ThothWeb - Your Portal to the Unknown - Ghosts: The 'Stone Tape' Theory

For many years paranormal investigators have spoken about the 'Stone tape' theory as a possible explanation for certain classes of ghostly activity.

The hypothesis being that rather like a TV programme can be recorded onto iron particles coated onto a plastic tape, then events can be recorded into the very fabric of buildings or indeed the surrounding Earth. The events can be played back at a later time thus causing the viewer to interpret the playback as a ghost.

The main problem with the Stone tape theory has always been that nobody can find a satisfactory explanation as to how or why the recording actually takes places or how the solid structure and fabric of a location is able to retain the events that took place.

There is another possible hypothesis that is emerging that may well explain how such a mechanism might work and it is supported by some scientists although their research has been in an unrelated area of study and they do not seem to have made the link to it being a potential explanation for some classes of ghost.

The answer might lie in a substance that is a part of just about every location where ghosts might be found - common water!

For well over 200 years people have been using homeopathic medicines and remedies, they are used by millions of people worldwide with much reported success.

A natural therapeutic agent is given to the sufferer but this agent is often an antagonist and toxic so that in order to prevent the person from being further harmed they diluted the therapeutic agent in water. In fact they diluted the original substance down so much that effectively all trace of the original agent was removed and the patient was given nothing more than ordinary water.

Of course, science could never accept this as a real world treatment - you can't give someone nothing but water and expect them to get better - but they got better regardless. Science simply ignored it and people continued to use the treatments without really caring how or why they treatment worked.

This all changed in the 1980's when an eminent French scientist Jacques Benveniste, an expert in the field of allergy, made a rather strange discovery.

In particular he was studying a type of blood cell involved in allergic reactions - the basophile. When basophiles come into contact with something you're sensitive to they become activated causing the telltale symptoms. Benveniste had developed a test that could tell if a person was allergic to something or not. He added a kind of dye that only turns inactive basophiles blue, so by counting the blue cells he could work out whether there had been a reaction, but then something utterly unexpected started to happen.

A technician reported that something appeared to have gone wrong with an experiment, a solution had been wrongly diluted - to levels similar to those used by homeopaths, and yet a reaction had been observed in the basophiles, they reacted just the same as if they had been placed in the presence of the allergen.

Suspecting an error had been made the experiment was repeated but again the basophiles reacted - this did not seem to be possible.

Baffled the team carried out hundreds of experiments in which the results remained consistent. The water, diluted until all trace of the original substance was removed continued to react as if the substance was still present - the water appeared to have a memory!

The experiment was repeatable and since that time has been repeated by many researchers in labs around the World. Although there remains some controversy about this repeatability many scientists now accept that the water molecules do seem to be able to retain a memory for the substances in which they have been in contact.

Now for the purposes of this musing it serves little purpose to continue with a discussion as to pros and cons of homeopathy but let us consider the possibility that water might indeed be able to develop a memory. Instead of a Stone tape how about a 'Water Tape' theory?

Water exists as a component of most things - an average brick wall for instance is between 7 and 15% water, the ground also has high water content, as indeed do we!

Let us imagine that by some mechanism the water in everyday objects could have a memory of events placed into its molecules - how could that happen?

Homeopathic practitioners may again be able to help us out here - they have realised that in order to make a remedy it is an important step to strongly agitate the water at every dilution stage - they stress that this is important in order for the water to pick-up the therapeutic properties of the agent being diluted.

When they agitate the water in this vigorous fashion they are releasing large amounts of kinetic energy into the water, the water also develops a small and slight electro-magnetic charge by this rapid motion, this may well be the energy that is then used to allow the memory to be implanted into the water.

Now let's substitute an event or person who by their actions or mental processes emits sufficient energy to allow the water molecules in nearby structures to become 'fixed' with a memory or record of an event that was taking place. The method may even be easier than that; imagine that our person instead simply exhales, that simple act releases a large quantity of water vapour in the exhaled air, that water vapour has an imprinted memory of the person. The water vapour droplets float free eventually bonding with water droplets in the fabric of the building or location. As they bond, the memory becomes shared and so becomes fixed into the building or landscape.

It is possible to reinforce our case for the existence of a 'Water tape' still further by examining some aspects of ghostly activity that are often associated with the former stone tape theory.

Ghosts seem to have a limited lifespan and almost a 'half-life', fading with time until they are no longer observable. Water in time evaporates and as the original molecules evaporate and disperse the copy of the memory they hold becomes weaker and fainter. The original molecules would continue to pass their imprinted memory to neighbouring molecules but with each successive copy the memory becomes less clear and distinct - this would be similar to making many successive copies of a video tape, each copy generation being less clear and more fuzzy than the ones that went before it. The water may evaporate completely for example when the location is subject to high levels of heat or other desiccating factors; this would cause the imprinted memory to disappear completely.

Sometimes ghosts are seen to become 'active' following a disturbance such as when renovation or demolition is carried out. Again, the water tape may offer an explanation for this particular phenomena:

Deep inside some structures the water may be 'locked' and prevented from evaporation - deep inside the ground or inside a wall or in the foundations of a structure for example. Disturbing that security may cause the water that has been stored perhaps for decades to be released and thus permit its stored memories to be replayed. This stored water would retain a higher quality copy of the original event memory and thus the ghost may be witnessed as a strongly perceived event. Once the water has evaporated then the ghost will fade in a short time - a feature seen in certain reported ghost cases.

