Eight years ago, I was haunted by an evil spirit.
八年前,我遭遇了闹鬼。
I was 25 at the time, and I was living in a tiny house behind someone else's house in Los Angeles. It was this guest house, it had kind of been dilapidated, not taken care of for a long time. And one night, I was sitting there and I got this really spooky feeling, kind of the feeling like you're being watched. But no one was there except my two dogs, and they were just chewing their feet. And I looked around. No one was there. And I thought, OK, it's just my imagination. But the feeling just kept getting worse, and I started to feel this pressure in my chest, sort of like the feeling when you get bad news. But it started to sink lower and lower and almost hurt.
那时我25岁, 在洛杉矶住在一个别人房子后面的 小房子里。 那个房子是一个很破旧的客房, 很长时间没有人维护了。 一天晚上,我坐在里面, 然后觉得异常的阴森恐怖, 仿佛有人在看着我。 但除了我跟我的两只狗以外,并无其他人, 狗狗在咬它们的爪子。 我又四处看了看。的确没人。 好吧,可能只是我的幻想吧。 但这种感觉却愈加强烈, 我开始觉得胸闷, 就像你听到坏消息时候的那种感觉。 胸越来越沉, 都快疼起来了。
And over the course of that week, this feeling got worse and worse, and I started to become convinced that something was there in my little guest house, haunting me.
那一周里,这种感觉越来越糟糕。 我慢慢相信在我小小的客房里 真的有鬼在缠着我。
And I started to hear these sounds, this "whoosh," kind of whisper, like something passing through me. I called my best friend, Claire, and said, "I know this is going to sound crazy, but, um ... I think there's a ghost in my house, and I need to get rid of it." And she said -- she's very open-minded -- and she said, "I don't think you're crazy. I think you just need to do a cleansing ritual."
同时,我也开始听见一些声音, “呜呜呜,”仿佛有东西从我身上呼啸而过。 我打电话给了我最好的朋友,克莱尔,告诉她, 你可能会觉得我疯了, 但是…… 我屋里有鬼,我得驱走它。 然后,非常开明的她,说道, 我并不认为你疯了, 我认为你需要一个驱魔法事。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
"So get some sage and burn it, and tell it to go away."
“找一些鼠尾草,然后烧掉, 把鬼驱走。”
So I said, "OK," and I went and I bought sage. I had never done this before, so I set the sage on fire, waved it about, and said, "Go away! This is my house! I live here. You don't live here!" But the feeling stayed. Nothing got better. And then I started to think, OK, well now this thing is probably just laughing at me, because it hasn't left, and I probably just look like this impotent, powerless thing that couldn't get it to go away.
“好的,”我说道。然后买了鼠尾草来烧。 我从没干过这种事情,我点燃了鼠尾草, 四处挥舞,并说道,“快走! 这是我的房子,我住这儿。 你才不住这儿呢!” 但我仍然感觉异样,事情没有好转。 然后我开始想, 呵呵,这个鬼现在应该在嘲笑我吧, 因为它并没有被赶走。 我差不多就是个赶不走鬼的 废人了。
So every day I'd come home and you guys, this feeling got so bad that -- I mean, I'm laughing at it now -- but I would sit there in bed and cry every night. And the feeling on my chest got worse and worse. It was physically painful. And I even went to a psychiatrist and tried to get her to prescribe me medicine, and she wouldn't just because I don't have schizophrenia, OK.
每天我回家, 由于太过难受,我甚至每晚都坐在床上哭。 现在回想觉得有点好笑。 但当时我胸部的压迫感越来越严重, 已经算生理上的疼痛了。 我甚至去看了一个精神科的医生, 试图能从她那儿开点药。 她以我没有精神分裂为理由,拒绝了我。
(Laughter) So finally I got on the internet, and I Googled "hauntings." And I came upon this forum of ghost hunters. But these were a special kind of ghost hunters -- they were skeptics. They believed that every case of ghosts that they had investigated so far had been explained away by science. And I was like, "OK, smart guys, this is what's happening to me, and if you have an explanation for me, I would love to hear it."
