The ghosts of Bedrock
I don't know if I believe in ghosts, but I love a good ghost story. On a website I frequent someone asked, "What's the life expectancy of a ghost? How come a majority of ghost are from the 19th Century with only a handful dating back to the 18th Century? Where are all the Caveman ghosts or even a few from 300 A.D. would be nice?"
That's a pretty good question, where are the ghosts of Bedrock?
On the question of pre-18th century ghosts, that's just a misconception. There's actually quite a few Revolutionary War related ghost stories, especially around New England, and tons of Native American ghost stories, especially out West. There's a local, or somewhat local, Native American ghost story centering around Serpent Mound up in Peebles, Ohio. That's about forty-five minutes from here. That one even made it into the Time Life Mysteries of the Unknown Series volume on Mystic Places. Across the pond you have much older ghost stories. Sightings of Roman soldiers, for example, are pretty common.
Not sure if anyone's ever seen a "caveman ghost". Maybe that's where "wild man" sightings come from, or even Bigfoot?
There's some logic to the idea that ghosts "expire" over time, though, especially if you buy into the Stone Tape Theory.
The Stone Tape Theory suggests that ghosts aren't really souls of the departed, but rather "psychic echoes" recorded in the environment (not necessarily in stone itself) sort of like a 3D movie. Most ghost stories envision a ghost as the soul of a departed person. This doesn't really make sense though when you think of what people say they actually saw. For example, "I was walking along a back alley in London one night when from around the corner came an 18th century carriage drawn by a team of horses. The passengers on the carriage were dressed in 18th century apparrel, and they each had blank expressions on their face. They seemed not to notice my presence as they continued down the alley and disappeared. I later heard that people have been seeing the ghostly carriage as far back as the early 1900s, and the stories are typically the same."
The problem with viewing ghosts as the soul of a departed human is that one would have to assume in the above example (a typical ghost story) that not only does the passenger have a soul, but so would the horses, the carriage, and even their clothes, not to mention all of those lost souls that became ghosts decided to all hang out together in the afterlife doing the same thing over and over again.
The idea that what's being viewed in the ghost story isn't "ghosts" but rather an echo of some past event, sort of like a 3-D movie being played, evolved from that need to explain not ghosts as souls, but rather ghost stories as scenes taking into account all the elements involved in a typical ghost story. If one took the idea seriously, that it's a recording being played back, it makes sense that the recording would degrade over time – and that ghosts would have a "life expectancy". Whatever psychic echoes there were in caveman days may have dissipated over time.
That's a pretty good question, where are the ghosts of Bedrock?
On the question of pre-18th century ghosts, that's just a misconception. There's actually quite a few Revolutionary War related ghost stories, especially around New England, and tons of Native American ghost stories, especially out West. There's a local, or somewhat local, Native American ghost story centering around Serpent Mound up in Peebles, Ohio. That's about forty-five minutes from here. That one even made it into the Time Life Mysteries of the Unknown Series volume on Mystic Places. Across the pond you have much older ghost stories. Sightings of Roman soldiers, for example, are pretty common.
Not sure if anyone's ever seen a "caveman ghost". Maybe that's where "wild man" sightings come from, or even Bigfoot?
There's some logic to the idea that ghosts "expire" over time, though, especially if you buy into the Stone Tape Theory.
The Stone Tape Theory suggests that ghosts aren't really souls of the departed, but rather "psychic echoes" recorded in the environment (not necessarily in stone itself) sort of like a 3D movie. Most ghost stories envision a ghost as the soul of a departed person. This doesn't really make sense though when you think of what people say they actually saw. For example, "I was walking along a back alley in London one night when from around the corner came an 18th century carriage drawn by a team of horses. The passengers on the carriage were dressed in 18th century apparrel, and they each had blank expressions on their face. They seemed not to notice my presence as they continued down the alley and disappeared. I later heard that people have been seeing the ghostly carriage as far back as the early 1900s, and the stories are typically the same."
The problem with viewing ghosts as the soul of a departed human is that one would have to assume in the above example (a typical ghost story) that not only does the passenger have a soul, but so would the horses, the carriage, and even their clothes, not to mention all of those lost souls that became ghosts decided to all hang out together in the afterlife doing the same thing over and over again.
The idea that what's being viewed in the ghost story isn't "ghosts" but rather an echo of some past event, sort of like a 3-D movie being played, evolved from that need to explain not ghosts as souls, but rather ghost stories as scenes taking into account all the elements involved in a typical ghost story. If one took the idea seriously, that it's a recording being played back, it makes sense that the recording would degrade over time – and that ghosts would have a "life expectancy". Whatever psychic echoes there were in caveman days may have dissipated over time.
Labels: ghosts, paranormal, Serpent Mound
posted by Jeremy at
3:49 AM
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