Post by auntym on Oct 10, 2012 10:43:44 GMT -6
www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-groff/what-is-a-ghost_b_1945322.html?icid=maing-grid7
October 10, 2012
Nick Groff
Co-host, Ghost Adventures
What Is A Ghost? (EXCERPT)
This is an edited excerpt from Chasing Spirits: The Building of the "Ghost Adventures" Crew by Nick Groff and Jeff Belanger
One lesson Ghost Adventures has taught me is that this stuff is real, and it's a lot more prevalent than I'd previously thought. I've picked up a lot of ideas on how to investigate and how to get results from each location. Does it work every time? No. I've had plenty of misses, but I've also had a lot of successes in gathering profound evidence of spirit contact.
Going to so many haunted places has caused me to think about what might be out there and why our equipment helps us make contact.
When I was a kid, I thought a ghost was some apparition that comes into our world to scare us. That's what ghost stories taught me, and it's the theme that Hollywood ran with. But now I realize an apparition is only one version of the ghost experience. It's also the most rare.
Here's an experiment you can try right now: Think of a friend from your childhood. Go ahead -- close your eyes and envision that friend. You can actually see that person. Your memory fired some electrochemical impulses in your brain that allowed you to visualize your friend. Energy made that happen.
Energy can't be created or destroyed; it can only change forms -- that's a law of physics. Not a theory of physics -- a law. It's called the law of conservation of energy. It means that if you take an isolated system, such as a person, the energy contained in that person can't be destroyed. It can change forms from chemical energy -- like the signals that travel down your nerve pathways -- into kinetic energy, the energy required to move your arm, for example, but the energy is always there.
This law makes sense to me. It means that when we die, our energy must go somewhere. The flesh and bones -- the empty vessel -- is left behind, but the energy survives.
Every time we remember someone who has passed on, we are using an electrical impulse in our brain to call up that person's image. That memory and image gives you a connection to that person. This is why so many people have visitation experiences involving their deceased loved ones.
The ghost experience isn't just seeing an apparition. People can sense ghosts, like the way you can tell when someone walks into the room behind you. People can smell ghosts -- I can't tell you how many times witnesses have reported smelling perfume or a cigar when no source can be found. Smell is closely related to memory, so that scent may call up something specific in the case of a deceased loved one. People hear ghosts -- sometimes we hear disembodied voices in a location. And then, of course, there's actually seeing something. The ghost experience involves our senses. There's no way around it.
So if spirits are energy, and if we need our senses to experience them, then we have a lot of equipment available that can be adapted to help us validate what we're experiencing in a haunted location.
For example, we were investigating a historic home called Rocky Point Manor in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in season five. This old home saw some serious *bleep* during the Civil War. Rocky Point Manor had become a field hospital. Many soldiers lost their limbs and some lost their lives. We found all kinds of artifacts in the dirt-floor basement, from bones to belt buckles.
CONTINUE READING: www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-groff/what-is-a-ghost_b_1945322.html?icid=maing-grid7
October 10, 2012
Nick Groff
Co-host, Ghost Adventures
What Is A Ghost? (EXCERPT)
This is an edited excerpt from Chasing Spirits: The Building of the "Ghost Adventures" Crew by Nick Groff and Jeff Belanger
One lesson Ghost Adventures has taught me is that this stuff is real, and it's a lot more prevalent than I'd previously thought. I've picked up a lot of ideas on how to investigate and how to get results from each location. Does it work every time? No. I've had plenty of misses, but I've also had a lot of successes in gathering profound evidence of spirit contact.
Going to so many haunted places has caused me to think about what might be out there and why our equipment helps us make contact.
When I was a kid, I thought a ghost was some apparition that comes into our world to scare us. That's what ghost stories taught me, and it's the theme that Hollywood ran with. But now I realize an apparition is only one version of the ghost experience. It's also the most rare.
Here's an experiment you can try right now: Think of a friend from your childhood. Go ahead -- close your eyes and envision that friend. You can actually see that person. Your memory fired some electrochemical impulses in your brain that allowed you to visualize your friend. Energy made that happen.
Energy can't be created or destroyed; it can only change forms -- that's a law of physics. Not a theory of physics -- a law. It's called the law of conservation of energy. It means that if you take an isolated system, such as a person, the energy contained in that person can't be destroyed. It can change forms from chemical energy -- like the signals that travel down your nerve pathways -- into kinetic energy, the energy required to move your arm, for example, but the energy is always there.
This law makes sense to me. It means that when we die, our energy must go somewhere. The flesh and bones -- the empty vessel -- is left behind, but the energy survives.
Every time we remember someone who has passed on, we are using an electrical impulse in our brain to call up that person's image. That memory and image gives you a connection to that person. This is why so many people have visitation experiences involving their deceased loved ones.
The ghost experience isn't just seeing an apparition. People can sense ghosts, like the way you can tell when someone walks into the room behind you. People can smell ghosts -- I can't tell you how many times witnesses have reported smelling perfume or a cigar when no source can be found. Smell is closely related to memory, so that scent may call up something specific in the case of a deceased loved one. People hear ghosts -- sometimes we hear disembodied voices in a location. And then, of course, there's actually seeing something. The ghost experience involves our senses. There's no way around it.
So if spirits are energy, and if we need our senses to experience them, then we have a lot of equipment available that can be adapted to help us validate what we're experiencing in a haunted location.
For example, we were investigating a historic home called Rocky Point Manor in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in season five. This old home saw some serious *bleep* during the Civil War. Rocky Point Manor had become a field hospital. Many soldiers lost their limbs and some lost their lives. We found all kinds of artifacts in the dirt-floor basement, from bones to belt buckles.
CONTINUE READING: www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-groff/what-is-a-ghost_b_1945322.html?icid=maing-grid7