It's that time of year.

It's getting to be close to Halloween and I find this as appropriate a time as any to kick off my new blog.  It's the time of year when all of the paranormal documentaries are on the various documentary channels and when the plethora of ghost hunting shows do either live shows or run marathons.  And let's not forget all of the vampire media that is out there either.  Witches seem to have taken a backseat in recent years as people claiming religious beliefs related to witchcraft traditions have made the idea less spooky and more normal.  Witch is no longer a classification of supernatural creature but a title taken by those that practice pagan faiths and work magic.

 Personally, I find ghosts and vampires to be the two most trite subjects when it comes to the paranormal.  This isn't to say that ghosts don't hold a very important place in the study of the paranormal.  Understanding the nature of ghosts and spirits could be one of the most important undertakings of mankind as it could give us some inkling of what to expect when we close our eyes for the final time.  I'll get to this later.

Then there are vampires who have come out of the darkness because of a recent novel and film series I won't mention.  What many people don't know is that there is a community of real-life "vampires" that are on the verge of bringing their community into a more respected public light.  The subject of real vampires, or Human Living Vampires (HLVs), is so broad that I could devote an entire blog to that subject alone.  You can probably expect posts specifically devoted to the vampire community on future dates.

Back to ghosts now.  I think that the area of parapsychology known as "survival studies" is very important and isn't necessarily given enough respect.  As little respect as ESP researchers get, survival researchers probably get even less.  This is odd considering that in the days of the founding of the Society for Psychical Research survival of the human being beyond death was a major topic of interest.  This said, it was a whole lot easier to investigate claims of spirits communicating secret information between parties then as there were no telephones or other rapid communications such as the Internet.  There were no fancy electronic gizmos or even electricity during the age of widespread mediumship and spiritualism.

I think that now serious survival researchers have to deal with all the noise surrounding television ghost hunters and paranormal investigators.  It's hard to be taken seriously when the public perception of ghosts, spirits, or survival after death is that of a group of young people, some looking less than professional, running around in abandoned buildings after dark filming themselves being scared.  An attempt to validate this vocation by the introduction of electronic devices such as EMF detectors may work for some people but this author doesn't really see the relevance.  I suppose my main problem with these types of shows is that the approach doesn't ever seem to gain any answers.  These "investigators" may be able to tell you whether your home is haunted in an hour or less, but they provide very few answers about what happens when we die, if ghosts are deceased people or something else, the mechanisms of how ghosts interact with our world, etc.  All of this without even going into the accusations of faking evidence for ratings.

I think that the real ground to be gained in this area is in the study of near death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and the similarities between these experiences as related by those experiencing them.  I think that the laboratory is where we'll find the answers and while there is value in field investigation of spontaneous occurrences...  I think the popularization and trappings that have been attached to field investigation by popular media is detrimental.  That's just the opinion of someone that's never done a field investigation of a haunted locale before though, so take it for what it's worth.

I think that the popularization of ghost hunting has also been detrimental to the younger people that have an interest in the paranormal.  I'm sure it's no mystery that kids like to watch TV more than they like to read and, when given a choice, I think most people would rather read fiction than nonfiction.  My point is that the younger generation is getting all of their information from television ghost hunters and haunted locations documentaries (or fictional teen romances).  This means that those of us that have been researching away from the TV have to deal with people taking every creak in their home or shadow in their peripheral vision as a ghost.  I'm not saying that it couldn't have been a ghost, but I think that some critical thinking should be used to temper seemingly inexplicable happenings.

I've experienced my fair share of inexplicable things (that's one of the reasons I'm so passionate about the paranormal).  However, I make it a point to try not to jump to conclusions about what happened.  I try to look at all of the mundane reasons before I cry "Ghost!" (Or whatever else my mind might immediately jump to.)   Sometimes there just isn't an obvious rational explanation though.  Just as often there isn't enough evidence to say that a deceased human being is hanging around in the attic.  I like to find a happy medium in most areas of my life and a little bit of critical thinking is how I do that with my paranormal interests.  That's all I ask when dealing with the paranormal if those of us that are serious about the subject ever expect to have the fields of parapsychology and paranormal research taken seriously.

If you've made it this far then thank you for reading my first entry.  If you have feedback then please leave a comment!