Here to help, Canberra Paranormal Investigators

You won’t find them hunting for ghouls and ghosts, staking out abandoned buildings for spooky social media content, or dealing in exorcisms and rituals. The Canberra Paranormal Investigators are out helping locals whose lives might be affected by a sinister presence they can’t quite explain.

Lead Investigator and demonologist, Joe Catanzariti, and investigator, Angela Tait, don’t charge for their services; rather, they are motivated by the desire to help people who may be going through something distressing and scary.

Joe was first exposed to the paranormal in his youth, at his family home in Canberra. They heard footsteps when no one was walking, lights flickered, heard rapping in the walls and loud bangs when nothing had fallen. Joe says he didn’t know much about it then, however, over the last 20 years he has been exposed to more paranormal encounters.

“I’ve seen specifically diabolic effects from demons and the diabolic spirits and how it affected my life. I ended up going on this path to help people that were in a similar situation to me because there are people suffering out there,” says Joe.

Born into a Vietnamese Catholic family, Angela moved to Canberra in 2003. Her family have always had a huge interest in spirituality and the supernatural, recalling many hours spent swapping experiences and ghost stories.

Angela says both positive and negative forces have remained an important theme in her life, and she studied psychology hoping to get to the bottom of it. She is open to trying to figure out what is out there through methods scientific, academic and unorthodox.

Joe describes the subdivides of evil spirits as human and inhuman. The inhuman are pure spirits, ones that have never walked the earth; they have been led to a person or household.

The human evil would be someone malicious throughout their life; their soul can be utilised by demons which can manifest with the demon in control. Joe says both are no laughing matter, and has experienced an attack.

“I couldn’t even tell you what fear it was, there was a lot of heat, I got spun around, I got levitated.

You could feel the clench of these large hands grabbing my ankles and lifting me up, I was paralysed, I couldn’t even open my eyes, I couldn’t speak,” he says.

Full story online.

More information via canberraparanormal.wixsite.com

Dad was lonely in the house by himself. He was still independent but needed a little domestic help.

- Jessica Cordwell

Then we found The Grange Deakin Serviced Apartments. After a little encouragement Dad moved in and within days couldn’t stop thanking me.

Dad has his own apartment, he’s surrounded by company and regular social activities. The household chores are no longer a burden, the apartment is cleaned, and the linen changed weekly. Plus the pressure of the building maintenance is gone. Dad’s now out doing things he loves again.

I know Dad gets breakfast delivered in the morning and two home cooked meals. For added peace of mind there is someone there 24 hours a day in case of an emergency. The Grange isn’t aged care, but I know when the time comes, I can organise external community home care support to help Dad stay independent longer.

Now when we talk it’s without the worry and nagging. Dad couldn’t be happier.

Schizophrenia is an illness of degree

Re: ‘Crusading for schizophrenia awareness’ (CW online 11 April 2023), may I offer a bit of awareness.

Schizophrenia, like many illnesses, is an illness of degree, ranging from so serious a person may have no contact with reality as you and I know it, to so much less so that a person may hold a doctoral degree and teach at university –and every step in between.

“People misunderstand what it’s like to live with a stigma.” That is especially true of those who hold that prejudice in their minds. They do not fully appreciate either the harm it does to themselves or the harm it does to others. Were we fully aware, we would none of us be participating in it.

- Harold A Maio, Ft Myers, Florida USA

Where’s the evidence?

How can any intelligent person justify referring to a Prime Minister as “pandering, watery-eyed lip-quivering to the Indigenous industry” (CW Letters, 13 April 2023)? Indeed, what does John Lawrence mean by the “Indigenous industry”, and what makes him think the PM is “probably already silently plotting … damaging payout(s) over umpteen years via the voice door”? Please, let him provide even a modicum of evidence to support this extremely pejorative scenario.

Besides, how does any of this relate to centuries-old bloody conflicts on British and European soil? There’s a clue in the statement that we are “white, blond, blue-eyed and not easily conned”. So, the writer is disparaging, not only of our historically unique Indigenous Australians, but also those of Asian, African, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern background. There’s only one word to describe it and it starts with the 18th letter of the alphabet. Besides, advocating merely a legislated Voice will present more problems than John can apparently envisage. I’m happy to enlarge on them if he wishes.

- Eric Hunter, Cook ACT 2614

Colonisation through tragedies

As a fellow history buff, may I suggest John Lawrence (CW Letters, 13 April 2023) adds my island’s Black War, the Bathurst War, the Battle of Pinjarra and the Coniston Massacre to his research list? They are examples of a British colonisation that was achieved through many such tragic blunders!

- Craig Brown, Eaglehawk Neck TAS

Are Voice representatives representative?

As we are inundated with both print and electronic information on the Voice of varying veracity, credibility, partiality and emotion, I pondered – doesn’t making representations imply that those making them are ‘representatives’?

Yet, the ‘representatives’ at press conferences and interviews, the working groups, politicians, Indigenous leaders and individuals who routinely feature are educated, articulate and well presented, as are those on the ABC pre-program renditions of ‘We are one’ featuring Indigenous members. Are they truly ‘representative’?

If the Voice is going to be truly representative and transformational for all our Indigenous brothers and sisters, I wonder when we will hear the representations from those seemingly out-of-control Indigenous youth in Alice Springs or the family living on a concrete slab under a tarpaulin in, ironically, a place called ‘Utopia’ in the Northern Territory and others in similar appalling and unacceptable circumstances. I wonder has anyone directly asked them what the Voice is, whether they in fact are aware of it, and how it will make a difference to their lives.

- Angela Kueter-Luks, Bruce ACT

No signs of ‘friendlier’ parliament

Eric Hunter (CW Letters, 13 April 2023) accuses opposition leader Peter Dutton and his deputy of endless pejorative namecalling without any evidence or examples. You wouldn’t have to go far to hear one of the mean girls, Penny Wong, criticising the late Kimberley Kitching for not having children as did Victorian Labor MP, Sam Rae, who insulted gay Liberal QLD MP Angie Bell, saying, “at least I have my own children”. We also had Labor’s Tanya Plibersek calling Dutton ‘Lord Voldemort’, as soon as Anthony Albanese’s Labor party won the election. Then there is the always foul-mouthed Lidia Thorpe, who may not be with the Greens anymore, but often sides with the left side of politics which our current Prime Minister definitely adheres to. Where are the current PM and Mr Hunter calling out all this abuse?

Didn’t Albanese say he was going to install a nicer and friendlier parliament? Looks like it has got worse, if anything. Then again, the Labor Party does have form. Wasn’t it former PM and current miserable ghost Paul Keating that famously said, “Two blokes and a cocker spaniel don’t make a family”? Mr Hunter may want to remind his fellow Federal Labor hypocrites, especially its leader, of these undesirable traits.

- Ian Pilsner, Weston ACT

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