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We must respect the ruin and its presences for what they were. As
we enter someone's familiar space, we must not bring an
unfamiliarity to our exploration and expectations. Once inside that
landscape, we are crossing perhaps multiple temporal and social
boundaries. Space and time, as two fragmented walls, can inhibit
our interactions with someone else's experiences and memories of
that place. This is Centralia, as it was, and as its remains are
visualized today.
All battlefields are haunted by the memory of what occurred there.
Some, however, are haunted by more than remembrance,
memorialization, and heritage events. There are American Civil War
battlefields that remain "active" with the ongoing manifestations
of past military behaviors. A theory of American Civil War
battlefield hauntings is presented here, tied to mid-19th c.
concepts of (and belief in) a "good death" and the importance of
home and family. Fieldwork exploring these ideas shows, in many
battlefield manifestations, a direct relationship between these
concepts and battlefield interactive hauntings.
It is proposed that the habits learned in pre-battle drill of the
"culture of war," and the cultural patterns that were followed of
the "culture of death" of mid-19th c. American Society became
future manifesting possibilities (with purpose) on Civil War
battlefields today. They form part of a habitual,
culturally-patterned "normal" world that we can "unearth" in a
"ghost excavation." This makes that world predictable and
representative of continuing "signs" of forms of life on these
battlefields. In this sense, haunting manifestations are habits
about habits, and a "ghost soldier" is an emergence of a form of
life that connects us today with their past beliefs and practices.
Robert Lewis Stevenson once remarked that some landscapes cry out
for a story. Centralia is one such landscape. These are the stories
that were inspired by what happened there and the lack of presence
in the landscape today. These are fictional accounts of Centralia's
history that serve as a counter-current to the real dangers of
anthracite coal mining. There are fictional accounts of vampires,
dragons, and other supernatural beings that lurk in the abandoned
mine shafts beneath the town of Centralia. They form in the
imagination of various authors and represent a different version of
the Centralia landscape.
Our contemporary world is not centered on what is perceived as
reality in the West. That is too ethnocentric. Similarly, the
definition of (and distinction between) life and death are not
solely based on Western scientific realities. That is very
egocentric. There is so much more to the world, reality, and the
concept of "life" than what we read, hear about, view, and learn
from various mediated forms. Out there, beyond the "box"
constructed by a materialist science, there is an entirely
different social realm. This is an "other" culture. It is a "ghost
culture," but it too exists today. It is a culture that is grounded
in thousands of years of experienced situational encounters. This
quite sensible and perceivable world is an old way of looking at
the world, and sensing "who" is still there amongst us. That
journey back to the old continues in the "ghost excavations" in
this book.
This book is a history lesson. It is about "ghost excavations" at
four haunted sites and what we learned from the experience. The
objective is pure and simple. It is to show how, by questioning
basic tenets of a "ghost hunting" paradigm, we can go beyond the
contemporary reality of a field that is entertainment, and
entertaining, and arrive at an investigative position of
constructive research. In the process of this "excavation," we
learn what it was (is) to be and remain human.
The production of space is a view of landscape as a process of
creating and negotiating social interactions within particular
spaces. What remains of past productions are the traces and
vestiges, as cultural expressions or "signs" of these productions.
A "ghost excavation" works with what remains of these past
productions. This is achieved through an analysis of the structure
and process of past social construction. Fieldwork involves the
recovery of an "afterlife semiotic system" (or "haunting") of what
remains from those past productions. The "ghost excavation" is an
alternative, non-paranormal, analysis of haunted space.
July 2013 marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.
This battle is the experience most people associate with
Gettysburg, as if the history of Gettysburg remains unwritten what
came before the battle and what happened afterwards. Today,
Gettysburg is perceived as a haunted location inhabited by the
presence of ghosts who fought there 150 years ago and continue to
enact that Civil War struggle today. This book is an evaluation of
that perceived experience, suggesting that Gettysburg is much more
than a haunted Civil War battleground.
Phantom Gettysburg discusses the contemporary alternative version
of a perceived haunted battlefield. In order to understand this
alternative perception, contemporary anomalous phenomena must be
affixed to and analyzed within their exact historical setting and
social context. An ethnographic model of mid-19thc. American
culture is used as the basis for this analysis. Specifically, the
cultural beliefs relative to the concepts of death and the
afterlife, as it was envisioned by these soldiers, is the basis for
this model. This historical ethnographic analysis serves two
purposes. First, it is a means to legitimize the methodology and
fieldwork practices of ghost research. Second, it is meant to
analyze the Gettysburg experience and its haunting uncertainty in
its historical and sociocultural environment. The conclusion that
is drawn from this comparative approach alters the reality and
representation of an interactive ghostly battlefield presence. A
Gettysburg haunted by Civil War soldiers is considered, for the
most part, a phantom experience.
A major focus of ghost excavation, as opposed to ghost "hunting,"
is an archaeology of experience. The emergence of this experience
is unearthed through the investigative engagement of haunted space.
