The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (July 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
In ghostlore, a haunted house or ghosthouse is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property. Parapsychologists attribute haunting to the spirits of the dead and the effect of violent or tragic events in the building's past such as murder, accidental death, or suicide. More scientific explanations for the perception that a house is haunted include misinterpreting noises naturally present in structures, waking dreams, suggestibility, and the effect of toxic substances in environments that can cause hallucinations.
According to science writer Terence Hines, cold spots, creaking sounds, and odd noises are typically present in any home, especially older ones, and "such noises can easily be mistaken for the sound of footsteps by those inclined to imagine the presence of a deceased tenant in their home."
Skeptical investigator Joe Nickell writes that in most cases he investigated, he found plausible explanations for haunting phenomena, such as physical illusions, waking dreams, and the effects of memory. According to Nickell, the power of suggestion along with confirmation bias plays a large role in perceived hauntings. He states that as a house, inn, or other place becomes thought of as haunted, more and more ghostly encounters are reported and that when people are given to expect paranormal events, they tend to notice those conditions that would confirm their expectations.
Toxicologist Albert Donnay believes that chronic exposure to substances such as carbon monoxide, pesticide, and formaldehyde can lead to hallucinations of the type associated with haunted houses. Donnay speculates on the connection between the prevalence of gas lamps during the Victorian era and start of the 20th century stories of ghost sightings and hauntings, describing it as the "Haunted House Syndrome". Donnay says that carbon monoxide poisoning has been linked to haunted houses since at least the 1920s, citing a 1921 journal article published about a family who suffered headaches, auditory hallucinations, fatigue, melancholy, and other symptoms associated with haunted houses.
Michael Persinger, Jason Braithewaite, and others, suggested that perceived apparitions, cold spots, and ghostly touches are perceptual anomalies caused by variations in naturally occurring or man-made magnetic fields. However, a study by psychologist Chris French and others that attempted to replicate Persinger's findings found no link.
Psychology Professor Frank McAndrew (Francis T. McAndrew) explains what environmental psychologists call "legibility - the ease with which a place can be recognized, organized into a pattern and recalled" and how a typical haunted house may have a confusing layout and be quite the opposite of legibility.
Commercial haunted houses
The concept of the haunted house was capitalized on as early as 1915 with the Orton and Spooner Haunted House in Hollycombe Steam Collection (England), and by the 1970s, commercial haunted houses had sprung up all over the United States in cities like Louisville, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. By 2005, an estimated 3,500 to 5,000 professional haunted attractions operated in the United States. In addition, around the time of Hallowtide, many Christian churches run a type of haunted house known as a hell house, which while being a haunted house, also promotes their interpretation of the Christian gospel message. According to USA Today, in hell houses, "participants walk through several 'scenes' depicting the consequences of things like abortion, homosexuality and drunkenness."
In the case Stambovsky v. Ackley, the Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division ruled in 1991 that a seller must disclose that a house has a reputation for being haunted when there is a fiduciary relationship or in cases of fraud or misrepresentation, because such a reputation impairs the value of the house:
In the case at bar, defendant seller deliberately fostered the public belief that her home was possessed. Having undertaken to inform the public at large, to whom she has no legal relationship, about the supernatural occurrences on her property, she may be said to owe no less a duty to her contract vendee.
Short stories and novels
Legends about haunted houses have long appeared in literature. The earliest surviving report of a haunted house comes from a letter written by Pliny the Younger (61 – c. 112) to his patron Lucias Sura, in which he describes a haunted villa in Athens. Nobody would live in the house until the philosopher Athenodorus (c.74 BCE – 7 CE) arrived in the city. He was tempted by the low rent and undeterred by the house's reputation so he moved in. The ghost, an old man bound with chains, appeared to Athenodrus during the first night, and beckoned to the philosopher. The apparition vanished once it reached the courtyard, and Athenodrus carefully marked the spot. The following morning he requested the magistrate to have the spot dug up, where the skeleton of an old man bound with chains was discovered. The ghost never appeared again after the skeleton was given a proper burial.
Stories of haunted houses are also included in the Arabian Nights, as in the tale of "Ali the Cairene and the Haunted House in Baghdad"; more modern authors from Henry James to Stephen King have also featured them in their writings.
