Being part of a Paranormal research Investigating team myself for many years now, this has allowed me to not only deal with people from all walks of life, but it has also allowed me to gain an understanding of how and what they THINK we do and how it all really works.
Many of my interactions with these people and what it is they think they know about investigations has left me Gobsmacked and with a bad taste in my mouth many times.
You see the Paranormal field has been highly over commercialised for entertainment purposes. So much so, it has created a false sense of what it is really like being a paranormal investigator. It overshadows the actual hard work and research we put into our work as well as the results we gain.
Many of these paranormal investigation reality shows out there are entertaining, don’t get me wrong, but further from the truth it couldn’t be, and we try to educate many of our followers during our presentation evenings on what it is really like and how we actually go about conducting investigations.
We have our work cut out for us, thanks to the entertainment industry that has created this false expectation we now have to live up to according to so many that have been brainwashed by it. I have found myself walking away from certain investigations with my head down and shaking.
But what I would like for you to gain reading this article is how to distinguish between an actual legit paranormal research team, and those that are just in it for sh@ts and giggles really.
So, Rule No 1:
Any team and or person that proclaims they are an expert in the field, is not!
Personally, I have always been very curious as to what makes one an expert in the paranormal field.
I had not realised there were universities handing out qualifications for paranormal researchers. If there are, please do enlighten me.
You see, one cannot be an expert in a field, we still- to date, know little to nothing about, if you are being honest with yourself.
What are ghosts? Where do they come from? Is it the same thing as a spirit? An entity? Demons?
Energy? Different dimensions? We simply just do not know; and as a paranormal investigator you should be able to admit to it. It is not impossible to try and educate yourself on the topic though, I personally study parapsychology in the hopes of gaining more insight into certain phenomena. Maybe find a link or two.
Can you however be a seasoned, experienced paranormal investigator/researcher? Of course. An expert? Yeh, nah. Not so much.
Rule No 2:
If your so-called “expert” team or person asks for a fee and or donation to do their investigation, end the conversation right there and then.
Not only is it purely immoral for a Paranormal investigator to ask for money during an investigation, its bloody ridiculous and unprofessional.
We do not do what we do for the money, we do what we do because we have a passion for it, we are dedicated to researching the field and we cannot possibly charge you for a service that is purely experimental and we cannot possibly know the outcome of it either.
If any team assures you, or promises you results, they are as naïve as they are corrupt. NEVER give money for an investigation. A donation to cover travel expenses is acceptable depending on the distance.
This also applies to certain teams who are willing to provide you with a “cleansing/clearing”.
Yes, this is a very controversial subject, however I do not judge. In fact, I myself have attempted many clearings before, and again, if your team offers it, it should be done at no cost!
Even when I attempt to do a clearing myself, I do let people know, I have done the best I can with what I know. Whether it works or not, I will leave that up to them to decide.
Rule No 3:
Choose a team that is willing and able to provide you with alternative explanations as to what it is you might be experiencing.
This could be a hard pill to swallow for someone who is absolutely convinced that what they are experiencing is real and really wants help. Regardless, you need to make sure your team is willing to look at the “alternative” explanations.
Those alternatives may not be something you want to hear, but it may just save you from any further suffering you or a family member/friend may be experiencing.
This does not mean your team are sceptics. It simply means you need to allow them to combine their experience with scientific facts if they wanted to; all in the hopes of helping you!
We have done investigations in the past where family members have experienced terrible ‘’Night Terrors’’, even their guests. Most often this experience would be isolated to one room or area in the house. People would experience a feeling of vertigo when entering that room, with some even becoming physically ill. We dedicated many hours investigating the house and realised that we were picking up on exceptionally high EMF (Electric Magnetic Field) readings.
People do not realise that high EMF can cause insomnia, headaches, depression and depressive symptoms, tiredness and fatigue, dysesthesia (a painful, often itch sensation), lack of concentration, changes in memory, dizziness, irritability, loss of appetite and weight loss, restlessness and anxiety, nausea and even skin burning and tingling.
