Hans Holzer - This House Is Haunted: True Encounters with the World Beyond

By the author of Witches and Hans Holzers Travel Guide to Haunted Houses

HANS HOLZER IS THE AUTHOR of 119 books, including Life Beyond, The Directory of Psychics, Americas Mysterious Places, Windows to the Past, and Witches.

He has written, produced, and hosted a number of television programs, notably Ghost in the House, Beyond the Five Senses, and the NBC series In Search of He has appeared on numerous national television programs and lectured widely. He has written for national magazines such as Mademoiselle, Penthouse, Longevity, and columns in national weeklies.

Hans Holzer studied at Vienna University, Austria; Columbia University, New York; and holds a Ph.D. from the London College of Applied Science. Professor Holzer taught parapsychology for eight years at the New York Institute of Technology, is a member of the Authors Guild, Writers Guild of America, Dramatists Guild, the New York Academy of Science, and the Archaeological Institute of America. He is listed in Whos Who in America and lives in New York City.

As we settle more securely into the new millennium, peoples interests in the cosmic continue to grow. Even ordinary Joes and Janes who normally wouldnt be caught dead reading an astrology column are suddenly wondering what the second millennium will mean for them and this world of ours.

To begin with, the millennium came and went over a decade ago. Jesus was born not the the year zero but in 7 B.C., on October 9, to be exact, as I proved quite a while ago after fifteen years of archeological research. This business of the millennium was strictly hype, a promotion that was created to make people think something very special would happen in the year 2000. The psychological effects of this millennium, however, are already upon uscasting a shadow in terms of a renewed great interest in things paranormal, for instance.

Several new TV talk shows and documentaries dealing with psychic phenomena and the exploration of the frontiers of human consciousness have sprung up, filling the television screens with tabloid tidbits often lacking in depth and validating research. Fictional forays into worlds beyond are also currently hugely successful both in film and television, and in books and even Websites.

As a purveyor of genuine information regarding psychic phenomena, I welcome this resurgence of curiosity in worlds beyond the physical because contemplating these matters tends to make people think about themselves, their ultimate fate, and the nature of humankind itself.

When it comes to dealing with the hard evidence of life after death, there are three classes of peopleand this may remain the case for a long time to come, considering how resistant humans are to embracing radically new or different concepts.

There are those who ridicule the idea of anything beyond the grave. This category includes anybody from hard-line scientists to people who are only comfortable with the familiar, material world and really do not wish to examine any evidence that might change their minds. The will to disbelieve is far stronger than the will to believethough neither leads to proof and hard evidence.

Then there are those who have already accepted the evidence of a continued existence beyond physical death, including people who have arrived at this conclusion through an examination of hard evidence, either personal in nature or from scientifically valid sources. They are the group I respect the most, because they are not blind believers. They rightfully question the evidence, but they have no problem accepting it when it is valid. Included in this group are the religious-metaphysical folks, although they require no hard proof to validate their convictions, which emanate from a belief system that involves a world beyond this one.

The third group is often thrown offtrack when trying to get at the truth by the folks in the metaphysical camp. This makes it more difficult for them to arrive at a proper conviction regarding the psychic. The thing for this third group is to stick to its principles and not become blind believers.

The vast majority of people belong to the third group. They are aware of the existence of psychical phenomena and the evidence for such phenomena, including case histories and scientific investigations by open-minded individuals. But they may be skeptical. They hesitate to join the second group only because of their own inner resistance to such fundamental changes in their philosophical attitudes toward life and death. For them, therefore, the need to be specific when presenting evidence or case histories, which must be fully verifiable, is paramount, as is an acceptable explanation for their occurrence.

It is hoped that those in the second group will embrace the position of the last group: that there are no boundaries around possibilities, provided that the evidence bears it out.

Prof. Hans Holzer, Ph.D.

PROBABLY NO OTHER word picture has had a more profound influence on peoples imagination than the idea of a truly haunted house. After all, a haunted house is not a home the way people like to think of a home. Sharing it with someone who happens to be dead can be very upsetting, both to the flesh-and-blood inhabitants of the house and the ghost who happens to be stuck in it.

Most people think of a haunted house as something sinister, threatening, and altogether undesirable. In Ireland, calling someones house haunted can bring a very substantial lawsuit for defamation of characterof the houses character, that is. In America, on the other hand, such a reputation, deserved or not, generally enhances the value of the property.

It can be a house, apartment, or an abode of any kind where people live, eat, and sleep. What distinguishes a haunted home from all others is the fact that one (or more) of the previous tenants or owners has not quite left the premises, and considers herself or himself fully in residence.

These are neither aliens from afar nor are they monsters but simply folks like you who used to live there, died, and somehow got trapped into not being able to leave for better placesthe other side of life, or what religion likes to call Heaven, though there really is no such place in the sense that religion describes it. Even the devil gets short shrift in parapsychology. But the next dimension, a world as real as this one, does exist, and people live in it. These are the people who passed over without problems. Those who experienced some sort of trouble and did not pass over are the ones we call earthbound spirits or ghosts.

With haunted houses, the emphasis, and thus the emotional bond, is the house, not the people living in it. The house can contain either pleasant memories or, more often, traumatic ones, which prevented the transition from occurring at the time of physical death in the first place.

Ghosts may appear or make themselves heard in any spot that had meaning for them when they were living, and particularly during the time of their death. Thus, a ghost does not necessarily need a house in which to manifest. But a truly haunted house does need a ghost or ghosts to qualify for the expression, unless of course we are talking about psychic impressions from the past only. Of this, more later.