The Haunted Actor

Death is inevitable and something that we must all face. Because no one has been able to die and come back and be taken seriously, there is the fear of what’s to come once our bodies stop working. For thousands of years, mankind has held a fascination with life after death, and where we go after our physical bodies are no longer functioning. The idea that once we die we cease to exist is a hard concept to swallow. But the idea that some parts of us survive after death has driven us on a quest to seek the proof for ourselves. We, as a society of the human race, have been desperate to discover something bigger than ourselves and seeking out the unknown has turned into a form of church. Participating in or watching these programs about paranormal investigations is a metaphor for us seeking God in one way or another. We want to know if someone up there is listening to us, watching us, and guiding us. Just the idea of knowing someone is out there watching out for us brings some sort of comfort, whether it is a deity or a deceased loved one. We are seeking some sort of confirmation that there is a divine purpose in what we experience in our lives, as well as hoping to find explanations of the unknown. Spirituality is an act of faith that has declined since the rise of science, but even science cannot explain everything, and that is the truth that we are seeking. Before science, there was religion. When events would happen that couldn’t be explained, man looked to deities for explanations and answers. But how religion came to existence can be associated with many variables. Not knowing the answers to our existence is terrifying, but giving the explanation that we were created by a divine being is much more comforting. When bad things happen to good people, there must be a plan behind it. When loved ones die and the crops don’t pull through, something must have been done to anger the god(s). Religion and spirituality provided the answers to the questions that plagued the human psyche, and gave a reason for events that happened. If the harvest was plentiful and babies were born, someone above was pleased. The desire to please these deities by singing, dancing, and speaking to an unknown being became the foundation of what we know today as theatre and performance. The things we cannot see have the capability of scaring us more than what we can see in our physical mind. The unknown, coined as the “supernatural” or the “paranormal”, continues to intrigue us because it begs to be sought out. There is a truth out there that we do not know about and are desperate to discover. Even before the boom in paranormal reality television, we were fascinated by what we couldn’t see and what scared us the most. This fascination goes back to a time even before the peak of Ancient Greece and the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. As time has progressed and the rise of scientific explanation came about, the belief in the unknown and religion is now perceived more as an act of faith. But science still cannot explain everything when it comes to supernatural occurrences, and that is the faith of those who believe in the unknown. The unknown could mean a plethora of different things, such as God, ghosts, spirits, demons, our very existence. When the impossible occurs and a miracle happens, science is lost when it comes to explanation and faith wins. But back in the early days of man, science was not there to provide explanation, it was the answer to the “why” by explaining “how” things happened, such as the creation of man and the universe. As man evolved and science came into play, there was still an established relationship between spirituality and science and they were more interconnected, much to the contrast of today’s perceptions that the two are now mutually exclusive from one another. But how does science relate to the darkest part of ourselves that only a few dare to explore? As humans, we have the natural instinct of expressing ourselves and exploring our curiosity with our feelings and beliefs. Expression comes in many forms whether it’s painting, writing, drawing, dancing, singing, acting, playing music, etc. Expressing our belief in various deities has been an act that has followed our existence since it first began. Under our modern day terms, the horror films, the paranormal reality television, the act of seeking out the unknown through religion, ghost hunting, etc. is our way of expressing our belief and hope in the existence of the unknown. While all of us might not use performances as a form of exploration of faith and God anymore, it’s certainly used as a way to explore what makes us human. One of the key aspects in this expression is in the relationship between the unknown and performance. What we are watching on the screen is a performance, even in reality television. There is a favorable perception that we have of ourselves that we desire to be seen by the wider audience, whether it’s work, friends, or entertainment. Every day, we are performers in some capacity or another. Our personalities change and alter depending on our present company. Even those who are paranormal investigators are performers. This doesn’t mean that they are faking their experiences or any supernatural occurrence. It means that there is a certain decorum that we all follow in life, and it has evolved from performances for the gods to investigators and researchers seeking out the unknown in a haunted house. The purpose of this book is to outline the relationship between the belief in the supernatural and the theatre, using theatre as an expression of this belief and culture over the course of hundreds of years to our modern time. The best source material for commentary on society is plays, as they explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of our identity and our history. This book is intended for those who are not familiar with the theatrical world as well as for those who are not familiar with the study of the supernatural or the paranormal. This is meant to be a brief overview, since thousands of years of history in the relationship between the theatrical field and the paranormal field cannot be covered in a single book. For the purposes of fluidity, the terms “paranormal” and “supernatural” will be used to describe what we as humans perceive as not normal, or some force that is beyond our level of understanding or explanations of scientific nature. I hope the information here will arouse interest in one or both of the topics mentioned, and that it will serve as the start of a wonderful journey as you embark further in your studies. It’s important to note that this is based on research and theories. This book is by no means a scientific study nor is it meant to prove or debunk supernatural phenomena with scientific evidence, as I am not a scientist. This is an exploration of our belief in the unknown that has spanned for thousands of years and how it is expressed through the stage. One of the strongest pieces of evidence of the evolution of our belief in the unknown is shown through theatre. It has been said many times before that theatre holds a mirror up to society and exposes our flaws, weaknesses, strengths, and accomplishments. This isn’t exclusive to only the living society, but also to the society of the dead, and the paranormal is certainly not excluded. It has been said that ghosts and spirits are our voices of the past and in a way, we can see ourselves in the past, like “living” history. And like theatre, spirit communication exposes our own fears and vulnerabilities as we take a chance of communicating with something that in reality, we don’t know that much about. There is no reason why the theatre and the paranormal should be mutually exclusive from one another.