Many historical buildings claim to be home to residual hauntings, an echo of the past. Ann Boleyn is frequently spotted at the Tower of London, Roman soldiers have been seen marching through the cellars of a house in York, for example.
Residual hauntings sometimes focus on a traumatic or emotional event which is played back time and time again over the centuries. Energy and emotion is somehow trapped within a specific area. The phenomena can be visual, olfactory, auditory and applies to humans as well as animals and vehicles. Anniversary hauntings can be included in this section.
It is worth mentioning though that this type of haunting is unintelligent. There is no point trying to communicate with the 'ghost'. Trigger object experiments, for example, are going to be a waste of time. These 'spirits' are not conscious and will not be aware of any onlooker. It has been reported that with residual hauntings the playback will itself show that this event was recorded in the past : the feet of marching armies are often missing because the ground level has risen since that the event was 'recorded'. A ghostly lady may disappear into a wall where a doorway used to be long ago. Of note too is the fact that it is often just the ghostly figure that is seen and not the background or room she/he was in at the time which is a bit odd if it is indeed a playback of a specific event that is being witnessed.
These type of hauntings are of interest to the paranormal investigator because the same thing will possibly have been seen/heard time and time
again in the same location. It gives us a place to start and an area to
focus on. The same thing will allegedly have been witnessed by different
people at different times throughout history (lots of these cases, however, could have been exaggerated, misreported and stylised. The tales become well known and make it into guide books, history books and such like). We have to assume that there is perhaps some truth behind the story however, and if witnessed recently then of course being able to speak to the witness in person would be ideal.
On the other hand, because these hauntings are usually widely known do people who see them go into that particular building with the anticipation of seeing something? Do they really see exacly the same thing that others before them have seen or do they somehow just remember the bits that fit the story?
Here's something that puzzles me. Many people survive traumatic events or do the same things day in day out. Are we the residual hauntings of the future? And if so when do these hauntings start? Immediately after we die? Why don't we see the 'spirits' of the still living haunting a crime scene??
Subject: Residual Haunting 
Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:14 pm
