Alex Pryce Aims to Banish Edinburgh Ghost Tours

[dalriada]

Wooooo ! One of our number is in the Sunday Times today talking about his attempt to bring some rationality to the Edinburgh Ghost Fest. :ghost:



Much like death itself, the ghost industry of Edinburgh crept up on us. A decade ago it amounted to little, just a smattering of walking tours through the clammier catacombs of the Old Town, where in ye olde days, we were assured, peasants expired in a squalor their spirits allegedly seemed compelled to revisit. Now, though, the tours have a new lease of life, or afterlife. You can’t progress up the Royal Mile these days without skirting forests of A-boards and resting actors in Regency ruffs, each selling the X Files-meets-Time Team take upon the city’s picturesque horrors.

An ever-increasing proportion of the city’s tourist economy is a thing that goes bump in the night, which is rather galling in the city that was the cradle of the Scottish Enlightenment. The news rather darts like an icy hand right up the nightdress of Alex Pryce too, as the Edinburgh-based thespian and theatre director prepares to challenge the hokum of Edinburgh’s ghost industry. A one-man ghostbuster, Pryce will be escorting his charges, he hopes, into the clear light of reason by exposing what lies, or doesn’t, behind the veil: “I’m not sure why Edinburgh even has this reputation as such a focus of paranormal activity,” Pryce says. “Historically, other cities such as York have more substantial reputations for this sort of thing. In Edinburgh the stories behind the hauntings just don’t stand up to examination. There’s no serious look at history or culture, it’s all showbusiness.”


Full article here (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/article6255789.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1)


O0 O0

[lost thought]

Bang goes the tourist trade then a bit selfish what did the ghost ever do to you, it has earned income for some and a lot for others :cheesy:
Ok you see some daft bugger lurking in a door way, the bugger may be a mugger it all adds character to the tourist experience. Whats next the fringe the culture of no sleep for a week so that you can see all the shows.
Free street theatre leave it alone, if you don't like it then go to a little town called Buggerie next to little Upyours.

[Mulder]

I looked up Paradox Experience, mentioned in the article, and came up with this (http://www.northwestspiritseekers.co.uk/Events/ParadoxExperience.html).

Essentially, someone has come up with self-designed electronic equipment designed to detect and display ghosts. This includes:


'real time EVP' - a tape recorder with a simultaneous speaker output?
'active EMF meter' - produces EM fields and looks for disturbances in them
'digital lighting' - "a new concept in an alternative, multicolor, multi frequency, portable lighting used to try to photograph or capture on camcorder a ghost"
IR 'radar' - sounds like a PIR
UV emitter and detector
multi laser illumination
white noise audio system
video imager with feedback amplifier
infrasound detector
I certainly applaud the ingenuity here. However, firstly, these are non-standard units so we cannot tell their accuracy, sensitivity, reliability or even what they are detecting precisely. Secondly, they all seem to be going from the simple (like an EMF meter) to the more complex (like a field generator with disturbance detection). It has been my experience that the more complicated the kit you use, the more likely you are to get instrumental artefacts. And with unknown equipment specification, it would be difficult for a third party to interpret results.

Notice, also, the explicit assumption that ghosts are spirits (despite the evidence) and the implicit assumption that they can be detected and recorded (despite the lack of such evidence).

[dalriada]

Bang goes the tourist trade then a bit selfish what did the ghost ever do to you, it has earned income for some and a lot for others :cheesy:
Ok you see some daft bugger lurking in a door way, the bugger may be a mugger it all adds character to the tourist experience. Whats next the fringe the culture of no sleep for a week so that you can see all the shows.
Free street theatre leave it alone, if you don't like it then go to a little town called Buggerie next to little Upyours.

Well in fairness (despite the article title) he's not actually trying to do away with the Ghost-tours but rather to Skeptify them (and if that isn't a word it should be). The anomalous and weird are fascinating enough from the viewpoint of local history, folklore or science without dumbing everything down to pander for the Most-Haunted market. It is a bad state of affairs when tour operators think that there is no point trying to actually inform or educate anyone about the history of one of the great cities of the European enlightenment- just get an unemployed actor to dress up in a white sheet and funny hat or an underemployed parapsychologist (or six) to wave their latest ghostometers about (funny hats entirely optional). All this was funny and quirky a few years back but now its just mass-market, premasticated mind-mush and contributing to the general vapidity, foolishness and tastelessness of the general public. Whatever happened to critical inquiry and the ability to say something is utter bollocks when it clearly is utter bollocks?

I mean listen to this:

"It’s the first opportunity to go on a tour with equipment that’s custom-built for detecting ghosts. It’s an entirely new kind of ghosthunting.”

WTF is that all about?? If you want to start detecting something that doesn't exist, do it the old-fashioned way take drugs, don't waste hours of your life inhaling stale air and dead skin particles down in Mary King's close kidding yourself you're contributing to science. The cadavers dug up by Burke and Hare did more for science than ghost-hunters ever will and those chaps weren't even breathing at the time...


Oh and PS Greyfriars Bobbie was not a loyal faithful hound even unto the gates of death, he was a greedy little pie-lover, who would have pished up Rupert Sheldrake's leg as quick as look at him.


Here endeth the rant... >:D

[lost thought]

Oh and PS Greyfriars Bobbie was not a loyal faithful hound even unto the gates of death, he was a greedy little pie-lover, who would have pished up Rupert Sheldrake's leg as quick as look at him.

Off course, it was a westie they are all greedie pie munchers it's just as well they are short arses or they would raid the dinner table as well. O0
Never pass a westie with a pie in your pocket or you'll find your self in A&E wondering what hit you. >:D

[Mulder]

"It’s the first opportunity to go on a tour with equipment that’s custom-built for detecting ghosts. It’s an entirely new kind of ghosthunting.” WTF is that all about??

That's what my post, just before, was all about.

[dalriada]

That's what my post, just before, was all about.

Yes, but you were polite Mulder, I felt that the subject needed a rant in order to fully do justice to the wobbling foolishness of its pretentions.

>:D

[Dr B]

And the award for "Miss rant UK" for 2009 goes to.......:cheesy:

[dalriada]

And the award for "Miss rant UK" for 2009 goes to.......:cheesy:



That's Dr rant to you neuro-boy...*

;D

[Dr B]

{stands in corner and faces wall.....while remaining only slightly aroused.....)8)

[cjr23]

Hey, good for Alex! I hope you have all seen the BSHistorian's excellent little piece here http://bshistorian.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/wee-annie-at-mary-kings-close/ on Wee Annie and the Edinburgh Vaults. His blog is always highly enjoyable. Anyway hope Edinburgh Sceptics is off to good start - met Alex at the Science of Ghosts event. :)

cj x

[Trinoc]

That's Dr rant to you neuro-boy...*

;D
Is that Dr Rant MD or Dr Rant PhD? :smiley:

http://www.skeptics.org.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=4052