Ghost Hunting Theories: Residual


(**Happy birthday to a special follower**)

This is the ghost hunting theories series continued. I’m exploring lots of different explanations for what hauntings are. In the last one, I explored interdimensional beings to explain phenomenon. This time, I'm discussing residual forms of hauntings.

I will begin “residual” with a story. This is the story of how I officially began ghost hunting (in some way or other, I had been doing it for my whole life, but I took to the field for legitimate study after this incident).

Invited to a party across town with people I don’t know, I went with my ex. I arrived and he wandered off to play drums (open mic party). So, I mingled and the hostess rushed over to me. “I heard you’re psychic!” She said that the party was house warming. She had moved in a few months ago and had been having someone walking her hallway at night and the sounds of a woman crying in her bathroom. So, I said I’d be willing to read the place. She and her friend came with me as I went down the hallway and began to unfold the story of the house.

An elderly woman was in the first bedroom. She walked the hall many times to recheck the front door, either feeble minded or OCD. The corner bedroom had a man associated with it and very dark dealings. I didn’t like him at all. The master bedroom, I saw a little boy who slept between his parents, partly to get comfort from his mom and partly to protect her from the unpredictable dad. The master bathroom shower, the woman had tried to kill herself, carved up her arms and curled up in the shower to die.

The woman with the hostess gasped. “I’ve lived next door 25 years. They lived here. All of them. Just like you said. The wife tried to kill herself. The man dealt drugs from the bedroom on the corner and the grandmother lived with them. They’re all alive, living across town.”

I blinked. It had never occurred to me I was reading all living people, just their history there. It made me wonder. How much of hauntings are residual that psychometrists like myself pick up? How much is simply patterns and past history that for some reason unknown to us, records itself in an environment and plays back like some kind of time echo?

Ghost hunters find their ultimate reward to be seeing a full-body apparition. It’s human nature to think if you see an apparition, you are seeing a spirit of someone, but what if you’re simply seeing a visual memory imprinted and played back. Sometimes, it’s auditory, like footsteps or olfactory like phantom scents. In fact, in all my years of hunting, I have yet to find absolute evidence of intelligent hauntings. It’s what keeps me going. I went into the field to see if possibly residual is all there is. I know from reading objects that it imprints on surfaces, so where is the evidence of intelligent souls trying to interact? Even amazing KII session have left me wondering. How much might be our own influence on the instruments? Notice how much luck Grant has with KII meters?

So, we search for signs of something touching us, something answering us specifically, showing that it sees us, it is interacting in real time. And, once we do get a sign of intelligence, how do we know it’s a soul of someone who passed on and not other-dimensional? Psychic? Other form of intelligence? Time shifting?

You can see how this ghost hunting theories series will really make your mind open up. This is what ghost hunters face all the time, all the possibilities of what it is out there that we are encountering. The problem is, the majority believe they know what ghosts are and the rules they live by. These people aren’t researching, they’re looking for examples of what they already believe.

It takes open-minded hunters to say “what are all the explanations on the table” first. That’s what this series will do. Give you every option that runs through our minds as we open-minded hunters explore.

Comments

  1. Great post girl! I have often wondered if you could necessarily tell if the readings you were getting were from people who have passed on or if they were still alive. I know you can do readings on both. (check your email later!) Here is my take on what you've opened up with this post:

    Our bodies are energy. We are energy regardless if we are alive or dead. We leave this energy - probably unintentionally - everywhere we go. When we die, that energy has to go somewhere. It just doesn't disappear! Here is my thought on the current story you gave us.....There was obviously a LOT of bad, scary, and sad things that happened in this house. That energy was so strong that it left it's imprint on the house and it's surroundings. The energy for whatever reason - conscious or not - seemed to want to leave a message or something similar to let someone know what went on while occupying that home. So with that said, maybe it WAS conscious energy. I'm not saying the people realized they were "leaving messages" but due to the traumas, the energy HAD to leave it's message. Had to leave it's imprint. Am I making any sense?

    That's my take on your story...so sad. I hope the lady, grandmother and child have found some sort of peace. Makes me very sad.

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  2. Tara;
    Guess my childhood family was really fucked up because that seemed like a typical family to me. I definitely without a single doubt know that emotional events and repeated patterns can imprint under the right conditions and whether that has to do with solar storms, geology, construction, or whatever--they imprint. As someone who reads objects, some are better to read. Ideally, stone and metal, then glass and wood, then paper and plastic are worst. I have absolutely no explanation for why that is. It would see more porous things should hold more, right? Nope. But, that I can extract it by touching the object is one thing, but what if an environment can record and play back? Lighthouses are often haunted. Why is that? My guess--the construction of the building (stone or metal steps, circular shape, crashing water, stony geology, stone walls) all add up to a conduit, add a powerful light in it and a man who has to climb the stairs constantly every day and night, and you have a recording device. My sister had recorded one of her tantrums as a teen and every now and then it played back when she had moved out. I absolutely believe in only two paranormal things without even blinking an eye; bigfoot and residual hauntings. The rest, every day I change my mind when I get new findings. I would love to find proof of intelligence that is indisputable to me. I hope to find that when I go back to Aspen Grove some day to try to contact my parents and my sister and brother who all vowed to haunt the place and knew I'm seeking proof.

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  3. I'm glad that you said that. I've always thought that residual haunting may be some kind of cosmic "message in a bottle."

    Another thing pops into mind, could we haunt ourselves? Some of the poltergeist theories and young people come to mind. Maybe even cases of alleged Demon Possession could be energy that the victims are unknowingly expelling and are intrepreted by others as demons?

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  4. Hey Barry;
    I did write a post about that in the past. http://autumnforestghosthunter.blogspot.com/2010/06/wanna-haunt-yourself-couldya-haunt.html

    Yup. I don't think it's that unusual, especially when you throw deja vu into the mix and people who seem to have very good psychic skills-perhaps we time shift enough to know more than the rest.

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  5. Yes I remember that led to the ghost haunting its own zombie stories ...lol

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  6. It seems reasonable that if there are residual recordings it would apply to certain locations/situations whether the people were dead or living. Especially working with the concept of potential energy transfer to a receiver location/object, whether from an accumulation of "emotional energy" over time or a single "human energy explosion" moment.

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