Bumps in the Night!

In the spirit of Halloween, pun intended, I thought I would post a fun topic for discussion.

There is of course a proliferation of shows and documentaries this time every year about ghost hunting, hauntings and the paranormal. The styles vary from scientific exploration to pure farce and fantastic spectacle. The question I put before you all: are there things that go Bump in the Night?

Many of you may not know that the first year M and I were in California we went on a ghost hunting event in the Little Tokyo section of LA. It was run by a well respected ghost dude whose name I have forgotten but who turned out to be a douche. But I digress. We spent a few hours with a group of 20 or so people walking around an old building which used to be a blacksmith shop in the 1800's. We had dowsing rods(?), electrometers and other devices to detect 'signals.' I was not too impressed with the experience and felt that what was really being proven was mild mass hypnosis. There were the 'believers' present who just happen to have the most vivid experiences. One guy even had a conversation with the spirit of a child ghost who spoke only Japanese. Then there was the coup de grace when the lady host, who could channel, was 'possessed' by something for about five minutes near the end when we were all gathered together. The proof it was possession? Her hand was bent back in a way 'she could not possible have done herself!' Sure.

As I said, I think that night was just proof that people see and hear what they want to see and hear whether it is there or not. But the question remains what of people who swear to have seen things or have taken photos of things that just should not be there? Is this paranormal or supernatural? It is an attempt at communication from the other side? A spirit trapped between the worlds of the living and the dead?

I will start by saying I do not believe in the supernatural. That term is misleading anyway. Does it not stand to reason that nothing can be supernatural? If it occurs, it is by definition natural. Just because we do not know WHY it is happening does not mean it does not obey the rules of nature. Perhaps that shape in the window was just a trick of the light or a momentary disturbance in the magnetic field of this great ferrous oblong spheroid we call Earth. Who knows. But does that mean it was the spirit of a boy who may or may not have died a horrible death in the house? I would argue that most, if not all, of the ghost sightings, UFO sightings and the like are merely misperceptions of mondane natural phenomena. Ball lightning is often sited by experts to be an easily explained but rare event that can appear to be a UFO. Who am I to question nature.

What of ouija boards, you say? If the ubiquitous showings of The Exorcist are anything worth paying attention to, there are spirits of good and evil milling about in our presence all the time. To this I can speak very little. My knowledge of religion is fair to middling. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, you die and your soul proceeds to heaven if you believed correctly or did things right. If not, you are doomed to an afterlife without God's presence. Perhaps these bumps in the night are these lost souls doomed to life on Earth because if you've looked at your 401k statement lately there ain't no God here. Am I right? Even so, it would not be supernatural because if God, Angels, Demons and Souls are part of the natural world their presence can hardly be unexpected even if misunderstood.

The presence of spirts or a lack thereof brings me to my final point. Some of you may know the good Dr. James Randi, if not by name then reputation. Randi is a magician. More like a Penn&Teller magician than a Kris Angel, however, in that he reveals the tricks. He is also a founder of the Skeptic Society that has for many years offered a one million dollar prize to any psychic, mystic or wannabe Uri Geller that can prove their abilities. To date, nobody has won the prize nor has anyone of note attempted to claim it. I first remember seeing Randi in two video clips years ago. The first involved horoscopes. He had a classroom full of people and had them provide information to be used to draw up personalized horoscopes based on all the astrological information that these things use. He handed them out in sealed envelopes and asked for a rating of how accurate they were. To a man, the class said they were spot on. He then had them all pass their horoscope to the person behind them. The class began to chuckle and gasp - they were all the same. The other was when Randi and Johnny Carson embarrassed the aforementioned Geller on the Tonight Show(check about 6:30 into it). Geller was a guest and was going to perform his 'psychokinetic' events on live TV. Only this time, the prepared items that Geller always brought with him were replaced Foldger's style with Randi's un-doctored versions. When the items were brought, Geller professed that his powers were not with him that day and he could not perform. How convenient.

Perhaps all Randi is doing is showing that there are more charlatans making money from this stuff than authentics who have an ability they do not understand, like the Ghost Whisperer. All I can say is that I do not know. I would love to have an experience I cannot explain that strikes me as evidence of something lay people call 'supernatural.' Alas, to this date such an experience has eluded me. Until such time I must say that the only things that go bump in the night are my shins on a coffee table, small mammals in the walls and electromagnetic anomalies.

But what say YOU?!?