A few years ago I wrote a kind of round-up of supernatural TV shows past and present, with particular emphasis on the epically silly 28 Days Haunted. It seems that time has come round again. To quote from the film of Shirley Jackson's classic Haunting of Hill House:
No one will hear you, no one will come, in the dark, in the night.Each of the shows I'll be talking about below seems to illustrate a different approach to that age-old conundrum - not so much whether or not ghosts exist, as how best to scare the pants off people by suggesting that they do.
One is British, another American, and the third from Latin America.
This set of TV shows is a bit different from the last lot, though. Each of them is excellent - in its own, idiosyncratic way. And all of them (even Los Espookys) have interesting points to make about the whole subject of paranormal phenomena.
At this point, though, I'd better go back to the question in my title: Whether or not you can actually prove the existence of ghosts. If your own answer to that is: You can't - because they don't, then that's the end of the conversation. There's no point in indulging in further debates over the meaning of the word "ghost" - discarnate entities of some sort, or direct proof of life after death? You've made up your mind. You're closed to further discussion.
Danny Glover's show Uncanny - based on his award-winning podcast - gets around this one in a rather ingenious way. He's appointed two teams: "Team Sceptic" - represented by psychologist Dr. Ciarán O'Keeffe; and "Team Believer" - represented by Scottish author and (former) psychology lecturer Evelyn Hollow.
The two are careful not to stray from their preset roles: Ciarán to come up with naturalistic explanations of any odd phenomena; Evelyn to contextualise the events and issues under discussion in the larger field of paranormal lore. And while this certainly makes for interesting, fun TV, it does leave to one side what seems to me the most important conceptual issue raised by such discussions:
- What would constitute evidence of the existence of ghosts - or, for that matter, of life after death?
After all, he wouldn't be the first to maintain such certainty:
At the end of the 19th century ... it was generally accepted that all the important laws of physics had been discovered and that, henceforth, research would be concerned with clearing up minor problems and particularly with improvements of method and measurement.If Ciarán and Evelyn were to have a real debate, though, I think that "Team Sceptic" would have to commit themselves in advance to a statement of what might constitute actual proof in their eyes. That is, admittedly, a huge ask, but it's a necessary one if we're serious about wanting to discuss the question.
"Team Believer" is, of course, in a much safer place conceptually. They can cherrypick evidence and information just as they please. They don't have to believe in the details of any particular case, because their overall openmindedness to the possibility of paranormal phenomena makes any such concessions unimportant. They can be as credulous or as hard-headed as they wish: they're already open to the possibility that the evidence cited could be true.
This is how Samuel Taylor Coleridge summed up the dilemma in an 1818 diary entry, collected in the posthumous Anima Poetae (1895):
If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awoke — Ay! and what then?
A few years ago I wrote a post about the fascinating documentary Room 237, a compendium of all the crazy theories people had come up with to "explain" Stanley Kubrick's movie The Shining (1980).
It wasn't just that I found most of these readings of the film unconvincing, it was more that it seemed to me that their originators had no idea of the actual rules of argument: the nature of the evidence which could be considered admissible in such discussions.
They would say (for instance) that Jack Torrance was using a German brand of typewriter. Therefore, The Shining was a commentary on the Holocaust. Or else they'd notice a poster in one corner of the Overlook Hotel rec room which vaguely resembled (from some angles) a horned bull. Therefore, the film is based on the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur.
Their readings were, to my mind, a series of non sequiturs and conceptual leaps based on insufficient evidence. As I put it in my post, it's not so much whether or not I agreed or disagreed with these theories, it's more a question of the nature of truth. "There is no truth, only points of view," is a much-quoted (and variously attributed) adage which often comes up in such discussions. I remarked in my post:
The way I prefer to approach the word "truth" is by means of a question: Do you recognise the existence of error? In other words, is a misreading a possibility for you? For instance, if you were to read out a passage in a foreign language unknown to you, and then make guesses at the meaning of some of the words, would this be a legitimate "interpretation" of the passage - or simply a manifestation of ignorance?The question of whether or not you can understand a foreign language is, I think, a good test of one's relation to truth and "alternate facts" (as they're now notoriously known):
There's a gag I read once in a British magazine about literary receptions abroad, the ones where someone comes up to you and says, "Hello, I your translator am!" So, no, I'm unable to concur with the view that all truths are relative, and all interpretations equal.My French is not particularly grammatical, and I make a lot of mistakes when I speak it, but I can read a book in French and understand virtually all of it. Even a native speaker of a language has occasional headscratching moments when they can't quite follow a statement in their own tongue. But that doesn't alter the fact that my relation to the French language is different from that of someone who's never studied it at all.