One aspect of this engagement is performance, which requires a
specific sociocultural and historical context of understanding.
This context of understanding must be understood in terms of layers
of meaning. Gettysburg is used as a specific example of the use of
performative and dramatical activity. Each of these activities
performed at Gettysburg predisposes a genre, a set of beliefs,
practices, social relations, manifestations, and locations which
together define categorically what it is that is manifesting on the
battlefield, and what interpretations are being used to understand
these performative cultural practices. The genres of performative
action at Gettysburg are important because they are located at
places on the battlefield where belief systems become mobilized
into actual practice. This book will explore various haunting
uncertainties and cultural situations associated with ghostly
activity, and the implications of these performances as they are
enacted by ghost hunters, Civil War re-enactors, the tourism
industry, and the "ghosts" themselves.
"Digging-Deep" is an excavation of the archaeological site called
"John Sabol." It is an unearthing of the author's memory of
experiences of past presences that cuts across space, time, and
culture. Water, mining operations, dust and dirt, dogs and wolves,
and ghosts are seen as important features that are re-covered from
these memory excavations. Some of the re-called practices that are
unearthed include an alternative remembrance of "trick or treat,"
the multiple symmetrical worlds of history, myth, and ghosts in
Winchester, England, the haunting nature of archaeological
excavations and field surveys, the actor's encounters with more
than a filmed "death scene," and a search for a legendary monster
in Arkansas. All of these memories are perceived as
symetrically-interrelated though they originate in different
places. They are viewed as a form of "theatrical ghosting," a
resonating element that unfolds time, as events and activities are
framed by their contemporary significance in the author's life. In
this process of excavation, a re-curring haunting drama manifests
in the life of this archaeologist, who also happens to be a
cultural anthropologist, actor, and "ghost excavator."
Ghost Research is archaeological work that requires specific field
practices. This book introduces the investigative techniques of a
"ghost archaeology." This is defined as a scientific discipline of
the "ordinary," a search for the repetitive patterns of cultural
behavior that can be unearthed during an field investigation. Six
case studies of cultural hauntings are presented which illustrate
the usefulness of archaeological methodology and techniques in
field research. The investigation of ghostly presence at
Gettysburg, in the anthracite coal region, at Eastern State
Penitentiary in Philadelphia, and a Civil War haunting in
Petersburg, Virginia are cited. These investigations show how
potential evidential data can be uncovered, if only the
investigators would maintain an archaeological sensibility in their
fieldwork operations.
This book is a "ghost story," meant to be read on cold, dark,
windy, and snow-covered wintry nights. These are not "traditional"
tales of haunted houses, but rather are personal narratives of
"cultural hauntings" of long forgotten histories of ethnic
struggles, and Native American beliefs. It is an image of a
landscape (and its people) that goes far deeper than the mere
surface manifestations of ruined and abandoned structures, and the
"bits and pieces" of broken dreams and aspirations. This is a
different kind of embedded narrative. It is an excavation that
penetrates to the very "heart" of ghostly drama. Experiences,
conceptualized as a form of haunting, provide a framework for the
recall of various incidents of personal memory and emotional
resonance at specific places. This serves two purposes: It creates
a "personal" landscape characterized by elements of "spookiness"
(once dense forests, abandoned structures and mineshafts, "coal
patches"); uncertainities that result in episodic "haunting dramas"
(the socioeconomic impact of ethnic migrations); and "ghostly
presences" (interpretations of these ethnic groups as a response to
their physical surroundings); It provides a framework (in the 2nd
part) for the analysis of other similiar haunted landscapes. A
methodology is used that incorporates techniques derived from
archaeology, ethnography, and performance studies. In doing so, it
introduces a new multidisciplinary research methodology called
"Ethnoarchaeoghostology." This book is a dedicatory salute, however
humble, to the achievements and daily struggles of those who came
before to inhabit this Mahanoy Area. These hauntings "fill-in" the
blank spaces between the words in historical narratives, and thus
gives the reader a different image of events in local and regional
social histories. In doing so, they show that "greatness" is not
measured by the content of what we do, but how, on a daily basis,
we do it.
This book is an archaeological excavation of anomalous phenomena
that still lingers to haunt various locations in the anthracite
coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The unearthing of this
haunting presence is both a metaphorical excavation (the bringing
"into the light" of various dramas, events, and experiences of an
individual and collective nature), and a physical engagement (the
emergence of ghostly presence through investigative field
performances). This anthracite coal region drama is viewed through
the use of a "deep map" of short, but compendious, "ghost"
narratives. This "deep map" consists of autobiographical events,
symmetrical archaeological practices, memories of local places,
ethnic folklore, haunting traces and manifestations, natural
history, the use of a scientific field methodology, and a sincere,
and profound, sensitivity to the land. These "ghost" narratives are
a subtle, multi-layered and "deep mining" of a small regional
landscape that has long been neglected, and been perceived as
"insignificant" social history. This book is meant to change that
perception through a sensual unearthing of its haunting
uncertainties.
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