Bi Locating Spirits

 

Originally posted 08/22/2011 but was hijacked.

This past week two of my closest friends came to Nashville for a visit and we decided to go on a Nashville walking ghost tour. The first place we went to was the state capital where we heard about Rachel Jackson. Apparently, Rachel haunts not only the capital building but also The Hermitage where she lived with her husband Andrew. Hearing that Rachel was in two locations got me to thinking about other spirits who were also known to haunt more than one location. Elvis Presley, Basil Rathbone, Marilyn Monroe, and Jane Mansfield are only a few celebrities who have been spotted in numerous locations since their deaths. How do they do it?

Paranormal experts agree that hauntings can be divided into two categories: intelligent and residual hauntings. Residual hauntings are hauntings that seem to take place on a loop. For example, footsteps heard climbing stairs roughly the same time each day or the appearance of an operation on the anniversary of someone's death. These hauntings when observed seem to have been without any regard to what's going on in the present day. Residual hauntings result from intense emotional energy being recorded in the environment. Many residual hauntings are replays of battles, apparitions wandering across a field or along a cliff, or other actions that took place immediately before death and are repeated with little to no variation for years to come.

Intelligent hauntings are much more complex and are the source of a lot of controversy and discussion. There are entirely way too many types of intelligent hauntings to discuss in this article so for the purpose of this discussion, intelligent hauntings are any hauntings that interact with living people or current environment. For example, a spirit who calls a homeowner’s name or who moves their items.

They say that when a person dies their spirit is free of all physical constraints which is why someone who dies in a hospital may haunt a house in another town. It's possible that spirit may travel between to two or three locations at will. The spirit may willingly follow a surviving loved one as they move from location to location. The spirit may divide their time between two locations as they did in life. This may account for why so many celebrities seem to get around as much in death as they did in life. Intelligent spirits seem to know what is going on in the modern world and they seem to interact with it as they would if they were alive. Actors, such as Basil Rathbone, Jane Mansfield, and Marilyn Monroe traveled all over for their work and developed emotional ties not only with the people they encountered but with the locations they spent a lot of time at. It is not unreasonable to assume that people who love to travel in life also love to travel in death.

Another theory as to how spirits haunt more than one location might be a combination of intelligence and residual hauntings. Rachel Jackson is often seen peering out the same window at the top of the state capital in Nashville Tennessee. There is no evidence that she tries to interact with people on the street and she has not been seen anywhere else in the capital building. It would seem that sightings of Rachel are residual as she used to peer out the window to look for Andrew. Rachel died in that room the night before Andrew was inaugurated as president of the United States. The people who have seen Rachel Jackson at the Hermitage seem to feel her presence there is intelligent. The Hermitage is where she lived with her husband Andrew and is a place she has strong emotional ties with. Rachel was very proud of the Hermitage and she took great care of it. It makes sense that she wants to stick around to make sure her home is being cared for as she deems fit.

In order to determine exactly how spirits are able to haunt multiple locations, we need to take a look at each spirit as an individual. I have presented two simple theories that may explain this phenomenon but I plan to do more research into individual cases and I challenge you guys to do the same.