Integrated Paranormal For Everyone
“There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is how
far is it from midtown and how late is it open.” Woody Allen.
What is the paranormal? The word means beyond normal, above normal, other than normal. That is a very general term. Since Ghost Hunters the TV series, the term has come to refer to ghosts and their various manifestations: taps, footsteps, EVPs, apparitions, shadow people, disembodied voices, being touched, etc. and that is what paranormal investigators investigate. Sometimes a little bit of science is involved, or we like to think it is. For many years this was what we knew and practiced. Because of the TAPS phenomena and all of its spin-offs, we got very familiar with their process, their techniques of investigating, their equipment, and became very fond of their team. Terms like "debunking", EVPs, and EMF became familiar terms to Americans. We got pretty comfortable with all of this. Jason and Grant were the fathers of paranormal investigating. Didn't we all love to say, "Great investigation. On to the next!"
But, in the past few years the field has been invaded by aliens. Ok...not aliens; people who claim all sorts of expertise and ability and latch onto the paranormal community of investigators, join teams, and have changed the very nature of what paranormal investigating is and how the paranormal is defined.
Psychics
Mediums
Exorcists
Psychic-Mediums
Psychic Historians
Demonologists
Big foot
UFOlogists
Cryptobiologists
Fiaries and Elementals
Para Psychological gifts such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, remote viewing, astro projection, yadayadayada.
Orbs
dousing rods
Ouija boards
pendulumns
EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING has jumped on the paranormal bandwagon. It makes my head spin and my K2 meter go to red.
Since when did what we old folks used to call the occult move into paranormal city and take up residence without so much as a lease?
Back in the mid 1800s this stuff was rampant, and since the Fox sisters committed psychic fraud this has been going on. It was cleaned up a lot after the turn of the century. (Read my entry on the history of ghost hunting). With the emergence of paranormal interest in the 20th century, especially with books by Hans Holzer, famous stories like the Amityville Horror and the popularity of investigators and demonologists Ed and Elizabeth Warren, there emerged a large audience and market for ghost hunting. The time was ripe for the show Ghost Hunters and TAPS to emerge and become a TV phenomena. The attempt of Jason and Grant to be scientific, objective and honest in their approach to ghost hunting was and is still admirable. I don't think they are to blame for opening the door to the hoards of hoaxers, fakes, frauds, and charlatans that are the paranormal scene today. It is one of the things that prompted me to begin writing about all things paranormal. I wanted to see if anyone else out there felt as I do. Are you as dismayed and alarmed and I am by the deluge of everything subjective, emotional, spiritually out there, fringe, occult, frandulent just plain wackadoodle?
The latest thing to hit fame and fad-dome is something called a psychic historian. This is a person who mixes their self proclaimed psychic abilities with the "reading" of history. For instance, they can "read" the history of a location and the lives of the people who used to live there. The personal histories of the ghosts who manifest are revealed to them. Of course, they will sometimes charge for this service. They come into a historical location and tell the owners about the history of their ghosts. It is very easy to go online and look up the history of a place. They can then extrapolate a history of someones past life from that history.
I long for the good old days when everyone was excited about TAPS. What new equipment would they reveal on the next episode? Would they catch evidence of a spirit on film? Would Brian scream, "Dude, run!"?
Now, we are inundated with self proclaimed psychic-medium-historian-exorcist-reiki experts who also run ghost tours of Gettysburg in their spare time.
Last year Jason, without the grounding of Grant, claimed to have found elemental activity at a camp ground.
I once joined a paranormal investigative team just to investigate the existance of fairies...to my embarrassment.
I can't tell you how many times a psychic has messed with the heads of a client and told them things about thier beloved home horrific enough to send them packing, and for no good reason and based upon not a scintilla of fact or evidence.
Dousing rods where used to find water. Now they are used to find ghosts.
Orbs are floating human dead spirits when they are really flying dust.
I am very worried about all of this. I have left investigating temporarily while the field calms down and gets a grip on itself. I hope I can be one of the people working in this field who can help it to find its ground again and get back to the exciting science and art of ghost hunting and find the answers to the universal questions that intrigue us all.
