This is something I use to believe, but over the years I have changed my mind.  At least when it comes to finding proof of the paranormal.  While anyone can go out searching for paranormal experiences, most people lack the understanding of the scientific process and data gathering to do much more than provide themselves with evidence other than to convince themselves, or convince other people who fail to employ critical thinking skills to properly examine the evidence at hand.

Once again I can understand why the Para-Celebs will espouse this sentiment as it helps with book sales, promotes more attendance at paranormal conventions, and is good at hooking people into the paranormal market.  But it is only easy if someone throws out the tedium of scientific methods and rules.  Real research is time consuming, tedious, and quite frankly, boring as hell.  Some will say that investigating the paranormal as the paranormal community currently does is all that, but I’d have to disagree that they are close in comparison.  It is true that sitting around some creepy building can get a bit boring at times, but when compared to the tedium of collecting and analyzing for periods of years the conclusion becomes quite clear as to which is truly winner.   I’d say this is something the Para-Celebs don’t want people to know, especially since they are generally the least scientific people in the paranormal community, and their books and lectures are full of pseudoscience.  

So is investigating the paranormal so easy that anyone can do it? No, but ‘spook hunting’ is, even when taking into account learning the dogma associated with ‘spook hunting’.  If we look at what is truly involved with making progress in the realm of paranormal investigation it quickly becomes apparent that productive paranormal investigation is not something that anyone can do.  That’s just how it is.  Some people are cut out for science, some are not.  Now with ‘spook hunting’, since there is no real science involved, anyone can walk around a creepy building with various gadgets and get excited when a light flashes or some other anomalous reading occurs.

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There is the old saying that man is destined to repeat his mistakes if he does not learn from the past.  With that in mind, I have to wonder about the paranormal community and why they don’t learn from their mistakes.  Now I know part of it is because of all the fraud that makes the paranormal look like there’s amazing things to be captured out there, but when does the community learn that the methods that are being used are at its best, suggestive that there may be something to investigate.  Why do investigators cling to methods that time has proven do not establish proof of ghosts or the paranormal?  This also brings to mind, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.”

So will the paranormal community ever learn from it’s past? Will they ever break from the pseudoscience? Some investigators will say they do because their always trying out new equipment, but when they continue to misuse and misinterpret the data from such devices I have to question whether or not that’s really trying anything new since the ways of trying to use the equipment are still the same.  Why doesn’t the paranormal community ever veer off from the past methods and try something truly new to them and employ science?

And that makes wonder their attitude towards true science.  What are they afraid of? They might find the evidence shows them something they don’t want to see? Or is it that they don’t want to deal with the tedium of science?  The Para-Celebs I can understand why they don’t.  That would interrupt their cash flow, but to the average investigator, why continue the insanity when the results are always inconclusive and produce nothing but junk evidence?  Why won’t investigators take the time to read up on scientific method and conduct investigations by the rules that eliminate possibilities and actually establish truths and facts?

That brings me back to the question of laziness.  Are investigators simply too lazy to take the time to study?  To me it’s either this or it’s simply that the bulk of investigators are more into the thrill of the hunt for things that go bump in the night, and not for the thrill of gaining ground in the search for the truth behind paranormal activity.

My own experience with the methods most investigators use is that they don’t produce results that are of use except to convince those who are easily persuaded into belief, or already believe.  The moment that became apparent to me, I pretty much stop investigating and started learning.   The first thing I learned is that what I was doing was pointless in the fact that my evidence wasn’t verifiable, therefore not factual.  It was simply anomalistic and undefinable.  The next thing I realized was that I needed to learn how to properly collect data and analyze it, as well as how to use critical thought when creating experiments to establish facts.  That is the reason I stopped investigating at the moment.  To properly conduct experiments that will produce facts requires resources, and those have been limited for a fair period of time.  One thing that has happened during the wait for resources is that I have continued go over my thoughts on investigation methods and refine them.

Now I know a lot of investigators won’t agree with what I’m saying here, and they will claim that I’m wrong.   In those cases I’d say they are the ones who are wrong, and can prove it by simply having science take a look at their evidence.   Of course they’ll begin to point out the flaws in science as a defense of their evidence, but that’s no different than tearing someone down to try and build yourself up and still does not address the fact that their evidence doesn’t establish proof in any way shape or form, and only exemplifies the point I’m making here: The Paranormal Community is Destined for Perpetual Failure.   Until they begin to do things in a logical, scientific, and intelligent manner, I’d say this will be true until the end of man,; unless science provides them with something tangible.

