It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a person possessed of a house of a Certain Age must also possess at least one ghost. And when that Certain Age is sufficiently antique, that house is certain to attract Ghostbusters.
It's counter-intuitive, really. There isn't an acre of land anywhere habitable that hasn't seen war and/or death. Every place is old; every place has seen its allotted share of joy and loss, of beginnings and endings, dreams fulfilled or dashed, of struggles involving great pitch and moment. But, for some reason, we think only old buildings and designated battlefields are the appropriate environs of earthbound spirits. Maybe it's the veneer of age, the patina, that puts us in the mindset where we look for the uncanny; maybe it's that we've watched too many horror films.
Seventy-four percent of Americans consider themselves religious. Forty-five percent believe in ghosts (37% don't and 21% aren't sure), and eighteen percent say they've actually seen a ghost. For just a moment, you deserve the chance to let that enormous cognitive dissonance sink in. After all, one of the most important teachings of all faiths is that the dead are at rest, but at least a significant number of religious people want to think that yes, maybe the dead are at rest, but that's Uncle George watching over Aunt Mary and Cousin Eddie rattling the chains in the attic.
One of the reasons so many people think there may be something in the closet that isn't Narnia is because the human mind is suggestible. We don't have to see something or experience it directly to make ourselves believe it's real. We need just a hint, a suspicion and, for good or for ill, our brains fill in the gaps. For every flash of genius or intuition, there are at least two thumps and a boggart in the dark.
Because I'm suggestible and know it, I don't put much credence in hauntings. Almost everything I've seen I attribute to my overactive imagination. Let's just say I've seen things I can't explain, but I've had more inexplicable experiences with ghostbusters than I ever have had with ghosts.
Ghostbusters come in two flavors: there are the True Believers and the Hucksters.
True believers feel called to hunt ghosts. On one level they're funny. Harmless. Earnest. Well-intentioned. If you want to see true believers in their natural element, go to Gettysburg and hang around around sunset.
We make every accommodation, extend every courtesy, to true believers. They're trying to do good. The world would be a much better place if more of us acted on what we say we believe, and true believers really do act on their beliefs. So there are a few people who have taken lots of flash photos of our mirrors and the dusty basement. They come, they think they've done something, they leave, and everyone's happy.
But they're not the only ghostbusters around--there are also hucksters.
These are the folks who come in under the guise of True Belief, try to sell you on the idea that you're living in a spiritual Grand Central Station, and then tell you that, for a fee, they'll cleanse your house. We've met a few of them, too.
I've picked Simone as an example--an archetypal ghostbuster. Simone was a friend of an acquaintance. That's how most of these meetings are set up. Very few people have the nerve to cold call home owners and sell them on the idea of exorcism.
She came in like a queen with her very own court. No ecto-plasmic monitors, no crossing of the streams--Simone was an old-fashioned psychic who sashayed in with a trio of followers armed with tape recorders and cameras, glanced around, and pronounced that the kitchen was so filled with the dead there was scarcely room for the living. "Don't you feel chilled?" She peered at us. "That's all the dead, hemming you in."
It was October. But under her questioning, yes, I had to admit that, in the winter when the morning temperature in the house starts out around fifty, yes, we get cold.
Her eyes widened triumphantly. "How about claustrophobia?"
Nope, no claustrophobia. Not ever.
"Hm." She sniffed. "You must not be very sensitive."
She swung her attention to my husband Andy, who was doing a respectable job of not laughing. "I can see you in a kilt."
I'll bet you can, I thought.
I let my courteous and poker-faced spouse lead that particular Ghostbuster tour, and contented myself with pushing all the dead out of the way so I could make coffee.
They spent almost an hour poking around. After about fifteen minutes, after Andy determined they weren't going to steal the silver, he rejoined me and whispered in my ear, "That woman is nuts!"
By the time they finished, we were outside, and it was a fine warm day, so we sat out in the sun while Simone gave us her report, and her estimate of what "clearing" the house would cost.
Her report matched every other professional ghostbuster report we've ever received--it's always Gone With the Wind meets The Sixth Sense.
It included:
Spirit Orbs - also known as dust motes that show up in flash photos when you knock around in the basement.
Cold Spots - in a drafty old house in October. Who would have guessed?
Specific ghosts - Now, I have an admittedly weird sense of humor, but this is where I'm always amused. Because the list of ghosts never varies from investigator to investigator, and it reads like an eldritch tour of the Old Confederacy. There are always:
--a pale young woman in white, looking distressed.
--a tall pale young man in a uniform on the stairs. Extra points if he has a pencil mustache.
--a black woman in the basement, a slave, praying over the beaten body of a young man, also a slave.
For some reason, these are the only figures the professional ghostbusters have ever identified. One of Simone's assistants asked us, "In the basement did you ever find a small cross made of two pieces of rough wood, tied together with string? It would date from the Civil War." As if time were a sealed capsule between then and now. In a house that has been flooded at least a half-dozen times in the last century. Right.
The professionals point to the dust motes (the closest they can come to The Sixth Sense's spirit orbs) as evidence that we're hopelessly haunted, and only they can clear the house and send all our resident spirits to the light. For a nominal cost--nominal when you think of the psychic benefit. They wouldn't charge, but they have expenses they have to fill, and it's all for the greater good, isn't it?
I have no idea whether the professionals are true believers, but they are the ones who are trying to turn their hobby into a revenue stream.
It's all about the perception. If you live in an old house, people perceive it must be haunted. Even though the ground it sits on is no older than the ground last year's brand-new development sits on. Even though unmarked graves are literally everywhere, it's only the places with the headstones that are designated as spooky.
It's something to consider--how powerfully we are conditioned to expect to see certain things in certain contexts, and only within those contexts.
For the record, we have experienced a few uncanny things in the house, things I can't explain. Whether we're haunted or it's all coincidence I have no idea. It's not something I much worry about. Because one thing is sure--nobody's in the kitchen but me.