Stone Tape Theory, Explained: What It Means & Where it Comes From

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See how the stone tape theory impacts modern paranormal beliefs
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If you've been in discussions of the supernatural, chances are someone's brought up the stone tape theory at some point. But what is it, and how does it influence the way we think about hauntings and supernatural activity? Do people still believe it today? Read on to learn more about the stone tape theory, where it came from, and how it continues to shape paranormal beliefs.

The Stone Tape Theory at a Glance

The stone tape theory holds that certain materials, like stone, can store "recordings" of historical events. These recordings can then be "played back" on a loop, appearing like ghosts or paranormal activities that don’t interact with their surroundings. Believers cite this theory to explain residual hauntings.

Section 1 of 6:

What is the stone tape theory?

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  1. In its most literal sense, a stone or other object acts like a tape recorder to make a record of an event that it can then play back on an endless loop. The stone tape theory is most associated with "residual hauntings," or the types of hauntings that are characterized by ghosts who do the same thing over and over again and seem oblivious to anything around them. [1]
    • The stone tape theory is not a theory in the scientific sense, like evolutionary theory. It's a paranormal concept, which is based more on individual observation and speculation rather than the rigorous testing of a hypothesis.
    • The theory got its name from a play that aired on the BBC in 1972 called The Stone Tape Theory . The play revolved around hauntings that were replayed from literal tape recorders hidden in large stones.
    • While the stone tape theory has influenced a lot of beliefs about ghosts that are common in popular culture, it faces criticism among 21st-century paranormal experts.
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Section 2 of 6:

History & Evolution of the Stone Tape Theory

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  1. Arguably, stone tape theory wouldn't exist at all without the rise of spiritualism. Spiritualism became popular in North America and Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Before that, people generally believed that anything supernatural was the work of the devil—not that it could possibly be someone long departed who wants to communicate something. Spiritualists believed that ghosts were the spirits of those once living and that living people (specifically, trained mediums) could communicate with them. [2]
    • The spiritualist movement was particularly popular among women because it was one of the only spaces where women were free to speak publicly. For this reason, spiritualism is also deeply connected to the women's rights movements of that time period.
    • In fact, the movement became popular in large part due to reports of the Fox sisters, 2 women who claimed they could communicate with spirits.
    • Some famous mediums, including the Fox sisters, were later proven to be frauds, but that didn't diminish the power of spiritualism. The mediums themselves didn't need to be true for the ideas to be.
    • Modern spiritualists are open-minded to the paranormal but don't necessarily make ghosts or the paranormal the center of their beliefs. They're much more interested in how the paranormal can be used to improve people's lives. [3]
    • Spiritualism is responsible for a lot of the ideas that people take for granted regarding what ghosts are and how they behave. Spiritualism speaks to who ghosts are.
  2. In the 1800s, Charles Babbage speculated that words create permanent impressions that remain long after the sound itself fades. In the minds of parapsychologists Edmund Gurney and Eleanor Sidgwick, these words or experiences could actually be held or in a sense "stored" by buildings and other surrounding materials. People who were sensitive enough (or who were specifically trained, like mediums) could potentially play those memories back like a tape recording to find out exactly what happened in that place to cause the residual haunting. [4]
    • With place memory, what's left is more of a general impression rather than an exact recording, as with stone tape theory.
    • Place memory still influenced the development of the stone tape theory in that it helped pave the way for spirits to be attached to specific places, rather than wandering around or attaching themselves to people. Place memory speaks to where ghosts are.
  3. At this point, most people already believed that emotions and trauma leave a residue, and psychometry proposes this occurs with objects too. Joseph Rhodes Buchanan was a scientist who also happened to be a dedicated spiritualist and his method of "psychometry" was meant to make the practice of spiritualism more scientific. Psychometry is based on the idea that the emotional residue people leave behind can be read and interpreted by living people. [5]
    • While people leave this residue behind all the time, everywhere they go, they leave more residue behind during traumatic experiences or when they're feeling strong emotions.
    • Psychometrists also note there is typically more emotional residue on items that someone touches frequently, such as a comb or a pen. [6]
    • Practicing psychometrists "read" this emotional residue to learn something about the person who once owned that object. For example, they might try to determine the location of a missing girl by holding her hair ribbon.
    • Buchanan himself wasn't really interested in ghosts and didn't really talk about it being used to communicate with or learn about people from the past. For him, psychometry was a high-level mental faculty that had yet to be explored to its full potential. [7]
    • At the same time, the popularity of psychometry meant people generally accepted that ghosts or spirits could reside in a specific object. Psychometry speaks to what ghosts can attach to.
  4. Psychometry's idea that objects could hold or replay memories or events from the past went dormant for a few decades after it was first proposed. But in the 1940s, H.H. Price, a paranormal researcher, proposed that there was a space called the "psychic ether" that fell between the physical and spiritual realms. It was this ether that allowed past emotions and experiences to imprint on objects in physical space—and it was also this ether that enabled them to be read. [8]
    • If a haunting went away over time, it was only because the psychic ether that was imprinted on that object wore away with repeated exposure.
    • This idea directly inspired the stone tape theory. In a way, you might say that the psychic ether is the ink used to make the recordings at the heart of the stone tape theory. Psychic ether speaks to how ghosts attach to physical objects.
  5. T.C. Lethbridge, an archaeologist-turned-paranormal researcher, liked the "psychic ether" idea and wanted to build on it. In his 1961 book Ghost and Ghoul , he proposed that the psychic ether might be particularly prone to imprinting around certain natural features, such as mountains, rock formations, or forests. These places would be more likely to have spiritual significance or stories of spirits that seemed to do the same things over and over without paying any attention to anything around them. [9]
    • Because these types of residual hauntings seem to resemble a sort of tape recording that's played over and over again on a loop, the theory became known as the stone tape theory.
    • Lethbridge's book is widely believed to have influenced the creators of the 1972 BBC teleplay "The Stone Tape Theory," which is where the specific name came from.
    • Stone tape theory brings together the "who" of spiritualism, the "where" of place memory, the "what" of psychometry, and the "how" of psychic ether into one theory that attempts to explain residual hauntings.
    • While the stone tape theory still left a lot of questions unanswered, it definitely provided a comfortable explanation for the types of hauntings that seem to be repeating the same actions over and over on a loop without acknowledging the outside world.
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Section 3 of 6:

