Paranormal Obsession

Praise for Paranormal Obsession “Finally someone has examined the cultural phenomenon of ghost hunting! Not just the same rehashed theories as to why there are ghosts, but why living people go look for them, what it means on a personal level, and how society has changed because the topic is so popular. Paranormal Obsession is a reflection of everyone who watches the ghost hunting programs and all of us who are out there searching for spooks.”

—Jeff Belanger, Founder of Ghostvillage.com, author of The World’s Most Haunted Places, and host of 30 Odd Minutes “I went straight to the ‘There is a Science to This?’ chapter and learned about a device so new it doesn’t currently have a name. To say anything about it at all would spoil the surprise, but I will say that I was equally intrigued by a question from one of the developers, who wondered, ‘why medical science prefers to consider humans as chemical agents rather than electrical ones.’ As Sayed explores the current culture of paranormal interest, forgoing the same musty stories we’ve been hearing for the past 100 years, her book Paranormal Obsession manages to give investigating the dead a whole new life.”

—Stacy Horn, author of Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory “Paranormal Obsession provides a much-needed history of U.S. ghost research and an overview of key paranormal ‘celebrities,’ [framed] within the context of key debates, such as the role of faith versus the need for scientific practices. Most welcome is Sayed’s personal, yet objective approach, as she recounts her life amongst the ghost hunters. I highly recommend this book.”

—Christopher D. Bader, Professor of Sociology at Chapman University and co-author of Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture

© Jessica Labbé

ABOut the AuthOR Deonna Kelli Sayed is an author and was an investigator with Haunted North Carolina (HNC) until the summer of 2011. She is fairly new to the paranormal community, having entered field investigation in 2008 when she returned to the Unitd States after living abroad with her husband, a United Nations diplomat. Her profile in the paranormal field is unique.

She is a practicing Muslim with global experience. Having lived and traveled throughout Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, Deonna has always had one ear on history and the other on haunts. She has conducted official paranormal related research in Egypt and the Kingdom of Bahrain. Her academic background in cultural geography, with an emphasis on social theory and postmodern thought, allows her to ponder larger social and cultural meanings around paranormal intrigue.

She has lectured on a variety of issues, including women in Islam to paranormal presentations. Deonna is the editor of Ghostvillage.com in addition to serving as Liveparanormal.com’s exclusive celebrity interviewer. She currently lives in New York City and is enjoying the life of a coffeehouse writer.

Deonna kelli Sayed

Llewellyn Publications Woodbury, Minnesota

Paranormal Obsession: America’s Fascination with Ghosts & Hauntings, Spooks & Spirits © 2011 by Deonna Kelli Sayed. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Edition First Printing, 2011 Cover art: Chair © iStockphoto.com/Fabio Cecconello, Grunge interior © iStockphoto.com/Ваяентин Агапов, Television © iStockphoto.com/Diane Diederich Cover design by Kevin R. Brown Editing by Amy E. Quale Llewellyn Publications is a registered trademark of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sayed, Deonna Kelli.

Paranormal obsession : America’s fascination with ghosts & hauntings, spooks & spirits / Deonna Kelli Sayed. — 1st ed. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 978-0-7387-2635-9 1. Ghost hunters (Television program) 2.

Parapsychology—Investigation—United States. 3. Ghosts—United States.

4. Haunted places—United States. I. Title.

PN1992.77.G4775S39 2011 791.45'67—dc23 2011020622 Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business transactions between our authors and the public.

All mail addressed to the author is forwarded, but the publisher cannot, unless specifically instructed by the author, give out an address or phone number.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific location will continue to be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to authors’ websites and other sources.

Llewellyn Publications A Division of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, Minnesota 55125-2989 www.llewellyn.com Printed in the United States of America

Forthcoming Books by this author So You Want to Hunt Ghosts?

Contents Acknowledgments ... xi Introduction ... 1

Part One: The Emergence of the Specter Chapter One: American Roots ... 11 Chapter Two: The Holy Spirit ... 39 Chapter Three: There’s a Science to This? ... 69

Part Two: From TV Land to the Backyard Chapter Four: There Is a Ghost in My TV ... 103 Chapter Five: Körner’s Folly ... 133 Chapter Six: USS North Carolina ... 153

Part Three: Crossing Over Chapter Seven: I’ve Got a Ghost! Make Me a Star! ... 177 Chapter Eight: Yes, the Covered Chick Is a Ghost Hunter ... 203 Epilogue ... 229 Works Cited ... 233 Index ... 239

Acknowledgments It is always difficult to list everyone who has contributed to the journey of book writing. This is a very humble attempt to identify those who helped along the way, and I apologize to the individuals I will forget to mention.

First, Iris Carter provided friendship and a careful reader’s eye throughout this process. I am indebted to her unwavering support of this effort. Thank you, Bruce Frankel, for taking a chance. Jessica Labbé, I appreciate the enthusiasm and availability. I extend a big cup of coffee to April Slaughter for being there, and to Scotty Roberts for being a friend. Jeff Barnes, Jeff Belanger, and Dr. Sally Rhine Feather deserve extra special acknowledgment for their early support. Mark Leary, thank you for your clarity and allowing me to talk, talk, talk. Fellow authors Michelle Belanger and Marie D. Jones provided great girl support.

Liveparanormal’s Rob Szark was also very helpful during this process.

I am grateful to my agent, Lisa Hagan, for her guidance and patience.

There are special props for my editor, Amy Glaser, and for her belief in my writing.

I thank Diana Logan, whom I must point out for getting me into this mess in the first place. Likewise, my local Starbucks and The Green Bean in downtown Greensboro provided a caffeinated sanctuary during the writing process.

This book was made possible by fellow paranormal investigators who shared their stories and perspectives. I value everyone I spoke with, and to say I am grateful is a profound understatement. During research, I conversed with many investigators from around the world. I regret that many stories did not find their way into the book, but I acknowledge that they are part of Paranormal Obsession’s spirit.

Haunted North Carolina (HNC) members deserve accolades and special recognition. You are a wonderful bunch! I’d like to extend a great big shout out to HNCers Jim Hall, Noel McCreath, and Steve Barrell. You have taught me well.

I thank Grant Wilson for giving me his undivided attention for over an hour while fans waited in the wings. For Jason Hawes, I appreciate

xi

xii Acknowledgments

your friendship and availability from the beginning, as well as tolerating my deluge of text messages and e-mails.

My husband and children were woefully ignored during all of this.

The writing process is never easy on loved ones who are nonwriters. My husband arrived from abroad two weeks before my deadline to cook, clean, chauffeur the children, and manage the home. Without his support, this book would not have made it to home base, or even off the ground.

Finally, I thank those of you who are reading this. I leave you with a journey to reflect on the nature of reality and how we negotiate cosmic boundaries through the vibrancy of our popular culture.

IntRoduction My own personal journey into the ghost-hunting avocation began with the Syfy show Ghost Hunters. Attempting to understand something so nebulous was intriguing, and I eventually became hooked on the show.

Ghost Hunters was endearingly campy in those first two seasons, but it was the only show I watched on television. Three years after I saw my first episode, I found myself investigating with Haunted North Carolina (HNC), a team featured on the show during Season Two. The process of becoming a paranormal investigator has been an astounding personal journey. I have conversed with an amazing assortment of people whom I would have never met in any other circumstance: world-renowned parapsychologists, quantum physicists, and others with remarkable skills and insights. I’ve had the opportunity to speak with many paranormal reality TV cast members throughout this book’s research and discovered that their motivations are more noble and sophisticated than TV reveals. All of this makes a great story, but the most fascinating aspect is not about ghosts or befriending people on television. I realize the most captivating facet has much to do with American identity and personal transformation.

Paranormal personalities have always enjoyed a degree of celebrity in American culture, but the 2004 launch of Ghost Hunters forever changed America’s perception of these issues as this reality TV account followed a pair of Rhode Island plumbers and their team from the Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) during nocturnal ghost hunts. Reality television 1

2 Introduction

has elevated appeal of the paranormal to unprecedented levels, altering the way many people approach religion, science, and unexplained experiences. There is a unique charm to the American psyche in this: only in the United States can two ghost-hunting Roto-Rooter plumbers land a TV show that becomes a cultural phenomenon.

