Thomas Edison's Spirit Phone

Thomas Edison

In 1920, Thomas Edison announced that he was working on a communication device which would allow users to speak to the dead.  Edison's Telephone to the Dead was reported in American Magazine, and was apparently taken seriously by both the public and the magazine (though some later suggested Edison was pranking the press, and the entire thing was a hoax).

A few decades earlier, the American public was swept into a Spiritualism Movement, lasting from around the 1840s to some time after the turn of the century.  By 1920, Edison was one of the most famous men alive, and the news sparked a media sensation.  While no prototype was ever manufactured, and no blueprints ever found, even Alexander Graham Bell's assistant, Thomas Watson, attempted his own version of a spirit phone.

Radio had become prevalent, and news traveled fast.  The telegraph and air flight had also only recently been discovered, so communicating with the dead was not beyond acceptable reason for the times.  The audience later divided into camps, with some suggesting that Edison's Spirit Phone was a deliberate prank on the press, and others suggesting that Edison probably did pursue the project, despite no real evidence of having finished it.

To-date, no device has been proven to communicate with the dead, but several attempts at "Spirit Phones" have been made.  Thomas Edison died in 1931.

© The Weirding, 2019

The Prophetic Dream and The Divine Comedy

The Knight's Dream

Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy would have remained unfinished, but for his son's prophetic dream.

Following his death in 1321, parts of Dante's masterpiece were missing, sending his sons into a frantic, months-long search.

The brothers rifled through all of the papers Dante left behind, and thoroughly investigated his estate, but they turned up nothing.

Then, Jacopo Alighieri dreamt his father came to him, surrounded by a white light and dressed in white from head to toe, and silently lead him to a secret place in his chamber.  The following day, Jacopo lead his brother Pietro and a lawyer to the hiding place his father had shown him in the dream: A small window in his chamber, covered by a blind.

Lifting the blind, they found moldy papers covered in dust, bearing the title, The Divine Comedy.

© The Weirding, 2019

Stranger's Dream Solves the Disappearance of Shaun Cott

Dream Land

During the Gold Rush of the 19^th-Century, a Shaun Cott disappeared from his home in New South Wales.  Many assumed he had simply caught "Gold Fever," until a newcomer approached police about a nightmare he had.

The man lead police to Cott's employer's farm, where they dug up the body of none other than Shaun Cott!  His skull had been bashed in.  Cott's employer was hanged for the crime.

© The Weirding, 2019

Pursuit (SITU) - July, 1971

Pursuit (SITU) - July, 1971

Pursuit was the name of the journal published by the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU), founded by Ivan T. Sanderson in 1965. Pursuit ran from 1967 to 1989, and was formerly the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained's Newsletter.

© The Weirding, 2017

Zetetic Scholar

Anomalistics and Zetetics - Marcello Tuzzi

Marcello Truzzi and Ron Westrum co-founded the Center for Scientific Anomalies Research (CSAR) in 1976, two years after Truzzi was forced-out of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP).  Following Truzzi's departure, CSICOP changed its journal's name to the Skeptical Inquirer.

Zetetic Scholar was the journal for open-minded, but cautiously skeptical, proponents of the paranormal -- in response to what Truzzi felt were attempts by organizations like CSICOP to debunk such claims, despite the findings of research and investigations.  CSICOP is a known "CoIntelPro" operation which has received funding directly from the US government and private entities over the years in exchange for their "skepticism."  Known CoIntelPro (CIA) operative, and professional "skeptic," James Randi, was a frequent contributor.

Several issues of Zetetic Scholar are available for download online.  The last issue appeared in 1987, and Truzzi died in 2003.  CSAR mostly existed as a concept and not a practicing organization.  Marcello Truzzi's "zeteticism" translates to "pseudoskepticism."

© The Weirding, 2016

Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU)

SITU

Founded by Ivan T. Sanderson, the man who coined the term "cryptozoology," the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained was established as a non-profit organization in 1965.  Its purpose was "...the acquisition, investigation and dissemination of information on reports of all tangible items in the fields of chemistry, astronomy, geology, biology and anthropology, that are not readily explained."

The Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained published its findings on investigations into the anomalous in its unscheduled quarterly, Pursuit Journal (of the Society of the Unexplained).  Their research board included at least a dozen, noted scientists of various fields.  The Pursuit Journal only lasted a few years.  Sanderson died in 1973, and the organization originally disbanded in the 1980s.  A Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained apparently exists in Baltimore, but its statement of purpose is quite different, and may not be connected to Sanderson's.

Ivan Sanderson published numerous books and articles under two different names regarding a diverse number of subjects, and was considered skeptical of the paranormal.  One researcher posted that a cache of SITU materials had been discovered, but little information has since come to light.  Ivan Sanderson coined the term "cryptozoology."

© The Weirding, 2016

The Book Test

Gladys Osborne Leonard

Invented by famed English medium, Gladys Osborne Leonard (and her spirit guide, Feda), The Book Test was popular around the time of The Great War (WWI).  A dead "communicator" would send a message to the living by way of a medium, who would direct the listener to a book in a location to which the medium had never been.  The dead spirit's message would be found in the text on a page number specified by the medium.  Like many fads of the American Spiritualist Movement at the turn of the 20^th-Century, the practice was inauthentic and short-lived.

A 1921 analysis of The Book Test found no merit to the practice, though a handful of cases proved inexplicable.  Of 532 tests, 17% were successful, 18% were partially successful, but 38% were total failures.  It was dismissed as providing any proof of life after death.

Russian medium Nina Kulagina presented a unique twist on The Book Test phenomenon, by naming the first letter of each paragraph on given pages of randomly-chosen books.

© The Weirding, 2016

The Brown Lady Ghost Picture

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

The Brown Lady Ghost Photo is the most famous picture of an alleged spirit in the world.  The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall is believed to be the ghost of Lady Dorothy Townshend, who was banished to the estate as punishment for her infidelity.  Captain Provand and Indre Shira, photographers for Country Life, snapped this on September 19^th, 1936.

The photo above is widely considered one of the few reputable full body apparitions caught on film; while many mundane explanations for the image have been proffered, The Brown Lady Ghost Picture is not believed to have been any intentional hoax.

Note: This picture was filtered slightly to improve the quality of the image. It was not otherwise altered.

© The Weirding, 2016

Study Finds that Mediumship May be a Mental State

A study conducted by several scientists involving "accredited" mediums - that is, mediums who had previously correctly answered questions about known deceased people in double-blind tests - found that the medium state is distinctly different from that of thinking about a living or imaginary person. This researchers concluded that the medium state is a distinct mental state that suggests the mediums may actually be communicating with the dead.

© C Harris Lynn, 2013

The Peculiar Case of the Bruner Boys - Dæmonic Possession

In the annals of dæmonic possession, or "diabolepsy" (a term abandoned due to its similarity to epilepsy, which many skeptics think explains away many so-called cases of dæmonic possession), the peculiar case of the Bruner boys, Theobald and Joseph, is pretty tough to beat.

Though the events which plagued the children occurred from 1865 to 1869, it remains one of the most well-known and accepted cases of "modern" dæmonic possession due to the breadth of symptoms the boys showed, and the documentation of their affliction. From levitation to contortions to glossalia (a specific type of "speaking in tongues," whereby the possessed demonstrates a worldly knowledge of languages s/he could not possibly know, often demonstrated by answering questions posed in one foreign language in another) to the vomiting of foul-smelling articles the boys had never eaten -- if the accounts are to be believed, little else explains the Bruner boys' impossible behavior.

The diabolic events began in 1865 when the Bruner boys started drawing "horrible Devil faces" on their bedroom walls and talking playfully to them for hours. Their bedroom was said to be unnaturally hot despite not being heated. The boys would run and hide from clergymen who visited the house and were said to hide under their covers whenever Rosary beads were placed on their bed. True to form, they would begin cursing and writhing in the presence of Holy items, and soon took to their bed.

Joseph, the younger of the two, displayed fewer, and less fervent, signs of possession than his older brother, who began speaking in foreign tongues and dialects unknown to him, including English. Theobald Bruner also showed knowledge of outside events (clairvoyance, clairaudience) and correctly predicted the deaths of others several times (precognition, or maybe prophecy), which he often did by kneeling beside his bed to mimic the ringing of a mourning bell.

