At the end of a recent competition to find the world's most ghostly image[1], Professor Richard Wiseman concluded that "if ghosts are out there, it seems they are somewhat camera shy". Photographs that appear to show ghostly images are usually easily explained as results of camera trickery or deceptive lighting - even the winning photograph in Wiseman's competition has now been replicated. Yet a recent Theos survey shows that belief in the paranormal is more prevalent than we have come to expect.
In October-November 2008, ComRes polled over 2,000 people in the
Among the most surprising findings was the fact that 39% of those questioned indicated a belief in ghosts, compared to 10% of participants in a 1950
We assume that we live in a time when the blank edges of the map have been filled in, where science is explaining more and more of human life and experience. But this is to forget that humans are meaning-seeking creatures - always asking 'why?', as opposed to just 'what?' Growing interest in the spiritual and the supernatural indicates that people continue to look for a world beyond their daily experiences and are not prepared to adopt a purely mechanistic, rationalistic and reductionist view of life just yet.
Ramsen Warda is an MA International Relations student at King's College London.