−−− The idea for this book started while I listened to archived episodes of Beyond Reality Radio, which aired for about a year in 2007. This TAPSsponsored endeavor featured Jason and Grant as hosts, and included personalities who investigated, wrote, and studied various forms of paranormal phenomena. From those broadcasts, I first learned of people like Jeff Belanger, Michelle Belanger (no relation to Jeff), Rosemary Ellen Guiley, and other seminal people in the field. This was also the first time I heard the term parapsychology, during an interview with Alexandra Holzer, daughter of famed researcher Hans Holzer. I listened to this when I lived in the Kingdom of Bahrain. My house was on top of and next door to ancient burial mounds. While living in this haunted desert, I heard author Troy Taylor discuss spiritualism. He suggested that America’s interest in communication with the dead was our own unique response to social change of the mid-1800s. My social theory background kicked in, and I had an “ah ha!” moment. I realized the current success of paranormal reality TV was about more than ghosts. The shows provide an American way of examining rather significant issues, such as life after death and the dichotomy between good and evil. I had the wonderful fortune of speaking to some of these people during research for the book. Jeff Belanger was an early advocate of my writing. Troy Taylor, likewise, knows he was the official muse for this project. I become more acquainted with parapsychology than I ever imagined when I joined HNC and had exposure to the wonderful people at the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina. Unfortunately, Beyond Reality Radio ceased because Jason and Grant could no longer fit it into their expanding schedules.

In Paranormal Obsession, I deconstruct the undisputed phenomena of paranormal reality TV by providing a cultural and historic overview of events leading up to this moment. The book is divided into three

Introduction 3

parts. Part One, “The Emergence of the Specter,” traces cultural and social developments forming Western ideas of the ghosts and hauntings.

All cultures express beliefs in the unexplained, but the American perspective is particularly unique. Americans are historically pioneers of unexplored frontiers, searching for the innovative, new, and unknown.

The foundation of the country is attributed to a group of people taking a chance on a new world. That same spirit beckoned, “Go west, young man!” and later encouraged Americans to reach for the moon. The past fifty years have issued advancements in science and technology that spurred American popular culture’s global dominance. Americans are stereotypically gutsy and dissenting. Americans gave the world spiritualism in the mid-1800s, which thrust communication with the dead into the country’s emerging public culture. The movement also significantly changed America’s religious landscape and served as a platform to promote women’s rights. Belief in the unseen is part of America’s cultural psyche. It is little surprise that personal journeys sometimes consider everything from UFOs to chasing the dead. Chapter 1, “American Roots,” explores how public fascination with the paranormal emerged.

Chapters 2 and 3 flesh out the two dominant approaches to the paranormal: the religious path and the scientific. Faith is an unavoidable topic among paranormalists, and I discuss this in Chapter 2, “The Holy Spirit.” Paranormal investigation is one of the few hobbies where one will find an occultist investigating with a priest. Religious ideas inform our understanding of hauntings regardless of an individual’s spiritual orientation. There is a long and complex history between Christianity and apparitional sightings. Metaphysics is at the core of paranormal research, and its transcendental nature makes any conclusions virtually impossible. That does not stop current interest in the paranormal from having an influence on a variety of spiritual discussions, although religious institutions remain reluctant to engage these debates. Father Bob Bailey, featured on Paranormal State, provides his perspective. Keith Johnson, a demonologist and former TAPS member, also pipes in. Of course, this discussion would not be complete without John Zaffis, a demonologist with over forty years of field experience.

Chapter 3, “There’s a Science to This?,” explores the great irony in which we attempt to provide evidence despite the metaphysical nature.

4 Introduction

Contentious discussions emerge when the scientific approach beds with paranormal research. Most scientists refute the possibility of the ghostly occurrences being remotely measurable, and therefore, nonexistent.

Paranormalists argue the problem lies within the confines of scientific discourse, which discounts qualitative experience over the quantitative.

The discovery of DNA provides an excellent example: it is very much an unseen part of our existence, yet one that determines a great deal of our physical being. Wayne Harris-Wyrick, a fellow investigator and the director of the Oklahoma City Planetarium, provides more insight: I often use my own subject, astronomy, as an example. No human or study group, nor indeed the entirety of humanity, has been able to study the complete lifecycle of even a single star, yet by the statistical analysis of many seemingly unrelated observations, scientists accept a detailed and unquestioned picture of the complete life cycle of all stars. We can study DNA in a laboratory; we cannot put a star in the lab, and we cannot watch it develop. We can only watch stars in many different stages and, using theory as a guide, create a consistent story. I mean, we cannot call up or create a supernova on demand. It happens when it happens, but no scientist doubts they exist. The same may need to be said of the paranormal. It can’t, for now anyway, be analyzed the same way as, say, physics, where we can set up experiments to test any hypothesis.

Wayne expands on this more in Chapter 3. I also sit down with a research psychologist to flesh out this “science stuff,” as well as Andy Coppock, a MIT-trained PhD in quantum thermodynamics physics, who is inventing intriguing paranormal investigative equipment. The contributions of the Rhine Research Center, the former Duke Parapsychology Lab, are also presented.

The bulk of contemporary paranormal research claims a debunking, critical-minded approach that encourages documentation, measurement when possible, data collection, and comparison. TAPS did not pioneer this approach, but they have made great gains in mainstreaming this philosophy in the field and creating a network of like-

Introduction 5

minded groups through the TAPS family, which has a growing, yet underutilized, international component. However, there are some in the parapsychology community who suggest TAP’s philosophy is not scientific enough and lament the “average Joe” aspect of ghost hunting.

Investigators vary greatly in approach and maturity toward the subject matter. For the more sophisticated, quantum physics is of interest, as it offers a plausible explanation for some paranormal occurrences.

Some researchers are using such theories to direct their research, particularly in parapsychology, which was the first academic field to investigate anomalous phenomena, extra sensory perception, telepathy, and medium abilities. For those who believe the paranormal is part of the unexplained natural world, it is merely a landscape we have not yet learned to map.

Once the historical and philosophical perspectives have been established, I factor in the influence of entertainment culture in Part Two, “From TV Land to the Backyard.” In Chapter 4, “There Is a Ghost in My TV,” I discuss the history of TAPS, American paranormal research, and outline events that made paranormal reality television possible.

Jason Hawes, Grant Wilson, Troy Taylor, and others weigh in on how the paranormal community developed. Today, there is an abundance of TV shows testifying to the American qualities of exploration and fascination with the unknown. The blockbuster low-budget film Paranormal Activity, released in 2009—and its 2010 sequel—attest to attraction with the unseen while capitalizing on our familiarity with media’s portrayal of ghost hunting. Certainly all cultures demonstrate their own supernatural stories and explanations, but contemporary paranormal research has elements that are uniquely American. One aspect of this is the influence of realty TV, perhaps the most American of contributions to the entertainment industry. The Internet, an early organizing force for paranormal investigators, was a precursor to mass media interest as well as paranormal group culture.

One can argue that paranormal investigation is a creative form of historic preservation as well as community economic development, and in Chapter 5, “Körner’s Folly,” I discuss how paranormal media has altered the public narrative of historic properties, detailing my own experience with Körner’s Folly. This investigation yielded statewide media

6 Introduction

exposure and changed the way many experience this house museum. To date, a few television shows have approached the property for filming although nothing has been granted.

The team I investigated with prior to moving to New York City the sunmer of 2011, Haunted North Carolina, provides one of the best examples of what happens when a property gets on television in Chapter 6, “USS North Carolina.” The team launched the property into the paranormal stratosphere during Season Two of Ghost Hunters. HNC’s battleship association has forever changed how the public experiences this landmark and how media interest alters the lives of people who work there. Paranormal fascination provides renewed curiosity in local history as well as much-needed financial revenue.

Part Three, “Crossing Over,” looks at the public and private impacts of a media-driven paranormal community. Since the shows emerged, a distinction has become apparent between research-oriented and famedriven investigators. A great deal of drama is present, and people often behave in ways one would never experience in the workplace or in other communities. Property owners also have changed the rules; many now want to be haunted after watching the shows. It is harder for teams around the country to conduct meaningful investigations. I explore these controversial dynamics, and ponder if media is helping or hindering real advancement in Chapter 7, “I’ve Got a Ghost! Make Me a Star!”