Haunting is used as a plot device in gothic or horror fiction or, more lately, paranormal fiction; haunted castles and mansions are common in gothic literature. Notable works of fiction featuring haunted houses include:
- The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole
- A Sicilian Romance (2 vols.) (1790) by Ann Radcliffe
- The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe
- "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1845) by Edgar Allan Poe
- The House of the Seven Gables (1851) by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- The Turn of the Screw (1898) by Henry James
- The House on the Borderland (1908) by William Hope Hodgson
- The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson
- Hell House (1971) by Richard Matheson
- The House with a Clock in Its Walls (1973) by John Bellairs
- 'Salem's Lot (1975) by Stephen King
- The Shining (1977) by Stephen King
- The Amityville Horror (1977) by Jay Anson
- The Woman in Black (1983) by Susan Hill
- IT (1986) by Stephen King
- Drawing Blood (1993) by Poppy Brite
- House of Leaves (2000) by Mark Z. Danielewski
- The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red (2001) by Ridley Pearson
- Rose Red (2002) by Stephen King
- The Little Stranger (2009) by Sarah Waters
- Carson Mansion a famous Victorian house in Eureka, California commonly used as a template for haunted houses in art
- Ghost hunting
- Legend tripping
- List of ghosts
- List of reportedly haunted locations in the world
- Nang Ta-khian
- Stigmatized property
- Watts, Linda S. (2007). Encyclopedia of American Folklore. Infobase Publishing. pp. 192–. ISBN 978-1-4381-2979-2. Retrieved 10 May 2012.
- Lyons, Linda (1 November 2005). "Paranormal Beliefs Come (Super)Naturally to Some". Gallup Poll. Gallup. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
- Moore, David W. (16 June 2005). "Three in Four Americans Believe in Paranormal". Gallup Poll. Gallup. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
- Hines, Terence (1988). Pseudoscience and the paranormal: a critical examination of the evidence. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-0-87975-419-8.
- Muir, Hazel (2001-12-20). "Ball lightning scientists remain in the dark". New Scientist. Retrieved 2011-01-15.
- Nickell, Joe. "Catching Ghosts". June 2008. Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Retrieved 10 May 2012.
- McKay Jenkins (19 April 2011). What's Gotten Into Us?: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World. Random House Digital, Inc. pp. 61–. ISBN 978-1-4000-6803-6. Retrieved 10 May 2012.
- Glass, Ira. "And the Call Was Coming from the Basement". This American Life. Public Radio International.
- Michael A. Persinger & Stanley A. Koren, "Predicting the Characteristics of Haunt Phenomena from Geomagnetic Factors and Brain Sensitivity: Evidence from Field and Experimental Studies", in Hauntings and Poltergeists: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. By James Houran & Rense Lange (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2001)
- Jason J. Braithwaite & Maurice Townsend (2005). "Sleeping with the Entity – A Quantitative Magnetic Investigation of an English Castle's Reputedly 'Haunted' Bedroom". European Journal of Parapsychology. 20.1.
- French, CC; Haque, U; Bunton-Stasyshyn, R; Davis, R (May 2009). "The "Haunt" project: an attempt to build a "haunted" room by manipulating complex electromagnetic fields and infrasound". Cortex. 45 (5): 619–29. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2007.10.011. PMID 18635163.
- Keim, Brandon (30 October 2009). "Scientifically Haunted House Suggests You're a Sucker". Wired. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
- McAndrew, Frank T. "The Winchester Mystery House and Other Haunted Places". Pyschology Today. Sussex Publishers,LLC. Retrieved 16 November 2018.
- "Haunted House (1915)". Hollycombe Working Steam Museum. Archived from the original on April 25, 2011. Retrieved 29 March 2011.
- "Vintage - The HOUSEOFDOOM". Vintage. Vintage. Retrieved November 1, 2011.
- The Associated Press. "Haunted house business getting frightfully hard. 'Scaring people is easy,' but making money at it a lot harder". 10/30/2005. msnbc.msn.com. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
- "Some Christians use 'Hell Houses' to reach out on Halloween - USATODAY.com". usatoday.com.
- Knauf, Allan. "After New York's Property Condition Disclosure Act". Archived from the original on 26 November 2006. Retrieved 15 February 2007.
- Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254, 260, 572 N.Y.S.2d 672, N.Y.A.D. 1 Dept., 1991.
- Fielding & O'Keeffe (2011), An Introduction to Haunting Phenomena.
- Pliny the Younger (1909–14). "LXXXIII. To Sura". In Charles W. Eliot. Letters, by Pliny the Younger; translated by William Melmoth; revised by F. C. T. Bosanquet. The Harvard Classics. 9. P. F. Collier & Son.
- Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006). The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West. I.B. Tauris. p. 83. ISBN 1-85043-768-8.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Haunted houses.|
- "A Night In a Haunted House (Abridged version)". The Southern Literary Messenger. June 1855.
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- "You are here: Home / Travel / Attractions / Top 20 Scariest Places in America and Where to Dine Nearby". Healthy Voyager. October 21, 2013.