May 27, 2012-Paranormal Investigators of New England

[wwkirk]

A pleasant, easy going interview. I was surprised at how skeptical and uncertain he was. Maybe that's a good thing. He seems to be an "empiricist," someone who studies phenomena with a minimum of theoretical commitments. While this may be a good thing, he's not the kind of protagonist that people love to hate. He's just doing his thing with few expectations as to the outcome.

Its interesting that he said that the kind of equipment he uses is not suited for proving the existence of hauntings or spiritual entities. He instead deferred to the ouija borad and the pendulum for that sort of endeavor. That alludes to a kind of paranormal divide, with spiritualists on one side and "objective" empiricists on the other.

If I were to offer a criticism, it would be that it was difficult to see what the ultimate motivation or end game is supposed to be. A couple of times he mentioned helping people. But how do readings on an E.M. meter help anyone?

 

[Angel of Ioren]

I liked him a lot - very similar attitude that I have and I liked that he compared himself to Joe Nickell.

 

[Jeff Crowell]

If I were to offer a criticism, it would be that it was difficult to see what the ultimate motivation or end game is supposed to be. A couple of times he mentioned helping people. But how do readings on an E.M. meter help anyone?

"Helping" people is a relative term, here, and one more rooted in psychology than anything else. The bottom line is this; people come to ghost hunters claiming paranormal activity in their homes. This activity leads to a sense of fear, fear of the unknown, apprehension of the one place everybody should feel safe; their house. By the time a client comes to us they already 'belief' something paranormal is going on.

By "helping" we mean we help them to obtain a sense of peace; either by disproving the haunting or determining if any supposed-activity is benign in nature. It really doesn't matter if WE believe there's a haunting or not, it's all about the client at that point. Sure, there are those of us (ghost hunters) who believe in demons and negative spooky-spooks who will hurt and harm you in some way or fashion but it's never been in my experience so in even the one home I believed may have had genuine paranormal activity I was able to look at the client and tell them it's benign......like having another pet. This "helping" in my own personal experience, has calmed young children and brought peace to adults ranging in age from 20 to 60, peace in their own homes or where they worked.

For skeptics it can be argued that this type of "helping" is mis-guided in it leads to the uncommon belief in ghosties and ghoulies. Additionally, few, if any, ghost hunters are actually psychologists, but belief in ghosts is no more harmful than believing in God, a Goddess, Satan, aliens, or any other supernatural or paranormal entity. People come to grips and grow more comfortable in their homes after we leave (or groups like ours), so yes...we help people feel better.

 

[Polterwurst]

Nnnnice show folks! Believe it or not, I really think Jeff's very down-to-earth attitude is a good starting point when investigating these things. Although my own experience regarding possible reincarnation leads me to think that there might be something to hauntings, apparitions, discarnate consciousness etc. I guess it's not a bad thing to assume that in most cases, there might be a perfectly un-paranormal explanation. And from what he said, I conclude that he is not dismissive of the opinions of his fellow-researchers who are more into the paranormal. Because from all I have heard of credible people doing these investigations, in some cases, these un-paranormal explanations just won't do the trick.

It's often been said that a skeptic is just someone who hasn't experienced anything him-/herself (yet). So I have some hope - not only for Jeff but for myself too - that some day he'll experience, maybe even document, something that really convinces him.

Thanks for asking my questions, Gene. I really appreciate that. I hope, even if Jeff maybe really wasn't the right person for the more "philosophical" ones, they might have made him think...

Oh btw, I don't know how to pronounce "pareidolia" either. Just so you know.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

I'm just listening to last week's show today, and I have just reached the part when the so-called 'Ghost Box' is discusses, and Gene says that if you were a literate person in this life, it stands to reason you would remain literate in the next one.

Well... I had to do a bit of digging but I managed to find this rather interesting essay concerning the Difficulties in Spirit Communication, which might answer why this may not be the case.

No doubt one of the reasons why research into mediumship has not been more widely accepted has to do with the lack of clarity in most of the communication purportedly coming from spirits. Even with the best of mediums, there is much vagueness and ambiguity, even gibberish, in the communication. Skeptics see all this as evidence that the so-called mediums are charlatans, as they assume that if spirits really exist they should be able to communicate in a much more intelligent and effective manner.
But it is not all that easy to communicate, the spirits tell us. A month after pioneering psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers died in 1901, Professor Oliver Lodge heard from him though Rosalie Thompson, a trance medium. Lodge recorded that Myers struggled in his initial attempts to communicate. “Lodge, it is not as easy as I thought in my impatience,” Myers explained his difficulty after some delay. “Gurney says I am getting on first rate. But I am short of breath.” Gurney, who died in 1888, was a co-founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) with Myers. The “shortness of breath” apparently is a metaphorical shortness of breath. One spirit likened spirit communication to trying to hold one’s breath under water and communicate by hand signals with another underwater swimmer.

This is in no way an attempt to validate that ghost box or whatever they call it. I never watch all those annoying ghost-hunting reality shows on TV —same thing with Finding Bigfoot, which should probably be renamed Finding Ratings by NOT Finding Bigfoot— but nevertheless the above article is nice food for thought —which in the Afterlife might be our only source of sustenance