I am one the few known Muslim-American investigators in the paranormal community, and I discuss this in Chapter 8, “Yes, the Covered Chick Is a Ghost Hunter.” Ghost Hunters and my paranormal journey have helped me explore larger issues of faith, spirituality, and American identity. My story is unique, yet I feel it resonates with others who are discovering that the paranormal excursion is a transformative one. I examine Islam’s take on the unseen in comparison to the Christian perspective. Within Paranormal Obsession’s core theme, I explore how ghost hunting serves as way to engage many philosophical issues facing current American culture.

Results from the State of the Paranormal Field Survey I conducted are laced throughout. Conducted in 2010 as part of Paranormal Obsession’s research, the anonymous questionnaire obtained information from 172 investigators around the world regarding demographics, be-

Introduction 7

liefs, assumptions, and experiences of the paranormal. This was not a scientific survey, but it was a first effort to see who is active in paranormal research and, more importantly, why. I acknowledge this initial survey is merely a snapshot and may not represent the entire community.

Another item I want to discuss is that most paranormal researchers do not call themselves “ghost hunters.” The lexicon has become popular due to TV shows. I use the phrase in this book because of public familiarity. However, it woefully misrepresents endeavors of those who are on TV, and even more so the grassroots investigative community.

No discussion is complete without considering the entertainment aspect—and that is supposed to be fun! What is more American than reality TV? Ghost Hunters is more than a success story—it has launched the paranormal industry, and that is the primary reason I focus on that show. Likewise, through HNC, I have a personal connection to TAPS. Author and psychic Michelle Belanger provided very sophisticated commentary. Jeff Belanger, who is a researcher and writer for the Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures, readily provided his insight.

We have not fully conceptualized the long-term ramifications of reality TV’s contribution. No one can argue that the paranormal community is forever changed, as well as America’s comfort level with such topics. Whatever one believes, skeptic or not, the popular culture element is fodder for thought. It is time to move this discussion beyond the clichéd language that dominates the ghost hunting community.

There are larger issues at hand than if there is a ghost in someone’s home. Is this evidence that human consciousness is moving into a new realm? Are there global implications in all this? On the other hand, is this a fad that will play itself out? Whatever the reason, any story that has religion, science, reality TV, and ghosts has to be a good one!

Chapter One

American Roots Is there a spooky ghost in here? —south park

Ghosts and their counterparts have been around forever. Paranormal reality TV shows, however, are a new breed of activity. Talk to anyone who claims to be a paranormal researcher and you will hear about the shows. Reality TV, a great American contribution to entertainment, has made its mark on the avocation of ghost hunting. Delve a bit deeper into survival research and eventually someone will mention spiritualism, an American-borne philosophical movement that introduced popular culture to the idea of spirit communication. Thanks largely to the shows, ghost hunting is gathering rapport around the world. How did all of this begin?

For many, it begins with a personal experience. Then it becomes a story that translates meaning in society which filters the experience through language and symbols when communicated. Oral storytelling once defined the transmission of knowledge. It created our sense of belonging and characterized our spiritual compasses. The spirits of the unseen have accompanied humanity since we first communicated with one another. That debut ghost story reflected humankind’s ability 11

12 American Roots

to conceptualize a greater being, to become creative in the act of faith.

The telling of the story calibrated culture; it transcended generations to form a type of truth. Global media now tells our stories, and few narratives are as intriguing as those including ghosts. These stories harkened the primordial beginning, forcing us to articulate our position to the larger cosmos. Today, that story has a subplot of entertainment, religion, science, and cultural identity.

I do believe there are certain things that occur in our world that defy explanation. When there is no language to define the anomaly (“Is it a ghost, a demon, a vortex, psychokinesis [PK], or a time–space quantum thingy?”), the anomaly itself becomes metaphor. The ghost concept is a vacuum in which we color our ideas of life, death, metaphysics, and who we are. Paranormal reality TV, in many ways, is the Mad Lib version of the story. The blanks are filled in with intriguing adjectives, nouns, and verbs that become meaningful in how we understand our place in the world.

The TV Factor The introduction of Ghost Hunters in the United States opened a portal for paranormal researchers who now reference time as it relates to before Ghost Hunters (BG) and after (AG) the show’s premiere. In 2002, a couple of paranormally inclined Roto-Rooter plumbers in Warwick, Rhode Island, were asked to film a reality TV pilot about their unusual avocation. These two fellows, Jason and Grant, were paranormal investigators with their group, the Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS). Here were two working-class guys who, since the early 1990s, had been part of the New England paranormal community. Befuddled and amused, it took some convincing before they agreed to film. They liked being plumbers. In fact, they were quite successful plumbers. The guys and gals of TAPS were content doing paranormal investigation on the weekends. Investigators met at a coffee shop, consumed caffeine, and went out to explore the unknown. Life was good.

American Roots 13

One weekend, New York Times reporter John Leland joined them for an investigation and later ran a story about their non-plumbing pastime. The article went into syndication, and a New York agent and someone at Pilgrim Films took notice. Ghost Hunters debuted on October 6, 2004, on the Syfy channel in the United States. Something about ghosts and plumbers apparently made great television. To everyone’s surprise, it quickly rose to the channel’s top-rated show. Overnight, these Rhode Island guys became celebrities, television producers, and “ghost hunters.” The American paranormal field exploded as new groups manifested at a phenomenal rate.

Ghosts, assuming they exist, lost all privacy after the show aired. (I often joke that this development may have encouraged a spirit world to unionize since the number of investigators has exponentially increased in such a short time.) Paratechnology, the development of prototype equipment for paranormal investigation, is now a cottage industry. International broadcasting of several American paranormal reality TV shows are experiencing similar effects in Europe and Australia. (I heard there is even a team in Afghanistan.) “Paratainment” events, such as group ghost hunts, paranormal conferences, and ghost tours, are blossoming around the world. In the United States and much of Europe, the paranormal community has a veritable spot on the pop culture radar despite being labeled in the past as spooky, weird, or even satanic. Ghost hunting is now an American pastime, gaining ground in other places around the world, and has become a solid reality TV genre.

Some suggest the 2002 UK production of Most Haunted provided inspiration for American paranormal reality TV. However, Ghost Hunters is essentially American in nature, and the two shows take completely different approaches. Ghost Hunters seeks to disprove a haunting, while Most Haunted finds spirit activity on every tipped table and through a variety of unquestioned psychic impressions.

(Yvette Fielding of Most Haunted once belittled Jason and Grant as mere “plumbers” during a Beyond Reality Radio segment after they questioned her about her show’s approach.1) Despite the two different 1. Beyond Reality Radio is no longer in production and episodes are very difficult to find online. However, fans have posted segments from this episode online and found through an Internet search of “Beyond Reality, Yvette Fielding.”

14 American Roots

styles, both programs currently enjoy worldwide success. Other popular shows are A&E’s Paranormal State, which grew out of Penn State’s Paranormal Research Society and their popular UnivCon, a large paranormal-themed conference. Ryan Buell, the star and executive producer of Paranormal State, has always had an intense interest in parapsychology, as well as demonology—the latter has become a point of strong criticism regarding the show. Chad Calek, an associate of Ryan’s who has been on Paranormal State, launched The Ghost Prophecies on A&E in December of 2010, of which Ryan serves as executive producer. Longtime parapsychologist and media consultant Loyd Auerbach is also marginally involved in the project. Chad and Ryan also collaborated on a feature length film, American Ghost Hunter. A&E had a short run with Extreme Paranormal, which dabbled into deeper, more occult-oriented approaches and did not make it past one season, in part due to disdain within the community. Many felt that literally drawing blood and using power tools to provoke spirits was in poor taste and irresponsible.

Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures features members of the Ghost Adventurers Crew, which has its own network of teams providing an alternative to the TAPS approach. Ghost Adventures is different from other shows, as Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, and Aaron Goodman make no claims to be scientific or into spirit rescue; they are a couple of filmmakers out to document an experience and have a good time. Bagans and Groff are also executive producers and personally edit certain segments of the show, thus having a degree of creative control. Unlike other paranormal-themed reality shows, Ghost Adventures highlights the history and personality of a location while also routinely featuring local investigators.

Some shows have emerged only to disappear after a season or two.

Haunting Evidence on truTV was forensic in nature, and featured investigators like Patrick Burns and psychics working in a detective mode to obtain information on unsolved crimes and missing persons’ cases. It aired from 2006 to 2008. A&E expanded the forensic theme with Paranormal Cops, which ran for a season. Discovery Channel had Ghost Lab from 2009 to 2010, which attempted to be reasonably scientific. The entertainment industry is still exploring new types of paranormal reality TV

American Roots 15

programming, and there is now a move to reinvent the concept. Homeimprovement networks are promoting paranormal-themed shows. The spooky, haunted, and unexplained have become very glamorous and quite profitable.

