak too much havoc, but it did most certainly make his life considerably more difficult.
Where do pagans, witches, psychics, parapsychologists and occultists show up most in these stories? They show up most as the people who show up and actually solve the haunting problem.
And that brings me to the next point. For all the Christians that end up being haunted their various priests sure don’t do a good job of helping them out. If the family is lucky enough to find a priest that doesn’t just brush them off, the best they usually get is a simple house blessing. In cases of nasty spirits, this usually just ends up making things worse in the long run. And we won’t even talk about how difficult it is to get a real Catholic priest to do anything–they’ve got to check with bosses all the way to the Pope before they can do some things (like an exorcism), and a lot of those rites and rituals haven’t been taught regularly in seminary for decades or longer.
But nine times out of ten when a psychic or witch is brought in, the problem is solved pretty darn quickly. They come in, talk with the spirits, figure out what’s going on and then do something about it. If they can’t do something about it, they know someone who can. Recently, the only really unsuccessful pagan I’ve seen in one particular show admitted he really didn’t know what he was doing when he tried to banish the spirits from the house. (And if the reenactment was even close to accurate, anyone who knows anything will be able to tell exactly why it didn’t work.) He got about the same results as the normal priest does.
All of that got me thinking. First about what hauntings actually are and second about how different groups–especially religious groups–deal with them.
No one really knows what hauntings are. I’ve seen a dozen different “experts” spout off a dozen different and contradictory reasons for any given haunting. I’ve seen parapsychologists break them down into different types (which is actually quite helpful) but then end up at a loss when it comes down to the all important question of “why?” I’ve even seen skeptics deny up one side and down another that hauntings actually exist, apparently blind to the reams of case reports they can’t explain. (I don’t expect you to believe it if you haven’t experienced it, but to put forth a blanked denial of other people’s documented experiences as hooey is just plain rude.)
One thing is for sure, hauntings–or at least things that resemble hauntings–happen. They happen a lot more frequently than you’d think. Usually, they’re kept pretty quiet. After all, no one wants to be branded a loon by the general public. It’s not something that makes the regular six o’clock news (except around Halloween when every local ghost story gets trotted out). They happen and have serious impacts on the lives of many people.
It would appear, though, that some groups of people are much more ready and able to deal with hauntings than others. Christian priests, while wrapped in the Word of God and able to spout off prayers and brandish crosses while tossing holy water about, put on a good show but more often than not seem to be ineffective. That leaves me wondering if Christianity, as it is practiced today and as it is taught to the priests who are the supposed leaders of the faithful, has really lost a lot of its spiritual muscle. If that’s true, then it really is a sad day in the world. A religion without a strong metaphysical connection isn’t much more than a business. And no one should be dedicating their spiritual life to a business.
Witches seem to be much more able to deal with hauntings. This could be due to the fact that they have one less hurdle to overcome–ghosts and spirits are already a solid part of their religious practices. There’s no innate disbelief. A well-trained witch is also well aware of the many impacts the metaphysical can have on the physical–and how to make that chain work the other way, too. Yes, they may most certainly run into things they can’t handle, but (at least for a witch that knows what he or she is doing) success is easier to attain.
Psychics are in an interesting position. Being a psychic doesn’t give you a religion or set of oft-used rituals to follow. Being a psychic–especially one with a talent for spirit communication–does give you a much better innate understanding of how energy flows between the physical and non-physical realms. It helps you straddle the line between worlds and work as kind of a negotiator. While priests and witches often have to “power” spirits out, a good psychic can negotiate with them.
The moral of the story is: if you think your house is haunted (and you’ve already ruled out those noises being the pipes or loose shingles or any other number of perfectly plausible mundane causes), your best bet is to contact a good psychic and have them check things out.
Oh, and if some unearthly voice tells you to get out of your house, listen. Don’t argue with it right then. Get out, get reinforcements and then put that rude spirit in its place.
Also, drop me a line… because, y’know, I’d love to spend time in a haunted house.
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