In one such event which included all of the above, a local man's daughter was visiting the house when Theobald predicted her father's demise. Shocked and angered, the girl spat, "You liar! My father is not even ill," to which Theobald responded, "That may be, but he just had a fall." No one in the entire village knew this had happened, but Theobald was correct; Gregor Kunegel had fallen from a scaffold at the precise moment Theobald had made the ringing motion.

Things only got worse from there:

The boys would simultaneously bend backward on their heads and legs, their backs arched high, and nothing could right them "until the Devil saw fit to give these objects of his torture some temporary peace." Every few hours, the boys would entangle their legs so impossibly and intricately that no one could untangle them but the children themselves, who would do so "suddenly... with lightning speed." Their little bellies would bloat and distend to the point of bursting before they would vomit "yellow foam, evil-smelling feathers, and seaweed" which inexplicably covered their clothes, no matter how often they were changed and cleaned. The stench was so foul that their clothes had to be burned.

The children's bed levitated, even with their mother on it; furniture flew around their room; doors flew open of their own accord; the entire house shook.

Finally, Theobald was sent to an Orphanage in Schiltigheim, near Strasbourg. Upon arriving, he was forced to remain in front of the altar. It took three men to hold him there. He remained silent for three days, drooling yellow foam, but on the fourth, he said, "I have come and I am in a rage." When one of the nuns asked, "And who are you?" He responded, "I AM THE LORD OF DARKNESS!"

Joseph was eventually sent to join his brother and a prolonged Exorcism of the two boys began. One of the more curious manifestations of the possession was when the brothers' heads were so infested with bright red lice that a team of four people with brushes and combs could not keep pace with them. These were dispelled by sprinkling Holy water on their heads. Theobald had to be restrained by straitjacket, as he ripped at himself and his clothing and tried to break everything in reach. His Exorcism took a full three days, after which he fell into a deep slumber, or possibly coma. Joseph's Exorcism took only three hours, after which he too fell into a deep sleep. When the boys awoke, neither remembered what had happened to them.

Theobald Bruner died two years later at age 16. Joseph lived to the age of 25. The events which plagued the Bruner boys for those four years have never been fully explained by conventional means.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

Gwrych Castle to Become Psychic School?

Days after a picture he took which appears to show a ghostly figure in Gwrych Castle went international, Clitheroe-based Kevin Horkin announced plans to open a "psychic school" in the building. Horkin said the deal, if it goes through, would likely be connected to already announced plans by a different group to turn the castle into a luxury hotel. The hotel would have no psychic... connection to the school.

Many critics noted the supposed ghastly photograph, which The OddBlog covered earlier, could easily have been faked, but no professional authority has examined the photo as yet. The most replete argument suggested the image of the supposed phantom was simply the picture of a young woman reflected in glass, then superimposed over the image of Gwrych Castle.

The OddBlog always remains skeptical, but we are true believers, and feel the need to point-out that if some 15-year old on the Interwebz knows how to pull-off such an effect, then it is not exactly a "Hollywood Magic"-level hoax; it is logical to think someone would have debunked the photo before now. Of course, newspapers aren't going to run a hoax photo as a hoaxed photo; they would run the photo, then debunk it - two stories for the price of one!

Is Horkin's desire to open this psychic school based on some newfound belief in ESP and/or the paranormal, or was the photo a hoax to drum-up interest in his Gwrych Castle psychic school plans? Maybe time will tell, and The OddBlog will follow!

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

Ghost Adventures Tonight: Poveglia

Tonight's Ghost Adventures investigation is a dream come true for Zak, Nick, and Aaron.

Poveglia Island is an infamous hotspot of paranormal activity so enshrouded in controversy that Venetian locals and tourists alike are banned from visiting!  The team's experiences were so intense, they decided not to include some scenes.

At one point, Zak is overcome with anger and hatred.  He believes he was taken over by a demonic spirit.  He chose not to include all that happened in the episode because it is so personally disturbing.  It is the first experience to ever force the team to pause an investigation out of fear for their safety!