Once the source of the high EMF was established (wiring in the wall), the family had it corrected, and their experiences eased. Sometimes the solution can be as simple as just moving a bed to the other side of the room.
So, trust a team who wants to first eliminate the typical and standard causes of any potentially paranormal occurrences, if that makes sense. Not just taking everything at face-value. This does not mean that your experiences could not be legit, but a professional team will have guidelines on factors that need eliminating first, including medical factors.
Which brings me to Rule no 4:
DO NOT look for a paranormal team to play doctor.
If someone in your family could be suffering from an underlying medical issue, this needs to be addressed first before you even consider it could be paranormally related. Seeking out a team to “fix” little Joe who keeps hearing voices and seeing things, is the biggest mistake you can make. In fact, it can make the situation far worse.
There are horror stories of paranormal investigations going wrong because the family believed someone in their household was being “possessed” and or “tormented” by some paranormal force. Instead of considering seeking medical help first, they call on paranormal investigators to come in and confirm their beliefs. I cannot emphasise how dangerous this could be.
Many inexperienced unprofessional teams may even play into the idea that little Timmy is being harassed by an ‘’elder entity seeking revenge’’; when in fact little Timmy is suffering from an
underlying mental disability that could have easily been treated with the correct medical intervention. Yet the family decide to believe spiritual Susan with her sage instead; only for Timmy
to get even more sick with time passing.
We are not doctors!
So please do not look at getting a team into your house until you have considered all other possible avenues for the experiences you, or your family may be suffering from.
Our team does get a lot of backlash for our candidness when it comes to trying to provide people with alternative explanations. We won’t sell ourselves out for social media ‘likes’ and popularity. Branding us as ‘’sceptics’’ is ridiculous. We would not be doing what we do if we didn’t believe there was something out there. In fact, it is our main objective to prove that there is something to the paranormal. It is our mission to try and explain the unexplainable.
During our many years of conducting investigations, we have seen, heard and experienced things that have left us in disbelief and even shocked at times. So trust me when I say, we do BELIEVE. That isn’t the issue though. It’s being able to PROVE it that is.
Proving it. Evidence. This brings me to….
Rule No 5:
Make sure your team has adequate and reliable equipment and know how to use it.
Your team needs to have decent equipment. I cannot emphasise this enough. Equipment is not always used for catching possible evidence, but to help confirm sounds, noises and
vibrations that may in fact not be paranormally related. A proper camera set-up means that what one camera does not catch, the others may do. Many a time one camera debunks or confirms another camera’s capture.
EVP recorders are not just used in the hopes of capturing possible electronic noise phenomena. They can be quite useful in explaining what some “unidentified” noises really were. It is important that your team has ‘trained ears’ when they specialise in EVP equipment. It is important that they KNOW how to use their equipment.
This may be a lot to take in, but I hope this article may give you a bit more of an idea of who you choose to enter your home and who you look to for help.
I have found that people who aren’t really looking for reasonable “answers” as to what is happening to them, but more just confirmations in their own belief, would actually prefer to approach what I prefer to call ‘’wannabe’’ paranormal investigators. Enthusiasts, who could potentially feed into their client’s ideas and excitement, instead of approaching it professionally and rationally.
So, if you are serious about getting a team in to help you investigate your premises, you now know what to look for.
I am going to end this article with one final important piece of advice. Regardless of who you find or decide to have in to conduct an investigation, please note that it is almost impossible to walk out of an investigation with any substantial or conclusive evidence.
That does not mean that there may in fact not be something happening in your home. Even the most seasoned investigators walk out of their first session empty handed. This is normal.
It takes countless hours, (days, weeks?) of returning to the same location, in order to capture little, if any, evidence at all. A possible “haunting” is not going to present itself to your team at your front door, or on cue.
Some of the most reliable evidence we believe we may have ever captured was only obtained after going back to the same location, easily more than twenty times.
So please do not get impatient or too excited when your team arrives. Give them the space, time and benefit of the doubt to do what they do and accept their candidness and honesty.
Remember, choosing the right paranormal team to investigate your situation will almost always leave you feeling more settled and content afterwards, instead of the opposite.