As someone who occasionally guides the haunted tours around downtown Fort Wayne for ARCH (and in fact was asked to do it for Paranormacon, but I had a conflict), I think a lot of it is just all in good fun. People like hearing ghost stories, whether or not they believe it.

I will admit, though, that there are a few ghost hunters who take it to a different level. When I was the Features editor of a college newspaper, we had the Indiana Ghost Trackers come to the university’s theatre and “ancient Indian burial grounds” behind campus to do their thing. And I wrote about it for our Halloween issue. It was like watching the X-Files: entertaining, without being very credible. But in interviewing some of the ghost trackers, often they would fancy themselves a bit psychic (I say in my Daphne Moon voice).

I didn’t quite understand what you meant at that last part about the “the” in “The City of Churches.” Can you clarify that?

One summer, right out of high school, my friend and I decided to look into local ghost stories. At the time we even thought their might be something to the psychic thing as we had both had experiences that were hard to explain. I think though, after interviewing a whole bunch of people who claimed to live in haunted houses, that our belief, agnostic as it was, in the existence of ghosts was pretty well shaken. It was really easy to see the familiar patterns underlying most of the stories we heard and to note the complete and utter lack of any tangible evidence. Of course, we didn’t have any fancy, smancy ghost hunting equipment.

I think people primarily tell and consume ghost stories for entertainment. Also, many ghost stories serve the same purpose as urban legends. They’re tales that impart a precautionary moral message. And I think they’re also a way of communicating oral history. But mostly they’re entertainment.

Oh, and did I ever mention that I grew up, literally, in a graveyard? My father was the caretaker for a largish park-like cemetery dating back to the mid-1800s, although there were people buried there dating back to the 1700s. We lived in a house on the grounds surrounded by dead people. My father used to like to joke that we had very quiet neighbors. As much as I would have enjoyed it I never saw a ghost in the entire time I lived there growing up. You can see some rather atmospheric photos of it on Flickr.

I meant to write my own post about this subject, but I’m glad Andy covered it here – I had no idea we had such a spectacular paranormal event coming to Fort Wayne.

My post idea came from a facebook mini-argument I saw a few weeks ago, where one of my friends mentioned he liked Ghost Hunters , and another of his friends argued that Paranormal State is “much more scientific.” I didn’t join the conversation, but, if I had, I probably would have had to reveal the embarassing truth that, several years ago, I wanted to try to make a “career” out of the “scientific” pursuit of the paranormal.

In retrospect, I wish I had pursued the idea further. I think it would have revealed the difference between pseudoscience and real science earlier, and thus brought me to my current worldview much sooner. In any case, I understand what the arguers I mentioned earlier are searching for, so I have to temper my criticism ever so slightly. I agree with Leo and others that, as a matter of folklore, studying ghost stories can reveal much about our culture and its views on death, morality, etc. However, the perversions of logic that the “professional” ghost hunters are trying to pass off as real science need to be confronted. Let’s hope the Skeptologists makes it to air.

Having watched a few episodes of Ghost Hunters – especially the earlier episodes in which he was featured – I’m less than impressed with Brian Harnois. Bad attitude + Bad attempts at science + hyper-credulity. His myspace page reveals that he is appearing at a number of events (including Fort Wayne’s) that feature a substantial ticket price – substantial in terms of paying $125 to see a high school graduate who happened to be on a crappy reality show. I guess you can make of that what you will.

I dunno. I know there will be some crazies who actually believe in what is going on there, but I think a lot of the attendees are just there for fun. If I had $80 and a few days to spare, I’d totally be there. Sometimes it’s fun to walk around in dark old places and try to scare yourself into seeing something. Even with my heightened skeptical nature, I can still sometimes do it. And while I don’t come away from that experience actually believing in ghosts, sometimes its fun to let your mind play tricks with you.

Andys W. and D.:

Both of you are right, to an extent. Yes, hacks like Harnois ought to be ashamed and should be roundly criticized when they claim the mantle of science (assuming he isn’t just some kind of performance artist—I’ve only seen the show once, and couldn’t tell if it was taking itself seriously). But I really share the motivation behind what Andy W.’s saying: the desire to lose yourself in sort of a silly story-immersion experience. It’s the same reason that we have David Copperfield, or Star Trek conventions, or the Johnny Appleseed Festival. (Or college football games, though they rarely admit it.) Sometimes it’s fun to put your rationality on hibernate mode and let your imagination run wild. Of course, to do this nonstupidly, one has to know oneself well enough to be aware of how one’s brain can play tricks on one (overactive pattern recognition and agency detection, emotional suggestibility, tribal identity, and the rest) which kind of entails as a prerequisite a prior exposure to skeptical and critical thinking.

I think such attitudes can ultimately help society get over religion and other superstitions. Rather than repress evolutionarily derived cognitive misfirings, it’s easier and more fun just to revel in them from time to time. There’s precedent, of course, for such conquering of our superstitions; we use the pantheons of antiquity—beings once actually worshiped and revered—as metaphors or literary devices or cartoons on greeting cards (think Cupid), and pagan festivals as excuses to decorate the house and give each other plastic crap. Of course, those subjugations were often done at the point of a sword (think Constantine or Charlemagne), but we have science and mass literacy and stable-ish nation-states now (and the Internet!), so perhaps we can rein in the irrationality more equitably and peacefully.

I would love to join in on an investigation or join a ghost hunting club. I have had experiences myself and would love to learn more. Please contact me…
ALan