Your paranormal experiences at the murder sites?

[Jeff Leahy]

I agree that much of what we see on "documentary" tv shows of all kinds is heavily embellished and even changed to the point of being untrue, and I would add that this is also true of mainstream news broadcasts, and that that thought brings a special kind of despair for those of us who just want to know the truth about things. As a rule of thumb, I would say that in documentaries, pay less attention to the narration and more to the segments in which the actual experiencers of the events are on screen telling their stories. Their words are the ones that count.

.

Actually someone Producing and Directing a paranormal TV show probably has to do more research than someone making a factual history program.

If you get it wrong on a factual history program there is little repercussion (unless you spell Dorset street wrong). However if a psychic gets stuff wrong you are potentially destroying his/her lively hood. Not to mention the wroth of sites like ‘bad psychic’ who go over the stuff with a fine tooth comb.

When I made Derek Acorahs Quest for Guy Fawkes I naturally watched the spate of anniversary shows on several channels that competed with mine. If I remember correctly the show that contained the most factual errors was the one broadcast by BBC 2.

If anyone can find a factual historical errors in Derek’s Guy Fawkes production I am happy to eat my Pirate hat.

Pirate Jack

[Jeff Leahy]

Jack,

I'm of the opinion that all media is illusory to some extent. It is what the artist/creator/editor wants people to see, and for whatever purposes. It is all dishonest. That doesn't mean I don't like it, nor that it isn't of value. I know you produce shows, so I know that you know what I'm talking about. Example: just watched 'Jack the Ripper in America'. Huge amounts of intellectual dishonesty, but I found a few moments of value in it.

Cheers, Mike

Hi Mike

I can’t be held responsible for the toosh put out by other producer/directors. As you know I have never worked for Antix.

But I will stand by my own productions. (which incidentally include the 2009 JtR Conference DVD available on conference website!)

There is nothing what so ever dishonest about Psychic Detective or Psychic Private Eyes. These series are clearly marked as ENTERTAINMENT, and that’s exactly what they are ENTERTAINMENT.

Editing as a process is about selection. The human brain is a selective editing machine Both processes deliver opinion. I can NOT offer you the truth, I can take you to water and ask that you drink of truth..

But at the end of the day TRUTH is something people can only experience for themselves.

Me I’m happy if I simply make a half decent program, with the very limited time and financial resources, that will do what it says on the tin: Entertains People. (Hopefully informing a little with factual information as it goes along)

Pirate Jack

[mklhawley]

I'm sorry for the confusion. I want to be brief, but that did not help. Your first sentence is not a valid summary. The experience was at a time when I did not understand the contradiction between methodological naturalism and ontological naturalism, so I "believed" science disproved the existence of ghosts (The experience inspired me to research this). Generally, a ghostly experience does not chance the mind of an atheist, because all experiences have a "logical (meaning natural) explanation". At the time I used, "It was a figment of my imagination and my recollection of events was off." This rejection did not come from skepticism (methodologically), it came from a belief in disbelief.

Now, I do use skepticism, meaning, I am open to the possibility that EVP's are recordings of the supernatural. I'm just not ready to bet my lifesavings. To demonstrate that I am open to it, I just bought a digital audio recorder and K2 meter. A friend of ours is having some experiences, so I want to see for myself if this works. There is no way to verify ghost shows are being honest.

Mike

...by the way the experience I am talking about is a 3-year old girl telling mom that grandma (nanna) is visiting her in her bedroom. Grandma is telling her that her head hurts. The grandmother passed away the year before she was born by a head injury. Also, the teenage son hears noises in the same room. If I get an EVP, I'll pass it on (if you want).

[mklhawley]

Mike,

I'm confused here. You mean you encountered a ghost, but didn't believe in it, though any skeptic would have believed after what you experienced. Is this a valid summary? If so, that would make you a non-believer at the time, unpersuaded by a spectral visit. But you say you are a skeptic now. The logic then is that you were a non-believer, but now you are not. Why can't you just take your current skepticism and re-evaluate the experience from that point of view and become a believer? Must you now have another experience to become a believer because you are in the advanced, skeptic state of mind?

I hope you follow my logic, because I had a hard time with yours.

