Ghosts and the Weird World of the Stone Tape Theory | Mysterious Universe
While ghosts and hauntings have been with humankind since as long as we have entertained the notion of an afterlife and the possibility of some part of us lingering after death, there has been some debate as to what ghosts actually are. For many it might seem obvious that they are the disembodied spirits of the dead doomed somehow to wander through the reality they left behind, but it is not always that simple. There has actually been much speculation among paranormal aficionados as to what ghosts really are, ranging from the conventional spirits of the dead, to decidedly more fringe ideas like inter-dimensional interlopers, demons, and even time travelers, and I have covered this here before. Sitting among some of the more intriguing postulations on the nature of ghosts is that of what has gone on to become known as the Stone Tape Theory.
The basic concept of what is now known as the Stone Tape Theory basically boils down to that certain locations, whether it be due to their construction, geological makeup, or some other unknown factor, have the ability to store mental energy or psychic impressions from certain past events, recording them in a sense as if images to film. It is speculated that under certain conditions, these events, usually the more traumatic the better, can imprint themselves upon the landscape and be “played back” like a video tape, leading to people seeing what they take to be ghosts, but which are in fact merely images from history being projected onto reality in an endless loop. These mysterious images are not always visible to everyone, typically only appearing to those who are sensitive to this stored energy or are keyed into it somehow, although it seems to depend on the place and the exact physical properties it holds, with quartz, crystalline rock, granite, or limestone typically said to be the most conducive to storing these place memories.
The idea that the environment and land itself can store past events and memories has its basic roots back in the 19th century, with the work done by mathematician Charles Babbage in 1838. Babbage, also sometimes known as the “father of computing,” came up with the idea that due to the transference of energy between particles, spoken words could leave permanent impressions in the air itself, which could become audible at certain times even long after they had been spoken, and he once said “the air itself is a vast library, on whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered.” At the time Babbage explained it in very concrete, scientific sounding terms, and made it all sound perfectly plausible in his book The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, in which he writes of his theory:
The pulsations of the air, once set in motion by the human voice, cease not to exist with the sounds to which they gave rise. Strong and audible as they may be in the immediate neighbourhood of the speaker, and at the immediate moment of utterance, their quickly attenuated force soon becomes inaudible to human ears. The motions they have impressed on the particles of one portion of our atmosphere, are communicated to constantly increasing numbers, but the total quantity of motion measured in the same direction receives no addition.
This idea of inanimate objects holding the memories and utterances of the living really began to take off, gaining support by such 19th century psychic researchers as Eleanor Sidgwick and Edmund Gurney, who further postulated that buildings and places could hold these echoes of the past. There was also researcher William Fletcher Barrett, who believed that inanimate objects such as furniture or buildings could be imprinted with this psychic energy that could be detected by the living. He would say:
In certain cases of hauntings and apparitions, some kind of local imprint, on material structures or places, has been left by some past events occurring to certain persons, who when on Earth, lived or were closely connected with that particular locality; an echo or phantom of these events becoming perceptible to those now living.
The idea really picked up in the early 20th century in the days of Spiritualism, during which time it was commonly referred to as “place memory.” University of Oxford professor and former President of the Society for Psychical Research Harry Price was a major proponent of this idea, in 1938 asserting that places and even handheld objects could hold the residue of past events, which could then be divined by those who knew how to do so through an ability called “psychometry.” He truly believed that this could all fit into scientific ideals and could theoretically be tested if only we knew how, saying:
They (place memories) must consist in some more or less permanent mode of arrangement of the molecules or atoms or infra-atomic particles, of which the walls, furniture, etc., are composed. And in that case, it ought to be possible to verify their existence by the ordinary methods of physical Science — by physical or chemical tests of some sort or other. But so far as we know, this cannot be done.
Full story at site...
While ghosts and hauntings have been with humankind since as long as we have entertained the notion of an afterlife and the possibility of some part of us lingering after death, there has been some debate as to what ghosts actually are. For many it might seem obvious that they are the disembodied spirits of the dead doomed somehow to wander through the reality they left behind, but it is not always that simple. There has actually been much speculation among paranormal aficionados as to what ghosts really are, ranging from the conventional spirits of the dead, to decidedly more fringe ideas like inter-dimensional interlopers, demons, and even time travelers, and I have covered this here before. Sitting among some of the more intriguing postulations on the nature of ghosts is that of what has gone on to become known as the Stone Tape Theory.
The basic concept of what is now known as the Stone Tape Theory basically boils down to that certain locations, whether it be due to their construction, geological makeup, or some other unknown factor, have the ability to store mental energy or psychic impressions from certain past events, recording them in a sense as if images to film. It is speculated that under certain conditions, these events, usually the more traumatic the better, can imprint themselves upon the landscape and be “played back” like a video tape, leading to people seeing what they take to be ghosts, but which are in fact merely images from history being projected onto reality in an endless loop. These mysterious images are not always visible to everyone, typically only appearing to those who are sensitive to this stored energy or are keyed into it somehow, although it seems to depend on the place and the exact physical properties it holds, with quartz, crystalline rock, granite, or limestone typically said to be the most conducive to storing these place memories.
The idea that the environment and land itself can store past events and memories has its basic roots back in the 19th century, with the work done by mathematician Charles Babbage in 1838. Babbage, also sometimes known as the “father of computing,” came up with the idea that due to the transference of energy between particles, spoken words could leave permanent impressions in the air itself, which could become audible at certain times even long after they had been spoken, and he once said “the air itself is a vast library, on whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered.” At the time Babbage explained it in very concrete, scientific sounding terms, and made it all sound perfectly plausible in his book The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, in which he writes of his theory:
The pulsations of the air, once set in motion by the human voice, cease not to exist with the sounds to which they gave rise. Strong and audible as they may be in the immediate neighbourhood of the speaker, and at the immediate moment of utterance, their quickly attenuated force soon becomes inaudible to human ears. The motions they have impressed on the particles of one portion of our atmosphere, are communicated to constantly increasing numbers, but the total quantity of motion measured in the same direction receives no addition.
This idea of inanimate objects holding the memories and utterances of the living really began to take off, gaining support by such 19th century psychic researchers as Eleanor Sidgwick and Edmund Gurney, who further postulated that buildings and places could hold these echoes of the past. There was also researcher William Fletcher Barrett, who believed that inanimate objects such as furniture or buildings could be imprinted with this psychic energy that could be detected by the living. He would say:
In certain cases of hauntings and apparitions, some kind of local imprint, on material structures or places, has been left by some past events occurring to certain persons, who when on Earth, lived or were closely connected with that particular locality; an echo or phantom of these events becoming perceptible to those now living.
The idea really picked up in the early 20th century in the days of Spiritualism, during which time it was commonly referred to as “place memory.” University of Oxford professor and former President of the Society for Psychical Research Harry Price was a major proponent of this idea, in 1938 asserting that places and even handheld objects could hold the residue of past events, which could then be divined by those who knew how to do so through an ability called “psychometry.” He truly believed that this could all fit into scientific ideals and could theoretically be tested if only we knew how, saying:
They (place memories) must consist in some more or less permanent mode of arrangement of the molecules or atoms or infra-atomic particles, of which the walls, furniture, etc., are composed. And in that case, it ought to be possible to verify their existence by the ordinary methods of physical Science — by physical or chemical tests of some sort or other. But so far as we know, this cannot be done.
Full story at site...