(笑声) 最终,我上网,搜索了“闹鬼”。 我发现了一个猎鬼者聚集的论坛。 其中有一群人—— 他们是怀疑论者, 并坚信,每一例他们所调查过的闹鬼事件, 都能被科学澄清。 然后,我留言写下了我的经历, “学霸们,真想听一下你们 对我遭遇的事情作何解释。”
And one of them said, "OK. Um, have you heard of carbon monoxide poisoning?"
有一个人回复,“嗯。 你有没有听过一氧化碳中毒?”
And I said, "Yeah. Like, gas poisoning?"
我回复,“有啊。 是气体中毒么?”
Carbon monoxide poisoning is when you have a gas leak leaking into your home. I looked it up, and the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include a pressure on your chest, auditory hallucinations -- whoosh -- and an unexplained feeling of dread. So that night, I called the gas company. I said, "I have an emergency. I need you to come out. I don't want to get into the story now, but I need you to come out."
一氧化碳中毒发生于煤气泄漏的时候, 泄漏到了你家里。 我查了一氧化碳中毒的症状, 有胸闷, 幻听——呼—— 及莫名的恐惧感。 当晚,我就打电话给了煤气公司, “我这里有个紧急情况,需要你们马上过来一趟。 你们先来,我一时半会儿说不完事情的前因后果。“
(Laughter)
(笑声)
They came out. I said, "I suspect a gas leak." They brought their carbon monoxide detector, and the man said, "It's a really good thing that you called us tonight, because you could have been dead very soon."
他们来了,我说,“我怀疑有煤气泄漏。” 然后他们用了一氧化碳探测器, 其中一人说道, “还好你今晚叫了我们, 否则你很有可能很快就死掉了。“
Thirty-seven percent of Americans believe in haunted houses, and I wonder how many of them have been in one and how many of them have been in danger.
37%的美国人相信有房子会闹鬼, 我想知道有多少人是遭遇过这样的房子, 而有多少人其实是身处危险中的。
So that haunting story has led me to my job. I'm an investigator, and I'm an investigator in two senses: I'm an investigative journalist, and I'm also an investigator of the claims of the paranormal and claims of the spiritual. And that means a few things. Sometimes that means that I'm pretending to need an exorcism so I can get -- yes, that's right! -- so I can go to an exorcist and see if he's using gimmicks or psychological tricks to try to convince someone that they're possessed. Sometimes that means I'm going undercover in a fringe group which I report on for a podcast that I co-host. And I've done over 70 investigations like this with my co-host, Ross. I would love to tell you that nine times out of 10, science wins, saves the day, it's all explained. That's not true. The truth is, 10 times out of 10, science wins, it saves the day.
那段闹鬼遭遇,促使我做了现在的工作。 我是一个两种意义上的调查者, 一来,我是一个调查记者, 二来,我也是那些超自然事件的调查者, 调查那些关于鬼魂的事件。 这就意味着, 有时我得假装我需要驱魔, 这样我才能,对了,去找驱魔师, 看看他是不是在用诡计 骗那些已经入魔了的人。 有时候我得打入边缘群体内部, 这我也在播客里报道过。 我和我的搭档罗斯一起 调查了类似的70宗事件。 我很想告诉大家, 90%的情况下,都是科学赢了, 化险为夷,真相大白。 但事实并非如此。 事实是,100%的情况下, 科学赢了,真相大白。
(Applause)
(掌声)
And that doesn't mean there's no such thing as a mystery. Of course there are mysteries, but a mystery is a mystery. It is not a ghost.
这并不是说,世界上无迷可言。 当然有未解之谜,但迷就是迷。 不是鬼。
Now, I believe there are two kinds of truth, and it's taken me a while to get to this place, but I think this is right, so hear me out. I think there is outer truth and there's inner truth. So if you say to me, "There was a man named Jesus and he once existed," that's outer truth, right? And we can go and look at the historical record. We can determine whether that seems to be true. And I would argue, it does seem to be true. If you say, "Jesus rose from the dead," -- ooh, trickier.
