Why do YOU Investigate Haunted Places??

Ghosts and Spirits are experiencing a bit of a renaissance in recent years,  even  though it’s been  over a century since the Spiritualist Movement.  The steamroller of reality tv brings  us all the glamour that infrared and heavy editing will allow in an hour format. Folks can begin to think a paranormal investigation is a fun adrenaline rush.  But this newfound influx of researchers  and  popularity can make it difficult to find dedicated people willing to work for their credibility.   So let’s  take a look at the serious and the curious and where everyone stands in all this.   Some people just want to dip their toes in the paranormal water, so to speak.  Beginners  or flashlight toting amateurs are out for a personal experience.  Their approach is similar to what author Jeff Belanger refers to as “Legend Tripping”.   In Belanger’s book, Legend Tripping,  “Folklore is about story and oral tradition, paranormal investigation is about trying to apply science to something that can’t be measured by current means.  Legend Tripping is about the experience and the adventure.”   These folks are looking for  a personal experience.  Any experiences they encounter are for them alone. Little documentation or research is done and most activity encountered becomes little more than great stories.  At this level it becomes difficult to expand knowledge to a larger skeptic audience, much less credibility with their peers. But it’s a fun way to spend a vacation!!         Are your motives to seek evidence?  To offer help and healing to those on both sides of the veil?  To find answers to some really big questions about consciousness, the afterlife, and maybe Life’s origins?  This type of investigator may take a more technical approach when studying locations.  This is what we see mainly in our popular reality shows.  We research a location’s history. Why might it be haunted? Could the geographical location be causing electromagnetic anomalies instead of spirit activity?  Could the materials of which the location is constructed be holding  ambient energies?  ( see my blog on Stone Tape Theory )  We do our best to illicit a technical and skeptical mindset while conducting experiments,  trying to control as many variables as possible.  We base our findings  on the data provided by impartial equipment.  You have to remember paranormal investigating is primarily measuring energy and fluctuations   in energies. These investigators do their best to measure something that by it’s spiritual nature cannot be measured by Empirical methods. In many circles,  paranormal investigators are not considered true scientists, and therefore their findings are not always taken seriously or  found credible. Too bad…         They fall into a category I like to call Field Investigators.   Not  scientists,  in the true sense of the word, but doing a good job within their means and abilities. If they are conscientious,  I won’t be a snob and snub their efforts.  Doing a true scientific experiment involves building  a hypothesis,  setting up an experiment with controlled variables, study findings, repeat experiment, and report results.   Not always possible when the paranormal is so spontaneous, or at least we don’t know everything involved to make hauntings occur.  So where does a dedicated, credible, knowledgable, amateur ghost hunter stand in all this quagmire and confusion??   No one should be ashamed of being a ” Field Investigator”   Evidence gathering and sharing that evidence will drive the paranormal field forward.  Evidence gathered responsibly gets us closer to answering really big questions…..    Success will unite the paranormal field. When so much irrefutable  evidence becomes available and is shared in a central database, the sciences of Metaphysics ,  Quantum physics will unite and embrace the Paranormal.  Whether believers or skeptics, we must move beyond our comfort zone to understand  how science is subject to social, religious, and cultural influences.   We can broaden our understanding of how the Universe works and how we are all cosmically connected.  I think the author and poet Edgar Allan Poe  said it best :   “The boundaries which difine Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who is to say where one ends,  and the other begins? ”