Despite culture and entertainment, investigation existed before it appeared on reality TV. TAPS, formed in the early 1990s by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, is a real, volunteer-based paranormal team. In 2004, TAPS formed a loose association, or family, of independent teams that demonstrate credibility, professionalism, and a critical-thinking approach. Among TAPS family members, there is a strong client-based philosophy and a commitment to help homeowners understand activity rather than be frightened of it. TAPS family is like a networking system for a bunch of “ghost nerds.” I can say that because I belong to a TAPS team myself. Instead of glasses and pocket protectors, a great many in the community have ghost gadgets and batteries.

The men and women of the paranormal world take this hobby quite seriously. Personal income, time, and energy go into managing teams and cases. Real investigations can be boring. Yet, haunted jaunts occur every weekend in North America, Europe, and a few other parts of the world where the lights go off, and intrepid investigators attempt to fold back the layers of science and history to seek out the unexplained.

There are no jokes, no disparaging remarks—just a desire to experience or catch something that provides a piece of the paranormal puzzle, and maybe an opportunity to help a homeowner feel less haunted. To some observers, this seems like a complete waste of time. For many, it is a way of life.

Spiritualism and Public Culture By most accounts, it began like this: An incident in 1848 involving two adolescent girls, Margaret (Maggie) and Kate Fox, spurred a quasireligious movement called spiritualism that opened the door to today’s paranormal research. Like many good American legends, it involved young women, skeletons in the walls, and a healthy dose of celebrity.

Strange noises began soon after the Fox family temporarily moved into

16 American Roots

a small cottage in what was then Hydesville, New York. The sounds of footsteps and rapping on doors disturbed the family almost every night.

Previous tenants allegedly experienced the same activity. Maggie and Kate soon noticed some knocks occurred as a direct response to the girls’ inquiries, and rapping sessions (pun intended) became a neighborhood spectacle. One neighbor, a former maid to the home, voiced long-held suspicions that her former female employer had murdered a peddler and disposed of the body, perhaps to cover evidence of an affair. The girls named their ghostly visitor Mr. Splitfoot, and their experiences gained credibility when their father found human bone fragments buried in the cellar.2 As if having a house ghost was not enough, Maggie and Kate soon discovered mediumship abilities. The Fox sisters, including their older sister Leah, became America’s first paranormal superstars. P. T. Barnum invited Maggie and Kate to perform for the public at his American Museum in New York City. To sit for a reading with the girls cost a dollar, a substantive sum at the time. Celebrity status and endorsements from selected intellectuals made media darlings out of the two younger Fox sisters. By 1849, they were the nation’s first “paracelebrities”; they were also known in Europe. Thus began the tradition of a long and often contentious relationship between media and paranormal enthusiasts.

The word paranormal did not enter English vocabulary until sometime in the 1920s, by most accounts, and it merely represents things that are beyond normal explanation. I use the term judiciously when speaking of spiritualism in the 1800s, as the concept did not exist at the time. Semantics aside, spirit communication, séances, sittings, and mediumship enthralled the American public. Spiritualism migrated to the United Kingdom, and later reached South America and Russia.

Religions have always ruminated upon death and dying. Spiritualism merely expounded the topic. The philosophy sought to provide evidence, through the mental and physical act of mediumship, of the soul’s survival. Calvinism dominated Christian theology at the time, and the general world on the religious street was that of predetermined salva-

2. T here are varying accounts. I use the one provided by Troy Taylor in his Ghosts

by Gaslights book, as his research seems to be the most exhaustive.

American Roots 17

tion or damnation. Therefore, death was a pesky theological and philosophical problem for many. With this in mind, death’s inevitability was a frightening ultimatum even for the most devout. Spiritualists’ claims to communicate with the departed solved the death problem, at least in the metaphysical sense. It suggested that the afterlife was generally a safe place and did not completely disconnect the living from the dead. Some early supporters found the emerging discourse of science to be equally intriguing and sought to apply scientific methods to understanding how spirit communication worked. Religion and science walked an untidy path in those days, and the two continue to battle about philosophy and methods.

Paranormal reality TV suggests that Americans investing in ghost hunting are everyday people. Parapsychologists, on the other hand, were marginalized in an academic sense, yet deemed slightly more reputable as they were lettered and scientific in manner. There has always been a distinction between high and low culture. During the dawn of spiritualism, most mediums were street class, yet some of their strongest advocates in the United States and United Kingdom were from high society’s intellectuals. Support from this endowed social set helped the movement gain credibility despite widespread skepticism. Today, reputable teams lament the lack of academic interest. What is unique about spiritualism and today’s paranormal interest is this: few avocations attract such a diverse group of individuals. It is only in the paranormal field you will find a Catholic priest investigating with an intersexed, bisexual, psychic vampire.

A Little History Lesson When spiritualism secured America’s attention, it did so at a time when consciousness was becoming a field of academic study. William James, the father of psychology, was an avid psychical researcher. He was also a man profoundly torn between academic legitimacy and what many of his peers labeled as “spook science.” Many intellectuals were interested in survival research, such as Dr. J. B. Rhine, who established the Duke Parapsychology Lab in 1935. Dr. Rhine realized that the mind’s amazing ability to access

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the beyond seemed far easier to measure than spirits, and the lab managed to collect strong evidence for the case of extra sensory perception and other psi-related abilities. (Dr. Rhine’s legacy continues today with the Rhine Research Center.) Despite the focus on mediumship, the inaugural incident with the Fox girls included what many consider as necessary elements of contemporary ghost hunting: nocturnal accounts of unexplained events and an on-site tragic death. For good measure, stir a psychic into the paranormal investigation. These are perfect elements for a reality TV show.

One ponders why paranormal reality TV resonates with more than two million people who tune in to these programs on any given night of the week. The same can be asked on why spiritualism gained ground in the mid-1800s. I admit it seems dubious that two teenage girls could foster such a movement, and even more preposterous that American popular culture embraced the concept. Was it mere timing and sheer luck? European and American societies were experiencing unprecedented cultural and economic changes at that time. Victorianism and global colonial dominance colored British society. The rest of Europe was industrializing and rearranging empires. In the United States, there was a great deal of newness. Between 1840 and 1869, at least five and a half million immigrants arrived in the country. Moreover, the wide variety of religious and spiritual beliefs was mixing, including those from American Indian and African animist slave traditions. The secular nature of the American constitution was, ironically, fertile ground for spiritualism due to the absence of a state religion or church, unlike in the United Kingdom.

The American tradition of volunteerism encouraged grassroots movements. Paranormal groups today continue that tradition as volunteer organizations with some officially becoming nonprofit 501(c) 3 organizations. Many groups also engage in charity work. Membership in a “paranormal investigation team” is becoming akin to bowling leagues of the past. For many who have entered the field post–Ghost Hunters, this is their first time participating in any type of volunteer endeavor.

In an odd parallel to the paranormal reality TV influence, the emerging American newspaper culture secured the success of spiritualism. By the mid-1800s, American public education had increased literacy rates. Industrialization was under way, and this fueled journalism

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and the newspaper industry. Major papers in New York and Boston appeared in the 1830s. By 1850, there were 2,800 newspapers throughout the country in need of good stories, and spiritualism provided solid material. Newspapers helped contribute to the country’s emerging public culture. General popularity and acceptance of spiritualism was dependent upon newspaper accounts and well-attended public lectures.

Thus began the marriage between media and public appetite for the supernatural. Spiritualism transpired in this curious cultural moment to provide inside information, however flimsy, on the concept of death.

Of course, it was presented in an entertaining and intriguing manner.

As American stories go, the Fox sisters had a particularly sad end.

In 1891, Maggie Fox publicly claimed she faked rapping by an ability to crack her toe or knee joints (an impressive talent, even if not a psychic one). Kate remained silent on the matter. Maggie recanted a year later, suggesting her claims were attempts to discredit her older sister, Leah, who had swindled Maggie and Kate’s money. Both became penniless, depressed, drunk, and shamed, and were dead by the mid-1890s.

