Paranormal Parasites Overview--The Fringe Element of the Paranormal World

In the 1920s, the most famous man in the world was arguably Harry Houdini, stage magician and escape artist. While normally this sort of entertainer would have concentrated on making his audiences believe that he possessed some supernatural power, Houdini was different. Not only did he claim the direct opposite, he went a step further. He claimed that no one had arcane abilities of magic or spirit communication, and he put his money where his mouth was.  After his mother died, Houdini tried to contact her through various psychic mediums, but none of them were legitimate. He began to give lectures on fake mediums. In 1924, he wrote and published a book: A Magician Among The Spirits. All year on his 1925 tour, he offered a $10,000 reward to anyone who proved to him that their purported abilities were real. 

No one ever claimed that money.

At the time, the spiritualist movement was huge internationally. Less than a decade after World War I, too many families in Europe, Asia, and the Americas were still dealing with the deaths of their fathers, husbands, and sons. Europe was still in the throes of severe political upheaval, just a few years after the deposition of Tsar Nicholas and his subsequent execution along with his wife and children and only a few years before fascism took hold of a turbulent post-war Germany. If there were people with the ability to contact the dead, their talents and skill had never been more needed. 

And as with so many issues of faith, that terrible fact attracted the worst kinds of snake oil salesmen and exploitative opportunists. Houdini maintained a one-man war against them and was remarkably successful in his pursuit of frauds. After all, who was better situated to know all the tricks of the trade than a man who'd gotten rich from using those tricks to entertain sold-out theaters every night for months? 

Houdini was a magician, yes. But he was also an honest man, who couldn't bear the dishonesty that was coming between people struggling to survive during the Great Depression and their money--money that should have been used to feed and clothe their children instead of rewarding the lies a fake medium concocted. And Harry is perhaps the forefather of the awareness that around any paranormal community, there's a fringe element. I call the inhabitants of that element paranormal parasites, and they're far more common than you think.

As a paranormal researcher, I've encountered these parasites in all sorts of locations and playing all sorts of roles. So for the purposes of this blog mini-series, I'm going to break these down into several groups of paranormal parasites: fakers or false victims; ghost hunters; paranormal clergy; psychics/mediums; demonology; paranormal tourism; haunted objects and paranormal equipment; and paranormal television.

Yeah. I know what you're thinking. "But...but Celina! Are you saying that ALL paranormal stuff is some kind of scam?"

No. What I'm saying is that paranormal parasites can be found at any level of involvement, and skepticism is necessary not only to understand what's happening around you but to protect yourself from something far  more terrifying than cryptids and poltergeists.

Doesn't matter what you believe in, there's nothing scarier than man.

Each identified area will get its own blog post, along with signs of what to look for so that you won't end up becoming the victim of a parasite.

The only way to verify legitimate paranormal activity is to eliminate any other potential explanations. Any long-time investigator (or Sherlock Holmes fan, for that matter) will inherently understand and agree with this. It's a fact. The only way you can conclusively determine if something is paranormal or supernatural is to eliminate every other possibility. In the paranormal world right now there are too many people desperate to prove that what they believe is a universal fact when in actuality, that's the direct opposite approach to what investigators should be doing.

What we should be doing is trying to prove that what we witness, capture, or believe has a logical, non-paranormal provenance. Anything else is just a subjective experience--an allegation or a claim. And I'm not immune to that rule. All over the paranormal section of this blog are stories of events that I've experienced, documented, or researched. But those stories aren't evidence. You can't consider them proof of anything. BUT my subjective experiences. These observations do serve a purpose from an investigatory standpoint. They can be road maps, perhaps, to help investigators find evidence.

For example, I tell the story of my experiences with the Bell Witch Cave and my earliest paranormal research in the post What A Real Night Investigating in Adams Is Like. A significant portion of that post deals with how the rocks in the Bell Witch Cave should *never* be taken home as souvenirs. Heck, I didn't even TAKE a rock; they just showed up in my car. When I took one I missed back to the cave the next day, this is what happened:

The next morning on my way to class, I noticed that we'd forgotten one of the rocks we'd found piled up in the seats. I skipped my afternoon art history class to drive that rock back to Adams and give it back to Mr. Bims. When I got there, he was sitting outside on his lawnmower, and as I got out with the rock he smiled at me. 

Bims Edens was one of those slow-speaking, polite Southern gentlemen. He was so very kind, but he also had a devilish gleam in his eyes sometimes when he smiled. As I told him what had happened, his eyes got that little twinkle in them and he smiled slowly. "I knew something happened," he said. "You've never left before without telling us goodbye and thank you." 

