Comments on: Skeletons in the Closet

By: Opposite the collection point « Just Another Deisidaimon

Opposite the collection point « Just Another Deisidaimon — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:12:58 +0000

[...] of my feelings I might question my views about the substantiality of evil. On his blog Bruce wrote once about a house in whose cellar a body of a Roman soldier was said to have been found. Many people found the idea of living in that house unpleasant but I thought it a bonus – an [...]

By: Konrad Talmont-Kaminski

Konrad Talmont-Kaminski — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:06:12 +0000

Bruce, you couldn’t bring yourself to kiss the skull? That must have brought the house down. You should make it a fixed element of your talks.

By: brucehood

brucehood — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:12:11 +0000

Ah Podblack.. I applaud you but could you kiss a human skull? I thought I could and was going to do it at one of my public talks about death but at the last minute, I couldn’t do it! Aside from the disgusted groans of the audience, I veered off at the last moment…. My supersense got in the way.

By: podblack

podblack — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 14:20:16 +0000

Wouldn’t mind in the slightest. I’ve buried pets in the yard as a child; have worked at a school next to a graveyard. Could I pop a Santa hat on the skull for seasonal celebrations?

Might have friends who feel ooky about it though. If it brought the cost down? Would snap it up.

By: Ashes to Ashes, Fun to Funky « Bruce M. Hood

Ashes to Ashes, Fun to Funky « Bruce M. Hood — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:28:34 +0000

[...] described this in an earlier comment and there was a very funny article printed this weekend in “The Guardian” about people [...]

By: brucehood

brucehood — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:09:22 +0000

Ohh that is spooky, Holly… your instincts are correct. The skeleton is female and she is known as the Roman Princess.

By: Holly

Holly — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:17:04 +0000

Initial response; wow, what an amazing chance to reach across millenia and touch the essence of our ancestors.

More considered thoughts:
1. Lovely looking house – bet I couldn’t afford it!
2. Would I mind living with a skeleton? Sitting here in daylight, with people around, feeling safe and secure, I feel I could actually develop quite a friendship with my somewhat skinny companion in the cellar. I would be intrigued to know her personal history (that’s interesting! why did I instinctively refer to ‘her’ without being sure of its gender? Maybe it seems friendlier?), what her life had been like, what the town had been like when she was alive and how vastly different to how we live now.

I don’t feel uncomfortable at all, per se, about the concept of human remains. Maybe because, in my job, I have experienced human life peri- and post-death and so have a degree of familiarity with what that entails. Maybe this counteracts a fear based on fear of the unknown.

BUT then again, I don’t know if I’d be saying the same thing if you asked me after dark, I was home alone, and the dog started barking at the corner for no reason!

So… in conclusion…. my responses and reactions are inconclusive.

By: Scylla

Scylla — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:28:28 +0000

Well that is an interesting tradition.

I did some research on residual haunting, will do a little more on stone tape theory.

I find it amusing that scientists don’t credit the theory because it lacks the data and answers necessary to be science, and metaphysically leaning people won’t credit the theory because it denies the existence of the spirit.

Tis an idea without a home.

By: Arno

Arno — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:52:44 +0000

I hope you can find it. I do know that the theory is rather old (propoped by a man named Thomas Charles Lethbridge) and is usually given names such as “residual haunting” or “The Stone Tape Theory”. Maybe that helps with the search.

The Stone Tape name is after a television play of similar name which was about a haunted house where a bunch of scientsist used the idea behind residual haunting to investigate a new way of recording things, and accidently summoned some great hidden evil. Bruce must have seen it.

Oh, and it could be possible that Scientific American did publish an article about it. It is a popular tradition among some scientific magazines to publish articles about the supernatural on April 1st.

By: Scylla

Scylla — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:34:44 +0000

Yep, I am going to have to dig through my mother’s files. A diligent Lexis search has yielded about three hundred articles on residual hauntings, but none of them from a scientific source. (At least from what I can glean from a cursory glance.)

Sadly my subscription doesn’t supply me with S.A. archives access.

I could be wrong, the memory from a sleep deprived mother of an article I read over a decade ago could be unreliable. I wouldn’t be very successful getting it admitted as evidence in a court of law.

I do remember the magazine having the word scientific in the title though, so who knows.

As for the potential misuse of the word theory, all I can tell you is that non-lawyers constantly misuse legal terms (the most common one being the infamous Make-my-Day law that most people believe entitles them to shoot dead anyone who dares put a foot on their lawn. It doesn’t) so if I have misused a term of art, forgive me for my lack of knowledge on the finer points of your craft.