Jock Brocas is a spiritual author and teacher with books published internationally. Jock is also the president of the charity organization assmpi and works tirelessly to he others develop spiritually and live a more rewarding life. Join Jock Brocas on a spiritual journey.
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The Haunting of Hill House is reportedly one of the scariest fiction ghost series to date. The series made its debut on Netflix recently and has already become one of the most talked about series of the year. Being quite the fan of paranormal fictional stories myself, I decided to give it a watch too and all I can say it is not for the faint of heart. Still, if you are interested to watch a good ghost story over the weekend, be sure to check out our introduction to the series below.
We will not give too much away regarding the story, especially if you intend on watching the series. What we can tell you however, is that the Haunting of Hill House is an adaptation on a novel written by Shirley Jackson. The series tells the story of two siblings, who grew up in a famous haunted house. As adults, they return to the location and face the ghosts that have haunted their minds.
To put it in my own words, an enormous amount of detail went into these series. There are ghosts present throughout the series and you might not even notice them at first. There are lots of obvious scares, which one would expect from a series like this. However, I love the subtle and constant feeling of terror one gets when watching this.
I am not the only one who loves the Haunting of Hill House though. Horror legend Steven King has also declared his love for the series, prompting many horror fans to go and watch themselves.
Because of the presence of "hidden ghosts", which I mentioned a little easier, it is more than recommended to watch the series several times. The creators of the series have done wonders incorporating hidden ghosts throughout, so anyone who has excellent perception will love these series even more. I do have to admit, I had to watch more than once to find them all. Can you spot them all on your first watch?
Gwrych Castle was the location for British show ‘I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here’ in 2020. Due to the pandemic, the normal location in the Australian jungle was out of the question. But not all was well in Gwrych Castle. After all, many people claim that the castle is haunted. Even some of the cast and crew were starting to come out with stories. But what is the true story behind Gwrych Castle?
What Is The History Of Gwrych Castle?
Gwrych Castle is a fortress situated by the Irish Sea. It is surrounded by a whopping 250 acres of land, making it quite isolated. The castle’s origin dates back to 1810. It was built by Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh.
The castle was the home for many people over the years. It was passed down to the Earls of Dundonalds through marriage. The estate was eventually sold in 1946 and was opened to the public later.
In 2018, the castle was bought by the Gwrych Castle Preservation Trust. As the castle started to fall into disrepair, the trust set upon a mission to restore the castle to its former glory.
Castle Hauntings
Gwrych Castle has quite the history when it comes to reported hauntings. There is a legend surrounding the Castle, as it is believed that the Countess of Dundonald Winifred Cochrane haunts the grounds.
Countess of Dundonald Winifred Cochrane was born in 1859 and died in 1924. She was a patron for the arts in Wales and was known for and wide for her contributions to charity. When her father died in 1894, she became the sole heiress of Gwrych Castle.
Winifred Cochrane married the 12th Earl of Dundonald, although the marriage was not thought to be a good one. It is claimed the Earl of Dundonald was never around and spent most of his time in Scotland.
The Countess of Dundonald eventually tried to leave her castle to prince George as a gift, who would later become King George V. However, George refused and the Earl of Dundonald later bought the Castle for £70,000.
Over the years, Gwrych Castle has been rumored to be haunted. In fact, one of the locations associated with the most ‘supernatural’ occurrences is the Countess’ Tower. At least, this according to the Castle’s own website. Naturally, the Castle is benefiting greatly from the ghost story.
The Countess of Dundonald is believed to be haunting the castle still, this according to paranormal investigator Gemma Williams. The investigator also claimed she had to run away when in a lady in a red dress walked out of the wall and screamed.
In addition to the reports about the Countess of Dundonald, some claim the castle is haunted by a servant girl who died when she fell off a horse. Others claim that the castle is haunted by numerous former servants who cannot find peace.
Ghost Hunts
Gwrych Castle has taken full advantage of the haunted stories that surround it. While the castle was still open to the public, it held its own ghost tours from 8 pm to 1 am. One of the stories featured on the website from staff and visitors include:
“The handrail gave way to nothingness and I felt something propel me up the top three stairs. Seconds later, my colleague told me the butler died right there on that same staircase.”
