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I’m pleased to post this guest blog from my friend Micah Hanks.
I know you will enjoy reading it.
What are ghosts? How can they be studied, or is there even
merit to the study of paranormal occurrences that remain on the “fringe” in
terms of their ability to be proven scientifically?
To say, precisely, what a ghost is would be about as simple
as weighing the soul, something else that has been attempted in the past. The
problem here, of course, is that in general terms, the idea of a “soul” is more
like a concept—similar to human perception of time—and while we can seemingly
perceive its effects, putting our finger on any physical, measurable quantity
is more difficult to do. For now, I’ll leave you to think about that, as we’ll
be coming back to the problems with saying, with certainty, what a ghost is in
just a moment.
It was my own interest in this subject, as well as some of
the logical issues that arise from pondering what, exactly, a ghost may be,
that led me to begin visiting The Reynolds Mansion, an antebellum bed and
breakfast located in Asheville, North Carolina.
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And yet, rather strangely, while their interest in the
unusual is obvious to any visitor, Sanders and Griffith are practical when it
comes to their interpretation of ghostly phenomenon. During a recent visit, I
recall asking Billy, who works as the innkeeper, whether he thought any ghosts
actually resided there at all. “I prefer to think of them as being something
energetic,” he told me. “For some reason, I have a hard time thinking there are
just spirits of the dead wandering around Reynolds Mansion for all eternity.”
The idea of what, precisely, a ghost is—or is not—is part of
what initially attracted me to Reynolds Mansion. Granted, the home is very
beautiful, and it boasts of southern splendor from every darkened corner and
each of its cozy rooms. But there have been enough stories about the place,
shared mostly by the guests who have visited there, which remind us of its
alleged “haunting.” The Reynolds Mansion has no history of death, nor was it
ever raided, ransacked, or razed during the Civil War. There was a significant
renovation carried out around the turn of the last century by Nathaniel Augustus
Reynolds, during which the mansion had an additional floor added, elevating the
already very large Federal Style home to a three floor brick mansion.
Strangely, it is from this third floor where the majority of the ghostly activity seems to emanate. Psychics, paranormal investigators, and general curiosity seekers have come and gone, at the kind, though occasional allowance of Sanders and Griffith, reporting to have seen, felt, or otherwise determined the presence of a little girl who seems to reside there around the vicinity of what, today, is called Maggie’s Room. According to descriptions of the girl, based on what those who have seen her have related of her--manner of dress, how she wears her hair, and other attributes--some have suggested that she may be the spirit of Annie Lee Reynolds, one of the home’s former residents.
Strangely, it is from this third floor where the majority of the ghostly activity seems to emanate. Psychics, paranormal investigators, and general curiosity seekers have come and gone, at the kind, though occasional allowance of Sanders and Griffith, reporting to have seen, felt, or otherwise determined the presence of a little girl who seems to reside there around the vicinity of what, today, is called Maggie’s Room. According to descriptions of the girl, based on what those who have seen her have related of her--manner of dress, how she wears her hair, and other attributes--some have suggested that she may be the spirit of Annie Lee Reynolds, one of the home’s former residents.
During my research for what would become the book Reynolds Mansion: An Invitation to the Past,
I uncovered
some rather interesting things about Miss Reynolds. For one, she had
indeed made the Reynolds Mansion her home for most of her life, and curiously
(especially for the period), she had never married. However, there were no
horrible deaths, illness, or other reasons for an untimely demise; Annie Lee
simply died of old age, and was later buried in the Reynolds family plot at
Riverside Cemetery, just across town.
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| Annie Lee Reynolds |
While there is some history that has become interspersed
into the legend of the Reynolds ghost, handed down from owner to owner over the
years, it seems that the legend is perhaps just that: a legend, which borrowed
here and there from convenient historical truths about the place in order to
put together a story of mystery and intrigue. And of course, going into my
research of the history—as well as the alleged haunting—at Reynolds Mansion, I
had already armed myself with a few questions that I felt the mansion, if
anything, might help me come to terms with. Seldom, for instance, does an
investigator of the unexplained have what would amount to being a laboratory at
their disposal for studying the location of an alleged haunting. And yet, with
Reynolds Mansion, I knew that, if the stories were true, this might be, in
essence, such a location where repeatability might come into question. In other
words, if ghosts appeared here with any degree of frequency, then perhaps if
the conditions were right I would be able to see one.
Again, we come back to the question of what a ghost may
actually be, and if people are actually seeing them at various old homes and
other historic buildings around the world, what allows them to be seen? Is
there energy behind their presence, and if so, why do images that seem to be in
keeping with events of the past seem to “repeat” in such an environment?
Another question would be whether a ghost is always just a replaying of past
events, or if it is sentient and capable of interacting with its environment,
or even with people in the present day.
