Haunted

I don’t get many trick-or-treaters at my house on Halloween. Some years there is none at all. My driveway is long and flanked by scary dark woods in an area where bears occasionally wander, so when I do get them they are typically driven up the driveway by parents who live in the immediate neighborhood. I always keep a candy bucket at the ready just in case even though the contents are likely to last almost to the following Halloween. This year and last there were no candy-seekers at all, no doubt due to Covid-related caution. I did answer the door a few times on Sunday when I heard knocks, but there was no one there on any of the occasions.

 
It is not unusual to hear mysterious knocks at my house. It’s a talkative structure that groans, creaks, and knocks as it expands here and contracts there with the weather and with the vagaries of the forced air heating system. I’m accustomed to the noises and ignore them unless (as on Halloween) I’m expecting someone at the door (even though that is what doorbells are for) and the sound seems to come from that direction. Overnight guests often comment on them however. “Don’t worry,” I tell them. “That’s just the troll who lives in the basement. He rarely gets loose from his chains.” That doesn’t always reassure them. More than one guest has told me the house is haunted. Two actually described the ghost. (The descriptions didn’t match other than both being female.) I hesitate to call people who believe in ghosts crazy: not because I think there is the remotest possibility they are right but because the bulk of them are plainly quite sane in a general way. They just believe in ghosts.
 
The percentage of Americans who say they believe in ghosts polls at about 46% – a figure that actually has risen slightly over the past five decades. Toss in those who answer “Not Sure” (about 7%) and that is a solid majority. Between a quarter and a third claim to have seen ghosts. This is despite the steady decline of traditional religion. (Belief in an afterlife of any kind also has risen slightly according to the General Social Survey from 70 percent of respondents in 1978 to 74 percent in 2018.) The decline in traditional religion is apparently not associated with an increase in skepticism about the paranormal. Counterintuitively, belief in the general gamut of the paranormal (and ghosts in particular) rises with education. Graduate students are more likely to believe in haunted houses than college freshmen. Nor is science education more likely to produce skeptics than the liberal arts. See 2012 study Science Education is No Guarantee of Skepticism by Richard Walker, Steven J. Hoekstra, and Rodney J. Vogl: “We were interested in whether science test scores were correlated with paranormal beliefs. For each sample, we correlated the participant’s test score with their average belief score. Across all three samples, the correlation between test scores and beliefs was non-significant (CBU r(65)=-.136, p>.05; KWU r(69)=.107, p>.05; WSSU r(70)=.031, p>.05). In other words, there was no relationship between the level of science knowledge and skepticism regarding paranormal claims.”
 
I think it is fair to say that believers in ghosts want to believe in them. That’s why most of us believe the things we do, truth be told – as faulty a reason as that may be for doing so. Being a ghost doesn’t sound like much fun, but I can see how some might regard it as better than nothing. I remain unconvinced. If I decide to reduce the bangs and knocks in the house, rather hold an exorcism I’ll have the furnace serviced. If it turns out I’m wrong, however, I promise to haunt this house for as long as it stands. I won’t harm the next occupants. I’ll unshackle that troll though, and I can’t speak for him.
 

Alice Cooper – This House Is Haunted