A big shout out to
Rhonda Rae, who gave me the topic and an article to start with. I want to talk
about something that has always bugged me in the past about the ghost hunting shows;
the lack of light during the program as they are hunting ghosts. I am sorry,
did I say lack of light? I mean in complete darkness with night vision cameras.
One of the best paranormal investigators in my mind is Benjamin Radford, who
tackled this investigative technique in a 2017 issue of Skeptical Inquirer.
Radford equates the
lack of light to the fakery of early spiritualism. Christine Wicker, who wrote
the book Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town That Talks to the Dead,
also studied the history of Spiritualism. In her book she notes that “mediums
so disliked light that they nailed planks over the windows to their séance room.”
She also commented that according to her historical research the “spirits
demanded these conditions.” Now hindsight is 20/20. And to the Victorian mind,
that may have made sense, but with a modern magician’s mind, I think it was
pure genius on the part of the Spiritualist that came up with that. As Benjamin
Radford commented, one of the unbroken rules of magic is that no one gets backstage,
and the magician is in control of how the audience sits. But how can the
magician do that? How does the magician control the audience’s field of view? Plunge
them in darkness.
Almost all the
mediums that were caught using trickery were because the investigators played
by their own rules and not the mediums. A lighted match, and later the
investigator’s flashlight has put many so-called mediums to shame. The same
could be said with spirit slates and spirit trumpet and other paraphernalia of
the Spiritualist and medium.
Because the popular
television ghost hunting shows are shot in the dark, most ghost hunter’s groups
will do the same, which hampers the scientific pursuit of the paranormal in
many ways. Bradford commented that most ghost sightings happen not at night,
but during the day. Elanor Sidgwick, did a paper in 1885 for the SPR (Society
for Psychical Research) and reported that “ghosts may be seen in the daylight
or in artificial light, at dawn or at dusk, and in various parts of the house
or outside in the yard.” If you want to look further into the history of ghost
hunting, I thoroughly recommend The Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum.
I totally agree with Bradford that investigating in the dark is the equivalent of tying an anvil to a marathon runner’s foot. If you are trying to investigate using a scientific method, why would you hamper your best sense, sight? But, if you are trying pull the wool over somebody’s eyes, the dark could be your best friend. If I am doing magic, I want to control the angles of my audience, if I cannot, I want to make sure that I do not “flash.” This is magician’s jargon for not letting the layperson see what I do not want them to see. For the ghost hunter shows that are so popular today, the best way for them not to “flash” is to plunge their audience into complete darkness. Using night vision cameras can be even worse because it gives the audience the idea that they can see when they really cannot. One of the best things that ghost hunter shows do is stimulate drama and excitement when there is none. “Did you see that?” asks one paranormal investigator as the camera moves towards him with the night camera setting on because they are in complete darkness. And I am screaming at the television, “no I didn’t, because you are in the dark and the camera just got on you.”