"The rocks were what freaked me out," I confessed. "That's why I thought I'd better make sure to bring this straight back.""Last night the dead men's lanterns were glowing in the woods," he said, looking in the direction of the Bells' old graveyard. "Things was restless last night. Probably one of those stupid kids on the hayride got things riled up. But she gave you a warning, Celina. Better be careful, girl--she let you know that she knows who you are." 

Mr. Bims took the rock, said goodbye, and headed toward the trail. I knew he was going to put the rock back in the cave--like he always put those rocks that came back in the mail from all over. I should have taken it myself and spared the old man the trip, but I knew he wouldn't let me. He believed Kate had given me a warning, and so he'd given me one too.

That's a pretty scary story but one that's ultimately just a subjective experience. There's no proof that the rocks from the Bell Witch Cave are cursed, right? The post was written in October, 2015 about events that happened in October, 1990. But two days ago, on October 6, 2019, the Fourman brothers released a new investigation on their paranormal channel called Paranormal Nightmares: The Haunting of Jackie Bell. And a significant element of that story has to do with the severe haunting of a family after they visited the Bell Witch Cave and brought back rocks as souvenirs.

Here again--this isn't evidence the proves those rocks are cursed. There isn't any scientific method that will verify the existence of a curse. But these two stories corroborate each other. Two events that occurred decades apart to people with no known connection or association but that have similar results. And what makes all this even more interesting is that the Fourman brothers take an EVP meter to one of the rocks from the Bell Witch Cave at the clients' house, and document extremely high EVP readings.

And that is proof--not of the paranormal, necessarily, but of something unusual and different about that rock that marks it as unusual. Paired with both my story and Katharine Bell's story, the meter readings do seem to indicate that there's some kind of evidential trail that stretches from the Bell Witch Cave to subsequent paranormal activity. So there may be some way to learn more about the Bell Witch haunting as a result, and that's why I hope to investigate the cave again soon. Now that there's a concrete link, I can hopefully build off my subjective experience and look for additional evidence that can lead to proof of paranormal activity on the old Bell family land.

There's a trail to follow. Sure, it'd be really easy for me (if I was a paranormal parasite) to sit here and say, "See? That's PROOF." But it's not enough to establish the legitimacy of the paranormal on its own. What is DOES do is give me a direction as an investigator, and that I can pursue.

So I will.

Oh and by the way, if you've never watched any of the Fourman Brothers' investigations, you've been missing out on what is one of the best paranormal research groups out there. Go check out this video, and I'm almost positive you'll be hooked. Seem to be great guys, strong investigators, and outstanding storytellers.  Check out their YouTube channel or the first season of their new Paranormal Nightmares show on Amazon Prime.

So settle down, buckle in, and get ready. We're about to take a cold, hard look at the world of paranormal parasites. Hopefully, this will help any of you who are dealing with any sort of paranormal issues to make your own determinations about things impacting you and your life.

First up, probably the most controversial of the paranormal parasite topics: the clergy. 

Timeout For Some More Paranormal Theories

Never fear--another Bell Witch post is coming for tomorrow. It takes me a while to write those posts, because I'm being very careful to cross refer through all the available source material in an effort to present the best possible relation of events as, if not fact (for two hundred years later it's hard to discern fact from legend) then at least the salient points of the original sources. In particular, I want the Bell family memories to be accurately related because, in my opinion, those stories hold the most weight and are the most likely sources to be accurate in regards to what really happened. So I'm going to hold a story from Richard Williams Bell's journal as more probable than any of Harriet Parks Miller or MV Ingram's Victorian flights of fancy. 

Now then...let's take a look at something I have been pondering this week. In my post on paranormal video viewing, I mentioned that Most Haunted's investigation of 30 East Drive's 'most violent poltergeist in the world' as one that closely mirrors the Bell haunting. You could have blown me over when I discovered that the MH guys ALSO did their live Halloween investigation there last week. I watched it last night--and you can too, on YouTube. The show is broken down into three parts, but should play back to back without you having to search for the next installment. 

Now, can I say for certain that MH's whole show isn't faked? No. Do I buy into everything that happened? No, of course not. Anytime you evaluate a paranormal show, you have to include a healthy dose of skepticism even if you do believe in the supernatural. I'd be 100% skeptical if I hadn't experienced paranormal events personally. Heck, I'm still waiting for proof on Bigfoot and UFOs and psychics and all that fun stuff. However, that's for me--my own personal belief system is based on what I experienced, and it's not my place to destroy someone else's personal experiences just because I wasn't there. So whenever paranormal activity occurs in front of a camera and a live audience, I take it at face value. 

And it's no secret that I've laughed a lot at Most Haunted in the past. Still do, to be honest, especially when some cadaverous-looking dude starts bellowing incantations to Satan in poorly pronounced Latin.