Is there evidence to support stone tape theory?

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  1. While there have definitely been eyewitness accounts of residual hauntings that seem to support the stone tape theory, the reality is that no one has been able to show how such things could be recorded or how they'd be played back again. Even taken metaphorically, a recording would be identical every single time it's played back, and that's not the case for eyewitness accounts of residual hauntings. [10]
    • If anything, the evidence that does exist seems to contradict, rather than support, the stone tape theory.
    • Despite this lack of evidence, the theory still has proponents who argue that the recording apparatus (and the records themselves) exist on another plane. If that's the case, the truth of the theory doesn't depend on any physical evidence that humans could gather.
Section 4 of 6:

Criticism of the Stone Tape Theory

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  1. This criticism hinges on the use of the word "theory," which means something very specific in scientific circles. A scientific theory is backed up by a mountain of rigorous scientific testing and experiments that shows that it's true, while stone tape theory is merely mental speculation.
    • To add to this problem, paranormal researchers often present their work in such a way that people might mistakenly believe that it is a scientific theory. Paranormal research articles are written like scientific research articles and use much of the same language.
    • Critics are concerned that people will mistakenly believe that people have found evidence to support stone tape theory when that's not the case at all.
    • Paranormal researchers typically want their work to be respected and seen as just as valid as science, so they often try to present it as scientifically as possible.
  2. Psychometry has frequently been criticized as nothing but "cold reading"—observational techniques mentalists use to trick others into believing that they have psychic powers. [11] The same techniques can also be used to make a haunting fit the stone tape theory, this criticism goes, which makes the stone tape theory at least a little fraudulent as well.
    • The problem with this criticism is that just because some of these hauntings have been faked doesn't mean that all of them have been. You could have a thousand fakes and it still wouldn't mean real ones couldn't exist. [12]
  3. You don't listen to a recording by simply holding it up to your ear—you have to put it into a device that will play it back for you first. And yet, the stone tape theory doesn't include any explanation for how the tape is played back after it's recorded.
    • Not only that, but back in the 1970s when the stone tape theory was first popularized, you also had to rewind a recording after playing it back if you wanted to play it again. The stone tape theory doesn't provide any explanation for that either. [13]
    • This isn't necessarily the most serious criticism of the stone tape theory because you don't have to take the "stone tape" part literally to believe the crux of the theory. It's totally possible that emotional impressions recorded in the psychic ether can be played back in some way that humans haven't worked out yet.
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Section 5 of 6:

