Saturday October 31, 2009
A paranormal affair
By IRIS TAN & ALAN MURDIE
The paranormal world is not confined to psychics and weirdos — it is of interest to academicians, scientists and ordinary folk, too.
The belief in the immortal human soul and its survival after death dates back to prehistoric times and is common to almost every culture in the world. Yet, progress in understanding the phenomena has been relatively slow.
Last month, the 33rd International Annual Conference of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR ) held in the University of Nottingham, England, tried to find some answers.
(A scene from the TV series, Supernatural) There is a saying that goes: for those who believe, no proof is necessary; for those who doubt, no proof is enough. Shedding light on psychic or paranormal abilities, life after death, the existence or otherwise of ghosts and many other curious phenomena in a scientific manner has been the aim of the society since its foundation in 1882.
The SPR has attracted scientists as well as sceptics and believers as members. Among them were two British prime ministers — Arthur Balfour and William Gladstone — the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, novelist Mark Twain, intellectual and critic John Ruskin and academician Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll).
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was an active member and attended many séances, during one of which he claimed to have heard the voice of his son and saw the revenants of his mother and nephew.
The SPR holds no corporate opinions. As a result, the casual enquirer or any participant of their activities will not find any conclusive explanation of what ghosts or other psychic phenomena may actually be.
On the other hand, they do discuss, research and explore anomalous experiences from a variety of perspectives with the hope of increasing understanding and generating friendly discussions with people on all sides of the paranormal debate.
This year’s SPR International Conference was held in Nottingham and features the oldest pub in England —Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. It is alleged to be haunted!
Some 100 delegates from different backgrounds and countries attended. Twenty-five papers on the different aspects of the paranormal and psychical research were presented. One-third of the delegates were academicians from universities specialising in research, the sciences, psychology as well as parapsychology.
Ghosts — do they exist?
What we enjoyed the most about the conference was the sharing of personal ghostly encounters and findings by the delegates. It was interesting to know how these people go about researching and documenting their findings.
Anne Winspear from Liverpool, who is a host for Mercy, BBC’s paranormal phone–in radio channel, interviewed many people in the streets of Liverpool on retrocognition, which she prefers to call “time-slip”.
This is when people suddenly have an experience where they are transported back to the past. The place they are standing in remains the same, but everything else seems to be from the past. Her study revealed that when some people have time slip experiences, others around them do not experience anything unusual at all.
Imagine being able to see what a place looked like centuries ago! How fascinating.
Another interesting personal experience was related by Tricia Robertson. She told of how the spirit of Jack, a 19-year-old boy, contacted a medium to try and get a message across to his mum. Jack’s mum was so devastated by his death that she wanted to end her life. The medium was told to look for Tricia, who then contacted Jack’s mum.
Once this was done, Jack’s mum was able to accept her son’s death and carry on with her life. Tricia said she was very happy to have played a small role in convincing someone to carry on living.
Despite lots of wishful thinking about spirit photography and the possibility of capturing ghosts on camera, studies by Dr Richard Wiseman showed that spirits often leave no physical trace. He conducted a survey on the Internet and invited viewers to send in photographs of ghosts captured on camera.
None of the photos were convincing enough, confirming SPR findings over the last hundred years that the vast majority of human apparitions made no attempts to communicate.
Rather, they seemed to be like video recordings repeating themselves. As in many ghost stories, a large number of strange experiences come to individuals who are not expecting them and, inconveniently, in the absence of a medium, psychic researcher or photographer!
In between the presentation of papers, we were invited to participate in an experiment to prove the theory by Mark Zilberman (back in 1955) who said that a group of people could manifest powerful psychic phenomena. Each of us was asked to predict a few lottery numbers and the most common numbers were used to buy the lottery ticket.
We did win something but unfortunately, the amount was not significant to be shared among us all so we donated the money back to SPR.
Other topics discussed during the 2½-day conference included life after death, automatic writing, luck and paranormal beliefs, telepathy, dreams and geomagnetic activity, fractal, dowsing and sacred sites, OBE (out of body) and NDE (near death experiences) phenomenon.
The conference was also attended by eminent personalities known for their contributions to psychical research like Prof Archie Roy, Mary Rose Barrington, Dr Alan Gauld, Professor David Fontana and Prof Donald West.
West is the oldest member of SPR, UK and was present at the trial of medium Helen Duncan, the last woman in Britain said to be convicted of witchcraft back in 1944.
To believe or not to believe
There have been many attempts to explain what a ghost and spirit actually is. Is it a manifestation or reincarnation of ourselves? Is a ghost a disembodied spirit that has somehow become separated from its mortal being? Or does it come from the realms of our subconscious and projected as images for others to see?
Can it be that what we are seeing is the next phase of existence after death?
A degree of scepticism must be attached to a subject such as this, unless a case can be made for its existence based on rational and scientific grounds. Ghosts and the supernatural are certainly not like what is constantly featured in the movies — malevolent entities of horror.
Ghosts and spirits are generally claimed to be manifestations of a wide range of phenomena that includes residual personal energy, projections of our etheric essence, surges of kinetic energy and discarnate spirits. Perhaps death is not the end but merely a transition from one state of being to another.
Unfortunately, many people are still apprehensive and fearful of the subject. As we all go through life, the more we understand the world, the more ready we are to face its challenges, including of the unknown beyond.
An understanding of this phenomena would certainly help broaden our understanding of the nature of the universe and allow us to reflect upon life and death and of good and evil.
For those who want to believe, the supernatural will continue to excite and fascinate as well as terrify. For those in denial, the existence of the supernatural will simply be of no more significance than a lightning flash or a rainbow after a shower.
As the saying goes, “For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who doubt , no proof is enough”.
Alan Murdie is a barrister from Bury St.Edmunds, England. He is the present chairman of the Ghost Club, the world’s oldest psychical research organisation founded in Cambridge in the Victorian era. He is also a council member of the Society of Psychical Research, UK and has written books on the subject.
Iris Tan is an associate member of the Society of Psychical Research, UK.
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