The Effervescence of Ghost Hunting

"Bro, did you hear that?" "Bro, something touched me!" "Dude, there's a shadow behind you!" "I heard something in that tunnel!" "Go down in that hole, that's where I saw it!"

There are a lot of ways one could go about ghost hunting; one could easily sit in a room in full silence. Others can bring an old radio to a graveyard and tune into a station, accessibly channeled by an undead choir. Radio personalities of the cemetery.

Bear with me, I have two life examples below that I feel are relevant to today's blog; Do not leave. They're efficient and short and it would mean absolutely nothing to me if you carried a morsel of my life in your hands, for a mere moment, and disposed of that information like a Wendy's napkin after. But for now, it's important - sorry.

Last summer I stayed at The Stanley Hotel in Colorado (the hotel that was both the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick's The Shinning and Stephen King's literal filming location for his own version and his original novel, The Shinning) and it was absolutely incredible. One of the best parts was a ghost tour I took in the evening. With 20 others, I squished and gawked at the real-life rooms, rumored to have their own historical hauntings, until we finally ended up in the basement. It was said (by our tour guide) that a young girl had frozen to death in the very spot we stood. Then, in a sick manner, we were expected to lure her out with some 3-dimensional suckers that no way could be un-materialize for her liking! Yet, even though it's obvious this trick was not up to par in its ghost logic, I am not a grade-A sourpuss. Therefore, I kept quiet and let the fun take over.

With the sucker sitting in our palms, and the tour guide walking around with an electronic thermostat, our entire tour witnessed the ghost, pulling and tugging on each of our suckers; there was not a soul there unimpressed. Everyone was quiet and excited. You could feel the energy bouncing off and pinballing across the room. Making me wonder.

Years earlier in college, I wrote a social theory paper titled: Mosh Pits and How They Have Unique Systems of Trust, where I delved deeper into moshing etiquette at shows and how they were properly dealt through social expectations and ritualized acts of trust. One of the main theories I used to evident my claims, was Emile Durkheims' concept of Collective Effervesce. Mostly referencing religious ceremonies, he stated that when people do the same motion simultaneously, it not only creates group meaning, but it also creates an almost excited, euphoric response; I used the mosh circle as an example of this shared joy.

The idea of this communal excitement, passed between us like a gauntlet full of wine, as the tour guide's detector sang an evensong of red blinking, buzzing lights. Could this effervesce go further than the magical practice of live music? Could it even be more personal, mundane like in a room full of strangers, whispering about their own delicate, imaginative versions of this ghost? Could the electromagnetic static of these thoughts and fears raise out from our ears, run up to the ceiling, and with great and wild dissatisfaction, find themselves rubbing against the pulsing electricity of excitement, bursting between the ancestral graveyard of past experiences, living peacefully in the mind, and collectively stimulate a "ghost" out of it? Not sure if it is a spirit, or just a connection, coming to life?

As an autistic person who sometimes feels socially starved for habitual and meaningful connections, I felt like this has to be some sort of secret, friendship ritual that I was stupidly choosing to never tap into; Ghost hunters, do you just feel drunk off the sparks, shooting out from your night of inter-connected circuity? Do you float like phantoms when your friend exhales their breath across the room and successfully finds the small start of your spine, smoothing the nerves down?

I've always wondered if investigating ghost hunting was a way to textualize and re-explore a group's invisibly rigid boundaries, conjuring a change in the timid wants of others; There's a hand on your shoulder, mistaken for a demon. There's a lore of abuse, crime, and colonial values haunting the friendship in both universal, personal, and relating ways. Don't be a cop to your friends. Be more like a ghost; with them always and communicate, unspokenly.