There is a time honoured association of ghosts with the dead. As the SPR Census of Hallucinations(1888) showed that apparitions are as likely to be phantasms of the living as of the dead that association seems unusual, unless based on some evidence. In many cases ghosts may be thought projections, hallucinations, etc, etc. But in many, many cases, human remains have been found near the site of a haunting. An interesting synchronicity - I will print the whole article for everyone to read on the site soon, but a summary for now- this morning I read in my newspaper The Times that digging at an English stately home had revealed the bones of a dog, some centuries old. Not particularly interesting, except that for decades visitors and tourists have claimed to see the ghost of a dog where the bones were found.

Now, I find it hard to believe this hound was earthbound by unfinished business, etc, etc, and most dogs do not appear after death haunting their burial site. But in this case there is a very strong association of dog & dog bones. Coincidence? Yes, but at Hydesville in 1848 where a rapping ghost sparked off the whole spiritualist tradition, human remains were purportedly uncovered. Planted by some fanatic? maybe - Harry Price was accused of burying the 'Nun's Bones' under the ruins of Borley Rectory, which I consider a little unfair considering his heart problems at that time. But even if Harry was guilty, anyone who has read up on the case will remember the earlier discovery of a human skull wrapped in paper in the house.

I feel I have made my point - and I'm sure we can think of another 20 cases each where a haunted house has subsequently been proven to possess concealed (and improperly buried) human remains. Obvious objection - there may be many more bodies buried all over the place which never come to light, and so each of these cases is just coincidence, with us stressing the possibly unrelated elements of ghost and body. I agree this is possible, but feel it unlikely - I await your comments with interest...

This raises another point - do human remains give off certain scents detectable at an unconscious level leading to the 'haunt'? I reject this hypothesis as the remains are usually decades if not centuries old, and have long since stopped decaying at any obvious level, and are also encased in a wide variety of mediums, including stonework, soil, brick, sand, etc. Any physical agent would have to perform under a bewildering array of conditions.

So what about PSI? Well, it could be that the percipient merely senses the future discovery of the remains (precognition), or the past interment (retrocognition). They may clairvoyantly detect the remains, or pick up information telepathically from someone who knew they were there. The first two I personally feel unlikely, as sensing through time seems about as unlikely as spirits to me, and I prefer spirits as more elegant! Clairvoyance suffers from the assumption that PSI is often goal-orientated, and sensing human remains to then provoke secondary PSI to generate a haunting strikes me as odd behaviour, even for human beings, a damned odd species. Which brings us to telepathy - fine if the murderer or accomplice is alive, not so good if they died in 1578 - unless we postulate some king of Super-ESP pool of race memory, which we can all draw from, like the Theosophist's Akashic Records - in which case why aren't psychic detectives, archaeologists and historians a).more common and b). more successful?

In this case, being fully aware that many parapsychologists will disagree, I say a spirit is the more economical explanation. Bones is Bones is Bones, and if the association of ghosts with human remains is above what one would expect from chance, then that strikes me as a reason to accept that the spirit hypothesis is not yet ready to give up the ghost.

Another anecdote, as I am in an indulgent mood. In the late sixties my father built a bungalow in Suffolk. While digging the foundations he uncovered a burial ground dating from the middle ages, and following an archaeological assessment and the Coroner's intervention those bones which my father disturbed were simply reburied at the bottom of the garden. He was suffering at the time from locals stealing his bricks, tools, etc, etc every night from the building site, so he also put a few wooden posts in the ground and placed skulls on top, with nightlights inside giving off an eerie glow to scare off offenders. He and my family probably deserved to be haunted for that, and haunted they, and eventually me, for that was the home my mother brought me home to after my birth in 1969, were! a brown monk was seen repeatedly, always at a distance or through frosted glass or in shadow, as if avoiding direct contact. Poltergeist activity began, and continued at a low level for some years - never significant, always background. Perhaps the more superstitious members of my family felt guilt and generated PK? Both my mother and father are capable of generating extremely high scores repeatedly in dice rolling experiments using fairly careful protocols - something I have not inherited!

However, another point is raised by this story. My parents knew about the medieval hospice graveyard before they saw anything - but for years before cleaners at the garage adjoining had seen ghostly monks and witnessed odd poltergeist type behaviour, in particular clocks running backwards(!). Yet until my father uncovered the remains noone had realised there was a fourteenth century graveyard underneath, and if the garages builders had uncovered graves they certainly never reported it. I don't press this example, I merely put it forward as interesting.

At this point I will leave the debate for a while - a final word however. When I first encountered the psi hypothesis I was overwhelmed by it, as it seemed eminently sensible and scientific, and as I was not at all convinced by the evidence for any form of post-mortem survival. On realising it was the hegemony of modern parapsychology I clung to it even harder, as it seemed to distance us from the amateur ghosthunters whose spiritualist enthusiams drove me up the wall at times. After ten years in the field I would now say that I respect both parties, and their opinions equally, but realise the danger in new and fashionable ideas. I have written over the years many essays in defence of psi, and you have read a few of them earlier in this course. But in this field there are no experts, and while I still balk at some of the rot that is spouted by self-styled experts I think only experience can show that it is too easy to close ones mind to any theory.

CJ, 1996