Ghosts are also frequently reported in places where there is a close association with water in the environment, such as a stream for example, this constant supply of water may help to retain the imprinted memory or the high levels of saturation may reduce the amount of the original memory molecules evaporating and thus retain the 'freshness' of the event memory recording.

Of course all this is simply nothing more than a series of speculations and musings and full of problems and pitfalls.

There remains no hard evidence for the ability of water to be able to develop a memory in the first place but it is interesting how many times in the various labs and experiments the results seem to show this ability.

How then can these imprinted memories be replayed, this could be by a reverse of the recording mechanism for example - the witness has the correct brain physiology and is able to read these recordings as they are played back. Perhaps more simply, the witness may inhale a droplet of water vapour from the air that contains a memory imprinted within it - as this molecule reaches the brain it triggers a wave of copies across the Cerebral Spinal Fluid and thus the brain sees the event as a playback of the encoded events.

How can we devise experiments to test these ideas - simply put, currently we can't - not yet. Scientists are still struggling with the idea that water even has the ability to develop a memory. The Stone tape idea has only been tested in a very limited way and no evidence other than anecdotal has been put forward to support he notion of solid matter being able to record events. With a little time to develop the Water tape theory further and a few more minds working on the idea then perhaps a few experiments will start to be developed and tested in labs and in the field.

The whole concept is currently nothing more than the ramblings of an over active imagination but the more one thinks about it, the better the hypothesis that instead of a Stone tape we should thinking of a 'Water Tape'.

Part 2 - Update

The initial article mused on the possibilities that water may have an ability to retain information - in effect a memory. It also suggested that the same possibility might provide a better hypothesis for the recording ghost than does the frequently quoted 'Stone Tape' idea. It ended by saying the whole thing is currently nothing more than the ramblings of an over-active imagination and that it is currently attestable. Further research by us has revealed that much of this musing was far from an original idea and also that a great deal of active research is currently being conducted into the possibilities of water being a viable medium for recording.

In the early 1960's following his retirement, archaeologist and paranormal investigator T. C. Lethbridge visited a beach close to his home in Devon with his wife. After they had both experienced unusually powerful emotions close to a small stream at the site of an earlier suicide. The unexpected emotions led him to develop a theory that the water could tape record strong emotions. He developed this idea over a number of years suggesting that what does the recording is some kind of magnetic field associated with the water.

Science has now brought this idea right up to date with many eminent scientists subscribing to and testing the notion that water can retain some form of memory.

Almost echoing Lethbridge's pioneering suggestion is the work of the Heartmath research Centre who has developed technology that can detect and measure the capacity of water to amplify weak electromagnetic fields. They have found that the electromagnetic field produced by the human heart can be detected in a glass of water placed several feet away. They have also demonstrated that water exposed to weak electromagnetic fields has the property of amplifying the signal many times.

In another line of research Dr. David Schweitzer, the grandson of Albert Schweitzer is the first scientist to photograph the effects of thoughts captured within water. Following from the pioneering research of French scientist Jacques Benveniste, Schweitzer has developed a fluorescent microscope that enabled him to see how minute particles within the water were changed in response to thoughts and other influences.

Prior to his recent death, Benveniste continued with his original studies with water in relation to it's homeopathic abilities and discovered that electronic circuits can impress lasting information into the water and that low frequency electromagnetic radiation also affects the ability of the water to retain the 'memory information'.

Professor Emeritus William Tiller working with co-researcher Walter Dibble Jr. in the USA have had a great deal of success in significantly altering the pH of water by getting test subjects to 'impress' their thoughts and intentions into the water. They describe the water as being "A special material, well suited for information / energy transfer from the intention domain into our conventional domain of cognition".

Dr. Glen Rein has gone on the record stating that Physicists are aware of the existence of energy fields with properties, which are not explained by classical equations. He refers to these non-classical fields as quantum fields. Work by Rein and his team has shown that this non-electromagnetic information from the primordial vacuum of space can be stored in water and can later be communicated with living cells.

The above represent but a fraction of the ongoing work at more than a dozen Universities and Research Institutes around the World who are looking closely at the ability of water to retain information. Even NASA is exploring the uses of water as a memory medium for future space exploration probes!

It is also clear that water on it's own is not the simple solution to the creation of recording ghosts (if they actually exist!). If it were then we must surely be inundated with spooky recordings being played back all over the place. There are many more factors that must be considered.

Some of the research suggests that electromagnetism also plays a key part in the process of water memory and it would seem that the individual too as recipient or donor of the original 'event memory recording' is part of the process.

So, it would appear that the Stone tape - that 'cornerstone' of paranormal explanations is dead. The 'Water Memory' should now be given the serious consideration of us all. There is even scope for some relatively simple research to be commenced by the field investigator. Perhaps we could start the ball rolling by making serious observations and measurements of the amounts of water present within the 'haunted' locations themselves. A simple hygrometer can keep an eye on the humidity levels and there are also meters available that can be used non-invasively to measure the amounts of water within the structure and fabric of a building. Over time we will start to build a database of the water and humidity levels at 'haunted' sites and also the important control sites with no 'haunted' reputation.

With sufficient data we may see sufficient evidence emerge which will mean that we can finally cease to explain one mystery by invoking another (The Stone Tape) and instead be able to refer to the demonstrable and repeatable Water-Memory to explain some classifications of ghostly phenomena.

Copyright: Para.Science

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