But I discovered something last night, after watching the show, that set my wheels to turning. 

In the past few years, 30 East Drive has been investigated  by numerous groups. Throw in Most Haunted's two regular episodes, and then add in the live Halloween investigation. Not only did you have the team in the house, but the incredible energy of multiple film crews and, for the live show, a horde of spectators outside on the street. Then figure in the millions of people who watched the event live internationally, thanks to their live stream on YouTube. That's an immense amount of energy, if theories regarding what fuels a haunting are accurate. But with this particular location, there's also something else that is both fascinating and disturbing. 

30 East Drive, in Pontefract, Yorkshire is now a B&B.

You think I'm kidding? Take a look for yourself.  250 pounds per night. Yowsa! At today's exchange rate, that's $376.24 per person, per night. I'd better get a luxury suite for that price, not a semi-detached house furnished in 1970's style furniture that's been beat up by a poltergeist. 

But then, it hit me. 

This poltergeist is not only getting fueled by all these investigations, but now there are casual tourists booking that house every. Single. Night. 

And they wonder why the house is haunted, and the intensity of the haunting has increased. If you take a look at the waiver all guests have to sign, you can pick up some interesting tidbits as well. Keep in mind that this is the entity that allegedly has been flinging knives around. The owner of the property is anxious to exploit the notoriety of the haunting, but is not anxious to take responsibility if some total idiot gets hurt in the course of the night. They also don't want anyone exorcising the entity because their cash cow would dry up. Additional digging on the site reveals that the owner of 30 East Drive is the producer of When The Lights Went Out--a fairly atrocious movie about the haunting from 2012. 

So this house is getting constant and increasing attention, bringing more people within the sphere of the entity and resulting in more and stronger paranormal events. 

Sound familiar?

What's going on around 30 East Drive is the twenty-first century equivalent of what happened on the Bell farm. Remember this from Richard Williams Bell?

This new development (i.e.--the entity beginning to speak) added to the sensation already created. The news spread, and people came in larger numbers, and the great anxiety concerning the mystery prompted many questions in the effort to induce the witch to disclose its own identity and purpose...The excitement in the country increased as the phenomena developed. The fame of the witch had become widely spread, and people came from all quarters to hear the strange and unaccountable voice...the house was open to everyone that came; father and mother gave them the best they had, their horses were fed and no one allowed to go away hungry; many offered pay and urged father to receive it--

There you go, Cursed: The Bell Witch idiots. Proof positive that John Bell was a horrible person that brought the curse upon himself and his family because of his lack of generosity and greed.

--insisting that he could not keep up entertaining so many without pay, but he persistently declined remuneration and not one of the family ever received a cent for entertaining.

We've already theorized that the growing number of spectators gave the entity the power and strength to continuously increase its ability to interact with witnesses. Right now, in Yorkshire, the exact same thing is happening with the same result--and the added advantages of money obviously outweigh any potential risk to visitors with the owner, whose motivation appears to be basic simple greed. So I have to wonder--what comes first?   An entity's stronger displays of power? Or people, instruments, technology, gizmos, and gadgets? 

I'm starting to see a strong case for people. Because IF the Bell Witch could talk from the beginning, why didn't she from the get go? And IF the Black Monk of Pontefract could apport knives out of boxes and throw them at people from the beginning, why didn't he chuck some butcher block innards at the Pritchard family back in the day instead of using marbles? 

I'm thinking that within the anatomy, for lack of a better word, of a haunting, there is a finite point beyond which an entity cannot go UNLESS the energy it feeds upon is substantially increased. So in our curiosity to know more about the other side, we are inadvertently empowering that which we inherently fear. 

So I started looking a little further. On my Scariest Paranormal Investigations playlist, (Note--there's a permanent link to the playlist now at the top of the left sidebar. Check back often; I'm always adding to it!) I've also listed two separate investigations by the Fourman Brothers' Living Dead group at the haunted Monroe house in Hartford City, Illinois. They were brought to the Monroe house as the result of an investigation conducted by DIGGS Paranormal that has more than FORTY videos of multiple investigations at that location. (I've since added one of their truly interesting and scary videos to my playlist) And just doing a swift check of the other groups and videos regarding that location, there is a substantial increase over the past six years from one video in 2009 to well over 50 in 2014-15 and at least ten different paranormal groups. In fact, in one of the Fourman videos, the owner of the house states that he's afraid opening up the house to paranormal research has increased the severity of the haunting--a haunting that most people consider to be demonic in nature. 