现在我认为,世上的真相有两种, 尽管我想了很久才得出这个结论, 但我认为它是正确的, 所以请容我来谈一谈。 我认为世上有外在的真相和内在的真相。 如果你对我说, “曾有一个人叫耶稣,他曾存在过,” 这是一个外在的事实对吧? 我们有历史记录可查。 我们可以决定这个事是否真实。 而且我觉得,的确像是真的。 如果你说,“耶稣死而复生”——有点难办。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
I would say that's an outer-truth claim, because he physically rose or he didn't. I'm not going to get into whether he rose or he didn't, but I would say that's an outer-truth claim. It happened or it didn't happen. But if you say, "I don't care whether he rose from the dead. It's symbolically important to me, and that metaphor is so meaningful, so purposeful to me, and I'm not going to try to persuade you of it," now you've moved it from outer truth to inner truth, from science to art. And I think we have a tendency to not be clear about this, to try to move our inner truths to outer truths, or to not be fair about it to each other, and when people are telling us their inner truths, to try to make them defend them by outer-truth standards.
我会说这是一个客观事实的主张, 根据他是否复活的事实。 我不是要去证明他到底有没有复活, 而是说这是一个客观事实陈述。 发生了,或者没有发生。 但如果你说:“不管他有没有复活, 这件事对我来说就是象征性地重要, 这现象对我来说是非常有意义的、意味深远的, 而我也没有要尝试说服你同意我。 现在你已经把这从客观事实转换成主观事实, 从科学转变成艺术。 我认为我们有不想搞清楚这些事情的倾向, 不想将我们认定的主观事实转换成客观事实, 或者给予这两种事实不公平的认同。 在人们告诉我们他们的主观事实时 试着使主观事实抵御着客观事实的准则,
So I'm talking here about outer truth, about objective things. And there was an objective reality in my haunted house, right? Now that I've told you about the gas leak, I doubt a single person here would be like, "I still think there was a ghost, too" --
所以我将要讨论和客观事情有关的客观事实 有个客观的事实在我被恶灵占据的房子,对吧? 现在我已经告诉你这是因为瓦斯外泄了, 但我怀疑这里有个人还是会觉得, “我还是认为那里有鬼”——
(Laughter)
(笑声)
because as soon as we have these scientific explanations, we know to give up the ghost. We use these things as stopgaps for things that we can't explain. We don't believe them because of evidence; we believe them because of a lack of evidence.
因为一当我们有这些科学解释时, 我们就知道该放弃有鬼的的想法了。 我们用这些想法来暂时解决 我们所无法解释的事情, 我们不因为有证据而不相信; 我们却因为缺少证据而相信。
So there is a group in Los Angeles called the Independent Investigations Group, or the IIG, and they do great work. They'll give a $10,000 prize to anyone who can show, under scientific conditions, that they have a paranormal ability. No one's done it yet, but they've had a couple people who claim that they were clairaudients, which means that they can hear voices either from the great beyond or they can read minds. And they had one person who was very sincere, who believed that he could read minds. So they set up a test with him, and this is the way it always works. The group says, "OK, we have a protocol, we have a way to scientifically test this. Do you agree with it?" The person says yes. Then they test it. It's very important that both sides agree. They did that, they tested him. They said, "OK, you know what? You weren't able to predict what Lisa was thinking. It matched up about the same as chance. Looks like you don't have the power."
所以在洛杉矶有个组织, 叫做独立调查组织,或是IIG(英文简称), 他们做得很棒。 他们提供10000美金的奖赏, 给任何可以在科学佐证下, 展现他们超自然能力的人。 目前没有人做过这个, 但他们让几个声称他们有阴阳耳的人, 也就是他们可以听到来自阴间的声音, 或是有读心术。 然后他们找了一个很诚实, 真的相信自己有读心术的人。 他们开始测试他,而这总是有效。 这个组织说, “好!我们有一套方法, 我们可以用科学方法验证你的能力。 你同意吗?“ 那个人说好,然后他们开始测试。 取得双方同意是非常重要的事情。 他们开始测试他。 他们说:“好,你知道吗? 你没有能力预测丽莎在想什么。 这只是偶然的吻合。 你似乎没有超能力。“
And that gave them the opportunity to compassionately sit down with him and have a very difficult discussion, which basically amounted to, "Hey, we know you're sincere, and what that means is, you do hear something in your head."
