Can You Hear Me Now?

The following study just out, and while scientists may be perplexed, paranormal beliefs fall right in line with the results. Children ARE more paranormally sensitive, but often put up blocks, thus "losing" their abilities because of disbelieving and pooh-poohing adults. That the 'great majority' of young people who have these experiences never become mentally ill would lend itself again to the possibility of paranormal activity as the source of the voices. That rural children are more apt to hear voices wouldn't come as a surprise to paranormalists either; the quieter the setting, the fewer the distractions, the better to hear the spirits.

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Many Children 'Hear Voices'; Most Aren't Bothered

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Nearly 1 in 10 seven- to eight-year-olds hears voices that aren't really there, according to a new study.

But most children who hear voices don't find them troubling or disruptive to their thinking, the study team found. "These voices in general have a limited impact in daily life," Agna A. Bartels-Velthuis of University Medical Center Groningen in The Netherlands wrote in an email to Reuters Health.

And parents whose children hear voices should not be overly concerned, she added. "In most cases the voices will just disappear. I would advise them to reassure their child and to watch him or her closely."

Up to 16 percent of mentally healthy children and teens may hear voices, the researchers note in the British Journal of Psychiatry. While hearing voices can signal a heightened risk of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders in later life, they add, the "great majority" of young people who have these experiences never become mentally ill.

To further investigate how common these "auditory vocal hallucinations" are and whether they are associated with developmental and behavioral factors, the researchers looked at 3,870 Groningen primary schoolers. All were asked whether they had heard "one or more voices that only you and no one else could hear" in the past year.

Nine percent of the children answered yes. Only 15 percent of these children said the voices caused them serious suffering, and 19 percent said the voices interfered with their thinking. Boys and girls were equally likely to report hearing voices, but girls were more likely to report suffering and anxiety due to the voices.

While past studies have linked complications in the womb or during early infancy with the likelihood of hearing voices, Bartels-Velthuis and her team found no such relationship. The researcher said that she and her colleagues had expected that hearing voices would be more common among urban children than among their rural peers, "but to our surprise, the contrary was the case in our sample. We have no explanation for this finding."

Although urban children were less likely to hear voices, they were more troubled by them, the researchers found. They were more likely to report hearing several voices at once, voices speaking for a longer time, and voices that interfered with their thinking.

This greater severity suggests that the urban children who heard voices might be at higher risk of going on to develop psychotic illness, the researchers say.

Bartels-Velthuis and her team are now conducting a five-year follow-up study of the children to see how the voice-hearing plays out and what effect, if any, it has on behavior.

SOURCE: The British Journal of Psychiatry, January 2010.

Right Out of the Blue

Ghost Hunters of Asheville always recommend our guests put their photographs on a computer to both get a larger view of interesting images plus have the added capability for zooming in on those images. The following photographs illustrate this perfectly.

The Story Behind the Photo
For his birthday, Kristi Moore surprised her husband with two tickets to our Ghost Hunters of Asheville downtown tour. A spirit made a guest appearance for their celebration.

Chad Moore took the picture above in front of the Central United Methodist Church. See if you can find the orb; it takes a careful look. To be honest, I missed it at the first look-see and, when I did notice it, I thought it so small I would never have enlarged it myself. And there's the lesson in all this: Never overlook ANYTHING.


Chad Moore didn't overlook anything and was rewarded with an image the like I've never before seen -- a spirit seemingly in the act of emerging from a blue orb. A green face looks toward the left. The eye, nose, and slight grin of a young child can plainly be seen.

What a treasure! Thanks, Chad!

It's Not Just About Water Anymore

People have been dowsing for centuries for a variety of reasons: to find underground water, determine the sex of an unborn child, locate unmarked graves, find lost items or pets, receive spiritual guidance on important issues, and to detect bodily illness. On our Ghost Hunter of Asheville tours, we dowse using L-shaped rods to help determine the presence of paranormal energy. The rods move when an energy field is present. Most of our guests experience dowsing activity on our tour and some report a feeling of energy moving up into their hands and arms.

The American Society of Dowsers believes that everyone possesses the innate intuition to sense and respond to unseen energies. How does dowsing work? It's not entirely known although common beliefs are that either (1) The unconscioius mind causes slight movements of the hand muscles, (2) The interaction between body and earth energy fields cause a force in the rods so they move, or (3) Spiritual guides or activities move the rods indicating their presence or to answer a dowser's specific question.

Rods move in the direction of detected energy. In the following video, Crewe and Nantwich England Tour Guide, Tim Prevett, demonstrates an experience in which he was obviously surrounded by a lot of energy! Tim wrote: "The most spectacular dowsing I have ever experienced, at a church, remaining unnamed, in Wales. It felt as if I was plugged into an electric generator, and got static shocks from the dowsing rods all day. I had never experienced anything quite like it before, or since. Taken there by a Druid. Video credit to a friend called Alan."

They're Ba-a-a-ck!

The activity began with a blip in one spot. The activity was EMF readings off the charts. The spot was at the corner of Patton and Haywood across from the S&W Cafeteria building.

Ghost Hunters of Asheville use ghost meters on our tours. From that one blip, the meter readings occurred nightly and, over the ensuing weeks, grew stronger. Eventually, the ghost meters would ring out more than a block away from the Steak and Wine Restaurant. We also got high EMF readings down the side of the DRHUMOR Building on Church Street. Oddly, all meters stopped when we reached the end of the building.

Then ... it just all went away the Monday after July's Bele Chere weekend. Not a single red blip. Didn't know why. Not very happy about it. Tours not as much fun. But ...

THEY'RE BACK! The readings began in both locations one night in early November. As strong and consistent as ever.

I don't know why the energies seem linked. I don't know why the ghosts left. I don't know why they came back. I'm just glad they did. It makes our Ghost Hunters of Asheville tours a LOT more fun!