So how does this relate to the question of the existence of ghosts? Well, of course it depends on a question I've left in the too-hard basket until now: what exactly is a "ghost"? What do you - or I - mean by the word? Almost all psychologists, para or otherwise, would accept that visual, auditory and even tactile hallucinations happen. Oliver Sachs wrote a fascinating book on the subject, which I would strongly recommend to any interested parties.
There's even - some would claim - a phenomenon called a "mass hallucination", which covers those sights, or sounds, or feelings which are shared by more than one person. Ciarán O'Keeffe, in his discussions of particular cases on Uncanny, tends to supplement this particular grab-all, get-out-of-jail-free-card explanation with other old chestnuts such as urban legends, or curious visual and auditory phenomena such as the Brocken spectre or auditory pareidolia, where "the brain tries to find patterns in ambiguous sounds."
When you put them all together, along with the notorious unreliability of witness evidence - which tends, unfortunately, to increase over time, Team Sceptic would seem to have a pretty impregnable position to defend. "You're lying!" - or, more charitably, "You must be mistaken" - covers most other contingencies.
Which is why I think someone who's taken on the responsibility of espousing this view should have to answer whether any evidence - of any type - could ever convince them of the existence of discarnate entities, or ghosts, or spirits of any kind? As I said above, if the answer is a firm no, then the conversation is pointless. They'll always find an alternative, naturalistic explanation for any event, however puzzling, simply because they must: for the sake of their mental health (or, if you prefer, life lie).
In the case of Coleridge's flower, for instance - well, clearly it wasn't the same flower. It couldn't be. Coleridge was a notorious blabbermouth, and he'd probably been going on and on about this recurrent dream he'd been having, and some unscrupulous friend - perhaps that inveterate practical joker Charles Lamb - snuck in while he was asleep and put a flower in his hand. Har-de-ha-ha! Case closed. (That's if it ever happened in the first place. Which it probably didn't ...)
The absurd conundrums of Los Espookys, where a group of friends whose love of horror movies and spooky shit generally has inspired them to form a business faking ghostly phenomena - monsters and mermaids designed to bring back tourists to a deserted beach resort; a fluffy alien who gets asthma attacks whenever he disobeys the authoritarian teacher of a kindergarten class (thus terrifying the other children into obedience) - might seem a little distant from these more serious lines of inquiry.
That's not entirely true, though. The series of abridged editions of classic texts produced in one episode by the functionally illiterate character Tati are hugely, unexpectedly successful. Before long Don Quixote (the Tati edition) and her versions of many other more-praised-than-read books - One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Old Man and the Sea, Moby-Dick - have begun to take over. We see major publishing houses vying for distribution rights, school-children answering questions about Tati's ending for the Quixote ("Tati saw a butterfly on her nose and put down her pen" - "Correct!"). In other words, anything promulgated with sufficient authority has a good chance of being believed.
It's a small step from "that's ridiculous" to "I'm not sure that's exactly what Cervantes had in mind ..." What better metaphor for the present-day industry of the Afterlife, where flimsy assertions about the nature of "moving on to the light," stone tape theory, or EVP (electronic voice phenomena) have become so familiar through constant repetition that we no longer question whether or not there's any real evidence behind them?
if you're actually interested in proof of the existence of discarnate entities - as I regret to say I still am - none of this "common knowledge" is really of any use. However, the various cases discussed in Uncanny - and rather more dramatically reenacted in True Hauntings - are. Solely, however, because they're also accompanied by research and careful questioning of as many actual witnesses as possible.
Whenever the master of macabre fiction, M. R. James, was asked if he actually believed in ghosts:
I answer that I am prepared to consider evidence and accept it if it satisfies me.It's a pretty cautious answer, but I'm afraid that I may have to echo it. I continue to search for satisfactory evidence, but I have to say that Danny Robins' TV show, in particular, is the one of the best sources I've come across for a very long time.
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Series 1 (2023):
- Case 1: Miss Howard
Danny Robins asks if a young girl in rural Cambridgeshire was visited by the apparition of an Edwardian school teacher? He also examines a Canadian psychological experiment and a time slip in Liverpool.
- Case 2: The Bearpark Poltergeist
Danny investigates Ian's claims that his childhood home in County Durham was plagued by poltergeist activity. He investigates the area's mining history, the science of sleep paralysis and even the mechanics of a flushing toilet.
