Gadgets and ghosts

The latest international conference of the Society for Psychical Research over 18-19 September 2021 was a packed online virtual gathering attracting some of the leading figures in psychical research and parapsychology. It covered a wide range of psychic topics, but of particular interest in respect to ghosts was the launch of new SPR guidance on the use of equipment by investigators seeking to penetrate the perennial mystery of haunted houses.

Previous technical notes issued through the SPR had appeared in 1968, 1996 and 2018. The new guide, Using Equipment: Guidance Notes for Investigators of Apparitions, Hauntings, Poltergeists and Similar Phenomena (2021), by Steve Parsons, is devoted specifically to the use of 21st century instrumentation, both its application and limitations. It introduces basic types of devices and measuring equipment that may be used in research and will prove especially useful to readers unfamiliar with the items covered or who may have been trained in other disciplines such as psychology. It also provides essential background reading for many amateur would be ghost hunters who are keen to delve into this activity themselves in a scientific way.

There is no shortage of amateur ghost hunting groups in existence, whose projects and activities are being continually posted online and across social media (rather than appearing in academic journals). The televised antics of a select few are regularly served up as entertainment on TV channels worldwide. Hi-tech equipment and gadgets are frequently brandished, with readings and results obtained treated as significant. But it may justly be said that any scientific plausibility regarding proof that emerges from their endeavours is often sorely lacking, as will be obvious to anyone with a modicum