User:Schendoa1/sandbox

Ghost Hunting:

Racism within the culture
Ghost lore has deep roots in Colonial America. The tales of white people using ghost stories to scare black people into submission. This often comes with the implication that white people were more clever than black people, and thus superior. These accounts are exaggerated and rooted in the Ku Klux Klan garb resembling ghosts, while most black people during these times recognized people from the community under the costumes.

Additionally, there are many tales and writing of enslaved people passing on lore about ghosts, especially their dead masters. Many stories of masters coming back to punish slaves were passed along former slaves.

The supernatural played a part in black colonial culture, with roots tracing back to Africa. An example of this is their burial techniques. Traditions like “Placing the last item touched by the deceased on his burial mound, killing a white chicken at graveside, creating bottle trees to keep evil spirits away, planting evergreens on the grave to assure that the soul rested easily, using the color white to symbolize the spirit world-all had roots in Africa and all could be found in the black New World.”

The popularization of ghost tours in modern culture has risen with the increase of television shows revolving around ghost hunting. Throughout the Southern United States, many of these tours take place on former slave plantations where a guide tell fake histories of the estate in order to scare guests. Invented stories by owners of these tours often revolve around the theme of young enslaved girls involved in sexual relationships with their slave owners- often referred to as "affairs." The use of the word affects the story and implies consent. This ignores the structures of unequally distributed power that were in place for enslaved people which often bred sexual relationships between slave masters and enslaved people; many of which were nonconsensual on the part of the enslaved girls. These tours use a narrative to exploit the black suffering of enslaved people, especially young girls.

Grammar & Technicalities :
Some ghost hunters refer to themselves as "paranormal investigators".  -->  Ghost hunters may also refer to themselves as "paranormal investigators."

Ghost hunters use a variety of electronic devices, including EMF meters; digital thermometers; both handheld and static digital video cameras, including thermographic and night vision cameras; and digital audio recorders. -->  Ghost hunters use a variety of electronic devices, including EMF meters, digital thermometers, both handheld and static digital video cameras, including thermographic and night vision cameras, as well as digital audio recorders.

Author John Potts says that the present day pursuit of "amateur ghost hunting" can be traced back to the Spiritualist era and early organizations founded to investigate paranormal phenomena, like London's The Ghost Club and the Society for Psychical Research, but that it is unrelated to academic parapsychology.  -->  Author John Potts says that the present day pursuit of "amateur ghost hunting" can be traced back to the Spiritualist era and early organizations founded to investigate paranormal phenomena, like London's The Ghost Club and the Society for Psychical Research, but that modern investigations are unrelated to academic parapsychology. (This phrasing is misleading in that it seems to call older groups "unrelated to academic parapsychology," which is not the case.)

The popularity of ghost hunting has led to some injuries. Unaware that a "spooky home" in Worthington, Ohio was occupied, a group of teenagers stepped on the edge of the property to explore. The homeowner fired on the teenagers' automobile as they were leaving, seriously injuring one. A woman hunting for ghosts was killed in a fall from a University of Toronto building.  -->  Just going to go ahead here and delete this entire paragraph because the main foundation implies that ghost hunting is to be blamed for a homeowner shooting at a evacuating vehicle.

Needs more research:

Skepticism
One leading figure in the skepticism of paranormal encounters was Eleanor Sidgwick. Sidgwick was a leading member in the Society for Psychical Research, which seeks explanations for events commonly referred to as paranormal. She was well known for her criticism of popular mediums at the time, and helped develop the Census of Hallucinations; "‘a survey on a very considerable scale which set out to establish the probability of reports of crisis apparitions being due to chance coincidence."