Existential Despair and the Wheel of Existence

The mediums that the Society for Psychical Research studied so extensively from 1881 forward paid a price for their gifts. Even a cursory reading of the SPR’s work with mediums reveals health issues and early death as almost an inevitable result of contacting the dead on a daily basis. Mediums tend to have histories ofContinue reading “Existential Despair and the Wheel of Existence”

Connected by Loneliness: Traumatic Bonding in Haunted Locations

One of the most terrifying punishments for human beings is isolation from the group, or from a significant other who instills in us a sense of safety and security only to abruptly remove themselves from our lives without explanation. I think of regressive societies casting out women for adultery or “witchcraft”, relegating them to theContinue reading “Connected by Loneliness: Traumatic Bonding in Haunted Locations”

Creating Your Ghosts . . . and Your Hell

There is this nagging question that I have asked myself for years. Do we create–at least in part–the paranormal phenomena that we later claim plagues us? Or that intrigues us? What, exactly, is the relationship of what is “out there” as objective, disembodied intelligence and “in here”, a product of our own consciousness? Is there,Continue reading “Creating Your Ghosts . . . and Your Hell”