Chasing Shadows: The Hunt for Ghosts from Curiosity to Credibility (Part Two)

From Crookes’s laboratory séances to Harry Price’s haunted investigations, explore how the hunt for ghosts evolved from curiosity to credibility—and what it reveals about the living.

The Hunt for Ghosts is OnWhen people today venture into haunted houses with cameras, EMF meters, and recorders, they’re unknowingly continuing a tradition that began over a century ago. The hunt for ghosts may look modern, but its roots trace back to figures more grounded and genuine than many of today’s TV personalities—people like John Zaffis and Jason Hawes, who carry a lineage that reaches further back to scholars and spiritualists. There was no such thing as a paranormal pop star then; there were only those who genuinely wanted to understand and not trick a generation.

Yet the modern scene rarely mentions the foundations laid by Sir William Crookes and Harry Price. Today’s investigators might name-drop Edison or Tesla for their “ghost phone” and “spirit radio”—devices meant to pull voices from the aether—but communication is more than asking for a yes or no.

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Understanding Paranormal Tech Then and Now. A Field Guide to What’s Exciting

A playful field guide to the paranormal tech built to measure the afterlife, from Victorian Spiritoscopes and ectoplasm cabinets to EVPs, Kirlian cameras, and modern ghost boxes, is listed here. Are we missing anything? If so, please comment!

Paranormal Tech - What keeps A Ghost A Ghost?From the early days when individuals wanted to make contact with the other side to present day, the choices in what to use as paranormal tech is few. They ranged from candles and balls of string to devices that became precursors to what’s used today. Back then, the people didn’t use stuffed dolls programmed to respond to strange activity. And REM pods is still considered a novelty. Some of these toys were created, rooted in belief at the time, and others are just plain weird.

This guide explores some of the most imaginative, audacious, and occasionally fraudulent contraptions created by folks with nothing better to do. Not all of them are truly useful, and if there’s ever a museum to showcase these curiosities, maybe they might rattle out a result to make the observer go hmm. What’s being sought out here is the reason why these creators made these devices. Some of them are precursors to what’s used now, improved by modern engineering; others are best left to rest as oddities in a trade that’s never going to be truly mainstream. Included are the inventors of their respective “toy,” when images of the product are lacking, or so varied, where no one version can say it all.

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The History Behind the Hunt for Ghosts: A Timeless Journey Through Belief (Part One)

A look at how humanity’s fascination with ghosts evolved from ancient myths to Victorian spiritualism. The hunt for ghosts isn’t for everyone, and we consider the contributions of people prior to Crookes and Price laid the groundwork for modern investigative techniques.

The Hunt for GhostsAs Halloween approaches, many folks enjoy a ghostly outing—whether for thrills or to glimpse evidence of something beyond. To go on the hunt for ghosts is a pastime few practice year-round, but when the season is right, more people go chasing after a belief. The old idea October 31 is when the veil is thinnest has roots in Neopagan lore, particularly Samhain, the Celtic festival marking the boundary between the living and the dead. Similar ideas echo in Mexico’s Día de los Muertos, celebrated soon after All Saints’ Day.

Whatever the tradition, humanity’s fascination with the afterlife is ancient. Even in Greek literature, ghosts appear not just as spectres but as participants in moral and mythic storytelling. In The Odyssey (Book 11), Odysseus travels to the underworld and summons shades of the dead to question them—a literal “ghost quest.” Centuries later, during the Victorian era—the golden age of spiritualism—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle developed his own fascination with the supernatural, even though his most famous character never took on such a case.

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So What is Steve Gonsalves’ A Life With Ghosts Really Like? Quick Answer: More Busy than Really Scary!

Technically, A Life With Ghosts is not meant to dive deep into why Steve Gonsales loves paranormal invstigation. What’s presented is a fond recollection of his time with TAPS.

Steve Gonsalves A Life With Ghosts Book CoverSimon & Schuster

The question I have about Steve Gonsalves memoir, A Life With Ghosts, is if he truly wrote it all? I suspect Michael Aloisi may have contributed with the background information. Afterwards, the tone switches over to this ghost hunter’s voice. Thankfully, this consultant gets credited too and his credentials are listed on the back book sleeve cover.

Technically, Ghost Hunters was not the first reality tv style show about paranormal investigators. That credit goes to Most Haunted. Before then, there were television specials and one off documentaries which helped let people know that there’s something of a general (if not academic) interest in this subject. Loyd Auerbach is the leader in the field, and I’m surprised Gonsalves didn’t mention either him or That’s Incredible! Both were the closest thing to witnessing investigators in the field back then (the late 70s) and he’d be at that right impressionable age when both were featured on network television.

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Who Can Rest Beyond the Grave, When the Living is Calling For You?

Death should not be feared. Instead, it should be regarded as a transition point from one state to another, and Beyond the Grave is decent at exploring the various possibilities on what that may be….

Beyond the Grave Movie PosterAvailable on Digital Streaming Platforms Beginning Sept 5, 2023

Serena DC’s Beyond the Grave is a fascinating documentary that dares to tackle the topic of what happens when the mortal body is ready to shut down and if the spirit persists afterwards. Although this is not really a subject to discuss in the middle of Ghost Month, I’m sure some Asians are wondering if their loved ones are doing okay.

This filmmaker is better known for Contact – The CE-5 Experience, and although that work is about encountering aliens from outer space, maybe that’s what we become when entering the aether, and have to deal with a new incorporeal reality. As for whether paranormal investigators and ghost hunters can find evidence for this continued existence, that’s still debatable.

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Enter Disney’s Completely Watered Down Haunted Mansion, If You Dare.

Disney should have turned Haunted Mansion into an anthology series much like the printed material instead of making an one off work.

Disney's Haunted Mansion 2023 Film PosterSpoiler Alert

The only notable difference I saw between the two cinematic presentations of Disney’s Haunted Mansion is where the humour comes from. Instead of making the popular comedian of the time the laughingstock of the show, they’ve been made into supporting characters. Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson and Danny DeVito make for a terrific team up, but that isn’t enough to make this film a success.

In this reboot, Ben Matthias (LaKeith Stanfield) and Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) are now the focus. The former was an astrophysicist who lost his wife in a car accident, and the latter is raising a 9-year-old son who misses daddy greatly. It’s implied they separated, but as for whether he’s alive or dead, that’s easy to guess. The latter moved to Louisiana to set up a B&B and hopefully leave that life they lost behind.

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