September 2009 Archives
Paranormal unity. Is it realistic?
Since 1997, I have done some form of paranormal investigating whether it be by myself or with a team. My story is pretty standard. I grew up in a series of haunted houses and the curiosity of the unexplainable paranormal activity fueled me to take it to the next level.
My first real investigation took place at my work at the time. I worked at a video store with an upstairs that used to be an apartment. Employees hated to go up there because of a weird feeling. Some said they heard disembodied footsteps and things being moved around when they were downstairs.
In particular, there was one room near the bathroom that seemed to have the worst energy. Sometimes, customers asked to use the bathroom and after going past that room either refused or came down the stairs in record time. Nobody like it up there. Well, except me.
Instead of being afraid, I was more intrigued. I would come in early or on my days off just to sit upstairs with an analog tape recorder and ask questions. Sometimes I would just sit quietly and wait for something to happen. I even had a friend bring up a camera with infrared film and take pictures every hour overnight to see if anything manifested. Of course, my efforts paid off. But because I really wasn’t sure what I was doing I called in Richard Senate to ask him to review my pictures and recordings. He was surprised at the level of evidence I had gotten by myself and he taught me some tricks of that trade to better my findings in future investigations.
From there I studied psychic development extensively and dabbled in paranormal investigating when I could. Soon, I realized I had some cool abilities and I kept moving foward by myself with the investigating. I didn’t successfully start my own group until five years later. Typical of most paranormal groups, it imploded after a little over a year due to backstabbing and an alarming amount of drama. I took some time off and started P.I.S.A. a year later.
P.I.S.A. has definately had its fair share of drama. We have gone through a lot of members in the past two years. So many that I thought I was plagued with some sort of curse. Then I talked to other groups throughout the United States and unfortunately it seems to be the norm. And not only do paranormal groups have a high turnover, it is always high drama. Investigators don’t just leave groups with dignity. They leave embittered and try to do everything possible to take the group down with them. They have to try and discredit every part of the group and propel a smear campaign on every social media site they can subscribe. It becomes nearly obssessive. One minute they are praising your techniques and the next they are telling anyone who will listen how your methodology is flawed to the point of unprofessionalism.
This just doesn’t happen between paranormal groups and their former members. This happens between regional paranormal teams as well. Team A hates Team B because they hate their methodology. Because they don’t believe their way of investigating works. Or they aren’t professional enough. Or they use experiemental equipment without the permission of their clients. The list goes on. There are more reasons to hate another paranormal group then there are reasons to collaborate.
When I was happily investigating by myself (and I am sure there will be criticism about that since most groups believe you should never investigate alone) I didn’t even consider group politics. It never even occurred to me that methodologies would be scrutinized so heavily. I thought that the reason for investigating was to find reasons for paranormal activity. To perhaps find some answers to those big questions. Never in my life did I imagine that I would be involved in some crazy blood bath of ideals and protocols.
I will be the first person to tell you that I have done some crazy name calling. I have criticised other groups methodologies. I have called some groups unprofessional. I am not immune to the cattiness. That doesn’t mean that I condone it in anyway. Often, I am sorry later that I ever opened my mouth. But sometimes its so easy to try and discredit someone else’s protocol when it doesn’t blend with my own ideology.
And I think that’s partly why we as a paranormal community will never be able to unify. Paranormal investigating has so much to do with our own personal views of spirituality and theology. And I think where a lot of us as paranormal investigators go wrong. We don’t wholly embrace the correlation between spirituality and paranormal investigating. A lot of groups try to make a scientific endeavor using the Ghost Hunters TV show as their model.
I know that this is clearly evident but I must state the obvious here: Ghost Hunters is a TV show NOT a methodology. It’s a fact that a lot of paranormal investigators don’t seem to understand. Using Ghost Hunters as a methodology model for paranormal investigating is like using Rock of Love as a manual for dating. I don’t have problems with the show(s). I think they work for what they are made for, entertaining people. But they aren’t scientifc nor are they a model to follow for practical paranormal investigating.
TAPS as a paranormal group has a very strict protocol and it works well for them. As paranormal investigators I know they are passionate about what they do and they do it well. However, there should be a clear distinction between TAPS the group and Ghost Hunters the TV show. And that goes for any paranormal TV show. There is a clear difference between the TV show and the groups that star in the show. One is for entertainment, the other is real.
What does this have to do with paranormal unity. Well, we have subgroup of a society who are working with spiritual ideologies and trying to prove to themselves and others what they believe does exist through paranormal investigating. And we have TV shows that are used has methodologies for those spiritual ideologies. And it’s a mess. A mixture of theories coupled with a unrealistic sense of how paranormal investigating is suppossed to be. The technical (scientific) groups don’t like the psychic groups because their methods don’t have any quantifiable results. The psychic groups don’t like the technical groups because they fail to realize the importance of psychic impressions and the human experience (qualitative results.) Somewhere in the middle there are groups that use both the technical and psychic methods. And some who use their own.
Everyone seems to think they have the right way of doing things. A lot of people purporting to have the true way of investigating. Hell, even I get on my high horse and think I am doing it right. But that’s just my ego talking thinking that I am more self-important than I really am. The truth of it is that nobody knows what the truth is. It’s a large, enigmatic subject that boundless with possibilities and unanswerable questions.
However, if we are all getting the same kind of evidence (evp, pictures, etc.) and having the same kind of personal experiences (disembodies voices, cold spots, etc.) then who is to say that there is only way of investigating? And how much of what is evidence is truly paranormal and not the agent of sloppy methodologies?
These are all good questions but I think it’s urealistic to think that anyone can answer these questions with any subjectivity. It’s all based on our own ideologies. There are those who work in the true parapsychological (scientific) realms and even they don’t have straight-forward answers.
Still, if paranormal investigating is every going to be taken seriously there has to be a measure of realism. I think the first step is to come up with methodologies and protocols that don’t involve TV shows. I think it’s wiser to pick up a book and read about spiritualism or the forefathers of the paranormal field or even parapsychology than to immerse ourselves in an unrealistic ideology edited by producers and prepackaged for the masses.
Because of this sometimes I wish I never had a paranormal group. Sometimes I wish I was that naive investigator immersed in my findings and wide-eyed with a curiousity that etched through the possibilities…Sometimes it seems simpler…
