Thinking Out Loud-- Paranormal meets Urban Legend/Cultural Encroachment II

Again, I'm returning to the topic of the paranormal meets urban legend/cultural encroachment. I'd been sorting through my memories for a good example of cultural encroachment and remembered a recent episode of Destination Truth. Josh Gates and crew go in search of the Popobawa in Zanzibar, Africa and discover the truth behind the legend-- cultural encroachment. (As of 04/14 th episode (Sea Monster/Bat Demon) is still available for viewing at scifi.com and Destination Truth myspace videos.

In the Popobawa investigation, there was an unusual pattern that did raise a flag. It was the deeper delving of Josh Gates and his crew into the background of the Popobawa that the government's subversive use of the legend was uncovered.

To give a cursory synopsis, every ten years at election time the government hires people to go about the Zanzibar and spread rumors and revive tales of the Popobawa to the citizenry. In creating the hysteria, attention can be diverted as necessary to the topics the elected or soon to be elected officials wish to focus upon. You might consider it the Zanzibarian way of mudslinging.

Thus initiating the political parties are the indirect "agent" and the paid rumor mongers as the direct "agent". Then as the revision and reincarnation of the Popobawa legend continues in the populace, new events are attributed to it-- locals become the "agents" of dessimination and continue the contamination of area as well as the legend. With the continuous cycle of validations, the legend of Popobawa maintains a strong foothold within the culture and the fact that the government uses it as a tool of hysteria and intimidate virtually goes unrecognized within the populace.

It is the political environment in Zanzibar that takes the legend and distorts it and encroaches into the body of citizenry for purposes of manipulation and hysteria. Hysteria being quite a powerful tool- able to influence masses, reduce rationality of events, and generally destructuring emotionally. Once hysteria has onset into a populace it can become a virulent tool -- as history has provent this again and again. (If you need me to make further examples of hysteria as a political tool, let me know. I'm a historian by education, I'll even give you citations.)

Another example of cultural encroachment is in the name of economics. More and more, it seems to be motivation for some businesses to claim they are haunted and request investigations for this validation and great marketing tool. With the rise in interest in the paranormal, being "haunted" seems to be a meal-ticket for many-- both business and investigators. (Not all paranormal investigators or groups investigate for free and some have real steep prices from what I've noticed.)

This begs the investigator to consider the motivations of the individual and his or her own ethics. Is an economically motivated investigation in alignment to the mission and goals of you or your group? Are you more likely to experience hoax efforts in an economically driven desire to be "haunted"? Do you want to be associated with an economically driven paranormal investigation? What are your requirements for the economically motivated individual for citing your research in advertisement and as proof? Are you prepared for the possible backlash that come from being associated with the venue or economically driven individual? How are you going to deal with the individual when there is no evidence to parallel their claims?

The economically driven cultural encroachment aspect seems as tangled as the political encroachment. Both depend on the knowledge the investigator has going into an investigation, what's discovered during and a few ethic entanglements that may arrive if it's determined the motivations for the investigation are motivated by money or politics.

The grand difference in these examples is:

Going into the Popobawa investigation, Destination Truth apparently had no fore-knowledge of the governments intrusion and manipulation of the legend. It wasn't until more local resources-- the historian from university-- was consulted.

For the investigator, there may be exceptions, for the most part realizes the impact the investigation may have on the business prior to actually stepping foot on the premise. If you are asked to look into the hauntings of a 200-year-old building that is now and bed and breakfast -- you might deduce they want the "haunted" label for advertising. You may want to enquire into the motivation of businesses before investigating.


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These are just two examples of cultural encroachments into paranormal research. There is one more I can think of that needs to be blogged alone-- Media. I've no experience directly with media impact on paranormal research, so I will have to do a little research on this impact.

This blog also opened up the aspect of ethics in paranormal research and mission and goals. Which will probably be blogged as well at a slightly later time.

I look foward to hearing from anyone with comments on this topic. If you'd like to share any insights into these encroachments from your own experience, please contact me. If you care to share information on how the media has impacted you or your group please contact me as well.

Please feel free to contribute comments, criticism, or thoughts.