On Poveglia is an insane asylum built on the bones and ashes of thousands of Bubonic plague victims.  Countless more died on the island from war, tsunamis, and murder.

Many of the locals in Venice refuse to even talk about Poveglia.  During the plagues, those who showed signs of the illness were taken to the island against their will and left to die.  Their bodies were burned and buried.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009

Ghost Hunter Falls to Death

A man and woman were investigating a 134-year old building they believed haunted at the University of Toronto and were three stories above the ground when they came to an impasse. Instead of making their way back to ground-level and finding a way to the other building, the pair decided to jump. The man made it, but the structure gave way beneath the woman as she leapt.

Police were called to investigate reports of two people jumping from the old building. The woman was rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009

Ghost Adventures at Magnolia Plantation - Sneak!

The Ghost Adventures crew is going where no paranormal team has gone before with the first investigation of Magnolia Plantation in Natchitoches, LA. Catch this all-new episode Friday at 9 PM E/P on the Travel Channel.

Built in 1830 to grow and harvest cotton, the Magnolia Plantation consists of 5,000 acres of land. Shamefully, many slaves labored and died in the vast farming fields of the plantation. The Ghost Adventures crew uncovers evidence of voodoo rituals that many of the slaves used to seek revenge on the plantation owners. The GA crew discovers that the spirits of the repressed and tortured souls are still alive in this national park.

Check out the preview of tomorrow night's new episode!

© C Harris Lynn, 2009

Ghost Adventures Season 2 Premiere Sneak Preview

The OddBlog is an official Ghost Adventures blog; check back here every week for sneak previews of upcoming shows, interviews with the stars, contests, and more!

UPDATE 2020: Although The OddBlog no longer works with the Travel Channel, we understand that Ghost Adventures is set to return with a new season!

© C Harris Lynn, 2009

Sneak Peek: Ghost Adventures at the Sloss Furnace!

I really love our relationship with the Travel Channel and Ghost Adventures. I can safely say it has entered the top echelon of paranormal reality TV, as far as I'm concerned. Further, last week's episode laid to rest a lot of the claims opponents had made as to their "uncanny" ability to always uncover holy grails (full-body apparitions, apparent contact, etc.).

One of the things I love most about our relationship is that we get advance teasers for the show every week - and every week, I rush to share them with you! So, without further ado, the trailer for tomorrow night's episode, where Zak and crew get locked down at the infamous Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Alabama:



© C Harris Lynn, 2008

This Week's Ghost Adventures

I attended the live chat following last week's explosive debut of the Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures and all of us in attendance agreed that Zac is a bit... well, he scolded us! He got right in front of that camera, shoved the other guys out of the way, and just chewed us all a new one!

Still, it is that same aggression that seems to elicit such responses from the paranormal. And this is also what has brought the team - and the show - under fire by detractors, who note they seem to consistently get wildly successful results.

Anyway, this week's episode takes the team to the Houghton Mansion in Massachusetts. I am not certain there will be another live chat event, but if there is (and we can get in - it was packed last week!), we'll be there once again.

Ghost Adventures airs at 8:00pm CST, this Friday. The premiere episode re-airs immediately before it (and comes on at the top of the hour if you are in the Central Timezone!).

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

More on ESP

In editing tags, I came across an earlier post in which I think I was trying to distinguish between terms referring to kinetic acts.

(Let me preface the rest of this by noting the post referenced is not one of my finer moments... I was probably drinking. That is not to say I do not feel strongly about that in which I believe, just that... well, that post goes a bit overboard without ever specifying much of... anything and I fully realize this. But I digress...)

Kinesis is defined as "the movement of an organism in response to a stimulus." In particular, there are two definitions with which we are concerned: telekinesis and psychokinesis. The differences are subtle and often argued.

• Psychokinesis is the discipline of moving something through sheer force of will, or "mind power," if you will; possibly the truest form of "mind over matter."
• Telekinesis is the discipline of communicating with spirits to have them move objects for you. In this regard, telekinesis is often seen as a matter of telepathy - which, technically speaking, it is.

