Civil War Lady (Kim) has hypothesized that Civil War reenactors could prompt paranormal activity at a historical site with a related Civil War history and that this may be something to experiment with during a paranormal investigation. The origin of this topic (and a discussion of the Oliver Anderson House in Lexington, Missouri) can be found on the My Minds Eye site via this LINK. There have been previous reports of paranormal activity, including visible apparitions, by people at the John Wornall House during times when Civil War reenactors (and others in period dress) were on the house's grounds. Could it have been the reenactors prompting this activity? Kim, could you explain your idea further, please?

I'm also curious about how one would go about testing this theory.

Here is my train of thought on how this would work. Once again, this is only a theory that I am throwing out for the group to give input on, not saying that it would or would not work. There is an additional discussion that I believe has the same content about Anderson House under the Kansas City locations link.

From what my understanding is, ghosts will haunt a location due to a traumatic event, attachment to person or property, not realizing they are deceased, etc. The angle that I am giving towards this is as follows:

If you are investigating a location with a known history of paranormal activity (regardless of time period) is it possible to have a greater amount of activity than normal? The reason that I ask this is the few experiences that my husband and I have had have always been in Civil War attire. Revisiting these locations in modern clothing does not have the same results. Now obviously, a ghost is not going to come out and perform on cue, but the thought that I have is that what would be the chances of either receiving or increasing paranormal activity if you were to allow the environment to conform to what the "norm" would be for that spirit? In the Anderson House post, I posted about my husband seeing the shadow of a man pulling picket duty. This would have been a normal occurance for soldiers to participate in during the war. Would you have recieved the same response with a nylon tent? I would like to think not, but this is an unknown factor. In addition, is it possible that a ghost would feel some sort of attraction or comfort to seeing other persons like themselves and be more likely to be "engaged" in interacting, either through visual, auditory or touch.

Same thing if you were to visit an old speakeasy of the prohibition era. If you were to play recorded music that would have been popular during that time, would you be able to witness activity or see an increase in reported activity? I am not looking at having this theory apply just to homes of this time, but any paranormal location.

The reason that I had brought this up was in regards to something that was mentioned at the Wornall House tour last fall. Tim, Mark and Trish, I am referencing the incident with the reenactor in the directors office saturday night. Hopefully, you will know what I am talking about. If not, please email me as I do not want to post unless I have my facts straight.

I have not seen any studies or any other info in regards to such a topic. I am simply curious what the end results would be. Hopefully this gets my thougts in line enough that everyone can see where I am trying to go with this.

Anyone else have any thoughts or ideas on this?

Kim

As a quick footnote, I am NOT trying to say that anyone else's personal experience did not happen. I am just curious if there is a way to yield better or more positive results through interaction.

Kim

It seems like a really interesting theory to me, and I do think that it would make an interesting experiment if you are visiting the same location multiple times to see if you consistenly get more activity only when you are in period dress. The other thing I wonder about is if the amount of people around affect the amount of activity, there are a lot of people at the reenactments and that equals alot of energy.

Investigators will often try to engage better interaction with ghosts by gearing towards what is thought to be known about a location. For example: if reported activity is pointing toward the ghost being a child, they might use trigger objects such as toys, then one step further would be if that child was thought to have lived in the location, say a hundred years ago, they would then pick out toys that would be familiar to that child's time period, like jacks or a ball. So it seems possible that the period dress could have the same effect in giving the ghost something familiar to relate to as well.

Ok, I responded to this once already on 3/30 but it didn’t take which upsets me. Either it was deleted, which hacks me off because it was an eloquent and thoughtful response, or I took too long responding and was logged out, which again, hacks me off because it was on my birthday and now I take too long to type.

So, here is the gist of my response:

I think Civil War Lady is on a unique track with her idea of the environment being conducive to spirit activity. Would a deceased banjo band from the 1930s show up at a heavy metal show played on the same grounds? Or would that banjo band be more likely to show at 1930s revival on the same grounds? It is an interesting question.

Ranier also raises an interesting point with testing this theory. Taking the above example, (and assuming we are all believers in PSI theory) a 1930s revival of banjo music would certainly put us all much more “in the mood” and therefore have our minds open and seeking communication with spirits of that era than if we were all head banging to heavy metal. But, what if there was silence? What type of response/reaction would we expect to receive from spirits, if any, then? I think it has been shown before through past encounters that environment is not necessarily the key factor to have an experience, correct? I would be interested to see a “scientific” test done with this theory, that is, using the above example, an investigation one weekend with the revival, and an investigation the next weekend with no revival, just a typical investigation. I’m not sure how else you would “prove” (for lack of a better term) environment being a factor.