Searching across the web I’ve found several groups that do all their discussion behind private boards and user groups, and I can’t help but wonder why.  I know that in part it’s from having “undesirable” people from disrupting their groups beliefs, but what good can come from it?  In more than one case I’ve infiltrated these groups to find that they are nothing more than cults of believers in the paranormal who tolerate little to no deviation in ideas and philosophies of the group admins.  Some are based on ghosts and paranormal investigation, some on psychic abilities, but whatever the exact subject matter they all appear to be created for a single person or small group to tell others how to think if they wish to remain part of that group.

To me, that definitely spells “cult”.  Especially with how some of those groups are run with a rigid hand from the group admins who tell the rest of the group what is the proper way to do things, as well as what theories are true and which ones aren’t.  I had to laugh when reading through the discussion of one group where they were arguing about what a ghost is, when the group admin set forth their knowledge and made it clear that “ghosts are the souls of those who have died tortured deaths, or those who died with unfinished business”. Then when one person simply questioned which one created residual hauntings and which on created intelligent hauntings, the admin saw that as an attack on their statement and they were then banned.

What really gets me with all of this is the fact that these clandestine groups claim to be “open minded”.  I guess they don’t understand what “open minded” is, because they are some of the most close minded groups I’ve ever seen.  Open minded groups don’t shut down alternative discussion, nor do they feel the need to hide behind walls.  If these groups were as open minded as they claim to be then they would allow questions and open debate.  But that is the last thing they do.

What I see in these groups is ego, ignorance, and the need to gain support from others with similar beliefs.  All very similar to the basis for any cult I’ve seen whether it’s Waco, Jonestown, or Heaven’s Gate; all have similarities rooted in belief of something that cannot be touched or felt, and all have the all knowing who preach down to the others what they should and should not believe.  Not what I would call a healthy environment, and one that has disasterous potential as we have witnessed in the past.

So, if you decide to get involved with a group the I highly recommend avoiding the clandestine ones.  For one thing they will never find any truth to the paranormal since they are so deeply shrouded in belief, plus there is a remote chance that things will not go well as can be seen with past disasters from groups that have an egocentric leader guiding the group.

I’ve seen this one go both ways. From the paranormal community this is often in the form of pure speculation as seen when I was discussing, “Grasping at Straws.”  But I’ve also seen this from the scientific community as well.

Take for instance an investigation I saw once on TV.  A family was concerned when their daughter started speaking of a “friend” she had.  At first the family simply wrote it off as a child’s imaginary friend.  Not an unreasonable assumption since many children have imaginary friends, but the family became more and more concerned as their daughter began to describe the person in detail and described an elderly gentleman whom she had a name for (sorry, can’t remember the man’s name).  The couple then decided this needed further investigation after they learned that the name of their daughter’s friend was a previous owner of the house.  What really concerned them was when they were checking out the name they found a picture of the man, which matched the description their daughter had given them.  Becoming concerned about this they decided to bring in a local professor to see if it might be a ghost.

Well, the professor came in and found high EMF near the child’s bed, and got together seven photos all fitting the description of the man, with one being the actual man himself and showed them to the daughter, just like a police lineup.  He was surprised when she identified the correct photo, but wrote it off and concluded the place wasn’t haunted and that the child was having EMF induced hallucinations.  As for identifying the picture he said that she must have seen his picture around town somewhere.

Now here’s where I have a problem with his conclusion, and where he seems to be rationalizing the inexplicable.  How does he know she saw his picture somewhere in town?  Also, even if she saw his picture in town, how did she learn his name?  And what are the odds that she’s going to see a picture of the man in town, get his name, and it turn out to be a former owner of the house?  That seems like reaching or grasping straws to me.  For one thing, he never went into town to see if there was a picture the girl may have seen.  The one the parents had found was in the library, and one they stumbled across.  Neither of them had ever seen the picture, or remembers seeing the picture, so how is it their daughter had seen his picture, if that is the case?  The odds of the child stumbling across the picture of a former home owner and learning his name to later use as an imaginary friend seem pretty remote to me.

Now the conclusion that the girl was having hallucinations brought on by EMF were interesting, and there was evidence to show that there was a high EMF field in the area where her head rested at night, but I’m curious why most of her ‘hallucinations’ occurred when she was outside, playing in the yard near her swing.  But at least there a strong basis for the EMF.  With his conclusion on the picture, I was amazed at how quickly and assuredly he jumped to his conclusion.  He did no fact searching and based the whole thing on speculation.  To me, this is no different than saying that cold spots are created by ghosts drawing in thermal energy from the air so they can manifest, or a number of other rationals to explain the inexplicable.

