All good things…

I find it quite remarkable to think that Sarah and I have now been writing Supernatural Synchronicity since the beginning of the year and now we are fast approaching the end of April. As Sarah mentioned in her latest post; ‘Is it naïve for us to think that paranormal phenomena could be limited to just the one explanation,’ we’ve touched on paranormal philosophy, theory and so much more. It’s been an interesting series that’s for sure and I’ve really enjoyed collaborating as it really helps to expand your perspective.

It would be, in my opinion, completely naïve to believe that there is one simple explanation for paranormal phenomena. Something that is completely evident in the fact that we often see variations in the phenomena itself. Equally as individuals we interpret that phenomena differently too. In fact even situations that have logical reasonable explanations have often been misinterpreted to be paranormal phenomena too. It’s actually this regular misinterpretation of information that can often lead to the definition of certain scenarios as being supernatural, yet in reality they are completely natural. I often feel that Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP’s) are a fantastic example of this form of Ghost Hunter world. In order to conduct proper research into such a phenomena you would really need to work in a sound proofed studio. The reason being is that in any normal environment or even a quiet old location in the dead of night, you will have multiple background noise sources. This invalidates EVP’s as good evidence in my opinion due to the lack of control over them. They become further subjective when we listen back to them and interpret what we hear as probable ghostly voices at the location. Now the simple argument against what I’ve just said tends to be directed towards EVP’s defined as; a) crystal clear; or b) class A EVP’s. In these EVP’s the voices are said to be so clear they are unmistakable, right? Well wrong actually. Even when we reach a point of agreement that the recorded voice is not one of the Ghost Hunters, which suggests another source, a more logical step becomes psychic projection rather than spirit. We have seen lots to support psychic projection as working, whilst survival of personality after bodily death is yet to be proven. And yes I know psychic projection is equally not exactly proven, but I believe there’s more to support it.

Could it really just be us…

Sarah mentioned a really valid point that ties into what I’ve already mentioned. She asked if our subconscious mind might manifest paranormal phenomena and in my opinion, I would say most definitely. However I’m not talking about as in we are imagining it all, but where unknown to us it generates activity in order to help with transference of information somewhat. I believe it was Jung that suggested a possible collective consciousness that would explain information or ideas are transferred between the entire human race. Which is why you see similarities in structures the world over historically speaking, even though the civilisations had never met. More recently Rupert Sheldrake suggested connections between generations and species through what he calls Morphic Resonance. William James even suggested similar through what he called a reservoir of consciousness. We have discussed numerous times through this series the concept of telepathic transfer of information, which all builds a good case to suggest that information is constantly being communicated between our subconscious minds.

This information only becomes relevant once it makes it to our conscious minds and that can happen for a number of reasons. It’s something that is relative to our particular position in spacetime, as in it relates to our current environment and/or situation. It is information that has an emotional importance, which has made it currently relative. This could be related to a situation when a medium is attempting to obtain information or pass a message from a loved one. Does that information actually come from a loved one that has passed away? That would be nice and I can’t rule it out as a possible source, but it’s more likely the information source is either the individual being read by the Medium or someone that knows the person, thus has knowledge that creates the illusion of validation of communication with a spirit. At least that’s an alternative proposed source that I would suggest.

Something we are all searching for…

The odd thing in some case’s at least is that when searching for Supernatural Synchronicity, generally you do find it. Especially if you unknowingly convert seemingly logically explained events into the unexplained. The reason I called it searching for Supernatural Synchronicity is because it actually a fitting term here. Not only is it the title Sarah and I came up with for this series, but its meaning fits well too. Supernatural is attributed to a force that is beyond our current scientific understanding and the known laws of nature. Synchronicity is a term associated with the simultaneous occurrence of events, which appear significantly related, but actually have no discernible causal connection. Think about those two meanings for a moment. Supernatural Synchronicity is exactly what we are looking for when we discuss paranormal investigation or research. We are looking for something that is beyond scientific understanding currently and thus hasn’t been covered in the laws of nature as we currently understand them. However we are also looking for a series of events that are or at least appear to be related, yet their cause doesn’t appear connected. That means we are looking for a source that may cause multiple oddities or perhaps is the catalyst for multiple paranormal events to occur.

