In 1953 my
family lived in Inverlochy House. It was an old house within ten minutes walk
of the main street of Wellington, NZ. It had been divided into eight apartments
when we lived there. It is now an art academy.
These days
Inverlochy House is well known as a haunted house having appeared on local
television. So it was interesting last week when I met up with a paranormal
investigator, James Gilberd, to learn that his team only had ghost stories that
went back to the 1980s. So I was able to tell him my family’s story from the
1950s of an apparition in the night.
One of the
reasons that I had got in touch with the investigative team was that believers
in paranormal activity often got an assertive response from believing
Christians instead of an understanding one.
I found
that one of the challenges an investigative team has is balancing the need for
objectivity with the need for empathy with people who can be quite upset by
what they perceive.
This team
also looks for the simplest explanation of a phenomenon. For instance, at one
place a plaster skull would ‘fly across the room’ from a shelf. It was
discovered that the fridge in the next room was hard up against the wall and it
would vibrate, hitting the wall as it started up. This could knock an object
off a shelf. So they simply shifted the fridge a little away from the wall, which
is what we should do anyway.
Since my meeting with James, he e-mailed me to say: I
swapped the 'flying' one with her (the client) for another plaster skull I had.
I retained the flying skull for weighing and testing, to see how it fell,
landed, rolled etc, and what impulse was required to make it land where she
said. (I haven't quite worked out that last bit yet. I want to recreate the
position, fall and viewing angle in a video to see if I can get it to look like
it's flying.)
From my
discussion with James, I would say that the nine people in the team are
basically open-minded skeptics, which is a healthy way to be. Also, they like
to follow through an investigation to see if they can find an explanation.
To them it
is an interesting hobby and I suspect they would love to find hard evidence
that something is so strange that it is unexplainable from a scientific
perspective.
I will
probably follow up in the area of the paranormal, partly because in the Church
we accept that the preternatural exists. But also because, as one Pentecost
minister reminds us, people who are ‘hypersensitive’ in this area should not be
shut out from the Gospel, but should experience the saving love of Jesus.
If we are
putting the Gospel into action we need to have more than a “Just throw holy
water at it” mentality when we look at paranormal activity. Investigators using
scientific methods can help up us with our understanding.
Take a look
at these web pages:
The
haunting of Inverlochy House http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ed2aPP-Z0
(2001)
James Gilberd and Inverlochy House (2011) http://www.3news.co.nz/A-tour-through-Wellingtons-haunted-house/tabid/309/articleID/222539/Default.aspx
A Pentecostal Pastor’s perspective on the paranormal http://christ-spiritpower.blogspot.co.nz/
A Catholic understanding of the preternatural http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=35762
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