Unfortunately, the castle is currently not open to the public as it is being repaired. So, it seems the income from the TV show is being put to good use. Therefore, it will be a little while before people can start roaming the castle grounds again.
Humanity has a long history with and documentation of anomalous experiences like déjà vu, extrasensory perception, and even ghostly encounters. In fact, many of us have likely had a paranormal experience or know someone who has had a strange encounter. It’s no surprise then, that a 2005 Gallup poll found that “about three in four Americans profess at least one paranormal belief.” This includes belief in things such as ghosts, ESP, reincarnation, haunted houses, and more. The Gallup polls aren’t the only sources that show how pervasive paranormal belief is. For example, a study by scholars at the University of Manitoba found that paranormal belief is a “common” thing.
Given the pervasiveness of these beliefs, it makes sense that we all likely know someone who has experienced something strange. We might have heard some of these encounters as they are passed around at gatherings or in private conversations. Maybe we read about them in books or listened to them on podcasts. People love listening to, reading, and even sharing these strange encounters. And really, what’s more fun than an evening full of spooky stories?
What’s equally interesting, at least to a strange librarian like me, is that there are researchers keen to study the nuances of these paranormal experiences. Many of these folks are parapsychologists - scientists who study psi phenomena such as ESP, psychokinesis, poltergeist activity, and a whole host of other anomalies. In an article titled “Eight Decades of Psi Research,” Carlos Alvarado presents a brief history of this topic. You can read the article to learn about the Journal of Parapsychology, J.B. Rhine, the Duke Parapsychology Labs, and much more!
I always like to remind readers, though, that parapsychologists are not the only scholars who investigate psi activity. Take for instance, a cardiologist who wishes to learn more about the near-death experience (NDE). Dr. Pim van Lommel and his colleagues set out to study just this and published their research in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet. Inspired by their curiosity to know what factors might influence the occurrence of a near-death experience, the cardiologists studied 344 patients who were resuscitated after having a heart attack. Of the 344 patients, 18% of them experienced an NDE. Interestingly, Dr. van Lommel and colleagues were not able to pinpoint certain physiological patterns that might cause or facilitate an NDE. Each patient seemed to be unique, though they did discover than younger patients tended to report NDEs at a higher rate than older patients.
Personally, it’s fascinating to me that we can read scientific reports about anomalous topics. It’s refreshing to see researchers, like cardiologists, dive into these unknown events for the simple sake of learning more about ourselves. The paranormal impacts not only our experiences but also our curiosities and the quest to learn more about the world around us.
Luckily for us, Dr. van Lommel and his colleagues aren’t the only researchers who see the value in investigating the anomalous. In 2018, a group of scholars decided to investigate the personal paranormal experiences of a certain group of people: scientists and engineers. The research, conducted by Drs. Helané Wahbeh, Dean Radin, Julia Mossbridge, Cassandra Vieten, and Arnaud Delorme, dismantled the stereotype that there is a certain “type” of person who experiences the paranormal. In their abstract, the researchers tell us about the exact motivation behind their study:
“throughout history, people have reported exceptional experiences that appear to transcend the everyday boundaries of space and time, such as perceiving someone’s thoughts from a distance. Because such experiences are associated with superstition, and some violate currently accepted materialist conventions, one might assume that scientists and engineers would be much less likely to report instances of those experiences than the general population.” (p. 329).
To investigate the idea that paranormal belief and experience are more prevalent among certain groups of people, the researchers wondered what it would look like to compare the anomalous experiences of paranormal enthusiasts, the general public, and scientists and engineers. Their results show that the paranormal seems to be a shared human experience.
