LITTLE ROCK — Scoff if you must. But as a perpetually curious person, I admit to joining the throngs who’ve become intrigued by the rapid proliferation of “ghostly” reality programs aired on various cable channels.
Their spread has been like a case of measles with titles like A Haunting, The Haunted, Ghost Hunters, Paranormal State, My Ghost Story, The Dead Files, The Haunting Of . . ., and now even Celebrity Ghost Stories, where Hollywood types and others personally relate their claims of chilling personal encounters.
This cascade devoted to the supernatural experiences of hundreds of folks relating their stories in their own words (often with pictures, recordings and videos) shows that I’m but one of many millions watching.
I see a gaping hole in the fabric of our collective curiosity and our consciousness. The majority of us appear to believe there remains much to be explained about existence. And week after week, I learn something new about the sophisticated technology devoted to documenting the presence of spiritual energies, which can’t be detected by our limited physical senses.
In recent years the use of these electronics has allowed a growing number of hunters of the paranormal to document what they experience that can’t be rationally explained (well, except perhaps by quantum physics). They use equipment as ordinary as responsive flashlights and digital recorders that capture what’s called electronic voice phenomenon to sophisticated thermal imagers, electromagnetic scanners, and now even “spirit boxes” that continually scan a vast range of frequencies to collect responses beyond human hearing.
The resultant sightings, visitations, hauntings, apparitions-or whatever word you prefer-are invariably characterized by the likes of intense cold spots, black shadow figures, streaks of inexplicable energy, disembodied whispers, full-bodied sightings, seemingly intelligent round orbs of light, clearly audible footsteps, being forcibly pinned down on a bed and inanimate objects moving on film.
One result of the technology boom has been the ability to document much that arises from the endless frequency ranges that circulate through our tiny sliver of a visible light spectrum within a boundless universe comprised of energy.
While it’s true that a few of these programs might be chipping in with occasional manufactured scares of their own (to keep viewers interested and the advertisers paying), the majority appear, to me, to feature genuinely frightened people reliving their unnerving and often horrifying experiences with some startling physical evidence to back it up.
Anyone of rational mind need only watch a terrified family tell of fleeing their beloved home because of a supernatural presence, or watch inanimate objects move, or a person’s body being scratched or even physically attacked, all captured on video, to realize how little we know of this world in a spiritual sense.
If you haven’t watched one or more of these programs, I’d encourage you to spend a little time and reason for yourself, based on what so many others are saying (and recording), just what forces might surround us everyday.
Animals, with keener senses than our own, always have been far better at realizing when something physically unnatural is amiss in the atmosphere.
Watching a couple of these programs also can make a believer out of most anyone conflicted about the existence of good and evil in the spiritual dimensions from whence our thoughts, dreams and prayers also arise.
Are all these seemingly honest people flat-out lying or delusional?
Name-calling is one approach. But I just don’t see that. Their sincerity in reliving their accounts says a lot. Some still tear up on camera as they relive their experiences. Most who had not believed in supernatural existence previously say they certainly do now.
It keeps me wondering just how many dimensions or frequencies of intelligent, conscious energy likely exist around us, and the role a creator God plays in all of them. In fact, the Bible is replete with accounts of supernatural occurrences, from the very creation of the universe to angels, the Exodus and physical healings.
I’m convinced that an arrogance by those so certain of obvious uncertainty only blinds us to pursuing deeper truths about the complexities of reality. Why are such mystical experiences so darned difficult for anyone to accept when Albert Einstein showed us that energy and matter are but two forms of the same indestructible stuff?
Almost without exception, in each of these programs, the solution to the apparitions and horrifying experiences is to summon a religious figure such as a priest or minister to join in prayers to cleanse them and/or their home of an infestation of evil and terror and restore light in a place that had become dark in more ways than one.
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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial, Pages 11 on 01/01/2013