Some Thoughts on Spook by Mary Roach

I respect Mary Roach as a scientist, for going out and researching really specific and odd things.  Her other book that I've read, Stiff, is just as fascinating, although much grosser.  She honestly inspires me to go into journalism.

Some things that I learned from this book include:

• The debunking of spirit encounters via infrasound
• The history of EVPS
• The beginning of spiritualism in America

I'm going to focus on the first two things because those excited me the most.  Infrasound, according to Roach, are "inaudible, low-frequency sound waves...[and] runs from zero to twenty hertz."  The effects of infrasound on the human body include "strange feelings in the stomach", the raising of hair on the back of the neck, vibrating eyeballs (what the hell), cold chills, and increased heart rate.  Infrasound has already been used to explain some of the phenomena occurring at Warwick Castle in England (pg. 227).  

I'm looking forward to seeing how infrasound, in addition to EMFs, can be used as a debunking tool in paranormal investigations.  You can order infrasound detectors online or use an app on your smart phone.

EVPs are endlessly fascinating to me, which is why I was excited that Roach included a chapter about the history of them.  I knew nothing about the history of EVPs before this delightful book.  EVPs (*Zak Bagans voice* or electronic voice phenomena) grew popular around the same time that radio, television, and microwaves did.  People found the new technology just as mystical and otherworldly as the possibility of communicating with the dead.  The idea that you could get spirit voices via electronics seemed pretty reasonable.  Also humans have a knack of finding voices in white noise.  We're programmed to pick out faces and voices, even when there aren't any.  This explains why we have so many photos of alleged "faces in windows" and whatnot.  

Not to say that all ghost photographs and EVPs are fakes, it's just important to recognize the phenomena of matrixing.  

You can find Spook and learn more about these topics at your local bookstore for $15.95.

Don't Dehumanize the Dead

Last night my partner and I were watching an episode of Ghost Adventures where they visit Missouri State Penitentiary.  This show is problematic for many reasons, but it's fun to make fun of and critique.  However, episodes like this particularly rub me the wrong way because of the way they talk about and portray mental illness, suicide and death in general.

Their use of reenactments to tell the stories of how people died is little more than gross sensationalism to increase their views.  The way I see it, it's disrespectful to the deceased to show their death on TV.  Death is personal and, in many ways, nobody else's business.  Death shouldn't be entertainment.  If they had explicit permission from the family to portray their loved one's death in that way, I might feel better about it, but I'm almost certain the Ghost Adventures crew isn't that courteous.

The ableist language used by the GAC is upsetting as well.  Terms like "insane", "mentally deranged", and "crazy" are frequently used on the show.  There's nothing worse than the GAC going into an abandoned asylum for mental health and yelling slurs at the top of their lungs.
One of Zak Bagans' methods of gathering evidence is verbally antagonizing the dead, which I'm sure is good for views, but is detrimental in terms of showing respect.  His ignorance is also damaging to viewers like myself.  I'm mentally ill and suffer from chronic anxiety and depression.  Seeing people act out killing themselves on screen, and hearing Zak degrade the spirits of people who were also mentally ill is triggering and upsetting.  It's a reminder that I'm not always treated like a person because of chemical imbalances in my brain.

Mental illness is often sensationalized in horror movies and TV shows.  Mentally ill people are shown as scary, dangerous and uncontrollable.  Overall it's dehumanizing and unrealistic.  The media needs to stop feeding into this ableist representation.  We're more often a danger to ourselves than other people, and whatever we have going on in our heads is more frightening to us but still none of your goddamn business.

I have little respect for Zak as a person because of how he's presented himself professionally.  I often wonder why more social workers are not also paranormal investigators.  Having skills working with the living could also be very helpful for working with the dead.

Respecting the Dead

I credit Dr. Zahi Hawass with teaching me how to respect death and those who have passed on.  As a child I was intensely interested in Ancient Egypt and watched whatever documentaries I could get my hands on.  Dr. Hawass is a well-known archeologist and Egyptologist who appeared in many of these documentaries.  I realize there's been some controversy surrounding him this past decade but when I was younger, he absolutely was my hero.

I admired his care and attention to artifacts and how he would pray over a tomb or sarcophagus before opening it.  He always referred to mummies as he/she, never "it".  He fought for artifacts in London and France to be transported back to Egypt where they belong.
I picked up on his reverence for the dead and for the customs surrounding death.  I noticed that ritual is a key aspect to the afterlife.
Now I'm very careful if I take pictures of graveyards or graves, which is rare.  I tag all the pictures of dead people or graveyards on my tumblr with "rip".  Whenever I'm in a cemetery I try to help keep it clean and throw away trash.  I fix flower arrangements and decorations.  I want to learn more about multicultural death rituals so I can be respectful in a broader way.  I learned last year that in Jewish culture, it's a sign of respect to place small stones on graves as a way to maintain the grave and show that the deceased hasn't been forgotten.
Anyway, respecting the dead is important to me, and it's a quality I expect paranormal researchers and/or those interested in the paranormal to have.

An Introduction

I've been in love with the paranormal since I was very small.  The reason this blog exists is because I want to have a space to discuss the paranormal and ghosts and my experiences and thoughts.  Hopefully there are people out there who want to listen to what I have to say about ghosts and have similar opinions about what all goes down in the spirit world.

So a little bit about me, my name is Cas and I live in Salt Lake City, Utah.  I'm a super senior at the University of Utah, and I'll graduate with a Gender Studies major in the spring of 2017.  I have another blog here called Exhibit Q where I talk about punk and queerness and I'm sure you can find it in the sidebar or something.  I identify as gay, transgender and nonbinary.  My pronouns are they/them.  I'm sure I'll make a post about queerness and heteronormativity/cisnormativity within paranormal groups and communities, because that is an important subject to me.
I'm somewhat of a sensitive.  My grandfather on my mom's side is psychic and has had several spirit encounters; my belief is that that trait has been passed down to my mom, my brother and myself.  I'm sensitive to energies in the environment and have very good intuition.  I'm also a secular witch and spirit work is something that I incorporate into my practice.
I've been told via tarot card reading that I have multiple spirits following me around but I don't know who they are.  I've also been told via pendulum that I have two spirit guardians but I don't know who they are either.
I also have a YouTube channel where I talk about my experiences with ghosts but it's not a regular thing and the channel is more personal in its content.
This blog is titled Genderless Ghost because I don't believe the dead always honor the gender systems of the living but I'll get into paranormal gender theory in a later post.  Genderless Ghost is also my Pokemon Go username.

Anyway.  I look forward to writing here and seeing what discussions come about, if any.
xCas