This seems to be one of the latest additions to the repertoire of feel good sentiments that are employed in the paranormal community.  I refer to it as a ‘feel good sentiment’ because it simply leaves the standards of proof up to an individuals bias and does not make any attempt to base proof on objective facts.  For the devout believer this makes justification of their beliefs rather simple, as does it the non-believer.  Both will point to what they want to take from whatever the subject may be and make it fit their beliefs.

Now some of the people that I’ve encountered across the message boards say this is a good idea, but what they fail to see is that proof is about facts, and that all this does is to let people form opinions and opinions are not facts.  If those who want to know if their evidence is really proof of the paranormal then they should take the evidence to scientists and get their expert opinion on it.  But this is what happens much of the time with ‘Paranormal Experts’.  Often they take evidence to a person that has no expertise in the subject.  Take for instance in a recent showing of Ghost Adventures, where they took an audio file to a psychic researcher instead of an audio specialist.  Throwing it out there is much like this because most people don’t have the knowledge about video, audio, or physics in order to a fact based conclusion.  They simply go with what they believe something to be, or go with a poor interpretation from someone else who has no expertise but gives them lame reasons to support their belief it is paranormal..

So again the paranormal community takes a big step backwards away from critical thinking and science.  So instead of getting closer to the truth we are again headed down the road of the charlatans from the past who used to pass off pictures of ‘mediums’ with ‘ectoplasm’ coming from their ears, nose, or mouth.  Now of course we know where all that lead; nowhere, except to line the pockets of con men.  So why is the world of the paranormal reverting backwards in philosophy?  For some of the Para-Celebs it’s more than likely to continue the cash flow.  But why do investigators who are sincere in their investigation fall back on such nonsense?  Is it to justify the time they spend on their endeavors?  Do they not see the fallacy in such reasoning?  Personally, I have no idea why anyone interested in discovering the truth would adopt such an idea, and being an investigator myself, I would rather have people who are proficient in physics, data collection, and psychology be the judges, not the general public who are going to base their interpretation on their beliefs and wild speculation.

To me it seems this new mantra is but another way for the paranormal community to hide behind more excuses.  Why go to the public and not the scientific community to get an opinion on evidence?  if you really believe you have good evidence then why not go to a university?  This is something that everyone should think about when viewing evidence produced on TV shows.  If the evidence that paranormal TV has produced is really all that great then why aren’t universities beating down the doors of these shows to get at the evidence?  Possibly because it’s not good evidence, and for the most part the evidence on TV is nothing more than smoke and mirrors, which is why they “Throw it out there for the world to decide.”

This is what Patrick Doyle asks investigators to think about when reviewing paranormal evidence, and I must say it is one of the best pieces of advice to paranormal investigators that I’ve heard.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with his work or website, Haunted Hoax, I highly recommend you check it and his videos out. He’s done an excellent job in producing informative videos on how things can be hoaxed.  Here’s his YouTube Channel: Haunted Hoax Channel

And one of his videos:

I’m somewhat floored at how many people thing the video that was shown on Larry King, think that the shadow down the hall is the ghost of Michael Jackson.  What’s even more surprising is the reasons people give for justifying it as such:
There’s a reflection on the floor.
Shadows don’t move like that.
It has to be a ghost because you can’t see anyone down there.

I find it truly amazing at what reasons people will use to justify their beliefs and not look at things with an open mind.  What some of those people seem to not be taking into consideration is that a shadow will cause a reflection on a floor, just like what is seen in the video, and they will move like that, not to mention so little of the room can be seen that it’s really hard to say how many people were down in that room.

I’ve also seen a clip with one of Michael’s brothers where someone has picked out a pattern in the background that sort of looks like Michael.  Obviously they’re not taking into consideration that what they are looking at is simply the brain’s pattern recognition at work, and that the pattern is nothing more than the shadow from a plant that is cast on the wall behind.

The lengths that people will go to hang on to someone are quite astonishing, as well as the lengths that people will go to make a situation fit their beliefs.  And what’s really got me shaking my head is that people are already suggesting that the Para-Celebs investigate the Neverland Ranch.  Fortunately, even they aren’t so low as to try and make a quick buck out of his demise… at least not yet, and according to PopWrap who briefly interviewed Jason and Grant of the show “Ghost Hunters” about the clip, our two investigators have said that it was nothing more than a shadow.  Hopefully that will stem some of the sentiment to do a cheezy investigation to make some money off of the attention that Michael Jackson’s death is gaining (too bad his own father can’t figure that one out).