这给了他们一个赋予同理心的机会, 坐下来进行一个艰难的讨论, 基本上等同于, “嘿!我们知道你是诚实的,而我们的意思是, 你真的听到了一些声音, 但只是来自你自己脑中。”
And that guy got to make the very difficult decision, but really the life-changing decision about whether to go get help. We're actually helping people to make these connections that maybe before seemed like otherworldly explanations, help draw us into reality and maybe change our lives for the better.
而那个人需要作出一个艰难, 几乎要改变命运的决定, 关于是否要寻求协助。 我们事实上是在帮助人们做出一些连结, 将一些以前似乎会用 有另一个世界来解释的事情, 拉回到现实层面, 而这或许可以让我们的生活更美好。
Now, on the other hand, maybe one time it'll turn out to be true. Maybe we'll find out there are ghosts, and holy shit, it will be the best thing! And every time I do one of these investigations, I still get so excited, and I'm like 75 into them, and still I swear on number 76, I'm going to be like, "This is the one!"
另一方面,或许哪天鬼会变成事实。 或许我们会发现这世上真的有鬼。 这将会是最棒的事情! 每当我听到有关这方面的调查时, 我还是会非常兴奋, 我就像是有75分感兴趣, 但当到达76分感兴趣时, 我就会说:“这就是了!”
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Maybe I'm just eternally optimistic, but I hope I never lose this hope, and I invite you to take this same attitude when people share their outer beliefs with you. When talking about testable claims, respect them enough to ask these good questions. Challenge and see how you can examine them together, because there's this idea that you can't respect a belief and still challenge it, but that's not true. When we jiggle the lock, when we test the claim, we're saying, OK, I respect you, I'm listening to what you're saying, I'm going to test it out with you. We've all had that experience where you're telling someone something, and they're like, "Oh, that's really interesting, yeah," you know you're being had. But when someone says, "Really? Huh. Sounds a little sketchy to me, but I'm listening," you at least know you're being engaged and respected. And that's the kind of attitude we should have with these claims. That's showing someone that you care what they're saying. That's respect.
或许我只是常常很乐观, 但我希望我不要失去这样的希望, 我鼓励你采取一样的态度, 用在别人们和你分享他们的客观事实时。 当谈论到可以辩论的主张时, 给他们足够的尊重, 让他们提出些很棒的问题。 挑战并观察你可以怎么一起检视他们, 因为你无法相信一个看法, 而一直挑战它,这是不对的。 当我们转动锁,当我们检视主张, 我们会说:好的,我尊重你, 我会听你想说的话, 我将会和你一起验证。 我们都有这样的经验, 当你在告诉某人某些事情时, 他们会说:“哇,这真的非常有趣,对诶,” 你可以知道你被认同了。 但当他们说:“真的吗?唔。 这听起来有点陌生,不过我正在听。” 至少你知道,你是被肯定且受尊重的。 这也是一种我们对他人看法 需要有表现的态度。 表现出你重视别人在说什么。 这是尊重。
Now, yes, most of these searches will come up empty, but that's how all of science works. Every cure for cancer so far has not panned out, but we don't stop looking, for two reasons. Because number one, the answer matters. Whether it's looking at the afterlife or the paranormal or the cure for cancer, it all amounts to the same question: How long will we be here?
没错,多数的调查都没什么结果, 但这就是所有科学的运作方式。 到目前为止,每个治疗癌症的方法 都还没成功, 但我们并没有停止追寻。 这有两个原因。 第一,这答案很重要。 不管我们是探索晚年还是超自然现象, 或是癌症的治疗方法, 这全部都指向一个共同的问题: 我们需要花多少时间来解决这些问题?
And two, because looking for the truth, being open-minded, and being willing to be wrong and to change your whole worldview is awe-inspiring.
第二,因为寻找真相, 敞开心胸, 乐于犯错并且改变你的世界观 是令人振奋的。
I still get excited at ghost stories every single time. I still consider that every group I join might be right, and I hope I never lose that hope. Let's all never lose that hope, because searching for what's out there helps us understand what's in here. And also, please have a carbon monoxide detector in your home.
我每次听到有关鬼的故事 还是都非常兴奋。 我依旧认为每个我加入的组织 很有可能是对的, 而我也希望从不失去希望。 我们都别失去希望, 因为找寻客观的事实 会帮助我们更了解内在事实。 除此之外,请大家在家里 安置一个一氧化碳检探测器。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)