94: Paranormal Psychology & Defunct Halloween Traditions

Episode notes

We know ghosts aren’t real, but what is real is the way our brains make us imagine the creepy things that go bump in the night. What about our psychology makes it so easy to be spooked? And we’ve all heard of costumes and pumpkin carving, but what are the weirdest old Halloween traditions, and what can we take into our own traditions?

Things we Talk About:
Moony Faces
Games for Halloween
Caramel Pronunciation Map
Mischief Night Map
Cabbage Card 1
Cabbage Card 2
The Bobbing for Apples Video

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:36) Paranormal Psychology
(01:03:06) Defunct Halloween Traditions
(01:36:21) Outro

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We also learn about: Skeleton Shattering Science Topic, anomalistic psychology is the science of ghost busting, NOT parapsychology, the first step to a ghost is someone who believe in ghosts, following the format of ghost hunting shows, spooky believers are often predisposed pattern recognizers, the Australian sheep goat scale, suggestion not priming, creepyness via agent detection, a haunted house is evolutionarily designed to be spooky to us, the scary feedback loop, no infrasound does not vibrate your eyeballs,  pattern recognizing apophenia, it’s a wonder humans aren’t scared all the time, it’s actually good we don’t consciously perceive every single thing, wait the static says subscribe to the podcast?? I think she’s saying her hips DO lie, the yeti, hiring a magician on halloween, Ella’s pattern recognizing brain can sense Tom’s bit voice, all the names Halloween goes by, Samhain was basically new years eve, Mary Blain’s Games for Halloween and her caveat, Silent Supper or Reverse Dinner, don’t play snap dragon, imagine risking third degree burns for a RAISIN, the heat map of words for the night before Halloween, mischief night or Halloweeneen, youth honor day, the worst boy police, did you pull a bisexual cabbage? why is everything so romantic?? silent supper seems cute until you’re sprinting over a fence and smashing a window, bobbing for apples is FERAL, our tradition of a spooky episode.

Sources:

2021 Paper- Super-natural fears
2022 Paper- Believing is seeing: The link between paranormal beliefs and perceiving signal in noise
Psychology Today: Why Some People See Ghosts But Others Never Do
2018 Paper: The Australian sheep-goat scale: An evaluation of factor structure and convergent validity
Wiki- Australian Sheep-Goat Scale
2003 Paper- An investigation into alleged ‘hauntings’
1997 Paper- Context-Induced Paranormal Experiences: Support for Houran and Lange’s Model of Haunting Phenomena
2010 Paper- It’s still bending: Verbal suggestion and alleged psychokinetic ability
Smithsonian Magazine- On the Science of Creepiness
2016 Paper- On the nature of creepiness
2022 Paper- Why Some People See, Hear, Or Feel “Ghosts”
2020 Paper- Things That Go Bump in the Literature: An Environmental Appraisal of “Haunted Houses”
2009 Paper- The “Haunt” project: An attempt to build a “haunted” room by manipulating complex electromagnetic fields and infrasound
BBC- The science behind seeing ghosts
2022 Paper- Paranormal experiences, sensory-processing sensitivity, and the priming of pareidolia
2014 Paper- Auditory Pareidolia
Michael Nees Interview with The Conversation
Digicult: Joe Banks: Rorschach Audio
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Smithsonian Mag Halloween Traditions
Mary E. Blain’s Games for Halloween
Midwest Folklore: Silent Supper
Journal of the Folklore Institute: Silent Supper
Atlas Obscura: Silent Supper
NYTimes Dialect Quiz
Smithsonian Mag: Mischief Night
Smithsonian Mag: Old Halloween Pranks
Atlantic: Halloween Pranks and the Worst Boy Police
Robert Burns Halloween Poem
NJ.com Mischief Night
NPR Apples & Halloween