My last essay on the subject of Borley was rather brief - for one written by me! - but a lot of thought went into it and into the preparation beforehand. I went there with a few specific purposes in mind and with certain objectives to be achieved, all of which took considerable thought and planning. It just goes to show that sometimes an "action" and its "result" are inversely proportioned. In my case, a lot of work beforehand resulted in a short essay. Conversely, a photograph snapped in a millisecond can sometimes take thousands of words to describe, analyse, and dissect.
However, more important than the "action" or "result" aspects is the "value". "Actions" and "results" are transitory - here today, gone tomorrow, but the "value" is the enduring legacy; a contribution towards our understanding of a subject. However, it seems that the "value" is inversely proportioned to the result!
In other words: A great deal of action (e.g. preparation and thought) produces small results which, in turn, can contribute a great deal of value. In a phrase, it's: great, small, great. At the risk of blowing my own trumpet... my last essay was a small but its value was great, in that it cleared up a few recent misunderstandings about Borley.
Conversely, a small amount of action may produce a great result but perhaps of small value (small, great, small). Take, for example, the well-known photograph of the Tulip Staircase in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. This ("action") was to be simply a picture of the stairs but the developed photograph clearly shows a shrouded figure on them! This is a great picture ("result") but it contributes almost nothing (of "value") to our understanding of ghosts.
And the purpose if this quasi-lecture is? It's simply to say: If ghosts are due to some scientific cause which, as yet, is not understood, they should also be investigated in a scientific manner. This is nothing new, of course. Some people have taken a scientific approach to the subject for decades. However, it is obvious that other people still arrive at "haunted" venues without any planing or forethought in the hope of making some earth-shattering "discovery". Well, they may get lucky and snap a great picture of something-or-other, but its value will almost certainly be worthless in terms of contributing to our understanding of the phenomena.
I urge people who are seriously interested in helping to unravel the mechanisms that cause ghosts to have a considered approach to their activity. Think about specific objectives and how they might be achieved; plan ahead and limit investigations to specific phenomena; concentrate on particular subjects or areas, don't "cast the net" too widely (or you're likely to catch a "great" amount of flotsam and jetsam, of "small" value).
It's just a suggestion, but I hope some people will take it on board. It's important that areas such as Borley are taken seriously, rather than thought of as a static "ghost train" for thrill-seekers! To indulge in idle speculation about phenomena and to leech off legitimate "haunted" areas is to belong to the school of parasite-ology, rather than parapsychology.
Regards to all,
Stephen D. Smith