Stone Tape theory

Not to be confused with Stoned ape theory.
For the 1972 British television play, see The Stone Tape. For the record label, see Stone Tapes.
Borley Rectory in 1892, the "most haunted house in England"

The Stone Tape theory is a pseudoscientific claim that ghosts and hauntings occur when historical information is released from rocks and other items. The idea of materials holding information from emotional or traumatic events aligns with views of 19th-century intellectualists and psychic researchers, such as Charles Babbage, Eleonor Sidgwick and Edmund Gurney. Contemporarily, the concept was popularized by a 1972 Christmas ghost story called The Stone Tape produced by the BBC.[1][2] Following the play's popularity, the idea and the term "stone tape" were retrospectively and inaccurately attributed to the British archaeologist turned parapsychologist T. C. Lethbridge, who believed that ghosts were not spirits of the deceased, but were simply non-interactive recordings similar to a movie[clarification needed].

  1. ^ Colin Stanley (2011), Around the Outsider: Essays Presented to Colin Wilson on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, John Hunt Publishing, pp. 296–, ISBN 978-1-84694-668-4
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference SchickVaughn2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).