How many people visit abandoned mines to find tommyknockers?

I haven't watched the new reality ghost-hunting show, GHOST MINE, which debuts tonight.

We all know how popular ghost-hunting and paranormal shows are today. This topic goes away and comes back throughout the public consciousness in America.

I don't know if GHOST MINES will hold a lasting public interest. Why? How many people visit abandond mines? Do mine workers see ghosts in working mines?

Ghost-hunting and ghost-research are popular because lots of people can relate. People have lived in haunted houses, visited haunted homes and locations, but just about nobody has interest in going into a dangerous, abandoned mine to ferret out human ghosts.

Yes, abandoned and open mines should be chock full of human ghosts if you accept the premise that places of human tragedy tend to attract the paranormal. Uncounted tens of thousands of human beings perished in minework throughout human history. The number is probably in the hundreds of thousands. I wouldn't be surprised if I was grossly undercounting. Dangerous mining was not always voluntary or a chosen occupation, dangerous as it still is. Human slavery manned much of pre-20th century mining. You read ancient accounts of mining where voluntary workers and slaves perished in the frequent cave-ins, explosions, oxygen deprivation, numerous fatal and mortal injuries, sheer overwork - to death, and death by violence at the hands of overseers or co-miners.

The legend of ghost miners, "tommyknockers", goes back hundreds of years so I'm sure the ghost-hunting team will find something. I'm not sure they should be there. Human ghosts being earthbound are in pain and torment; they cannot pass over or are unwilling to pass over. They need pity, compassion, prayers, and masses to help them rest in peace. Why should the living treat them like circus and carnival freak attractions, as if poking them with a stick?