IT IS NOT A PLEASANT TASK to contradict a fellow columnist, especially one whom I highly respect and admire. But for the sake of letting our readers hear the other side, I must speak out.

Prof. Michael L. Tan wrote in the Nov. 1, 2009, issue of Sunday Inquirer Magazine: “My university training in both the natural and social sciences, and life’s many experiences, have convinced me that there are no ghosts.”

But there are haunted houses, according to him, because people believe these places to be haunted and not because there are ghosts.

“We want to be haunted,” Prof. Tan continues, “not by the ghosts themselves but by what they represent: Memories of friendship and family, for example … we create ghosts to remind us of people, places, events.”

As proof that ghosts are mere creations of our own minds, Prof. Tan cited a BBC study in which several subjects were randomly divided into two groups.

“One went into houses supposed to be haunted, another went into ‘regular’ houses. They were not told what the ‘reputations’ of the houses were and later asked if they felt they were in a haunted house or not. More people in the ‘haunted’ house felt the place’s haunted qualities compared with those who went to ‘regular’ ones.”

In the research cited, the BBC researchers concluded, according to Prof. Tan, “that a house with a reputation for ghosts eventually acquires characteristics of what we think is a haunted house.”

This opinion goes directly against voluminous documented data from various countries over the last 50 years proving beyond reasonable doubt the existence of what is commonly referred to as “ghosts” or spirits of the dead.

Ghostly encounters

What’s more incontrovertible are reports of numerous and verified ghostly encounters that leave physical evidence of their presence or appearance.

For example, we just investigated a recent case referred to us by a reputable businessman with a shop in Ortigas Center that their office was haunted and that his dozen employees were terrified of the sightings of a boy running around or being heard crying.

The BBC report cited by Prof. Tan reminds me of a documented study conducted by Dr. Gertude Schmeidler in New York many years ago.

“She asked a group of students to fill in a questionnaire in which they were asked whether or not they believed in ESP. They were then given a standard clairvoyance test, which involved identifying the order in which randomized cards were turned over. The result was very clear: Those subjects who believed in ESP achieved much higher scores than those who did not.”

Dr. Schmeidler called the unbelievers “goats” and the believers “sheep.”

I doubt very much if I can transform Prof. Michael Tan from “goat” to “sheep,” no matter how many volumes of scientific evidence for the existence of ghosts are presented before his skeptical “scientific” mind.

But, as the famous philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, pointed out, “There are two ways to be fooled: One is to believe what is not so; the other is to refuse to believe what is so.”

Note: The next Soulmates, Karma & Reincarnation seminar will be held Nov. 14, 1-7 p.m., and the Basic ESP and Intuition Development seminar will be held Nov. 21-22, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at Rm. 308, Prince Plaza I Cond., 106 Legazpi St., Greenbelt, Makati. Call 8107245/ 8159890; e-mail jaimetlicauco@yahoo.com; or visit www.jaimelicauco.com.