Despite their controversial and undignified end, spiritualism went global. The United Kingdom had homegrown psychics, yet none captured public attention like their American counterparts. In 1852, England welcomed its first American medium. Table tipping, a phenomenon featured on Most Haunted, also came courtesy of American mediums. In his book Spiritualism and Society, G. K. Nelson wrote that three female American psychics spent time in London, “giving demonstrations of mediumship, usually of the type known as table turning or ‘tapping.’ An epidemic of table turning and tapping spread throughout the country, though whether as a result of the work of these American visitors or the influence of mesmerism from Europe would be difficult to say.” Whatever the reason, Nelson suggests that spiritualism crashed and burned in the United States, but remained institutionally solvent in the United Kingdom even though it never enjoyed the same level of public popularity.

The premise of spirit communication was controversial yet intriguing, and psychic research evolved as an attempt to understand how mentally phoning the dead worked. In Britain, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) formed in 1882. Three years later, the American Society for

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Psychical Research (ASPR) was established. Intellectuals, scientists, and cultural critics were among the members. They embarked on a peculiar journey to create the field of parapsychology. These efforts supplied a rational scientific approach to the unexplained and paved the way for what we know today as ghost hunting.

Spiritualism is an American contribution to metaphysics. The international broadcast of paranormal reality TV may forever Americanize ghost hunting around the world, but Americans were not the first on the spirit wagon. In Europe, there are records of séances as early as 1762, and British journalist Daniel Defoe was an early documenter of the paranormal in 1727 with his essay entitled, “Essay on the Reality of Apparitions.” Dafoe rejected the idea of ghosts being souls, and suggested all sightings to be angels or demons. He insisted this was the only Biblically acceptable explanation. He was merely asserting a long-held yet marginalized assumption that gained strong public popularity in the 1600s when King James officially pronounced all ghosts to be “trickery of the devil.”

Between the late eighteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century, America was busy either being England’s colony or fighting a war to end subjection to the queen. Intellectual energy was focused on establishing a brand new country. While Americans were busy building house, Europe broke ground on experimental metaphysics. In the 1740s, Emanuel Swedenborg of Sweden was perhaps the first scientist to openly proclaim communication with the dead.

Swedenborg was a mathematician with an unfortunate speech impediment. During his fifties, he began having a series of dreams and unexplained visions that led him to mysticism. Some called him insane. Others suggested a midlife crisis. I wonder if his perpetual state of bachelorhood had something to do with it. All jokes aside, Swedenborg went on to write several cogent, deeply philosophical books on mystical subjects, suggesting his brain was functioning just fine. He spent the latter part of his life exploring the nature of the soul, corresponding with spirits, and submitting a philosophical paradigm that was discomforting to the Christian church. For example, he thought the idea of the trinity undermined a complete oneness of God. His most influential suggestions were that the soul was independent of the

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body, yet our existence was interconnected with the physical world and the divine through a concept of cross-correspondence. The dumbeddown explanation of this is that experience and spiritual knowledge is multidimensional, in the literal sense. His ideas influenced American transcendentalism, a nineteenth-century philosophical movement, which to spiritualists was something like an embarrassing third cousin to spiritualism.3 There are links between the two philosophical movements. Spiritualism embodied many transcendental ideas regarding the spiritual state and humanity’s relationship to the divine. However, not all transcendentalists cared for spiritualism, which was often viewed as sensationalistic.

Perhaps influenced by some of Swedenborg’s ideas on metallurgy, Franz Anton Mesmer, an Austrian physician, had a thing for magnet magic. He was interested in theories of magnetic force and considered it able to cure a variety of ailments. Few in the ghost-hunting realm discuss Mesmer, despite his unsung role in how we understand spirit activity. In research for this book, I kept encountering a particular term that no one relates to paranormal research: animal magnetism. Unfortunately, this is not about studs and sexiness. It is about etherealness, for a lack of a better word, or an oozing of quantifiable charisma. This concept already existed in shamanic and animist cultures, but was a spiritual attribute rather than a scientific one.

Mesmer coined this ethereal substance and the term as—you guessed it—animal magnetism. The theory suggested the ether of all animate bodies could be manipulated for self-healing with the use of magnets. His ideas caught on during a lucky visit to Paris in 1777 when he convinced the aristocracy to implement his healing devices. He also came up with hypnotism (with the help of magnets, of course) as a healing exercise. This sounds all “woo-woo,” but his ideas introduced hypnotism to the world and influenced trance mediumship a hundred years later. Interestingly, this was an early mating between the paranormal and spiritual healing practices of alternative medicine. His theories

3. T ranscendentalism certainly influenced spiritualism, but it was not a two-way street. Ralph Waldo Emerson, perhaps the most influential voice in American transcendentalism, detested spiritualists.

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now seem archaic, but we can at least thank him for adding the word mesmerize to our vocabulary.

Already in place was the idea that there was an independent soul and one could communicate with other independent souls, thanks to Swedenborg. He successfully used Biblical and scientific texts of the time to suggest the soul was not necessarily bound to a physical body.

Mesmer convinced many that the body contains ether, which magnets could make happy if one just relaxed and gave in to the essence. Let us bring these things together: by entering an altered state of consciousness, a person’s ether can communicate with other universal ethers. Just like today, it was an idea that certainly did not resonate with everyone.

No matter, this was an important philosophical development for survival researchers. Swedenborg provided the metaphysical framework, while Mesmer submitted the idea of a measurable, malleable, physical, supernatural substance as part of the universe. Throw in the idea of magnet manipulation, and the concept of spiritual energy was well in place.

These ideas were slightly more popular among the historic “in crowd� than today, at least in Sweden. In 1787, Societe Exegetique et Philanthropique of Stockholm officially concluded that individuals, while in a trance, were indeed able to communicate with spirits of the dead. That is more recognition than we have in the twenty-first century, thanks to the United States National Science Foundation. The organization officially denounced the existence of the paranormal in all forms, therefore lumping everything from the Lockness Monster, ghosts, UFOs, and spoon bending into one gigantic category of fakeness. (I have never seen a real monster or UFO, but I personally know several people who have witnessed spoon bending.)

It seems metaphysical thinking and technological exploration then was like Batman and Robin today. One did not need to spend years in college, specializing in a tiny academic subfield to get a PhD to become a legitimate scientist. The lack of academic specialization was a good thing. Imagine the century that gave us all this: the phonograph, photography, electrical science, the advanced printing press, and the telegraph.

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The reproduction of sound, communication, and energy was completely overwhelming in the nineteenth century. It literally changed the concept of time and space. Harnessing energy in the form of electricity was so fantastical, so magical, that American spiritualists immediately linked this intriguing discovery to spirit activity. They took the concept of animal magnetism, applied it to voltage, and hence the link created between Mesmer and the hypothesis that ghosts may emit or manipulate electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Before the invention of electrical sciences, this correlation did not exist. Today, we do understand that brain waves emit a slight EMF, and exposure to high EMFs can cause hallucinations, nausea, and paranoia, so Mesmer was not completely cuckoo in his assumptions.

In a later chapter, I discuss how contemporary paranormal investigators—those who are conducting solid investigations—are harkening in a type of “citizen science,” similar to the early pioneers who did not have fancy degrees from privileged institutions.

Americans quickly gained ground with metaphysics through the animal magnetism hypothesis. By the mid-1800s, the country was familiar with many mystical ideas. Andrew Jackson Davis, a magnetism enthusiast, was an author and lecturer on a variety of spiritual issues. His lectures were published in 1847 as The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and Voice to Mankind. It was hugely successful, and the Fox family was likely aware of the work. Despite the legends, the Fox phenomenon was not a spontaneous eruption. Two young women experienced some genuine, unexplainable events and were lucky to announce it at the right time and in the right place. Things could have happened differently. In 1844, a Dr. Larkin in Boston ran some experiments that included his servant girl and apparent medium, Mary Jane. The experimental doctor released his results to very poor reception. In 1847, a year before Maggie and Kate started rapping with Mr. Splitfoot, Mary Jane was in jail facing necromancy charges. Dr. Larkin, no longer liked by his neighbors, avoided excommunication by signing a declaration insisting he did not believe in spirit communication. I suppose it is very fortunate the Fox family did not live in Boston.

