Contextual Mediation of Perceptions during Hauntings and Poltergeist-like Experiences: A Replication and Extension

This study is a replication of the experiment by Lange, Houran, Harte, and Havens (1996) on contextual variables, in which hallucinations appear to be affected by the environmental context. These contextual variables are influential in the reporting of haunting and poltergeist like episodes. This study extended the previous study by adding new factors of time of day, climactic conditions, and emotional feelings. These were analyzed for a different sample, looking for further congruency between experiential content and the context. The sample (N = 843) were reports found on the Internet and in one book. The Lange, et al. study was replicated in that contextual variables were identified in 99.2% of the reports, the content of the reports was judged to be consistent with the nature of the contextual variables in 58.8% of the reports, and contextual variables were related to the percipients' state of arousal and the modalities of experience.