The term “haunted house” references two types of ostensibly anomalous episodes, which we will examine from a phenomenological perspective ( Lange and Houran, 2001a Houran et al., 2019a, b). Haunted Houses as Social Facts…and Possibly More Still, it is important to note that the sociocultural milieu influences the interpretation of these anomalous episodes and the ways people cope with them (for discussions, see Houran, 2004 Houran and Lange, 2001b). Haunt-type experiences can also be found across many different societies and eras ( Carrington and Fodor, 1951 Owen, 1964 Roll, 1977 Gauld and Cornell, 1979/2017 Finucane, 1996 Tuczay, 2004). This fictitious story reveals Roman beliefs about such phenomena ( Felton, 1999), which seemingly align well with modern presumptions ( Goldstein et al., 2007 Hunter, 2018 Massullo, 2019).
29) credited “the earliest haunted house story in Greek or Roman literature” to a 2,000-year-old play by Plautus entitled “Mostellaria” (ca 200-194 B.C.E). And as the name of the ritual suggests, the tent is supposed to tremble mysteriously during the ceremony. For instance, “shaking tent” rituals involved a special cylindrical lodge or tent to contact “spirits” for guidance on hunting, healing, and even locating missing persons. In this context, anthropologists note that haunt experiences have been important aspects of shamanism in both early and contemporary societies ( Hunter, 2018 McClenon, 2004 Winkelman, 2004). It might sound like an amusing or curious claim, but “haunted houses” could be among the oldest problems in environmental psychology, i.e., the scientific study of the transactions and interrelationships between people and their surroundings ( Bell et al., 2001 Devlin, 2018). Focused scrutiny on these issues should clarify the explanatory power of evolutionary-environmental models for these and related anomalous experiences. Future studies should therefore address four areas: (i) more consistent and precise measurements of discrete ambient variables (ii) the potential role of “Gestalt influences” that involve holistic environment-person interactions (iii) individual differences in attentional or perceptual sensitivities of percipients to environmental variables and (iv) the role of attitudinal and normative influences in the interpretation of environmental stimuli. However, such research as related to haunts is arguably in its infancy and new designs are needed to account better for environmental and architectural phenomenology.
Their relation to the onset or structure of witness reports showed mostly null, though sometimes inconsistent or weak outcomes. However, critical consideration of the content revealed a recurring focus on six ambient variables: embedded (static) cues, lighting levels, air quality, temperature, infrasound, and electromagnetic fields. This literature was diverse and often lacked methodological consistency and adherence to the prior suggestions. Our search revealed a relative paucity of studies ( n = 66) on environmental factors that ostensibly stimulate haunt-type experiences.
We also considered whether new studies had incorporated certain recommendations made in this anthology. This paper contains a narrative overview of the past 20-years of environmental research on anomalous experiences attributed to “haunted house.” This exercise served as a much-needed update to an anthology of noteworthy overviews on ghosts, haunts, and poltergeists ( Houran and Lange, 2001b).
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