What is the paranormal? The word means beyond normal, above normal, other than normal. That is a very general term. Since Ghost Hunters the TV series, the term has come to refer to ghosts and their various manifestations: taps, footsteps, EVPs, apparitions, shadow people, disembodied voices, being touched, etc. and that is what paranormal investigators investigate. Sometimes a little bit of science is involved, or we like to think it is. For many years this was what we knew and practiced. Because of the TAPS phenomena and all of its spin-offs, we got very familiar with their process, their techniques of investigating, their equipment, and became very fond of their team. Terms like "debunking", EVPs, and EMF became familiar terms to Americans. We got pretty comfortable with all of this. Jason and Grant were the fathers of paranormal investigating. Didn't we all love to say, "Great investigation. On to the next!"
But, in the past few years the field has been invaded by aliens. Ok...not aliens; people who claim all sorts of expertise and ability and latch onto the paranormal community of investigators, join teams, and have changed the very nature of what paranormal investigating is and how the paranormal is defined.
Psychics
Mediums
Exorcists
Psychic-Mediums
Psychic Historians
Demonologists
Big foot
UFOlogists
Cryptobiologists
Fiaries and Elementals
Para Psychological gifts such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, remote viewing, astro projection, yadayadayada.
Orbs
dousing rods
Ouija boards
pendulumns
EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING has jumped on the paranormal bandwagon. It makes my head spin and my K2 meter go to red.
Since when did what we old folks used to call the occult move into paranormal city and take up residence without so much as a lease?
Back in the mid 1800s this stuff was rampant, and since the Fox sisters committed psychic fraud this has been going on. It was cleaned up a lot after the turn of the century. (Read my entry on the history of ghost hunting). With the emergence of paranormal interest in the 20th century, especially with books by Hans Holzer, famous stories like the Amityville Horror and the popularity of investigators and demonologists Ed and Elizabeth Warren, there emerged a large audience and market for ghost hunting. The time was ripe for the show Ghost Hunters and TAPS to emerge and become a TV phenomena. The attempt of Jason and Grant to be scientific, objective and honest in their approach to ghost hunting was and is still admirable. I don't think they are to blame for opening the door to the hoards of hoaxers, fakes, frauds, and charlatans that are the paranormal scene today. It is one of the things that prompted me to begin writing about all things paranormal. I wanted to see if anyone else out there felt as I do. Are you as dismayed and alarmed and I am by the deluge of everything subjective, emotional, spiritually out there, fringe, occult, frandulent just plain wackadoodle?
The latest thing to hit fame and fad-dome is something called a psychic historian. This is a person who mixes their self proclaimed psychic abilities with the "reading" of history. For instance, they can "read" the history of a location and the lives of the people who used to live there. The personal histories of the ghosts who manifest are revealed to them. Of course, they will sometimes charge for this service. They come into a historical location and tell the owners about the history of their ghosts. It is very easy to go online and look up the history of a place. They can then extrapolate a history of someones past life from that history.
I long for the good old days when everyone was excited about TAPS. What new equipment would they reveal on the next episode? Would they catch evidence of a spirit on film? Would Brian scream, "Dude, run!"?
Now, we are inundated with self proclaimed psychic-medium-historian-exorcist-reiki experts who also run ghost tours of Gettysburg in their spare time.
Last year Jason, without the grounding of Grant, claimed to have found elemental activity at a camp ground.
I once joined a paranormal investigative team just to investigate the existance of fairies...to my embarrassment.
I can't tell you how many times a psychic has messed with the heads of a client and told them things about thier beloved home horrific enough to send them packing, and for no good reason and based upon not a scintilla of fact or evidence.
Dousing rods where used to find water. Now they are used to find ghosts.
Orbs are floating human dead spirits when they are really flying dust.
I am very worried about all of this. I have left investigating temporarily while the field calms down and gets a grip on itself. I hope I can be one of the people working in this field who can help it to find its ground again and get back to the exciting science and art of ghost hunting and find the answers to the universal questions that intrigue us all.
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