Vsauce I’m Jake and this...uh..this is my sleeping wig. It’s kind of weird that you’re
in my bedroom right now but I’m glad you are because I’ve been hearing strange noises.
Have you ever been laying in your bed and heard the closet door creak open or footsteps
on the floor above you...even though there is nobody up there? Or that feeling that you
are not alone...that someone or something is hiding under your bed...maybe a spectre,
phantom, or apparition, all commonly known as ghosts.
Ah, hello again. Ghosts have played a role in fiction and real life for a very long time.
In Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, written during the 8th Century BC, ghosts were common place.
In the 1st Century AD, the Roman Pliny the Younger wrote a letter about a restless spirit
that had rattling chains haunting his house. During the Elizabethan Era, Demonology, the
study of demons or demonic beliefs, was incredibly popular. Shakespeare rose to prominence during
this time and frequently used ghosts in his plays like Macbeth, Richard III and Hamlet.
This is only one of my many leather bound books...Ladies.
Believing in ghosts or spirits was much more common back then. Even wanting to contact
and communicate with them was normal and sometimes it would turn...paranormal. Come with me.
Seances became common in the mid 19th century. They often happened privately in peoples’
homes - around a table like this and the lights would be dimmed : you’d have the medium,
a person who was able to link with the spirit world and then there would be the sitters
or spectators. It was an opportunity for the living to reconnect with loved ones or hear
wisdom from foreign ghosts. It was also a form of entertainment. During a seance the
table might spin, shake or levitate. It was also used as a way for spirits to communicate
by knocking on the table to let their presence known. Mary Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s wife,
held seances at the White House after the death of their son and they were even attended
by the President himself. There were also high-profile non-believers. Harry Houdini
spent a fair amount of time debunking mediums by replicating their incredible feats - because
he knew, in reality, they were just like him, illusionists.
The SPR or Society of Psychical Research was founded in the United Kingdom in 1882 with
the purpose of understanding paranormal and psychic events and explaining them scientifically.
There were other groups like the US variant American Society of Psychical Research or
my favorite, the frankly named Ghost Club. What they ended up finding was a lot of fraud.
Eva C was a medium who could materialize a 300 year old spirit named Bien Boa that turned
out to just be a normal man wearing a beard and cloak. Helen Duncan could produce ectoplasm,
a physical representation of spiritual energy, which in reality was cheesecloth and a rubber
glove. Or there were the Davenport Brothers who would be tied up in their “spirit cabinet”
with instruments that the spirits would play once the cabinet door was closed. During a
show a magician tied a proper knot with their ropes and once the door was closed, no instruments
were played.
For example Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, became interested in spiritualism
after the deaths of his wife, son and a large portion of his family in a short period of
time. He was involved in the Society of Psychical Research and in The Ghost Club. He even wrote
a book called The History of Spiritualism. Unlike some other authors however, Doyle didn’t
continue writing books after his death.
Man, I haven’t been up to the attic since I was a kid. Oh wow V.C. Andrews. She is a
New York Times Bestselling author whose first and most well known novel, Flowers in the
Attic, made her an overnight literary success. She’s published over 70 books in the last
24 years alone...even though V.C. Andrews has been dead for 28. She died in 1986 at
the age of 63 and at the time had published 7 novels. During the pre-internet era, unless
you had read about Andrews death you’d have no real idea she wasn’t the one writing
the books.
But it’s not a ghost writing the books, just a ghostwriter unlike Illinois State University
where the books are supposedly haunted. Angie Milner was the school’s first librarian
and after her death she isn’t haunting the library, instead she haunts the old books
wherever they go.
Then there are other haunted objects like ghost ships with the famous flying dutchman,
ghost trains like The St. Louis Light which is a glowing orb that moves down a set of
abandoned train tracks, and one of my favorites, a german woman whose oven would speak to her
in english whenever she opened its door. What she thought was a ghost turned out to be a
semiconductivity event - a gap between her metal appliances that started picking up radio
signals.
So there are ghost objects, ghost clubs and in some countries you can even have a ghost
marriage but why is it that nobody ever sees ghost dinosaurs or Deer: Ghost animals?) Did
that deer head just talk? This house is making me feel crazy but I’m not crazy Reflection:
I don’t think you’re crazy, Jake. Thank you, someone with some common sense! But I
believe that there is a ghost in here right now...and that ghost...is you No, no, no,
wait wait just hear me out.
In the 1940s biophysicist Dr. Paul Aebersold discovered that in a year, 98% of all of our
atoms are replaced - an atomic turnover. Not only that but a lot of our cells are constantly
changing - the cells in your stomach only last 5 days before becoming new, becoming
different. Your body sheds about 50 million skin cells a day and
then new ones form - so it brings up the question...are you still you...or are you a reproduction?
Let’s say I have a hammer and after awhile I replace the head and then a while later
I replace the handle...is it the same hammer? At what point is it no longer the same? Ah,
the Theseus Paradox. If we are constantly changing the atoms of our body, those basic
elements that comprise us...are we still us? Or are we just a memory of who we were, a
recreation based on the idea of ourselves, an imprint...a ghost of what we used to be...and
as always, thanks for watching.