On one of the blogs I’ve been following lately, Ghost Hunting Theories, the author has concocted a “Haunting Formula” in conjunction with some research she’s doing to rate “50 haunted sites around the US.” She uses a criteria of six things to base her scoring on:
- What the building’s constructed out of (i.e. brick, stone, etc)
- Age of the building
- The building’s history (history or death or other traumatic events)
- What it’s built on or over (i.e. limestone, sand, granite)
- It’s proximity to train tracks
- It’s proximity to water
She may have scored other places using her Haunting Formula, but these are the ones I know she’s examined so far:
All have earned perfect 6 out of 6s except for the Eureka Springs Crescent Hotel. It got a 5 out of 6.
It’s very interesting to me because what great Haunt Jaunts some of these places would make! (Some were already on my list to add to the Jaunt pages on HauntJaunts.net, like the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Ft. Mifflin, but her posts reminded me about the other places that would also be good adds.)
What’s even funnier, I just realized today that Ghost Hunting Theories is the brainchild of Autumnforest. If you follow the comments on my blogs, you’ll see I have two regular commenters and she’s one of them. (The other is Lisa Logan, authoress of the blog Writing in My Wildest Dreams.) I was tickled to find that out, because hers is one of my favorite blogs to follow and here she sometimes leaves comments on mine!
At any rate, I’ll continue to follow her findings. It’s very interesting stuff and just may provide a new way of looking at haunted places. (Not to mention Haunt Jaunts.)
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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Hey, thanks for the mention. I hope at the end of my research to list the 50 places I chose and give them a ranking order of haunted-ness by their score combined with the body of evidence of haunting. I'm hoping in the future to refine the formula and use it before heading out to check on a haunting to see if the conditions are good.
OOOOOH! I was hoping you were thinking of doing something like a ranking system. Very cool! To me this seems like such a smart way of investigating. I'm surprised not more people do that, but I guess if it's a matter of getting permission to investigate somewhere you just gotta go when you can and hope the conditions are ripe. Anyway, I really dig your thought process and look forward to reading more about your project! 😉