How to Investigate 21st Century Paranormal Activity

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  1. The first people who witnessed the haunting are always the ones you want to talk to, if possible. If nothing else, you can guarantee that their impressions weren't influenced by other eyewitnesses' accounts that they'd already heard about. If you're researching a historical haunting, look for any reports of the first eyewitness accounts and work from there. [14]
    • You might also look for modern witnesses who had never heard any stories about other accounts before having their experience, although those may be few and far between.
    • Pay attention to where eyewitnesses were standing, the time of day it was, and other environmental factors so you can recreate the setting as accurately as possible.
  2. Paranormal investigators recognize that it's pretty much impossible to provide definitive proof that a place is haunted—so they typically don't talk about proving the place is haunted at all. Rather, they're trying to eliminate any other possible reason for the phenomena observed.
    • This focus relies on the idea that natural explanations we already understand are far more likely than supernatural explanations.
  3. Modern paranormal researchers conduct investigations as scientifically as possible. To make sure any conclusions they make are supported by hard evidence, they do everything they can to control variables and record areas from multiple angles. [15]
    • Local ghost hunting and paranormal investigation groups exist all over the world. A little bit of hunting online will likely bring up at least one group near you.
    • Some local groups also do free events for the public where you can learn more about their methods and what they do. [16]
  4. If you're able to show that the haunting had an environmental cause, then eliminating that cause should eliminate any further haunting reports. Otherwise, it's unlikely that you've found anything in your investigation that can prove definitively whether the place is haunted or not.
    • It's even less likely that you'll be able to prove definitively the identity of the spirit or spirits haunting the place.
    • While you might conclude that it's highly likely to be a specific figure based on various circumstantial evidence, you'll never know for sure—and your conclusions should reflect that.
    • For example, you might say, "Historical accounts of the room make it likely that any spiritual presence would be the plantation owner's eldest daughter, who lived there her entire life."
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Section 6 of 6:

Final Thoughts: The Stone Tape Theory Legacy

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  1. While the stone tape theory itself might sound a little wonky to 21st century ears—especially if you take it literally—it was popular long enough to gain some strong proponents and made a lasting impact on the understanding of ghosts and hauntings in popular culture. [17]
    • In a lot of ways, the stone tape theory followed a natural progression of paranormal beliefs. While a lot of the specifics of it have been left to history, the basic pop culture understanding of residual hauntings comes from stone tape theory.
    • When you hear people talking about ghosts following the old footprint of a house in an older house that has been remodeled, this is based in part on the stone tape theory: while the house itself has changed, the recording hasn't.
    • While there's no evidence supporting the stone tape theory, there also isn't technically any evidence proving it wrong—which means the theory still has its proponents.

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      References

      1. ↑ https://www.scottish-paranormal.co.uk/post/place-memory-and-the-stone-tape-theory-a-comparative-analysis-by-chris-fleming
      2. ↑ https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Parks/OHenry/spiritualism.pdf
      3. ↑ https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=histcw_ms
      4. ↑ https://www.scottish-paranormal.co.uk/post/place-memory-and-the-stone-tape-theory-a-comparative-analysis-by-chris-fleming
      5. ↑ https://fst.org/spiritual-teachings/joseph-rodes-buchanan/
      6. ↑ https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=histcw_ms
      7. ↑ https://fst.org/spiritual-teachings/joseph-rodes-buchanan/
      8. ↑ https://www.scottish-paranormal.co.uk/post/place-memory-and-the-stone-tape-theory-a-comparative-analysis-by-chris-fleming
      9. ↑ https://www.scottish-paranormal.co.uk/post/place-memory-and-the-stone-tape-theory-a-comparative-analysis-by-chris-fleming
      1. ↑ https://www.assap.ac.uk/articles/detail/stone-tape-theory-recording-ghosts
      2. ↑ https://mentalismcentral.com/cold-reading-techniques/
      3. ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/spiritualism/ataglance/glance.shtml
      4. ↑ https://www.assap.ac.uk/articles/detail/stone-tape-theory-recording-ghosts
      5. ↑ https://www.assap.ac.uk/articles/detail/stone-tape-theory-recording-ghosts
      6. ↑ https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/downloads/2b88qc97p?filename=1_Wise_Daniel_2020_PHD.pdf
      7. ↑ https://www.hedbergpubliclibrary.org/event/tentative-haunted-house-history-8855
      8. ↑ https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=histcw_ms

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