This is why The OddBlog only uses the tag - and term - "ESP," short for Extra Sensory Perception to define all "psychic" abilities. This purposeful lack of delineation between so-called "psychic" phenomena originates with Greece (Psi - Ψ) and is the only clinically scientific way to approach the matter; the Greeks made no attempt to divide psychic phenomena by effect, simply grouping the phenomena into a category by cause. That is to say, no matter the phenomena experienced (precognition, clairvoyance, T/PK, etc.), the source of such was determined to be psychic in nature and classified as such - no further delineation was necessary.

As the above clearly illustrates, we do not have enough information on ESP phenomena to make separations between disciplines and individual phenomenon - so why bother? In fact, the first to even attempt to do so was the Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1882, and while their intent was both admirable and understandable, it is too far-reaching and thus meritless.

When a "psychic" predicts something that comes true, how are we to know whether he possesses some form of precognitive "power" or some form of telepathy which allowed him to communicate with (or be communicated by) some entity which informed him of the matter? This would technically define the difference between a "psychic" and a "psychic medium." But further, maybe some heretofore unknown discipline was exercised which allowed the "psychic" to access some natural energy, field, power, et. al., in which such knowledge is stored - a "dimension" or field where the normal "rules" of time are inapplicable, corrupted, or - even better - so perfect and perfectly true as to contain all things past, present, and future?

In fact, while tests concerning ESP are inconclusive - in no small part because we do not know how to even begin testing them - at least one test carried out in 1971 proved that while ESP is likely (that is, that something inexplicable is present), division beyond that is simply not possible at this stage of research.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

Ghost Adventures Sneak Peek

Tomorrow night, The Travel Channel premieres their latest paranormal reality show, Ghost Adventures. Starting with the award-winning documentary by the same name, the premiere of the new series follows at 9:00pm CST.

Host, Zak Bagan, and crew research reportedly haunted locations both domestically and internationally, then lock themselves in for a 12-hour investigation. The debut finds them in Wilder, KY at Bobby Mackey Music World.

And, just for you, The OddBlog has a sneak-peek at tomorrow night's show!



© C Harris Lynn, 2008

TAGS - A Call to the Community

I have been thinking of this for quite a while now, but it's a big thing and a big undertaking and I'm not sure how many people will take to it. Further, I don't have the time to really put forth toward this to make it an actual "movement," so I don't know how far it will go.

Take a look at the tags to the right there. Go on, I'll wait.

Obviously, The OddBlog has a lot of tags and this makes it difficult to find specific posts, comments, and subjects - especially if you are not a regular reader. Like any website, The OddBlog has its own navigational system and ways of doing things and it takes a little time and experience to learn how best to use them. I have tried - particularly with the near-invisible system across The Weirding - to minimize the procedure without minimizing functionality, but tags are the only real navigational system available to a blog.

I am always seeking to make the tags system stronger. One of the limitations is terminology. While I want those of us who are "serious" about paranormal research to be able to find what we are looking for quickly and efficiently, I also have to keep in mind that casual visitors are not apprised of the terminology we often employ; while we know to check the "ufology" tag for all things UFO-related, the casual reader does not - just as the casual visitor has no idea what "cryptozoology" means (of course, recent trends have helped). This affects how/where we are found in the search engines and the like.

Now, some of my personal views on parapsychology and related subjects directly affect the terms I choose to use, though I am always cognizant of the systems in place before me. I think it's time we more serious enthusiasts - we Phenomenalists - decided on some concrete terms and classifications, ostensibly for general use, but specifically for use in online research.

There are many reasons for this, but obviously, the main one is for ease of reference. Another is to separate the wheat from the chaff; a lot of blogs and sites are created for commercial (and other) purposes and with the perennial popularity of the paranormal, one of the most efficient ways of excluding these useless sites from our searches would be to ensure quality sites use accepted terms. The "UFO" vs. "ufology" example is a great illustration: a search for "UFO" will turn up literally millions of results, while one for "ufology" turns up significantly fewer - and they are of better quality, largely because any site that knows to use the term probably knows a little about the field.

So while the tags included here will give you some idea of what I am personally going for, I want to open this up to the community as a whole and see if we can develop some sort of agreed-upon system to facilitate more efficient online research for the overall parapsychological field.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008