I would personally love to show that, for example, at the Wornall House, (the Civil War reenactors), helped make the spirits more comfortable in showing themselves, or making their presence known. It almost gives me comfort in knowing that those spirits (and I truly believe they are there, and many of them are intelligent, as opposed to residual) saw the reenactors and said, “Wow, ok, there is someone I can relate to.”

Melissa

Assuming this theroy is correct, in order to test it, should investigations of locatoins be conducted wearing the perior clothing from what ever era the spirits/ghosts are aleged to be from thus causing more activity?

I mean this does seem to be a sound theory and it should be fairly simple and easy to test. I would be interested to see the results.

At the Wornall House, the reenactors I spoke with reported they have seen things during their events no matter if it was at the Wornall House or other such places. This would seem to support this theory.

I don't really have a whole lot of experience with reenactments, however, I do feel fairly skeptical with the stories that come from these events, mainly due to the fact that there are so many people there and involved that it is impossible to really know if seeing someone is real or "ghost". the stories the Irish Brigade told had me feeling very skeptical as it would seem that it would be easy to have an experience and not really understand that it was just another person there at the event rather than an apparition any other thoughts?

I've been watching this thread progress and I wanna hit on a couple things:


(1) Kim's idea is interesting because it's a specific application of Singapore Theory; but, overall, I wouldn't call it "unique". And that shouldn't been seen as a bad thing. Previous applications of similar ideas can provide us with some information about devising and improving Kim's idea.

(2) I don't think PSI Theory is a prerequisite for this discussion whatsoever. Nor would I suggest assuming that we all agree with PSI Theory. It has it's flaws, just like all the other ideas out there.

(3)
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Explain further, Melissa. I wanna know what you're getting at here and why you believe this to be true.

(4)
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That's one idea; or one set of investigators could wear street clothes and another set could wear period clothing. Or an investigation could be conducted while reenactors prowl the exterior of a location while in period clothing.

(5)
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Ummmmm, I doubt it. But if you've got some ideas on how to simplify something like that, let's hear 'em!

(6)
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Not necessarily. These reports would only support Kim's theory if people had experiences more often while in period clothing versus street clothes or if more experiences were reported by people when reenactors were on the property. It's a slight difference from what you're saying, Jimmie, but an important one because people have had experiences when reenactors haven't been anywhere near the property.

(7) Whether talking about paranormal stories by the Irish Brigade or Grandma So-and-so down the street, you gotta go with your gut, I guess. Most of the stories I've heard from the Brigade require just as much skepticism as listening to anyone else's stories. From what they've told me, I'm fairly convinced that they've done due diligence to verify that their experiences were not caused by a living person. My position is based on reports of apparitions in the Wornall House; although, I would agree that some of the reports of phantom children in the yard are a little harder to swallow.



What number of investigative groups versus reenacting groups, others types of groups, clothing of the various groups, number or people in each group, etc, might be necessary to do a pseudo-experiment with Kim's idea? Other suggestions?

5
Due to my lack of investigations I am simply trying to apply logic as I see it as a rookie. I must assume (there's that word again) that if there were reenactors present outside a location it would intice the entities to make their presence known.

If those reenactors were involved with the investigation, I would think they would have personal experiences more often than those wearing today's clothing.

If there were no reenactors and no one wearing period clothing then I would believe that activity would be less energized with less or normal activity.

This is along the same lines as if there was a storm that would make the energy more inviting for activity than if no storm was present.

Again I'm just a rookie but this is what I believe could occur.

One thing that I would like to point out as well, is how many of these experiences are individual accounts versus group accounts? Does anyone think that the number of people involved would have an affect on the results? The one experience (without scientific proof could only be called that) at the house when I was a volunteer there is just that, an experience. This occurance happened when I was by myself. The experiences that my husband and I have had at other sites have always been individually. Keeping this in mind, would you have a better opportunity of this being effective if investigating in pairs? Doing so individually could caused the results to be flawed as there would be no one else that could either assist with proving or disproving what could be seen, heard, smelled, etc.