subject: Paranormal Activities - From Pastime to Serious Business [print this page] Paranormal Activities - From Pastime to Serious Business
In a pitch-dark cellar in suburban London, a psychic mutters a Latin incantation, goading a recalcitrant spirit to make its presence known. His companions, who have signed up through the company Fright Nights to spend the evening "ghost hunting" in an eerie Victorian mansion, cling to each other, rigid with fear. A woman yelps in the darkness. Flashlights snap on. "It's like an awful, spooky film," says one guest, "except you're in it."
Ghostly folklore has always played a role in British history. Buildings ranging from Hampton Court-where the ghost of Catherine Howard has allegedly been seen running from room to room, pursued by guards, as she did before her execution-to the Bank of England are believed to be haunted. But lately, ghost tours have turned into serious enterprise, with a handful of companies charging as much as 200 for paranormal adventures. "The British have always loved a really good ghost story-look at Dickens and M. R. James," says Fright Night's founder, Martin Jeffrey. "This takes it one step further. Some people have attended our events 60 or 70 times."
It's not all freezing basements and frenzied sances. Increasingly, companies like Haunted Happenings arrange "psychic suppers" in spooky country inns where guests can discuss the paranormal over dinner. One manor house in Tetbury offers a gastronomic three-course meal followed by sances and vigils in the house's spooky "hot spots." The 115-year-old National Trust has commissioned the cultural historian Sin Evans to investigate ghostly encounters in its 350 properties. Evans has traveled the country, interviewing staff. "Their encounters with ghosts are fascinating," she says. "The National Trust can't prove them all true, but they tend to see these stories as part of the history of each house." The trust's events range from fireside ghost stories at William Wordsworth's house in Cumbria to evenings at Anne Boleyn's family home in Norfolk, where Henry VIII's second wife allegedly rides up holding her own decapitated head.
A good number of visitors take all this quite seriously, though foreign tourists tend to be less earnest. Hunts typically start in the early evening and last until dawn, and most ban alcohol, drugs, or making light of the otherworldly encounters. "If we find people fabricating evidence, clapping, or throwing things, we kick them out," says Hazel Ford, who runs Haunted Happenings in venues like Warwick Castle and the London tombs. "It's a high-maintenance business. People can go into trances."
Have sensible Britons succumbed to irrational mumbo jumbo? A recent ICM survey showed that 42 percent of the British public think ghosts exist, compared with only a third in 1954. Many experts link the increase to the decline of organized religion. Others, including the historian Jonathan Sutherland, blame the commercialization of folklore. "It's a sideways way of selling heritage," he says.
Fright Nights's founder Jeffrey attributes his roaring trade to a "black hole" in modern belief structures. "People are searching for a sense of wonder," he says. "They're from all walks of life. We recently entertained a large blue-chip company. We were in a room with people who were probably worth billions." But the ghosts don't care about that.
