An Apartment Therapy San Francisco reader asks:
I am considering buying my first home. It is a renovated 1924 Edwardian style San Francisco flat, very charming with original details. After doing some research on the building, I discovered that there was a murder in the building in 1966. A young single woman was found stabbed to death in the apartment, the killer was never found. The thing that made my hair really stand on end is she came from the same small town as me and went to the same high school.
My question to your readers: Do I buy this place?? I feel like I'm being a bit superstitious, but the coincidences are just too bizarre. I like the flat, it has a good feel, but I would hate to move in and feel scared and uncomfortable. It will be the biggest investment of my life. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Now, I don't want to be too hard on the questioner, because it seems like she knows she's being irrational and really, it would suck to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on real estate only to discover that you couldn't get over your irrational creepy feeling.
And a number of commenters seem to feel the same way she does:
I'm superstitious, so whenever I move into a new place I always sprinkle salt around all the windows and doors. It's new-agey b.s., but it makes me feel more settled, somehow.
These people also get a pass from me. Rituals have a psychological effect. And there's even a good percentage of people with appropriately skeptical views:
Well, even if you want to be rational and say the murderer must be elderly and that ghosts don't exist, you'd still be living with the uncomfortable feeling that something terrible could happen to you at any moment in the big city. It's probably not a positive way to approach your life.
I mean no disrespect to the people who believe in energy, ghosts, etc, but, in my opinion:
This is a material world. Unless you think there is an elderly killer in the neighborhood with a grudge against your old high school, get the house and forget the past! You could easily have bought it WITHOUT knowing the history and it would make no difference. Life is not a slasher flick. Coincidence is not the same thing as foreshadowing outside of fiction.
But, alas, this is the Bay Area and there are plenty of responses that are not so well thought-out.
From the pseudoscientific:
I don't believe that the spirits of murdered people stick around necessarily, but I do believe that, on a molecular level, everything we do influences our surroundings (including inanimate objects) and we, in turn, are influenced by those objects. If a violent death occurred, the "influence" of that experience can still be felt in the immediate vicinity sometimes.
To a LOT of people suggesting mediums/exorcisms/cleansings:
There most definitely needs to be some purification going on there: I'm a sage person, myself.
To the full-on paranormal:
No way! The coincidences are too much, and could trigger hauntings, for sure. If the case was never settled, more reason to think the spirit would be restless and looking for someone to identify with.
But some people offer solutions!
If u love it so much just buy a cat or something, ghosts, mummies, vampires and all that kinda crap hate cats, apprently, keepers of the underworld or something.
Apparently!
L’ébullition justicière et le
L’ébullition justicière et le regain d’intérêt pour les questions d’impunité et de Droits de shoes l’Homme qui ont suivi la chute du mur de Berlin, ont mobilisé la Communauté Internationale en faveur de la Cour Pénale. Dès lors, au vu de la longue et lente maturation qu’a connue la Cour, de sa première calvin klein shoes tentative à sa réalisation effective, on aurait pu s’attendre à une éclosion, parallèlement à celle-ci, d’une nouvelle dynamique internationale contre l’impunité. Paradoxalement, il n’en est rien. Bien chloe shoes au contraire, c’est alors que la Cour Internationale est enfin établie, qu’elle soulève le plus de scepticisme et que les tentatives de contrecarrer ses compétences sont les plus vives. En effet, il va sans dire que la pertinence de la CPI est intimement liée à l’évolution des relations internationales. Dès lors, si la décennie 90 s’est amorcée dans l’euphorie et l’enthousiasme, elle se clôt dans un désenchantement dû aux doutes qui ne cessent de peser quant à la viabilité et l’efficacité de la CPI. I- L’après guerre froide : jimmy choo shoes une période d’euphorie en faveur des Droits de l’Homme et de la lutte contre l’impunité
Evidence?
I think this series of posts helps illustrate why we need an organization like Bay Area Skeptics here. For all the highly-trained, well-educated professionals that populate our local environment, there certainly seems to be great enthusiasm in northern California for pseudoscience. And -- not to put too fine a point on things -- we shouldn't conclude that all of those well-educated professionals are excluded from this enthusiasm!
Even well-educated people may lack critical thinking skills. Most of the people commenting on the thread about the haunted house have good writing skills and can express themselves clearly. They probably have decent educations. But somehow the idea that ideas should have some evidence seems to have slipped past them. The person who thinks that "on a molecular level, everything we do influences our surroundings (including inanimate objects) and we, in turn, are influenced by those objects" needs to think about how he might test a statement like that.
You should be spooked
You should be spooked alright...about buying a home any home in the next 16 mos. or so.