- Case 3: The Oxford Exorcism
The first series concludes with Danny looking into the case of a student house believed to be haunted by a malevolent entity. It is one of the most unsettling cases Danny has ever come across. But could it simply be a shared delusion?
- Case 1: The Haunting of Hollymount Farm
The return of the programme in which Danny Robins investigates real-life stories of seemingly paranormal encounters. Tonight, he meets Liam, who spent his youth terrified by a ghostly child on his family's Hollymount Farm.
- Case 2: The Charity Shop Poltergeist
Danny Robins meets Sibyl, the manager of a shop where multiple staff have witnessed the terrifying presence of a man who appeared to be watching their every move. Danny researches the building's past and explores Stone Tape Theory.
- Case 3: Shadow Man
In this third case, Danny Robins meets Julian and hears of one of the most frightening cases he's ever investigated - a young man tormented by a towering, terrifying shadow figure.
- Case 4: Emily's Room
Danny Robins meets a mother and daughter who believe they were haunted by a sinister figure intent on hurting them. But were the events truly supernatural?
Series 2 (2025):
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Case 1:
- Eerie Hall: Part 1
Geneseo college 1984. Avid runner Chris Di Cesare is keen to start his freshman year until strange voices and inexplicable feelings of dread set in.
- Eerie Hall: Part 2
As Chris becomes increasingly isolated, a friend urges him to try communicating with the entity that haunts him. But his waking nightmares only worsen.
- Eerie Hall: Part 3
Rumors fly after a friend's harrowing encounter. After making an ominous discovery while running with his father, Chris decides to face the force alone.
- This House Murdered Me: Part 1
Eager to start fresh, a young family moves into a dreamy Victorian-style mansion. But the fixer-upper soon becomes costly and deeply disturbing.
- This House Murdered Me: Part 2
From burning sage to hiring paranormal investigators, April and Matt fight for the house. Can they face its horrifying history and win their home back?
Case 2:
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Series 1 (2019):
- El exorcismo [The Exorcism]:
(with Bernardo Velasco & Julio Torres)Four friends start a new business based on their shared love of horror.
- El espanto de la herencia [The Inheritance Scare]:
(with Ana Fabrega & Julio Torres)Los Espookys are tasked with scaring five would-be heirs to a millionaire's fortune.
- El monstruo marino [The Sea Monster]:
(with Ana Fabrega)Renaldo creates a new tourist attraction for a seaside town. Tico eyes a new partnership for Los Espookys.
- El espejo maldito [The Cursed Mirror]:
(with Cassandra Ciangherotti, Bernardo Velasco, & Julio Torres)Los Espookys fake an abduction in exchange for work visas. Tico helps co-write a new horror film.
- El laboratorio alienigena [The Alien Lab]:
(with Cassandra Ciangherotti, Bernardo Velasco, Ana Fabrega, & Julio Torres)Los Espookys help a high-maintenance researcher bring aliens to life; meanwhile, they remain divided on Bianca's screenplay.
- El sueño falso [The Fake Dream]:
(with Cassandra Ciangherotti, Ana Fabrega, & Julio Torres)Andrés and Úrsula are left to plan a fake dream for an insomnia patient.
- Los Espiritus en el Cementerio [The Spirits in the Cemetery]:
(with Cassandra Ciangherotti, Bernardo Velasco, Ana Fabrega, & Julio Torres)Los Espookys put their life changes aside to pose as ghosts for an incompetent groundskeeper hoping to get bereaved families off his back.
- Bibi's:
(with Bernardo Velasco) Fri, Sep 23, 2022Andrés searches for a new place to live as Tati's marriage deteriorates. Meanwhile, Los Espookys create a monster named Bibi's.
- Las Ruinas [The Ruins]:
(with Fred Armisen, Cassandra Ciangherotti, Ana Fabrega, & Julio Torres)Úrsula assists Mayor Teresa's bid for president, while Los Espookys, joined by Tico, help a professor stage a fake archaeological site.
- Las Muchas Caras de un Hombre [One Man's Many Faces]:
(with Yalitza Aparicio)As the group's paths diverge, Renaldo decides to investigate the death of slain pageant queen Karina, whose ghost continues to haunt him.
- El Virus [The Virus]:
(with Greta Titelman)An actor recruits an increasingly tense Los Espookys to cancel her sitcom, while Ambassador Melanie gets devastating news about a dream job.
- El Eclipse [The Eclipse]:
(with Carmen Gloria Bresky)Los Espookys stage an eclipse during Mayor Teresa's last election speech. Tico helps Andrés. Renaldo seeks closure over Karina's murder.
Series 2 (2022):