Cheers,

Mike

I'm sorry for the confusion. I want to be brief, but that did not help. Your first sentence is not a valid summary. The experience was at a time when I did not understand the contradiction between methodological naturalism and ontological naturalism, so I "believed" science disproved the existence of ghosts (The experience inspired me to research this). Generally, a ghostly experience does not chance the mind of an atheist, because all experiences have a "logical (meaning natural) explanation". At the time I used, "It was a figment of my imagination and my recollection of events was off." This rejection did not come from skepticism (methodologically), it came from a belief in disbelief.

Now, I do use skepticism, meaning, I am open to the possibility that EVP's are recordings of the supernatural. I'm just not ready to bet my lifesavings. To demonstrate that I am open to it, I just bought a digital audio recorder and K2 meter. A friend of ours is having some experiences, so I want to see for myself if this works. There is no way to verify ghost shows are being honest.

Mike

[mklhawley]

Mike,

I'm confused here. You mean you encountered a ghost, but didn't believe in it, though any skeptic would have believed after what you experienced. Is this a valid summary? If so, that would make you a non-believer at the time, unpersuaded by a spectral visit. But you say you are a skeptic now. The logic then is that you were a non-believer, but now you are not. Why can't you just take your current skepticism and re-evaluate the experience from that point of view and become a believer? Must you now have another experience to become a believer because you are in the advanced, skeptic state of mind?

I hope you follow my logic, because I had a hard time with yours.

Cheers,

Mike

I'm sorry for the confusion. I want to be brief, but that did not help. Your first sentence is not a valid summary. The experience was at a time when I did not understand the contradiction between methodological naturalism and ontological naturalism, so I "believed" science disproved the existance of ghosts (The experience inspired me to research this). Generally, a ghostly experience does not chance the mind of an atheist, because all experiences have a "logical (meaning natural) explanation". At the time I used, "It was a figment of my imagination and my recollection of events was off." This rejection did not come from skepticism (methodologically), it came from a belief in disbelief.

Now, I do use skepticism, meaning, I am open to the possibility that EVP's are recordings of the supernatural. I'm just not ready to bet my lifesavings. To demonstrate that I am open to it, I just bought a digital audio recorder and K2 meeter. A friend of ours is having some experiences, so I want to see for myself if this works. There is no way to verify ghost shows are being honest.

Mike

[The Good Michael]

My personal ghost experience would have confirmed the reality of ghosts for any believe, but because of my disbelief in ghosts at the time, I became frustrated. I now merely say I am skeptical, yet very open to the possibility of ghosts.

Mike,

I'm confused here. You mean you encountered a ghost, but didn't believe in it, though any skeptic would have believed after what you experienced. Is this a valid summary? If so, that would make you a non-believer at the time, unpersuaded by a spectral visit. But you say you are a skeptic now. The logic then is that you were a non-believer, but now you are not. Why can't you just take your current skepticism and re-evaluate the experience from that point of view and become a believer? Must you now have another experience to become a believer because you are in the advanced, skeptic state of mind?

I hope you follow my logic, because I had a hard time with yours.

Cheers,

Mike

[mklhawley]

Me, too JTR. Me too. It is about the fear of the unknown. Though I'm an unbeliever, I still have that old lingering nonsense that was beaten into my head as a kid.

Cheers,

Mike

Greetings all,

We in the scientific community and science education consider the discussion between Ally and The Good Michael is an issue of methodological naturalism vs. ontological naturalism. Methodological naturalism is the scientific process of discovering nature, and testable empirical evidence is the only allowable type of evidence (not hearsay, authority-base, or experienced-based evidence) used. Because the other types of evidence can be wrong without a way to verify (ex. deception, misidentification, memory reconstruction), they would throw a monkey wrench into the system. The knowledge is not reliable. Once the empirical evidence requirement was put in place, science flourished (as evidence by today’s accelerating scientific discoveries and technology). The downside to methodological naturalism is that empirical evidence is strictly natural evidence, thus, supernatural evidence is automatically excluded regardless of reality. It is not allowed to consider evidence such as EVP’s, because the possibility of it coming from the supernatural is off the radar.
Ontological naturalism, on the other hand, is a disbelief in the supernatural, i.e., atheism. The inherent problem with ontological naturalism is that its very justification is methodological naturalism (ex. ghosts do not exist because ghost sightings have never been “verified”). Notice the dilemma? It is physically impossible for them to conclude anything other than atheism, since science cannot even consider the possibility. There is a name for this; it’s called convoluted logic.
In view of this, skepticism is not atheism. Skepticism is methodological, meaning one merely has yet to embrace it as the truth, while atheism disbelieves it from the onset. Please do not say the scientific community is close-minded, it is just doing its job discovering nature and has no business studying the supernatural. Atheists are close-minded.
Now, the problem of believing ghost stories based upon hearsay or a personal experience is that you may just be wrong. My personal ghost experience would have confirmed the reality of ghosts for any believe, but because of my disbelief in ghosts at the time, I became frustrated. I now merely say I am skeptical, yet very open to the possibility of ghosts.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Mascara & Paranoia]

