Enjoyable read. I was left wondering whether Cornell came to any conclusions after a life of studying the paranormal. Wikipedia has:
> [Cornell] believed that many sightings of ghosts, hauntings and poltergeists are products of the human mind.[3] Cornell estimated that of the 800 cases that he investigated, only twenty percent were difficult to explain and only a handful were paranormal.
A "handful" is still extremely significant. I'm curious to know which events he felt could not be described naturally.
Going back to the original article, this raised a smile:
> I’m in the Special Collections room of the Cambridge University Library, waiting at the front desk a little nervously. It is my first time here and, hidden away on the top floor of the vast building, there is a peculiar sense of having entered a place where time does not quite pass as it should.
The UL is a forbidding and imposing building reminiscent of the library at the Unseen University (https://wiki.lspace.org/Library). Admittance to the Special Collections room is a rare privilege - I remember hearing rumours that all the best stuff is kept up in the "tower". Again, Wikipedia has a list of some of the really cool books there (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University_Library#S...).
soco•3mo ago
"which events he felt could not be described naturally" - let's rephrase this, events which he couldn't explain to the best of his knowledge. I know, I ripped off the entire aura of the situation, but if we claim to be scientific let's give up the illusions of all-knowing.
n4r9•3mo ago
I agree. Very important to distinguish between "This is supernatural" and "I cannot explain this".
I tried to chase up the Wikipedia reference. The URL has slightly changed but I found it anyway. The quotation is subtly different:
> only a handful seem likely to be of the paranormal ilk
I listened to this with Eleven Lab's ElevenReader app & let it use Laurence Olivier's voice, which made it appropriately creepy. But, I had to chuckle everytime he exclaimed "Article continues after advertisement!"
n4r9•3mo ago
> [Cornell] believed that many sightings of ghosts, hauntings and poltergeists are products of the human mind.[3] Cornell estimated that of the 800 cases that he investigated, only twenty percent were difficult to explain and only a handful were paranormal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Cornell
A "handful" is still extremely significant. I'm curious to know which events he felt could not be described naturally.
Going back to the original article, this raised a smile:
> I’m in the Special Collections room of the Cambridge University Library, waiting at the front desk a little nervously. It is my first time here and, hidden away on the top floor of the vast building, there is a peculiar sense of having entered a place where time does not quite pass as it should.
The UL is a forbidding and imposing building reminiscent of the library at the Unseen University (https://wiki.lspace.org/Library). Admittance to the Special Collections room is a rare privilege - I remember hearing rumours that all the best stuff is kept up in the "tower". Again, Wikipedia has a list of some of the really cool books there (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_University_Library#S...).
soco•3mo ago
n4r9•3mo ago
I tried to chase up the Wikipedia reference. The URL has slightly changed but I found it anyway. The quotation is subtly different:
> only a handful seem likely to be of the paranormal ilk
https://ghostvillage.com/investigating-the-paranormal/