Skeptical view on Ghost Hunting

Belief that spirits of the dead exist and can appear to the living is both ancient and widespread, yet the actual study of ghostly phenomena has largely been lacking. So-called "investigation" has ranged from mere collecting of ghost tales to the use of "psychic" impressions to a pseudoscientific reliance on technology applied in a questionable fashion. Real science has largely been ignored.

Collecting Tales: What passed for investigation in earlier times is illustrated by a "true" ghost story related by Pliny the Younger (ca. 100 a.d.). It has been "regarded as the first investigated ghost story" (Finucane 2001). A hearsay tale, already a century old when Pliny told it, it involved a house in Athens haunted by the specter of an emaciated, fettered man. It rattled its chains at night and brought disease and death to visitors. Undaunted, however, a stoic philosopher named Athenodorus bought the house, tried first to ignore the beckoning phantom, then calmly followed it into the garden where it vanished. The next day he had local officials dig at the site where they found a skeleton in rusty chains. After a proper burial which appeased the ghost, the haunting ceased.

But Pliny's tale is as suspect as it is dated, with its motifs of clanking chains, malevolent atmosphere, and ritual appeasement. Over time, people's notions of ghosts and hauntings have continually changed. According to R.C. Finucane, in his Appearances of the Dead: A Cultural History of Ghosts (1984, 223):Each epoch has perceived its specters according to specific sets of expectations; as these change so too do the specters. From this point of view it is clear that the suffering souls of purgatoryin the days of Aquinas, the shades of a murdered mistress in Charles II's era, and the silent grey ladies of Victoria's reign represent not beings of that other world, but of this. Even in a given era, ghosts seem to behave according to individual expectations, being as likely to walk through a wall as to knock on a door before entering (Finucane 1984, 223)...