Hopefully all of this will come to an end soon, but I doubt it.  There are too many fans who cannot or will not face the facts about this clip and other far fetched evidence blips that are making the rounds.  Next we’ll be hearing about how Michael isn’t dead and there’s been a sighting of him at some mall or other place, just like we endured with Elvis Presley’s death decades ago.

For those who haven’t seen the footage, here’s a clip from YouTube.

This seems to be what many paranormal investigators do when they try to explain the paranormal.  So many times I’ve heard individuals tie various quantum theories or other obscure sciences to the paranormal, but never do they back this up with any shred of fact when it comes to the relationship with the paranormal.  Most of the time they will pound on the point that the effect exists and that science has accepted that, but NEVER will they show where they or science has established a scientific connection.  In other words it’s but another piece of untested speculation and still grasping at straws.

While I don’t expect any of the Para-Celebs to ever take the trouble to test any of the paranormal theories out there since that would not bode well for their cash flow, thus exemplifying my view that their only real interest in the paranormal is to stuff their wallets; I do have to wonder about all the sincere investigators and why they grasp at straws.  Is it that they are so desperate to validate their beliefs that they will accept any theory that comes along and gives the illusion that it fits with their experience, or are they trying to make the discovery of the century and don’t want to spend the time to educate themselves so they can actually understand the holes in most theories.  I’m truly not understanding the need to clutch at straws.

One thing that really troubles me with the grasping at straws is the reluctance to test any of these theories, or to examine in detail the devices that are out there.  While I do support the idea of examining theories, I do so only if they can and are tested in a scientific manner.  Otherwise, what’s the point?  Anyone can come up with a theory that seems sensible to many, but what good is a theory that goes nowhere?

Here’s an example from one of the message boards I frequent, and has to do with why residual haunts exist:

The author first start with “there’s a ‘school of though’,” which simply says there’s a group of people who believe what is about to be discussed, “that teaches immense things are imitated or done on a small scale”.  So far, their establishing a foundation of theory. While the example they use can be seen it does not discuss the times that this theory breaks down.  For example, some of the laws of physics that apply on our everyday world do not apply to nanotechnology.

Anyhow, on with their theory, which then brings up another theory about how light would behave as it enters a black hole. Their example then discusses what an observer would see as a ship approached the black hole and crossed over the event horizon, where it would then appear to freeze, then dissipate, and then suddenly it would be seen entering the black hole again.  This they say, “may be associative with the ‘vortices’ that are reported in areas of paranormal activity that follows traumatic death or earth leyline.” So far, nothing established in fact and some associations have been made between an unestablished theory about light entering a black hole and a ‘vortice’ that has yet to be shown to exist and has nothing to do with with gravity.  But the association is made because of the opening statement about the ‘school of thought’ about how things are done or imitated between small and large events, therefore they compare the effects from the black hole to a ‘vortice’ of ‘paranormal energy’. What they fail to establish in such is that 1) there is a ‘vortice’, 2) there is some sort of event horizon that exists with this ‘vortice’, 3) tragic death generates an event that will be impacted by the ‘vortice’. But further on we go.

They then cite that, “it is logical to assume that inanimate objects would also replay as well as people.”  I’m not sure what logic they are using, but I’m having a hard time understanding how an object compares to a person, or relates to ‘vortices’. To me the statement, ‘it is logical to assume,” is verbal manipulation since they never establish the logic in that statement.  So far, everything is unproven theory, and to further obscure things they bring up energy that resides in DNA, which is more theory since nobody has established that DNA has an energy, and brings me back to their “logical assumption” about inanimate objects.

From here they start pulling out various snippets from religious text and make mention that all religious texts speak of ghosts, which I’m not sure what relevance that has to do with the theory they began to lay out, but it continues on and make very loose connections to other symbolic illustrations of physics theories, as well as tying things to the Christian Bible with hell.   Eventually it ends off with saying a particular ghost disappears the way it does because it get’s sucked into a compartment, and that this place is an interact with the world around us, ending with this quote, “Children are naturally afraid of the dark,so they may have a form of light we cannot see,but penetrates most everything; EMF and the Electric” Ether”from which electricity resides.- Wilhelm Reich”.

The whole line of logic in this theory is built off of untested theories from a small group of people, and further built upon with other theories and assumptions that are based off of things that haven’t been established to be true.  Speculation is fine and is something that can help advance things, but in those instances they start with a fact.  When a whole theory is based on theory, especially theories that are from a small ‘school of thought’, and are completely untestable, then you run into the world of fiction where anything is possible but not very probably.  These are the ones that I refer to as “grasping at straws”.