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(Center for the Anthropological Studies of the Paranormal for the Eastern Region)

Visit my NEW website:
 
 
 







What's New
 
 
 
 
John Sabol will appear at Univ-Con 7 at Penn State University September 11-14 2008. He will be giving various workshops at the conference.



 
  • A Message to the Paranormal Community for Univ-Con 2008

    click on link below to view
    LINK

  •  John Sabol's Appearance at Univ-Con 2007

    click on link below to view
    LINK

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  •  John Sabol, the Ghost Excavator will speak on Para-Nexus Radio on June 27th, 2008 about the fieldwork techniques of Ghost Excavation

    click on link below to view
    LINK


  •  John Sabol will be giving a series of workshops (tentative) at the Para-Nexus Conference in Tampa, Florida October, 23-26th 2008

    click on link below to view
    LINK
 
 
 
John Sabol will give a workshop on Ghost Excavations on the Gettysburg Battlefield, July 19th 2008 at The Annual Gettysburg Ghost Conference.
 
click on the link below to view
LINK



 

John Sabol’s new book, The Politics of Presence: Haunting Performances on the Gettysburg Battlefield

 

Available at your local book store or through this LINK

 

 

 

 

 John Sabol’s upcoming book, Ghost Archaeology: Excavations in the Fields of Haunting Uncertainty will be available February 2009.

 

 

 

 

 

John Sabol will present a workshop at Harper’s Ferry on July 17th, 2009.

 

For information click on the following LINK.

 

 

 

John Sabol will soon be a featured author at Cosmic Pantheon Press. For more info, please see their LINK.

 

 

 





 

Coming this Fall 2008 John Sabol's NEW Book:
The Politics of Presence: Cultural Performances on the Gettysburg Battlefield

 

 

The Refleshing of a Haunting Discipline:

                 Bringing the Skeleton out of the Closet and Reconstructing It

 

 

Frequently, ghost research is mono-vocal. Information (and instruction) comes from the mouths of the few, who dictate to a largely non-embedded (though enthusiastic) audience. Ideally, the investigation of ghosts and hauntings should be multi-vocal, representing many and varied voices, including more marginalized groups (so-called “ghost hunting groups”), and even the “voices” of those we investigate. The construction of knowledge should be based on rendering “haunt realities” in terms of alternative modes of representation, different ethnic and cultural traditions, and different practices. We should talk about “refleshing” the historical present, as we continue to excavate the remains of still “living” beings. This is a humanistic quest, rather than a search for still more recording and measuring devises. We record and measure physical manifestations, but underlying these surface phenomena lie the remains of a very human drama. Our goal should be to unearth the significance of this drama through an understanding of its historical and ethnographic context. Ghost research is a study of cultural hauntings, not the transformations of energy from one form to another.

 

This is the type of research that is being done by the C.A.S.P.E.R. Research Center. We are working on the conceptualization of haunted space (“hauntscape”) as an operational performative environment in which ghosts and haunting phenomena can co-exist in contemporary symmetrical space. There are antecedents to this type of philosophy. It is found in the work of symmetrical archaeologists, pioneered by Michael Shanks (among others) at Stanford University. That is why C.A.S.P.E.R. labels its field research an “ethnoarchaeoghostological” approach: the concept of an unfolding of past/present material remains in contemporary physical spaces (individual “pastscapes”).

 

Whether this haunted space, and the activities that occur within it, should be analyzed as components (either partially or otherwise) controlled by physical laws, functional exchange phenomena, a perceptual geography of particular spaces, an informational or culturally- coded phenomena, an archaeological grid coordinate, or the ethnographic reality of a still continuing social universe, is a question we are exploring in our field investigations.

 

The question of “bleeding” (recurring haunting phenomena) and “suppression” (non-recurring haunting phenomena), and their frequency and causality, is also being investigated through fieldwork experimentation. The concept of “silences” (“ghostspeak”) during field investigations is a significant avenue of exploration. Finally, this “refleshing” of ghost research is viewed by us as an active pursuit by all investigators (and interested parties) working “together”. Only then, can we reconstruct what was once a mere skeleton (of past material remains) and develop it into an emerging (and relevant) scientific discipline!    










Ghosts are interactive and integrated systems of contextual sensory assemblages.  They are not isolated individual attributes of visual ("orbs", "mists", "tracers", etc.), auditory (EVP recordings), tactile ("touch and gone") manifestations.  Rather they are fields of drama and emotion.  Each haunt has its own particular and unique script.  It is our job, as the investigative audience, to read, attempt to interpret, and respond to that script.  We do this through historical research and excavation of the  layers of accumulated haunt fields of activities and events. On this website, you will not see subjective and non-contextual "anomalous light" photos, nor non-contextual communicative recordings of EVP. These types of "evidential data" will not presented until the location, and its contextual haunt drama, is thoroughly analyzed under strict "controlled" conditions.

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"We excavate your haunts"
To build a better foundation for the study of ghost research.
"Unearthing the drama in the fields"
 

© 2008 Ghost Excavator, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

(570)-773-1277
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