I believe in ghosts

‘I believe in ghosts’ is a film made by the BBC in which Joe Swash, (a former Eastenders Character,) travels Great Britain in search of tangible proof of the afterlife. He will make his decision based on the evidence that he has gathered and his experience of it. Joe swash thinks that the ‘undead’ are just dead people with unfinished business, but he doesn’t think that he will 100% believe in ghosts or spirits until he has seen one himself. At the start of the film he goes to see a medium called Tracy Brookes.

Tracy Brookes tells him realistic details about his life, about his father who was a taxi driver and had died of a heart attack. Naturally, he was moved. Could this be proof of a spiritual connection? Some would disagree with this and say that the medium had got all the information off Wikipedia since that information is available on that site. This was his first venture into life after death and he said that he was amazed with the accuracy of the information given to him about his father. As he is Catholic, he goes to see

Father Steven Wang to get a Catholic view on the afterlife. As a catholic Father Steven Wang does believe that there are spiritual forces and beings at work in the world, and that they influence the world, but he wouldn’t say at all that there is a belief of stranded souls roaming around the world. He also says if that is what people believe about ghosts then that is not a Catholic belief. When it comes to calling on the dead he thinks that they should avoid this at all costs, because; you’re never quite show what you are opening yourself up to like: harmful spiritual beings.

He would advise Christians to turn to God rather than going in to dangerous or harmful territories and malevolent forces. For the next part of the program, he visits Bournemouth Spiritualist Church. There are 300 spiritualist churches in the UK and this is just one of them. Every week people go to hear spiritual Mediums speak to the dead. This week, it was the turn of 17 year old medium Ross Bartlett. Britain’s youngest professional psychic. He speaks to a lady in the back and accurately tells her things about herself that only she knows, the woman is amazed.

After that Joe speaks to the young medium who saw his first vision when he was five years old, he ‘saw’ the spirit of a lady, he thought that it was a bit freaky at first, but soon after more of the same sort of experiences followed and as he grew older he said that ignored it and soon shrugged it off as natural. After that, he goes to the small port town; Hartlepool in County Durham. As part of his investigation, Joe visited the Forcer family, in St Hilda Crescent and spent a night alone in the attic of the terraced house where up to four spirits have been sighted.

The family had seen things like shadows on curtains and spooky noises in the night and their son used to see a woman tucking him into bed regularly. The family also described how they had experienced several ghostly goings-on including unexplained music and a strange ‘ticking’ as well as witnessing a mysterious figure vanishing in the bathroom. Joe slept in daughter Karen’s bedroom but failed to find any supernatural goings on. Next, he goes to Pembroke castle in Wales to talk to parapsychologist Steven Parsons who reckons that there is a scientific reason to explain feelings which people feel that maybe is connected to the spiritual world.

Infrasound. This is a low frequency sound, between 18 and 20 hertz. Infrasound generates lots of energy and makes the castle walls and windows vibrate. Research proves that this energy causes these paranormal like experiences. You can’t hear infrasound but you can feel it. He also goes to see another parapsychologist, this time called Dr Caroline Watts. She also has a scientific reason to disprove the afterlife: The right-hemisphere of our brain. People who are active in the Right-hemisphere of their brain may think some particular feelings, which could be chance or coincidence, are connected with ghosts or spirits.

For example; if you are in a spooky room or location, if your right hemisphere is really active you might instantly think that you have seen a ghost or felt or heard something. At his house he watches a film on You Tube about a well-known real life ghost story. It was North London 1977 where a normal family, (The Hodgson family) moved to Green Street in Enfield, London. They started to experience some weird things. They started to see things being moved across the room and they started to hear knocks on the walls and so did one of their neighbours.

And then things like Lego blocks and marbles get thrown across the room. A chair get’s thrown across the room and nearly hits the uncle on the head. After a short time they called in a medium called Maurice Grosse who, over a period of time, captured readings from throughout the house and then gave the family the unfortunate news: they had a poltergeist. The younger sister Janet had the most readings from her room. Morris had captured a film of her being dragged across the room yelling: it’s pulling me its pulling me, don’t let it pull me, help!

And another one when she is being thrown across the room. Records show that this is true. Amongst the other things they witnessed this next one would prove to be far worse, Janet spoke using her false vocal folds for hours on end, (which is believed to be Medically impossible), while she was apparently possessed by another spirit. When speaking with the false cords Janet said she was “Bill” who had died in the house of a brain hemorrhage. Records also show that this is true.

After seeing that video, he headed off to Farhams hall in Hertfordshire to talk to professor of social history; Dr Owen Davies. This explanation brought forward the middle ages where people blamed almost every bad thing on witchcraft. Back then, supernatural literature was popular and people were easily led astray and would believe what people wrote about witchcraft due to wars and bad goings on and also the weather. Over the centuries this belief has developed and now the new explanation to these things is supernatural activity.

For the last part of the program, Joe Swash travelled to the capital city of Edinburgh, which is supposedly the ‘most haunted’ city in the UK. This time round he had to do something he’d never done before; he had to sleep in the vaults underneath the city- alone! Some of the reasons why people think the vaults are haunted include: * There was a great fire in Edinburgh, people thought that going underground to the vaults would save them from the fire, but what they didn’t know was that stone conducts heat and when they went underground they roasted to death.

In that fire the parents of the children knew that their kids were going to die slowly and painfully, so they slit their kid’s throats so that they wouldn’t go through with the pain. * In those days they would pay i?? 1. 50 to buy a kid to clean their chimney, sometimes the child would get stuck and would die there. During the night he said that he was only scared because he was in a supposed scary place and it was freaking him out, he didn’t hear of see anything.

But the next day he went to see the BBC sound manager, who said that there was a sound in fact that night which endured for 15-20 minutes and you could hear the voice on top of the music from the pub nearby, so that it’s not possible for the voice to be from the pub. After that, the voice stops, someone from the sound team suggested that it sounded like the last rites which catholic priests say when people die. At the end of the program he made a conclusion: yes, he does believe that there is something out there and yes, he does believe in ghosts.

Read next:

Blade
28 Days Later – Analysis
Batman Begins