For example, participants were given a list of 25 ‘exceptional human experiences’ (EHEs) and asked to report if they had any. These EHEs (a term created by researcher Rhea White in the 1990s) include things like lucid dreaming, extrasensory perception, prophetic dreaming, telepathy, and astral projection. Interestingly, 67% of scientists and engineers indicated “yes” to the EHE “just known something to be true or had a clear sensation or feeling of knowing something that you would otherwise have no way of knowing.” (p. 334) Nearly 22% of scientists and engineers indicated that they had experienced seeing colors or energy fields around people or objects - a percentage that actually ranked higher than that of the general population. They also found that scientists and engineers’ belief in the paranormal ranked slightly higher than that of the general public surveyed in their study.
This last point is particularly poignant to me - that scientists and engineers held a slightly higher belief in the paranormal than the general public. This finding resonates because I think we tend to forget that not all scientists disregard the merits of paranormal inquiry. The pursuit of knowledge is, after all, the core foundation of science, so why wouldn’t there be researchers who see the value in investigating the unknown? The voices of critics may be loud, but we forget that they might not be the majority. The study by Wahbeh and colleagues reveals a more nuanced look at the relationship between the academy and the supernatural.
In their conclusion, the authors tell us that their “study suggests that various types of exceptional human experiences are highly prevalent not only among enthusiasts, but also among the general population, and scientists and engineers.” (p. 339) This study helps dismantle the stereotype that paranormal belief and experiences are relegated to a certain ‘type’ of person or educational level. It illustrates that the paranormal is both a natural and ubiquitous part of what it means to be human.
When it comes to evaluating the science to determine whether an effect has been found under controlled conditions, the first step is always to find the original studies and see what they say. (On Wikipedia, this is not allowed, by the way. They rely on second sources. So the Wikipedia dowsing entry favors skeptical commentary over original research.)
Dowsing is the practice of using a pointer or pendulum to find objects of interest that may be hidden or obscured, such as underground water, treasure or lost items. There is no known mechanism, other than the ideomotor effect which explains anything about the process. And the ideomotor effect doesn’t explain much.
A dowser at work, from Pierre le Brun, Histoire critique des pratiques superstitieuses, (Jean-Frederic Bernard, 1733–1736). It is unclear whether or not the dowser is using a diving rod or the lesser known Scrimometer. Caption "EPREUVE par la BAGUETTE." public domain
As with all things psychic, skepticism abounds. One only need look to the Wikipedia entry on dowsing to see this, where they’ve taken the questionable approach of granting skepticism 100% credibility while giving 0% credibility to anyone else. But I digress.
Anthropologist Jonathan Woolley wrote in 2018:
dowsing is first and foremost a customary practice that has a fundamentally different relationship to the scientific theories that purport to explain it. The tradition of divining for minerals or treasure using wooden or metal rods dates back over 500 years, well before any widespread theories about ‘energy’ arose in academic or public consciousness in western Europe (United States National Museum 1846: 325-326; Vogt & Hyman 2000).
Although the Earth Energies Hypothesis has proved to be a popular explanation amongst dowsers and their scientific supporters since it was first developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is by no means the only explanation practitioners of dowsing invoke. Furthermore, the assumption that the practice of dowsing rests upon a theory is also problematic: dowsing is a practice wherein what is known is not held consciously as knowledge. Dowsing must be understood as such, especially if one wishes to challenge it.
The main question here is this: Is dowsing real? Most people reading this will be looking for a response to that question and I will do my best to answer. I personally don’t have any attachment to dowsing; It’s a curiosity to me. As a parapsychology journalist with many years of experience though, I have a general idea of what the research is going to look like before I start.
The short answer is that there isn’t a lot of science on dowsing. Because parapsychology has to overcome the usual skepticism, the answer someone gives will depend on how much trust they put in either side. If you think the skeptics are more credible, then there isn’t enough evidence. If you think the researchers are more credible, then there is enough evidence. The social norm is to accept the skepticism by default, but this doesn’t have anything to do with what the science shows. The answer someone chooses depends on the credibility they assign to either side. If you think the researchers are more credible, then there is enough evidence. The social norm is to accept the skepticism by default, but this doesn’t have anything to do with what the science shows.parapsychology endures, the answer someone chooses depends on the credibility they assign to either side. If you think the skeptics are more credible, then there isn’t enough evidence. If you think the researchers are more credible, then there is enough evidence. The social norm is to accept the skepticism by default, but this doesn’t have anything to do with what the science shows.