Most of the encounters people had described at Reynolds
Mansion occurred in one of two ways: people either claimed to see what looked
like a spirit that was oblivious to anyone nearby (i.e. the witnesses), or
people had described having impressions during dreams that seemed to indicate
that a presence had tried to communicate with them. For instance, one woman had
described that she dreamed, while sleeping in the former master bedroom of
Daniel Reynolds, who built the mansion in 1847 as a family home, that a man had
been standing by the bed, and arguing that the door between this room and the
library adjacent to it must remain open. The door in question remains closed at
all times now, since the master bedroom, now called Guest Room Lila, is a room
which visitors can rent and stay in. According to Sanders, the door was
traditionally always kept open, since Daniel Reynolds had liked to have direct
access to his library in the next room. Even today, this room remains a
library, although the door between the two areas has been bolted shut, to keep
the door from mysteriously opening itself.
It would be difficult to confirm whether anything could be
verified based on what people claim to dream about while staying at Reynolds
Mansion.
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For all you or I know, this may indeed be the case. But
after spending a lot of time poring over the manner in which ghosts and
hauntings are studied by modern paranormal investigators, I feel that it has
become a matter of necessity that we reconsider a few things. For instance, as
I mentioned earlier, the soul is something that many of us feels is a tangible
thing, although it is obviously intangible enough that we can’t account for it
beyond being, in essence, a philosophical concept that is somewhat attached to
the notion of consciousness—something else we can’t fully explain. Ghost
hunters will often state that the disembodied soul is what a ghost is… but if
we understand so little of the soul, how can we label or explain what a ghost
is by evoking another uncertainty?
A similar logical problem occurs when we begin to describe
how EMF meters and similar devices are used to study ghosts. For instance, one
popular model, the TriField EMF Meter, can detect the bio-field produced by a
living organism, and will react to it with an audible signal. In the past, I’ve
observed ghost hunters in a haunted environment place one of these devices on a
flat surface, adjust it so that it will detect the electrical field produced by
an organic living body, and then move away from it, waiting for some invisible
energy to interact with it, and thus proving that a ghost is nearby. In these
instances, it should be fairly clear that the energy field a living body
produces requires a physical presence in order for the meter to respond; in the
absence of a physical body to produce such a field, what kind of energy would
be capable of interacting with the device?
It must also be noted that there are indeed “invisible”
energies that can interact with an EMF detector. These range from geomagnetic
fluctuations, to simple electrical current emanating from electrical wiring and
power outlets. In some instances, based on the source of the electrical field,
these energies can appear to move about, and can and will often interact with
the different settings on a device like a TriField EMF meter in what appears to
be an anomalous way. But fundamentally, if we can’t put our finger on what a
soul actually is (let alone prove its existence), it becomes difficult to use
this as a justification for what a ghost is, and for what produces the varieties
of energy detectable with a device like an EMF meter.
At Reynolds Mansion, bearing all this in mind, I chose
instead to look solely at the evidence that could be afforded me from the
historical record, as well as what family members, visitors, and employees at
the mansion could tell me about the nature of the alleged haunting. Using
flashy meters and advanced-looking gadgets may give the practice of “ghost
hunting” a more aesthetic appeal. At times they may even be useful for
determining various things about the environment that are naturally occurring,
which could contribute to the appearance of a haunting. But in my experience,
using such devices does very little in terms of helping us to actually
understand, scientifically, what is underlying the apparent presence of what,
culturally, we have come to call “ghosts.”
Despite the progress we seem to have made over the last few
decades in the study of spirituality and the unexplained, it seems that the
more we learn, the less we know. I feel, very strongly, that not every person
who claims to see a ghost is simply a liar or publicity seeker. If there is
indeed some validity behind people’s stories of encounters with strange
apparitions that appear to be from the past, this is obviously an area of the
natural world that begs further inquiry… but we can’t rely on the unprovable in
order to find answers to other mysteries that continue to “haunt” us, pun
intended. However, as Doyle’s character Sherlock Holmes had once argued, once
you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the
truth. Within the science of ghost hunting, we are still looking for that
improbable truth, and with any luck, we’ll continue to whittle away at the
impossibilities that surround it, with intent on cracking this nut in the years
to come.
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Micah Hanks is a writer, researcher, lecturer, and radio
personality whose work addresses a variety of scientific concepts and
unexplained phenomena. Over the last decade, his research has examined a
variety of approaches to studying the unexplained, cultural phenomena, human
history, and the prospects of our technological future as a species as
influenced by science.
He is author of several books, including Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule, Reynolds Mansion: An Invitation to the Past,
and his 2012 New Page Books release, The
UFO Singularity.
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