After a little while of neglect I decided to try and step up my Blog Posts by bringing back ‘Paranormal News Thursday’. Which for those of you that don’t remember, it’s basically a weekly Post on ant articles or pieces on the paranormal that I manage find. Investigating the paranormal helps you find some slight oddities, but these experiences allow you to give a little more time to listen to others experiences. All of a sudden you realise the importance of looking at individuals experiences and how they tie in as an important part of any paranormal investigation. After all if you look at history and how historians look at it, they look for first, second and third hand accounts of events. It’s these accounts in the realm of the paranormal that make the case and build the reason for most investigations. Following that, the investigation becomes the place where we look for evidence to support those accounts of individuals. Sometimes the evidence doesn’t come, but when it does it can be amazing!
Getting to this Post though….
I recently read an article by Charles Swearengin who discussed possible similarities between the age old Ouija Board and the more recent development of the Ghost Box. Covering the age old fear factor that has come to be a part of the Ouija Boards reputation and it’s links to the dark arts, but also asking if the Ghost Box presented a scientific tool is much better. Check the full article out here:-
The article goes into some great detail on of the Ouija Boards history which is an excellent insight into the beginnings of the cult game which has seemingly grown in popularity from its bad press. The links that were made between the board and the darker elements of the spirit world have just managed to fuel the users expectations of what was possible by using it.
As an investigator I have been on a few investigations where a Ouija Board was used to attempt contact with spirits. However, in my opinion from what I have witnessed information that has come through the users of a Ouija Board has been either unsubstantiated or just doesn’t make any sense. I’ve not managed to find supporting evidence for information from the Board, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there. The Board may have picked up on something that doesn’t have supporting documentation available to us or even an event which wasn’t considered significant in its day.
Unfortunately this line of faith is similar for the Ghost Box too. We attempted to use one on a Farsight PRS investigation and to be honest it just came across as multiple random words. Nothing made any sense and none of it tied into our investigation.
What do I see, what do I think in regards to both these methods? Well simply I currently don’t have faith in either approach, neither seem to return clean results. Both methods are wide open to interpretation and depend majorly on the participants making sense of the results. As both are also so variable in their form they don’t make very good sources of evidence.
In the past I have witnessed both of these methods utilised by other investigators outside of my old Farsight team and found it interesting how a group can stumble through an interpretation of what they see or hear, land on an explanation, then as a group go with it! I don’t understand why this maybe the case, perhaps as a group they feel a part of something by discovering this piece of information? Still in most cases the groups remain agreed!
Is the Ghost Box a modern day high tech version of the age old Ouija Board? I don’t think so! There are great similarities, but they are simply both different ways of obtaining information which is very vague, but usually backed up by the group involved.
However, my mind will always remain open to any aspect of paranormal investigation! After all, you never know both of these methods may one day provide me with acceptable evidence. Just have to wait and see I guess.
As the original article mentioned though in this case I think opinion of the masses is very important, so please feel free to comment and let me know what your take on these two methods is?
Catch ya on the flip side!
Ashley Knibb 