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It is the Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian people that we have to thank for our current concept of ghosts in the Western world at least.

Between the 18th and early 20th centuries, the modern ghost became fully fleshed as it were.

It was during these eras that ghosts developed the universal characteristics and attributes that became the stereotypical ghost and the stereotypical haunting, embraced by Victorians and the stereotypes still held by us today.

These three modern eras are when ghosts really came into their own, thriving and starring in works of literature and plays, and in what probably contributed to the ghost craze, almost more than anything.

Newspaper reports in print media.

It was at this time when technological advances led to cheaper printing and wider distribution of printed news, and when more of the public were literate than ever before, that the supernatural became a sensation.

Strangely, it was in this modern, rapidly advancing technological environment that tail spread of specters of women in white, had this horsemen and the spirits of victims of murder most foul, adding more fantastical, colorful stories to local beliefs, folklore and legends.

Ghosts had become so popular in both fiction and news reports in fact that by the 1890s, the increase of these stories actually came to be referred to as the ghost nuisance.

Believe in troublesome ghosts so intensified that there was concern that ghost panics could lead to a major waste of police time and public resources.

So before we start on the haunted house episode coming up, let's take a look at where our modern ideas and ghostly stereotypes come from.

Let's take a look back to the people who came just before us. The people who became so wrapped up in this new ghost culture that's an alarming strange and often criminal practice began trending, and it was called ghost hoaxing.

This is a strange and unusual podcast with Ells and Horrocks, and welcome to episode 37, playing the ghost.

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