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Religious, Political, and Gendered Roots As liberal Quakers, the Foxes were free thinkers and probably aware of the more mystical elements of Quakerism that encouraged meditation and belief in direct inspiration. Meditating Quakers are one thing, but some marginalized religious communities dabbled in animal magnetism through controversial sacraments. The Shakers were early experimenters with hypnotic, mesmerizing rituals. They admitted to going into trances since the 1820s, and claimed to receive messages from the beyond that a great source of material and spiritual wealth was to appear in 1848. If we take the Shaker’s predictions at face value, they did rather well. That very year, the American West exploded with the gold discovery and two sisters in upstate New York heard unexplainable raps in their walls, which beckoned exploration of yet another unexplored frontier.

The Fox family associated with participants in the Underground Railroad. Close friends were part of the suffragist movement. Many early supporters of spiritualism were political and spiritual activists.

Some were early hippies, advocating free love and relaxed sexual expression for women.4 With this in mind, it makes sense that women gravitated to the movement. There were other reasons. Death, after all, mostly occurred in the home, and in women’s spaces. Female family members cared for the dying, and it is little surprise that many women became mediums. In Victorian American society, there was also a cultural assumption that females were the more innocent sex, and therefore purer in spirit. Maggie and Kate’s claims seemed plausible because they were young virginal women.

The history of the paranormal becomes more intriguing when gender politics enter the fold. Mediumship and the spiritualist platform provided women new access to public space, and this proved instrumental to the suffragist movement. Spiritualist gatherings were an important element in the emerging American public culture, and meetings often referenced larger political concerns. For example, consider that attending a trance lecture was the first time many were exposed to spiritualism as well as a 4. M any in the South considered spiritualism the devil’s work, and was deemed illegal in Alabama. Despite Southern hostility, many African Americans were enthusiasts, as it mirrored some African animist traditions.

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woman speaking in public. Spiritualism not only offered a novel slant on dying (in a sense, one could still “phone home” after passing on), but it also gave women a new approach to public life. Ironically, the shift to a more scientific take on the paranormal may have gendered the modern ghost-hunting scene.

Terri Garofalo, creator of Entities-R-Us Ghost Hunter Comic: Paranormal Humor for the Ghost Hunter’s Soul, suggests that the scientific approach biases the field in favor of a male-dominated agenda, even though few teams are actually doing real science. She explores larger issues of gender, science, pop culture, and ghost humor in the online comic, and condenses the themes in a humorous, intelligent way. Like the shows, women in the comic are not the main investigators, but they provide archetypal wisdom and effect. In an odd way, Entities-R-Us satirizes the current state of the paranormal by parodying spiritualism, science, gender, media, and art. Terri is a woman, by the way, as well as an investigator.

Most observers insist women still dominate the American paranormal community, although reality TV presents it as an alpha-male endeavor. In fact, some statistics suggest that more women than men watch Ghost Hunters. (Which does not explain the preponderance of male enhancement commercials during episodes. Or maybe it does …)

It is certainly imperative to show some love for ghost hunting’s politically charged, gendered roots.

−−− Speaking of roots, attempting to understand and access the spiritual world is an experiment that predates written language. Cave girl metaphysics included a belief in life after death, evidenced by the burial of grave goods. All civilizations have upheld a pervasive belief in a spiritual world, and an idea of the unseen still permeates metaphysical understanding today. The Judeo-Islamic-Christian concept of God is a force we cannot visually grasp and is experienced only through signs and by faith. Regardless of belief, most feel a direct access to the divine, be it a monotheistic God, Gaia, or ancestor worship. We take for granted that personal and direct religious experience is a relatively new idea for

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mainstream spirituality, although many still rely on priests, preachers, rabbis, or imams to offer spiritual advice and guidance.

Shamans set the precedence as original mediators between human religious experiences and the “other side.” They were the original psychic holy rollers, going back much further than the 1960s. Shamans were not trying to obtain proof of an afterlife. They were chatting with spirits to seek guidance for the living. The relationship worked in the opposite way of how we operate today, since most of us tell ghosts what to do during our investigations. (“Can you say something in this little device I’m holding? Make the lights flicker on this machine.

Now … please?”)

A shaman had access to unseen knowledge that informed religious and political experiences. This spectral telegraph service has never fully left contemporary religious practice, as demonstrated by several Christian communities who speak in tongues and embody the gift of prophecy. In all respects, they would likely balk at any such experiences being labeled as paranormal or shamanic.

Paganism and shamanism were an integral part of human experience, but their influence declined when Christianity moved into new parts of the world. Christianity adopted several pagan symbols and rituals to appear palatable to a new population. In Africa, animist and Christian beliefs inform current ideas on religious practice as well as the paranormal. In the United States, many are now revisiting Native American perspectives on unseen knowledge to healing. Pagan symbols remain present in most modern religions, and some people openly approach the paranormal from a pagan perspective. This has caused confusion among the public. Until Ghost Hunters aired, many considered ghost hunting a very “un-Christian” activity, and enthusiasts kept their interest low-key. John Zaffis, America’s best-known demonologist, suggests those involved in paranormal research were pretty much in the closet until 2004. He explains, “It wasn’t something one talked about because of the association with Satanism or the occult. For the majority of people back then, the immediate assumption was that you were a devil worshiper.”

Zaffis was an early TV go-to person on these topics, but that did not guarantee he was the most popular fellow on the block. “You didn’t

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share so much information. It would affect you right across the board— your friendships, your family members. It would affect where you were working.” As the nephew of Ed and Lorraine Warren, iconic American paranormal investigators, if Zaffis could not talk about it, then who could? “Even though I grew up in a paranormal family, and we were exposed to it, we still had a decent amount of members in the family who didn’t want to know anything about it. They felt I was dabbling in things,” he recalls.

The idea that the paranormal is either evil or angelic has its unique mark on American history, namely with the Salem Witch Trials. The events of 1692–1693 included elements of a good American story: young women go mad with witchery and other sins such as lust and gluttony.

These incidents were fueled more by cultural and gender triggers rather than paranormal, but the experience demonstrated the puritanical belief in an invisible world of angels and demons, as well as a thin line between religiosity and sheer madness. It also exhibited how readily one could fall prey to the myths of both demons and men. Again, the power of story was evidence. This particular one combined religious belief, witchcraft, gender, and sexuality to illuminate larger ideas of culture and identity.

On the paranormal end, the idea of evil permeating the spirit world remains and is evidenced by the growing number of paranormal researchers claiming to be demonologists. “Why demons are considered so sexy, I just don’t know,” cites an exasperated Zaffis.

Back in Europe, there was increasing discussion of the spirit world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but rising empiricism further aligned the shamanic and pagan approaches. Our magnet-happy friend, Mesmer, was one of the first to get “pooh-poohed” by the rise of scientism when, in 1788, the French Academy of Sciences declared his ideas, well, stupid. The messy relationship between science, religion, and the unexplained has been dysfunctional for a long, long time. Reverberations are still felt today between paranormalists and scientists. In fact, the academic community is even more hostile to paranormal topics than in the past, making it impossible for “real” scientists to openly research the paranormal. This is a pity. If skeptical scientists worked to disprove all the claims ghost hunters make, it would at least propel the field forward, even if the findings were not popular ones.

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Spiritualism had declined in the United States by the 1860s, although the end of the Civil War brought it back. Popularity was tied to the great wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Mediums and séances provided a way to communicate with the dearly departed.

As part of the emerging American entertainment culture, spiritualism enjoyed strong public popularity in the 1920s, along with magicians and illusionists. In a country of immigrants with differing beliefs, languages, and ethnicities, the cultural space of entertainment was a great unifying force. But it was also a corrupting one. Demand to foray into the ghostly side increased the opportunity for exploitation, and some suggest that the number of fraudulent mediums ultimately ruined credibility of the movement.5 Spirit photography, automatic writing, ectoplasm coming out of vaginas, and other dubious gimmicks emerged to fuel the entertainment aspect. (Ectoplasm from a lady’s nether regions, real or not, served as spiritual commentary, but also functioned to chide Victorian sexual attitudes dominated by puritanical ideas of femininity and sexual expression.) Meanwhile, psychical researchers, scientists, and public magicians rallied to expose the fakes by exposing technical tricks of the trade.

In 1907, magician and psychical research supporter David P. Abbott authored two books on spiritualism and how to expose its frauds. The dishonesty of the field was infuriating for many researchers, who were not trying to be know-it-alls. They truly wanted to believe. Houdini is perhaps the best example. He found spirit communication fascinating but became disgruntled when he could reproduce much of the alleged spirit phenomena. However, he longed for spirit communication to be real, and this motivated his efforts to find the one medium who would demonstrate tangible communication to the beyond. Thus, the debunking aspect to the paranormal emerged, thanks to popular illusionists and magicians who dared to believe.

