Do Spirits really have a Message for us?

Source: Kooma

Ghosts are big business. They appear regularly in movies, on TV shows and, whether it’s fiction or a documentary, they apparently have always got some kind of message to impart to the living.

However, this isn’t a new idea; take a look at the theater. Shakespeare’s ghosts tended to have some information to pass on whenever they made an appearance. The ghost of Hamlet’s father passes on some news that sets a whole chain of events in motion. Séance meeting tend to reveal some hidden, supernatural agenda – although it’s not necessarily about the ghost itself; sometimes it can be about the querent.

However, is all this fact or fiction? Is the reason that ghosts contact us solely to impart a vital piece of information – do spirits really have a message for us?

Messages from beyond the grave

The idea of spirits speaking from beyond the grave goes way beyond the Bard of Stratford on Avon. Shamans, witches and warlocks have often cited messages from the spirit realm as guiding factors in making decisions.

Alistair Crowley claimed to have written his first book under the influence of a spirit guide and even our former First Lady, Nancy Reagan, is thought to have consulted with psychics.

The notion is even responsible for some of our own traditions: the Celtic Ancient Pagans, when celebrating All Hallow’s Eve – later to become Halloween – would wear masks as they danced around a bonfire. That night the souls of the dead were thought to walk the Earth to complete their spiritual journeys.

However, it was believed that those spirits who had been wronged in life might use this as an opportunity to seek some form of retribution, so revelers would wear masks to hide their identities from vengeful ghosts – and the tradition of dressing up as a ghost or ghoul was born.

The theory of relativity

It’s interesting to note the hauntings that make the press tend not feature the passing on of any vital information. Instead, they appear to be random hauntings or poltergeist activity, but with virtually no reference to the spirit wanting to give a message to anyone.

However, mediums make their careers on the idea that they can contact the dead and act as a supernatural interpreter for anything they want to impart to the living.

What might be an important factor in these readings is that, generally speaking, the majority of querents have some connection to the spirit they are talking with. They are usually a friend or relative and the information they receive somehow pertains to something that is taking place in the material plane or explains how that person died.

However, rather than being the messages of revenge that we see in the movies, spirits contacted in this way seem to offer words of comfort to those left behind.

Mediums: from Biblical times to the 21st Century

However, messages from beyond the grave are a phenomenon that can be traced back to the dawn of civilization. The Jewish Tanakh tells a story about The Witch of Endor, in which the spirit of the prophet Samuel is raised from the dead so that the current king could question him about a forthcoming battle.

The idea that spirits have messages for us is one that has never particularly waned, although it reached its peak of popularity during the 19th Century in Europe and the United Sates. However, after the debunking of leading mediums, such as the Davenport Brothers, mediumship was viewed with suspicion and mistrust.

The Scole Experiment is probably the most famous research of the 20th Century, into whether we can really receive messages from the dead. It was conducted for five years during the 1990s, and was reputed to be the best evidence yet that there was life after death and that spirits have the ability to pass on information.

15 researchers from the Society for Psychical Research investigated the talents of six mediums and the results included ghostly lights flitting about the room, disembodied voices and even the levitation of a table. For paranormal investigators, this provided absolute proof that communication with the dead is a reality.

However, a set of failings on behalf of the Society undermined any evidence that the investigation appeared to have uncovered.

Debunking scientific evidence

The Scole Experiment was conducted in two basements, each belonging to a member of the six mediums. The main flaw in the experiment is that there was no ‘control’ system. It was the mediums who governed the conditions in which the research was conducted.

This including conducting séances in complete darkness, so that spirits would not be frightened, and the mediums proving the sealed boxes into which blank film would be placed, revealing ghostly images when they were later unlocked.

However, the films remained blank when placed in containers brought in by the investigators, who were also surprised, on later study, at how easily the mediums’ containers could be unlocked.

One parameter the investigators did insist on was that the mediums wore luminous wristbands, so the positions of their hands could be observed at all times. Once again, these were supplied by the mediums and, once again, they were found to be easily, quickly and discreetly removable.

Where’s the evidence?

In the UK, a similar experiment was conducted by the British Psychological Society. Professional psychics were asked to work with ‘sitters’ in control conditions and to use their abilities to make contact with the sitters’ dead relatives. They were asked to request messages from these spirits, giving information about each sitter; information that only the sitter or a relative might know.

After the mediums had fulfilled their part of the experiment, the statements they made were analyzed. The more general statements were found to be the ones that could be interpreted as relevant, whilst the messages that were thought contain specific information were found to have nothing at all to link them to the person they were meant for. Mediums were suffering another apparent debunking.

Unfortunately for mediums, there isn’t enough hard evidence to support the idea that spirits have messages for us. Scientists have proposed a number of theories such as cold-reading, hypnotism and even that the information that mediums purport to hear is the result of a medium’s alternate personality, bubbling to the surface.

However, supporters of paranormal phenomenon believe that, at the very least there is some evidence of ESP at play. At the most, spirits are capable of communication from beyond the grave. Unfortunately, all the evidence they propose is either anecdotal or unrecorded. Until a spirit becomes manifest under control conditions, it looks like science has the upper hand.