Humans have always had a collective connection to ghosts and the paranormal. But why are we so attracted to what scares us? OTR journalist Lauren Wisgard investigates. (Image: Stefano Pollio via Unsplash)
By Lauren Wisgard | @LaurenWisgard
As a child my parents took me on a ghost tour in Ballarat. I was terrified.
Set against the backdrop of the town’s gothic-inspired architecture and abandoned buildings, we diligently followed our tour guide as she told us the horrific histories of people who were once living.
I don’t think I slept for a week.
It has always interested me why humans love what scares us; we will pay money to watch a horror film, read a thriller, volunteer to walk around an abandoned old jail and hope that a ghost decides to come say hello.
According to data from Melbourne-based polling and communications firm Essential Research, 35 per cent of Australians believe ghosts exist.
While this isn’t a conclusive data set by any means, the figures do make some sense from my own attempt at research.
When I asked some of the people in my life, roughly a third believed that ghosts are real, another third vehemently rejected the possibility of ghosts, and others who didn’t want to commit either way.
The responses varied from “yeah there’s definitely something out there” to “absolutely not”.
My very logical and pragmatic friend said, “I believe there’s more than what we see on Earth, but I don’t believe in how we’ve categorised ghosts”.
Now, I would personally say that I am a healthy sceptic. But I do have to admit, if I was that terrified on a ghost tour, I probably do think that paranormal activity exists.
So, for research purposes, I took myself on a ghost tour.
Adelaide’s Haunted Horizons are a multi award-winning tour group who pride themselves on being “real”, which means no gimmicks, no dramatics, no dress-ups. Basically, you either see a ghost or you don’t; they won’t guarantee anything.
The owner of Haunted Horizons, Alison Oborn, has been researching the paranormal for over 30 years and says she and her team want people to make up their own minds about the existence of ghosts.
“We keep it very real; starting off, we try to prove you don’t need anything to happen on the night for somebody to have enjoyed that tour,” Oborn says.
“Because I was a researcher for so long, I wasn’t a sellout. It’s hard enough to prove this stuff exists, we can’t tell you how it works but we can show you how all the equipment works properly and then you get to use it and make up your own mind.”
I decided to go into the ghost tour with low expectations because, let’s be real, even if ghosts do exist, the chance of them popping up in a two-hour ghost tour is unlikely.
But because I still have residual trauma from childhood, I forced my friend Alva to come along so I wasn’t alone.
As we pull up to the old Adelaide Gaol, we exchanged a look that mirrored each other perfectly: regret.
Unfortunately, at this point it was too late to not go in (after all I had already paid for this tour) and so we walked up to the group that was already forming.
The group was very mixed, about 16 people of different ages were all gathered around in the freezing cold as our tour guides, Jenna and Karen, tried to warm up the small crowd with a bit of banter.
What’s funny about a ghost tour is no one goes alone. Every person there either had a friend, partner, or a group with them. So, either everyone is secretly scared, or ghost tours are an odd social occasion.
As Alva and I walk up to the front of the gaol, Karen tells us to sign the liability waiver “in case you die inside,” she jokes.
I sign the form without reading it and join the back of the group as Jenna begins with the history of the old Adelaide Gaol.
“The former prison was in operation from 1841 until 1988 when it shut down because the cost of bringing it up to the health code standards would have been more expensive than it was worth,” Jenna begins.
“During the century and a half, over 300,000 people were imprisoned: including men, women, and even children. Of those imprisoned, 45 people were hanged at Adelaide Gaol, including one woman named Elizabeth Woolcock.”
Jenna told us we would revisit her story later, and with that she ushered us into the front rooms of the gaol.
As we stood in the almost pitch black, only the city lights allowing us to make out basic shapes, Jenna began the first proper ghost story of the night.
I couldn’t see the reactions of the group as Jenna told her story because it was so dark, but as we shuffled out to the courtyard people seemed eager to hear more.
Several of the couples had even been on the tours before, which makes me think some were there for the history as equally as they were there for the ghost stories.
I asked Alison Oborn after the experience why she believes ghost tours have always been so popular, and what it says about human psychology.
She says, “I think people love a mystery. It’ll be a sad day when science can explain everything and there’s nothing left. I think we enjoy that we don’t understand a lot of it.
“The other thing is that we’re all going to get there, we’re all going to get to that point whether we like it or not, and I think everybody comes in the hope that the experience will give them reassurance that’s there’s more going on than we know and there’s more when we die.”
I was also curious about her thoughts on sceptics, as someone who has dedicated her life to understanding the paranormal.
“Sceptics I get on with…if you already don’t believe in ghosts, I can’t change that. My job tonight isn’t to convince you that ghosts exist, my job tonight is to give you the history, tell you what’s been happening, and then you make up your own mind.
“Because it will always come down to your own experience before you believe in ghosts. And I say to them, that’s the way it should be. I’m the same.”
Growing up in what she later discovered was a haunted house, Alison says she was like a “moth to a flame”. Even though ghosts and the paranormal terrified her, she wanted to discover what was out there.
“I went into research before I did tours, I was quite happy to find a natural answer, it didn’t have to be supernatural. And I have always kept that rationale, I have had too much weird stuff happen to say this stuff doesn’t exist unfortunately.
“I can’t find a rational answer for what happened in the house.”
Back on the ghost tour, the group was looking into the small window that was once Elizabeth Woolcock’s cell.
The tiny space that could not have been more than a metre and a half by two metres, was where Elizabeth spent her final days alive before she was hanged on 30 December 1873 at the young age of 25. She was the only woman hanged in South Australia.
One day, Oborn and her team set up their equipment – which on this occasion was a cat ball that lit up when it sensed activity and a ghost box that worked like a radio to pick up sound – to see if they could contact her.
They placed the cat toy on the ledge of her cell and said, “If you are there make your presence known by moving the ball”.
The investigators were stunned when the ball not only lit up but was launched across the yard towards Oborn. The ghost box they had placed nearby then uttered, “surprise”.
I will admit, it was Elizabeth’s story that impacted me the most on the tour. She felt like a classic ghost, trapped in her misery, who now haunted the place for eternity.
And while the use of a cat toy as proper ghost-finding equipment seemed a little ridiculous, it was nice to imagine that despite her horrific life she could have a bit of fun in the afterlife.
I cannot say I left the ghost tour with an answer either way as to why people are drawn to the paranormal, but I do have a better understand of their appeal.
Neil Gaiman, the prolific author, spoke at TED in 2014 about human’s enduring obsession with ghost stories and really captured the essence of my feelings about it all.
He said, “You ride the ghost train into the darkness, knowing that eventually the doors will open and you will step out into the daylight once again. It’s always reassuring to know that you’re still here, still safe. That nothing strange has happened, not really.
“It’s good to be a child again, for a little while, and to fear — not governments, not regulations, not infidelities or accountants or distant wars, but ghosts and such things that don’t exist, and even if they do, can do nothing to hurt us.”
I went into this tour with childhood fear and left with an appreciation of the human spirit to so desperately want there to be more than what we know.
If anything, it’s rather beautiful.
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