5. S uch claims are made today regarding paranormal reality TV shows. This brings up larger issues of ethics versus entertainment. I admit difficulty in establishing an “ethical approach” when researching something many feel does not exist in the first place. Nielsen ratings are more tangible than spirits, and a great deal more profitable.

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The twentieth century issued more than just exposing mediums, although this became a happy pastime of psychical researchers. These intellectuals attempted to place a nascent scientific paradigm on unexplained phenomena—a journey that labeled them “spook scientists” by their peers. One of those was Harry Price, considered by most as the first ghost hunter. As much credit as Americans may get for making the paranormal a cultural commodity, that English chap beat us to the public-culture punch on the ghost issue. Price was an amateur magician with a keen interest in the paranormal. He began what we think of today as ghost hunting in 1904 in an old manor house thought to be haunted. Like all good ghost hunters, he knew documentation was necessary.

Unlike those in the field today, he did not have the Internet or reality TV shows to demonstrate the process. He did have a Lancaster stand camera and necessary supplies. He secured the premises upon arriving and set up his equipment. In what was an extreme stroke of good luck, he and his partner both had personal experiences that evening, yet no evidence was caught on camera. In another stroke of extreme good luck, he married a wealthy woman and was able to do ghost hunting fulltime.

As a magician and rich ghost hunter, he successfully debunked many fraudulent claims of mediums and investigated allegedly haunted sites.

Price was also instrumental in introducing equipment into the field, although much of it was used for psychical research rather than ghost hunting. He wrote the first manual on paranormal research in 1936, Confessions of a Ghost Hunter, and thus anointed the term. While he is credited for inaugurating this endeavor, psychical researchers—men and women—had been investigating anomalous events since the late 1800s. Price was the one smart enough to engage public media. Many felt Price was motivated by fame rather than a desire to seek answers.

This is yet another example of how the paranormal and the media exist in a symbiotic, yet dysfunctional, relationship.

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Contemporary Influences From the decline of spiritualism in the 1930s until the airing of Ghost Hunters, several American personalities kept such topics alive. Dr. J. B. Rhine managed to obtain private university funding for parapsychology research.

Outside of the ivory tower, Edgar Cayce was perhaps one of the bestknown psychics American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) of the twentieth century. Cayce was a bit of everything, from a trance medium to a spiritual healer. He was an early supporter of alternative medicine.

Cayce may have been too “out there” for many, but he submitted ideas that later formed the New Age movement. By the mid-1980s, thanks in part to Cayce, people felt comfortable expressing interest in UFOs and Shirley MacLaine’s chakras. Ghosts, however, were not quite as popular.

Eileen Garrett, an Irish-born medium, founded a New York Citybased publishing company and ran the magazine, Tomorrow.6 It was one of the first nationally distributed periodicals on paranormal issues. She also established the Parapsychology Foundation in 1951. Garrett was a strong, sensual woman who seemed to have great influence over people.

I suppose she had an abundance of raw animal magnetism. Backstage during an off-Broadway performance, she ran into a strapping Austrian and told him to become a ghost hunter. That person was Hans Holzer, who became a prolific parapsychologist, paranormal investigator, and media expert. Garrett anointed the man many call the “Godfather of the Paranormal.”

Holzer authored approximately one hundred books discussing cases and other paranormal issues; he is one of the most prolific commentators on such subjects. He and psychic Ethel Johnson-Meyers first investigated the Amityville house. Their investigation turned this location into one of the most famous American hauntings. Parapsychology was his base, and he translated obscure paranormal ideas into popular culture currency. Holzer synthesized the works of Charles Fort, Edgar 6. O ne great influence on early paranormal literature was Charles Fort (1874– 1932), who collected and published anecdotal stories of the unexplained. He was never a researcher, but developed a devoted following of Forteans. He is memorialized in the magazine Fortean Times. One may also want to check out the blog Who Forted?, in tribute to him, of course.

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Cayce, J. B. Rhine, and Eileen Garrett to provide an updated metaphysical framework for those interested in the other side. He went to the other side in 2009, and passed the torch to his daughter, Alexandra. At the time of this writing, she is active in the community in tribute to her father and encourages a more media presence of women in the field.

Ed and Lorraine Warren, mentioned earlier in this chapter, also pioneered the field of paranormal investigation. Their legacy continues with John Zaffis, who is still active and present in the field. Another major contributor to paranormal literature and media representations is parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach, who has written many seminal works on paranormal research and is a media expert on paranormal portrayals. He served as a consultant to the movie Ghost (and others).

More importantly, he introduced several theoretical approaches on paranormal activity used by many teams today. Troy Taylor is another researcher and author who has a colored contemporary understanding of paranormal activity as well as para-themed public events. Author Rosemary Ellen Guiley is the most prolific author in the paranormal community, with forty-nine books (and counting) on various subjects, and is one of the few longstanding female personalities in the field. To be fair, American personalities canonized the field of ghost hunting.

When I speak to teams in other parts of the world, they reference the personalities spoken of in this paragraph.

All of the aforementioned dabbled in an emerging investigative reality lodged between spiritualism, scientism, and finally, technologism.7 Today, the way we understand, document, and interpret paranormal activity relates to media and technology. John Potts discusses this move in his essay, “Ghost Hunting in the Twenty-first Century.” Potts suggests some investigators are perhaps more interested in the technology itself than an actual ghost, and that “this process fuses belief in the supernatural with vocabulary drawn from media technology. It is, in effect, a discourse of the paranormal spoken through a discourse of technology, with a reference to scientific method.” Photography, recording apparatuses, camcorders, and infrared and full spectrum cameras have augmented our understanding 7. Scientism is the attempt to subject all experiences, paranormal and otherwise, to a scientific explanation or measureable moment. Technologism is a component of that, as it makes measurement more “objective” through the use of gadgetry.

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of spirit activity, as well as the language we use to characterize the paranormal. Before digital audio devices started catching ghostly voices, and before nonlinear video editing systems made reality TV possible, the Internet contributed to forming a cogent paranormal community.

Since the 1990s, the Internet has provided a safe, anonymous space for people to expand their interest in a subject that was taboo. Going online to look at the paranormal was considered as weird as looking for porn. Yet Donn Shy, the premier paranormal publicist (yes, it’s reached the point that personalities in the field have publicists and Shy calls herself a “parapublicist”), admits the Internet transformed the field.

She recalls going online in the 1990s to seek out information. “It was like going online to look at porn, I suppose. I felt embarrassed doing it and did not want to tell anyone.” Like Zaffis, Shy admits she did not share her interest at the office water cooler. “Nobody talked about these things back then—nobody. But the Internet was one of the best and only places to get any information and to hear about other people doing this type of stuff. Most of the stuff posted was intended to be spooky rather than educational, but it was a start. Several of the forums started, and some people would have websites. I would literally come home on a Friday night and be online reading paranormal information until early Saturday morning.” For what it’s worth, Grant Wilson found Jason Hawes over the Internet, and became the cofounder of TAPS. The group culture of paranormal investigation is a new development and directly tied to Ghost Hunter’s success. During the 1990s, there were individuals conducting paranormal investigations, but large organized groups were rarities. TAPS was one of the earliest with an online presence. Since 2004, group culture has become the primary way to do any investigation, and it is very difficult to get cases without being part of a team. Parapsychologists were conducting the most visible work until academic support declined in the 1980s. The legacy continues with the few remaining parapsychologists and the ever-increasing number of lay investigators. The two camps are often at odds with one another. Parapsychology no longer enjoys academic support and is a dying field in the United States. On the flip side, a new paranormal investigation group is born

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every day.8 There are groups for preteens, gays and lesbians, psychics, and the academically oriented. There are “I wanna be on TV” teams, and it is common for many to film a sizzle reel to get a show two days after having their first meeting. There is an unprecedented “coolness” factor to the paranormal. Participation has increased the drama, and believe me, there is reality-show potential for drama in the paranormal community. Sex, secrets, and spirits are all there.

On a serious note, the advent of paranormal teams has resulted in emerging legal issues facing the community. These matters range from trespassing on abandoned properties to more murky issues of intellectual property theft, the rights regarding ownership of evidence posted online, and death by ghost hunting.