I'd say you were right. Though I still think that car park where Annie was murdered is still the creepiest, followed closely by the now-modern Mitre Square.

[ghoulstonstreet]

Could it be that Polly Nichols site is mentioned as the creepiest because it is the only one left with the original old buildings? The others are virtually unrecognizeable now, isn't that right?

[kensei]

I agree that much of what we see on "documentary" tv shows of all kinds is heavily embellished and even changed to the point of being untrue, and I would add that this is also true of mainstream news broadcasts, and that that thought brings a special kind of despair for those of us who just want to know the truth about things. As a rule of thumb, I would say that in documentaries, pay less attention to the narration and more to the segments in which the actual experiencers of the events are on screen telling their stories. Their words are the ones that count.

I also agree that the murder site of Polly Nicholls is indeed a very sinister site. I was there just once, on a day in Sept. '08 at around 7:45 in the morning with some kind of loud maintenance work being done right across the street, and even in that setting I couldn't help but think how scary the place must be at night.

As for the stories of apparitions seen around Whitechapel, in particular the stories of people seeing Annie Chapman and the Ripper going into #29 Hanbury Street when it was still there, that sounds to me not like a genuine sighting of ghosts but of latent energy being somehow captured in the air or the stone or whatever of that particular place and occasionally played back like a tape loop, becoming visible at sporadic times. There are even stories of people who are still alive being seen in places where they used to live in this way. Annie haunting the place of her death would be one thing, but why would the Ripper after his death (whenever, wherever, and in whatever manner that eventually occurred) pick this one victim to go back and appear with over and over as ghosts?

One can definitely overwork one's mind when pondering the supernatural.

[ghoulstonstreet]

Sorry!

Hi Uncle Jack

If the red area was a shadow I'd expect the man's features to be visible though the shadow, this is not the case, as I said his nose and part of the upper lip is gone. I forgot to mention that his hands are covered in what appear to be large boils.

Below is the full sized original photograph, and I do realise that he's pointing to the wrong spot regarding where Catherine Eddowes actually lay.

[ATTACH]7742[/ATTACH]

all the best

Observer

Now that I can see a wider view I understand that the person is standing outside! Sorry.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Ally!

The Good Michael is not a skeptic, he's a believer. He just believes the opposite of what usually constitutes a "belief", but he believes it with as much fanatic passion as your most strident and devout.

Kensei is right, true skepticism requires doubting all, even ones own beliefs, which is why most people are not skeptics, they are believers of one ilk or another and they will rarely be convinced even by overwhelming evidence, that they might be wrong.

I definitely believe, that there are no definite answers!

All the best
Jukka

[ghoulstonstreet]

Interior?

The following photograph was taken at the site of Catherine Eddowes murder. Notice the red area obscuring part of the man's face. I have blown this photograph up and the man's features are obliterated where the red mask covers his face. The area covered by the red mask on the man's face seem to mirror Catherine Eddowes injuries. Trick of the light? I think so.

all the best

Observer

[ATTACH]7740[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]7741[/ATTACH]

Thanks, that was interesting. But if this is THE site of Eddowes murder why does it look like the inside of a building? Thanks

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Mike!

Forget EVP's, I want to know more about Jukka stalking East End ladies and taking photo's of them in pubs!

Shhh, don't tell my girl-friend!

All the best
Jukka

[The Good Michael]

I'll tell you one thing though....if I recorded EVPs asking for names of people and one came up that said "I was Jack the Ripper", first, I'd piss myself and then I'd probably run screaming like a little girl. LOL!!!!

Me, too JTR. Me too. It is about the fear of the unknown. Though I'm an unbeliever, I still have that old lingering nonsense that was beaten into my head as a kid.

Cheers,

Mike