Facts On ---- Halloween -- Chapter Seven

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How are ghosts, haunted house and Halloween related?

The poltergeist is something that must be fought as well as invested - the late D. D. Scott Rogo, psychical researcher.

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   Ghosts, things that go bump in the night, spooks, poltergeists, haunted houses. Halloween aside, ghost stories are everywhere today. Literally dozens of TV specials and segments on programs like "Unsolved Mysteries," "The X-Files," Sightings," "The extraordinary," and "Paranormal Borderline" captivate millions of onlookers. Haunted houses are even in demand and some realtors specialize in selling them to fascinated clients - at greatly inflated prices. (One wonders if they get their money's worth.)
   Every Halloween television programmers market an interesting lineup of supernatural thrillers on TV, such as the Poltergeist I-IV series. Although Halloween comes and goes, interest in the intriguing phenomenon of the ghost or poltergeist remains all year long. Poltergeist phenomena have also found their way into immensely popular movies such as "Ghost Dad" with Bill Cosby, "Ghost" with Patrick Swayze, and "Ghost Busters."
   The tern poltergeist comes from two German words: polter, to make noise by throwing or tumbling around, and geist, ghost or spirit. The literal translation of the term is "noisy ghost."
   These "noisy ghosts" are nothing new. Michael Goss compiled an annotated bibliography of over 1,000 English books on poltergeists from the last century alone (1880-1970). In his text he observes, "Poltergeists seem to have been plaguing the human race since the dawn of time and they have shown a grand impartiality as to the theatres of their operations. They are as much at home in the jungles of Indonesia as they are in the suburbs of London or the bustle of New York City." Indeed, throughout America, "Poltergeists experiences occur everyday of the week." Hardly anyone hasn't heard genuine ghost stories, but even among the millions who have personally experienced ghosts, few have any idea as to what is actually going on.

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