Manifesting Spirits: Paranormal Investigation and the Narrative Development of a Haunting

Abstract

Using a paranormal investigation of a reportedly haunted hotel as a model, I propose a five-phase narrative development process that integrates media representations of ghosts, place-based tales of hauntings, and accounts that emerge through processes of interactive interpretation. By attending to both preexisting and emergent supernatural stories, the model illustrates how idiocultures function as mediating structures between established narratives and accounts that result from shared experiences. The narrative account of a haunting is thus a product of interpretive processes in which established ghost stories serve as resources for the collective co-construction of an account that both resonates with external expectations and supports idiocultural authority structures. Ultimately, idiocultural factors have greater influence upon the final narrative than folklore, media, or place-based supernatural tales.