Ghost Hunters and subsequent paranormal reality TV shows have mainstreamed paranormal interest. Today, many owners of homes, businesses, and historic properties want their properties to be haunted.

A mere eight years ago, it was hard to find properties willing to discuss such topics. The rush to have a ghost is a plus for investigators and the larger field of research. However, the downside is too many groups and too many shows are competing for the moment. Meanwhile, the quality of research certainly pales when compared to the quantity.

Parapsychologists, who have historically investigated hauntings with rigorous academic protocols, lament the layman’s approach. Yet, more academically oriented people are interested in the field than ever, despite a lack of institutional support. This includes quantum physicists, psychologists, and others who may take some aspects of this research to universities for real examination. There is hope that as more evidence is collected, there will be a stronger argument for funded research. Numerous hurdles exist before this can become a reality. The biggest challenge is how to fit paranormal events into scientific methodology. At the grassroots level, there is spectacular technological innovation and sincere dialogue regarding philosophy and methodology of the paranormal. Perhaps the biggest accomplishment is that people no longer 8. I n North Carolina, my state of residence, there are hundreds of groups with varying reputations and approaches. In 2000, one could count the number on two hands. On the entire continent of Australia in 2009, there were a total of sixteen paranormal teams. Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International started to air Down Under, so it is likely that number will increase exponentially.

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hide this interest, and most recognize it as a legitimate metaphysical journey. There is one unfortunate development, however. Just as celebrities have a paparazzi problem, ghosts now have a paranormal investigator problem.

TV and the Paranormal Investigator Many new investigators are ill-informed of the link between spiritualism, parapsychology, and today’s ghost hunting. I admit it is hard to appreciate claims and experiences of spiritualism without sounding jaded. Many assumptions about ghosts, spirits, and ethereal beings are holdovers from spiritualist theories and assertions. An emerging set of ideas, primarily based on quantum mechanics, is informing a new generation of serious paranormalists. There are soft, nascent murmurings of how this particular approach may eventually influence religious and scientific discussions on unexplained events.

The -isms of science and those of the spirit created the two main avenues of paranormal investigation: the critical-thinking debunking approach and the psychic-sensitive method.

The first is the research perspective that claims to be objective and seeks out logical, alternative explanations to unusual events. Teams try to disprove hauntings, and if left with unexplainable evidence, can label it as paranormal. Such investigators try to adhere to some credible methodology by documenting, experimenting, and working with control groups. Many suggest this is actual research. Realistically, few really conduct scientific investigations.

The other approach engages psychics to reveal entities or energies present. In this camp, there is often emphasis on spirit rescue, or helping souls “cross over to the light.” A few groups are a happy medium (pun intended) between the two. Groups oriented in either direction invest in helping curious or perhaps frightened homeowners understand weird events. There are shows associated with each perspective.

Ghost Hunters is for the skeptical debunkers, while A&E’s Paranormal State allows psychics a more traditionally dominant role in investiga-

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tion. These two shows take different approaches, but are equally committed off-camera to helping people and seeking answers.

The entertainment aspect has led to two more types of inquiries: thrill seekers and ghost groupies. The thrill seekers are not primarily concerned with research or helping the living, but rely more on having a good scare or just catching some great evidence. This isn’t necessarily a bad perspective. Adventure Myths, based out of Baltimore, is a group of friends who are unabashed thrill seekers. The way they approach their work is unique. First, they are responsible and professional. Second, they document their investigations and post well-edited webisodes on YouTube. Their efforts have attracted media attention for some of the historic sites featured in their videos. Increasing public interest in a historic property is usually positive, and many reputable groups know how to exploit media exposure in financial favor of such locations.

Then there are the ghost groupies who are primarily armchair investigators. Groupies participate in public ghost hunts and attend paraconferences. They may own some specialized equipment but have little patience for serious investigation. Thrill seekers enjoy Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures, as it features a team of good-looking men aggressively chasing spirits in spooky places. Ghost groupies watch all the shows.

There are many reasons such shows are successful. The most obvious is that a considerable number of Americans do believe, it seems, in ghosts and hauntings. A 2005 Gallup poll suggests 32 percent of Americans accept the idea of ghosts, with 16 percent on the fence. Young people (ages eighteen to thirty-five) are more likely to believe, as well as those who are more liberal in political persuasion. A Harris poll, conducted in 2009, found that 42 percent of Americans believe in ghosts and 20 percent are unsure. Belief in ghosts jumped up 2 points in the 2007 Harris poll compared to the same survey from 2005. The majority of Americans do not profess belief, but a third of the population is no small number. Governments have been overthrown with far less popular support in contemporary American society.

The story is getting bigger. In 2009, Comedy Central’s South Park became part of the story. Jason Hawes starred in Turbo Tax commercials in 2009 and 2010, and Lowes Home Improvement spoofed Ghost Hunters in a commercial. Both Jason and Grant participated in a Syfy commercial for

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the movie Hell Boy. They also have several books under their belt. In 2010, they released a preteen novel and have a ghost-hunting-themed adult fiction book coming out. They were also guests on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in 2010 in an effort to raise money for the Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. They have appeared on Larry King Live, the Today Show, and The View. Cast members from other shows have not participated in so many media-related endeavors.

Ghost Hunters International’s Barry Fitzgerald, and former Ghost Hunters cast member Dustin Pari have coauthored two books. Paranormal State’s Ryan Buell released his book in 2010. Several artists such as Terri Garofalo, Paulina Cassidy, and H.C. Noel are catering to a paranormal-friendly audience. Many local ghost hunters around the country are writing their books on a variety of issues. It is as if a new nonfiction literary genre and subsequent art form is emerging to mirror the success of paranormal fiction and TV. The paranormal craze is now profitable in a variety of ways. Social networking is part of the currency, and paranormal-themed meetup. com and Facebook groups flourish in the United States and around the world. It is no longer about listening to the ghost story; people now desire to be part of the story and attempt to engage the paranormal in meaningful ways.

Paranormal State’s Michelle Belanger noted that this decade has been an excellent time for society to revisit these themes through pop culture. “The timing was right for people to reacquaint themselves with paranormal and supernatural activity,” she explains. “Our country is at war. We are a country whose boundaries, socially and culturally, are ambiguous. The world is getting much smaller for a lot of us. We are being exposed to different worldviews, and there is the [ailing] economy and general unrest,” she extrapolates. “You take all of these issues at once and lump them together, you have about the same cultural feelings that were going on in the United States and United Kingdom when the spiritualist movement was at its height.” In addition to being the show’s psychic, Michelle has an academic background in music, literature, and religious studies. She is also a prolific paranormal author, and her observations are from both sides of the screen.

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Going Dark, Cameras On, Ghosts Out . . .

Death is unavoidable and is the final punctuation to our living histories.

Discourse about the afterlife allows us to continue speaking after death.

In some cases, this occurs in the literal sense in the form of electronic voice phenomena (EVP). Some argue that religion is just an insurance policy for the afterlife.

There have always been individuals and religious leaders who claim to access the beyond. The spiritual realm is one that remains outside the bounds of science, although there are increasing attempts to quantify mystical experience. However, spiritual experience remains a fairly unchartered frontier. We conquered the New World and the moon, so there is little surprise that we are now trying to crack open the death boundary, as well. Spiritualism was the first attempt. Parapsychology responded to apply a deductive-thinking approach to survival research.

Since the 1950s, Hans Holzer, the Warrens, J. B. Rhine, Loyd Auerbach, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, and John Zaffis (and South Park) have expanded the discussion. There have been two variables throughout: one is an almost sacred desire to breech the unknown. The other more tangible variable is media interest.

Back in 1848, America successfully submitted tales of the spirit into popular culture. Today, thanks to American reality TV, this is now a global epic. There are always private accounts behind public narratives, and a paranormal journey can be mysterious. Like so many great stories, the Fox girls have a serendipitous twist to their early claims of the rapping phantom, Mr. Splitfoot, summed up by author Troy Taylor in Ghosts by Gaslight. Decades after Maggie and Kate passed away, a surprising discovery may have vindicated their claims. A child was playing in the abandoned cottage in 1904 when a brick wall gave way, revealing a secret partition. In it were partial remains of a male skeleton and a peddler’s box, suggesting the Fox sisters may have experienced some genuine spirit communication. As Taylor suggests, “Dead men, as they say, really do tell tales.”