Ghost Gap
The Ghost Gap
Eric Tschachler
I was recently reading about, what is called, the “God Gap”. This term is used by theologians to explain the idea of gaps in scientific understanding as indications of the existence of God. As the years pass, explaining the universe and all phenomenon within it as “acts of god” should become less prevalent. For example, we no longer say a god is responsible to moving the sun across the sky each day. Our understanding of the solar system has made that explanation obsolete.
A very similar thing happens in the paranormal community. The Ghost Gap is when we fail to explain something as natural and end up calling it paranormal. As the years pass and our instrumentation improves, less naturally occurring phenomenon should be regarded as proof of ghosts. But does this gap ever seem to shrink? I have been noticing that the ghost gap is actually increasing instead of decreasing. But why? I think there are 2 very evident reasons for this.
First, the paranormal field is unregulated. ANYONE can call themselves paranormal investigators. Anyone can buy the equipment and impart the title of “investigator” upon themselves. There is no formal education, certification, or training on equipment required to become a paranormal investigator. I challenge anyone claiming to run a certification course to contact me and convince me that they are qualified to do so. I have been around long enough to have seen instruments being misunderstood and a lack of rational thinking to blame for poorly drawn conclusions.
Second, paranormal TV shows feed into widening the ghost gap. They are concerned with creating entertaining TV rather than conducting a sound investigation. Scientific experimentation and critical thinking take a back seat to shoehorning some odd occurrences into a narrative that can be neatly wrapped up in the given time slot. There is an entire generation of “investigators” that receive all of their information from these TV shows.
These two elements have resulted in decades of poorly executed methods, lack of education, misuse of equipment, misinterpreting collected data, and lack luster theoretical backbone. To make matters worse, people do not even realize that this is happening. Their earnest pursuit of proof of ghosts blinds them to all of their shortcomings. Do not let people convince you of their aptitude or intelligence based on how long they have been investigating, how many investigations they have been on or how big their team is.
So what is the answer? Like I have said before, interdisciplinary research, formal education, technical information and setting up an investigation structure that supports ruling out the chaff is the only real solution. But we are unlikely to see this, because this approach is very difficult. No one wants to consult an engineer on how EMF detectors work. No, they want to see blinking lights and say its proof of ghosts. It is hard to sell people on studying anything that leads them to find less evidence of the paranormal. That means, we are stuck with this and the best we can do is to call it out when we see it. If you can’t rule it out through typical debunking, then calling it “paranormal” isn’t the best way to handle it. An object moving, seemingly, without cause isn’t proof of anything other than insufficient instrumentation on site. An object moved. Yes, very curious. But unless you see a ghost (and get it on video) picking the object up and moving it, then all you can say is that it is unexplainable. No more, no less.
Remember, the more you debunk the more credible your true evidence will be. Do your best to improve and refine your craft. Reach out for advice and information from people in the know. Choose your role models carefully and enjoy debunking as much as proving the paranormal and you will be leaps and bounds ahead of most of the other investigators in the field.