This returns to something in my previous post and something echoed in Sarah’s post; we are not looking to measure one thing at a time. We need to be capturing multiple streams of information moving forwards, but from one location at one time. Unless we can capture that data collaboratively of course, that would be really awesome. That may help us to discern patterns in that information and later perhaps a source of the phenomena. This doesn’t mean that we should be all running into locations taking various different readings though, as we would end up drowning in insignificant data. So, we need to define why we are investigating in a certain way and why we are measuring say the temperature in one area or perhaps working with a Medium. An investigation case isn’t built on one piece alone, it requires good research, multiple sources of data to support theory and the investigator to review their findings in a balanced unbiased manner. Then research of any kind should be made available to peers for review, this is where we build our understanding.

Divisions in the field…

Towards the end of Sarah’s post, a very interesting point is made in regards to mindset. Sarah discusses a recent poll that she conducted in which she was quite surprised with some of the results. I’m referring to the fact that Sarah’s poll respondents seemed to indicate that the concept of ghosts or spirits was plausible, but other paranormal concepts like Bigfoot, Mothman or alien life was less plausible. Now this could be due to the sample group being more concerned with ghosts and spirits rather than cryptozoology. This is evident in the huge following that there is out there for cryptozoology or UFOlogy, especially in the USA. As both Sarah and I have mentioned in previous posts, there is often a division of the paranormal. Hence it often seems a rare occasion that you get cross-over between say UFOlogy and Ghosts or Spirits, perhaps better known as survival research. This, in my opinion, is something I personally would like to see more of in the research. Looking at cases where we do discover links between UFO cases and ghost related activity. Something which is often not considered, or as Sarah mentioned in her post, it can generate a closed minded approach. A good example being that often ghost hunters will remain focussed specifically on the location, which often means that they will associate probable activity to that locations history. Often associations to that history, whilst interesting are often very lose and certainly are not definitive. However that often ties back into belief again as it is often the ghost hunters belief that the activity is related to the resident ghosts, something that is a conclusion without objective proof.

Paranormal phenomena cannot and should not be related to a singular explanation in my opinion, at least not at this point whilst we still know so little about the phenomena’s cause. As both Sarah and I have mentioned previously, we are most certainly part of the puzzle and definitely a large piece too. Sarah spoke of physical links such as the pineal gland, which there has been some interesting research academically that supports this concept too. We’ve also touched on Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP) in places discussing aspects like telepathy being a mechanism to transfer information from one mind to another. There are also ideas such as stone tape, which place the information or ghost as an environmental recording at the location. Greater exploration of these ideas has linked silicon into the mix as its present in nearly all things in the universe, although it’s never quite alone and bound to another elements. The suggestion being that silicon may have the properties to store such recordings as ghosts. Similar to the silicon idea is that the water present in the localised environment stores the recording of our ghost. Another idea, which has found some support due to a little research into water memory. The thought from the ghost hunters being that if water can have memory then perhaps that could explain ghosts.

Historical literature…

This of course only really touches the surface of possible explanations of paranormal phenomena. In amongst the realms of parapsychology and academic research into psi, there are many areas that have been evaluated. Information of which can be found in Journals such as the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, and many more publications. Historical literature in regards to paranormal phenomena is often a resource that is under used by ghost hunters in my opinion and there really is a lot available to build good research on. That good research will help us gain a better understanding of the paranormal phenomena we encounter.

Explanations for paranormal phenomena can be found in our psychology, our physiology and our environment. Surely if we are to understand this phenomena then understanding this dynamic collaboration of our mind, body and environment is going to be key. Especially as each impacts the other and probable phenomena itself. This really isn’t anything new though, as you can see similar viewpoints in alchemy too when they talk of Spiritus, Corpus & Anima, which makes reference to the Spirit, the Body and the Soul. Perhaps this combination is important to the supernatural world in a similar fashion to the natural world too. What do you think?    

Over to Sarah for one more time…

As we now head towards the end of the series, it is with a little sadness, but also excitement too that I hand over to Sarah Chumacero. Sarah will then comment on what I’ve written and add her own thoughts too in a post on her website ‘Living Life in Full Spectrum‘, but this discussion shouldn’t end there. Please feel free to get involved and comment below.

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