Our Ancestors Weren’t Stupid
Dowsing has been around for a very long time. A depiction of a dowsing rod appears in a book written in Latin by a German, Georgius Agricola, in 1556 and translated into English by future president of the United States, Herbert Hoover. The U. S. has several professional dowsing organizations to this day. It would be beyond arrogant to assume that our ancestors would be using a method that was no better than chance.
There was even a time when dowsing was considered normal and geologic engineering was regarded as pseudoscience.
The first time oil drillers needed to find oil, they didn’t turn to geologists, they turned to dowsers, who they regarded as much more efficient. The dowsers were referred to as “oil wizards”. Rochelle Raineri Zuck writes for the Journal of American Studies (2012):
After more than 140 years, the oil industry still pits its wizards against the forces of nature and geology, staking its success on the combined efforts of science and psychometrics.
What they lacked in sophisticated experiments and advanced statistics they more than made up for in practical assessments and good sense. They found a way to get stuff done and esoteric theories about how it worked didn’t much matter to them. If dowsing didn’t produce results, then they would have moved on to something else.
What Science Says About Dowsing
When it comes to evaluating the science to determine whether an effect has been found under controlled conditions, the first step is always to find the original studies and see what they say. (On Wikipedia, this is not allowed, by the way. They rely on second sources. So the Wikiipedia dowsing entry favors skeptical commentary over original research.)
The scientific studies are peer reviewed, which means that they were at least fact checked and reviewed by two other people with sufficient expertise and experience to fully understand the subject matter. More eyeballs are better.
In this review, George Hansen does a very thorough exploration of the literature up to that point. (I talked to him once on the phone years ago, trying to persuade him to do an interview online. He impressed me as a no-bullshit, take-no-crap kind of guy. That really stood out about him. He can be very skeptical, but he’s not in any way dogmatic.)
His conclusion was that although there was some evidence indicating that dowsing was probably real, some of it dating to the 1920’s, the documentation of those studies was too sketchy or the studies not rigorous enough for any firm conclusions.
The Big Study On Dowsing
Which brings us to the most recent and hotly debated study, -that was almost 30 years ago-.
This large study, part one and part two, showed successful dowsing. This is frequently lost in the endless debates about whether dowsing is real. Skeptics call it a failed study, but this is grossly misleading. The outcome is contested by skeptical claims that it wasn’t successful, but that is mere controversy, which can’t be taken at face value. Skeptics aren’t automatically right.
This pattern of successful study -> withering skepticism -> rebuttal -> rebuttal to the rebuttal is so common in parapsychology that you can find this cycle in pretty much every area of parapsychological research. This is important for understanding the research in context. When everything is contested all the time, which is unheard of in any other area of science, this says more about the nature of the skepticism than it does about the research.
Being Skeptical of Skeptics
In fact, digging through criticisms and rebuttals almost always favors the researchers and exposes flaws in the skeptical criticism. It’s quite rare for the skeptic to make a good point. Personally, this has led me to grow very cynical about psi skepticism over the years. I don’t trust the motives of the skeptics and I operate on the assumption that they are not working in good faith.
That seems to be the case here as well. The tone of his article is somewhat, though not overly condescending; which is typical skeptic language. Enright is using some familiar, if unconvincing skeptical arguments. For instance, in psi testing, it’s very common for a few individuals to much better than most others. Enright thinks they might be cheating, but provides no explanation of how this could have occurred. He misinterprets psi missing, another common psi phenomenon, gets corrected on some basic facts and claims that some dowsers were singled out when the entire experiment was double blind.
Enright disputes this and other things in his predictable rebuttal to the rebuttal.
So who is right? Betz or his skeptic, J.T. Enright? Well, it comes down to the validity of the statistics. Betz wrote in his rebuttal:
Enright (1995) does not find an error in our analysis, but argues that it was customized afterwards and thus not valid; other evaluations would not give significant results. In a rejoinder Betz et al. (1996) showed that the initial analysis remains valid and other statistical procedures yield significance as well. In particular, Ertel (1996) presented a completely different evaluation which reveals very high statistical significance. Although none of these calculations were shown to be incorrect, Enright continues to debate the data.
