I want to make a clear distinction here between what I do as fieldwork at Haunted locations and what many others attempt to do in the “field” of ghost research. I conduct ‘ghost excavations’, a direct unearthing of interactive past cultural presence through resonating and contextual participatory acts at sites of multi-layered occupations. I do not ‘ghost hunt’! This is not a distinction between “good” and “bad” research. It is a difference between an ethical approach and a “provoking” one. I deal with interactions between individuals of two different cultures. I do not “hunt” past human presence, even the presence of individuals that are considered legally dead. That would still be “unethical”!
I do not practice “demand and command” tactics in the field (“Show us a sign”; “Do something”; “Move something”…etc.) I do not misidentify myself by using tech devices in contexts that are clearly “out of place” in particular cultural haunting situations. This includes in certain situations something as basic as the use of a “flashlight” when such a device is not part of the material remains of a specific “haunting culture”!
My view of looking at the past is both archaeological and ethnographic. It is also theatrical. It is about layered uncertainties, cultural behavior/presence and performance. It is about fieldwork from “a participatory perspective”. It is not nearly a tech scan and a monitored “watch and wait” attitude. This is a “static” field practice!
On this website, I adopt a vision of the past operated as non-overlapping magisterial (or N.O.M.A.). I did not “invent” this term or this particular vision of the past. N.O.M.A. is a concept that was originally suggested by Stephen Jay Gould to reconcile conflicting world views. I see this conflict today in the differences between:
- “Ghost excavation” as a social science approach that uses a participant-observer approach. This involves contextual cultural resonating field practices; and
- The multiple layers of “ghost cultures” that may exist, as uncertain manifestations, at haunted locations.
There is too much politics, egotism, “popularity contests”, and territoriality in ghost research today. I avoid the heated discussion, rising above them to continue my work in the field. This fieldwork is a “marriage” between science and art, between a scientific (iterative) process and contextual, resonating acts. It is my attempt to be both ethical and to provide a legitimate and constructive alternative to a ‘ghost hunt’ that is largely devoid of the “human” element!
A ‘ghost excavation’ introduces a methodology that forms the basis of an alternative paradigm of ghost research and field investigations at haunted locations.
This is not a rejection of other modes and paradigms of fieldwork. Rather, we suggest a return to a haunted space and an honest questioning of current ghost hunting methods, practices, and procedures. This questioning becomes an integral part of the object of study of an archaeological ethnography of “interactive” presence at sites that are deemed haunted.
The declarations, proposals, theories and methodology proposed on this website are based on the published works of co-director John G. Sabol, Jr. Please see the “Books” tab for a brief summary of each of his books and ordering, if this theory and methodology interests you.