Betz’s publication was peer reviewed and Enright’s reubuttal was not; it was published in the Skeptical Inquirer, a popular magazine known for its heavy bias against psychic research. Enright’s comments do not appear to have been fact checked by a disinterested party and are therefore suspect.
One serious piece of criticism I have against this sort of skepticism is that Enright gathered information and then launched his attack, failing to mention information that may have damaged his argument. Betz continues:
Ertel's analysis (1996) of the barn experiment was presented to Enright prior to publication. From January to March 1996 an extensive scientific exchange occurred between Enright and Ertel . In continued emails with data attachments Ertel answered numerous questions in great detail. I was kept informed by Ertel, because several aspects of the data had to be clarified, and Enright was aware of this connection. Finally, on May 27 Enright mailed: the matter is resolved indicating that his doubts regarding our data and Ertel's way of handling them were removed. Not the faintest objection had he raised to our study.
This is an example of why it’s important to read the rebuttals to criticism in parapsychology. Too often, there are objections raised by researchers that shed light on the process and some of the questionable practices of skeptics. This has happened before.
It’s important that Enright’s statistics were not vetted, (one of the problems of non peer reviewed criticism) but Betz’s were. Betz described Enright’s statistical methods as “crude, even illegitimate.” According to his rebuttal, Betz got his statistics analyzed by a third party which confirmed his results. Enright did not do this for his statistics.
When it comes to the statistical analysis, which is the main point of dispute, Betz has the greater claim to legitimacy.
Enright’s treatment of the subject was that he was right. He allowed for no ambiguity on this matter, which is typical of the skeptical zealotry that I am familiar with. It is suggestive of someone who had his mind made up before he started and then worked backwards to justify that conclusion. He would not be the first skeptic to do this.
The enduring story that “there is no evidence for dowsing” isn’t actually true. The truth is that there was a large peer reviewed study with positive results and that a skeptic disputed it in a non peer reviewed criticism. The whole narrative of Betz’s study being discredited is pure hype that is repeatedly reinforced by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry through the Skeptical Inquirer and their Wikipedia people, The Guerrilla Skeptics.
There is a real bias in the sciences against anything that smacks of psychic ability and a media organization that reinforces those biases by repeating their talking points over and over again in the media.
So based on my understanding of the field, I’d wager that Betz’s research is probably sound and that the skeptical objections are probably untrue. It’s the way to bet.
Roughly half the world has at least one psychic experience. Psychic ability is found in every culture on earth, in every social and economic group and throughout history. It’s relatively common and therefore something that science should expect to find. Psychic ability itself has a substantial amount of scientific evidence backing up its existence. So operating on the assumption that dowsing is impossible is not scientific.
Underlying this skepticism is an assumption that materialism (a belief that the universe is made of material) is true. However, this assumption has come under increasing scrutiny.
To put this in the simplest way possible, the problem with materialism (which is the basis for assuming that dowsing is impossible) is that we do not know whether we are living in a material universe or an extremely realistic dream. To view the physical world objectively, we would have to somehow get outside of our consciousness. But this is impossible. We experience our physical reality; which can’t be done without consciousness. We are stuck using our minds to experience the material world, which in turn makes it impossible to prove that the material world exists outside of our minds.
If you instead work with the assumption that idealism (a belief that the universe is made out of ideas) is true, -and there is no rational explanation of why this wouldn’t be true- then dowsing has a theoretical basis for functioning. The mind and our physical reality are not separate, so dowsing is just another form of awareness.
To sum this up, it’s not unreasonable to believe that the scientific evidence for dowsing is pretty good. It has very practical uses and it’s very doubtful that it would have gained acceptance with merely chance results. That’s just not how the world works.
As long as you don’t handwave idealism or psychic ability as impossible, it’s not much of a stretch to accept that dowsing is real.