It would be interesting to conduct a serious study of haunted locations to see if investigations or tourism actually increase paranormal activity, either in frequency or intensity. In fact, I'm kind of seriously considering doing just that once the Bell Witch haunting series is completed. I was planning to consult a few paranormal experts in regards to this project, but I may give that a whirl earlier than expected. There are a lot of folks out there that contact paranormal groups when something in their house is scaring them. 

It would probably be important to them to find out that what they think is the cure is actually making their paranormal problems worse--and capable of much, much more dangerous things.

Let's Talk About Paranormal Shows and TV Exorcisms--From the Supreme to the Suck

Author's note: Thanks to everyone who contacted me about the glitch in this blog post. Took about an hour of redoing all the HTML code, but we're good to go now. Thanks and enjoy!

Nowhere was this title more apt than this past Halloween weekend. From the supreme to the suck, paranormal shows ran the gamut from great to horrendous. 

Thanks to Kate and the Bell Witch legend, along with another, intensely personal and terrifying demonic event I witnessed as a young adult, I have always been very interested in the paranormal. Once television began to create shows like SyFy's Ghost Hunters or Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures, I was pretty happy. I could watch similar experiences to my own happening safely to people I didn't know and hopefully learn as a result. The two shows I just mentioned are two, perhaps, of the best. While both shows have had episodes where I've sat back and thought, "Yeah, right. Your jacket got pulled ten minutes into a live show--because all the shows you've done before tell us how rare paranormal events are and how difficult to capture." both shows have also had episodes where the evidence seemed to be legitimate and inexplicable. So if there can be such a thing, I'd have to place TAPS and the GAC at the top of my list for paranormal television viewing. 

And then, of course, there's the internet. You know as well as I do that about 95% of the "real ghost caught on tape" YouTube videos are crap, and that the methodology and even the makeup of most "paranormal investigation teams" online is laughably similar to the two shows I've named above. But there are paranormal videos/evidence/investigators online who also can teach us things about the supernatural and who, I believe, after extensive vetting, are also legitimate sources of information. ?In fact, I've created a playlist on my YouTube channel of investigations and documentaries I consider to be useful. LiveSciFi.tv, with its salty and irreverent host Tim, not only livestreams all its video feeds from ghost hunts, most notably at the Sallie house in Atchison KS and the Welles house in Pennsylvania, but also undertakes a lot of folklore rituals like Bloody Mary and the recent Charlie Charlie pencil game *{add in FRAUD here since it was a viral advertising campaign}. 

Tim also conducts multiple sessions each month, live streamed, where he works with a spirit board, ghost box and Ovilus, and real time EVP burst sessions that have captured ("in my opinion) viable entity communications. Fair warning--DO NOT try to emulate what he does. The internet is also littered with videos of "ouija gone bad" and that personal experience I referred to earlier originated with ouija board communications. Tim may also be battling demonic attention, as the names Zozo, Beelzebub, Abacus, and Azrael pop up frequently. While you--like me--may be skeptical of spirit board communications, Tim has worked with legendary investigator and demonologist John Zaffis, the nephew of Ed and Lorraine Warren, and they actually have investigated together on LiveSciFi which ups his credibility significantly in my book. 

A second outstanding paranormal option is the Fourman brothers' Living Dead paranormal group, that produces incredibly professional and entertaining documentaries of its ghost hunts and has captured some extraordinary evidence. Their investigations of Pennhurst, the Monroe (IN) house, and the Glore Psychiatric Hospital are amazing--and terrifying. They seem like the real deal, and present their evidence in a straightforward, non-hyperbolic fashion that I really appreciate. 

Both these groups have channels, which I frequently confess to binge watching. If you want to see what investigators mean about how rare true evidence is, take a gander at one of LiveSciFi.tv's 15 hour DVR videos, that are presented, unedited, from their ghost hunts.

And finally, believe it or not, I have to add in a group/TV show that I used to really laugh at. The UK's Most Haunted show is probably the longest-running paranormal show in the world, and now that they seem to have chucked the mediums and are headed in a more evidentiary direction, they've just released what is most likely the closest video evidence to parallel the Bell haunting. More on that in a bit--and never fear. I'll provide links to websites and YouTube channels, as well as a link to my own playlist of particularly awesome online investigation videos. 

So after all that, let's talk for a minute about "Exorcism-Live!" that was produced by the Destination America channel last Friday night. 

I was very interested in Exorcism-Live last week. First off, it was being shot at the "Exorcist house"--the actual house in St. Louis where Roland Doe was possessed--the source material for both the book and the movie The Exorcist. This location was investigated last year by the GAC guys, and Nick Groff actually had something malicious follow him home. I don't know that's why he left Ghost Adventures (pretty sure it was Zak Bagans tormenting him to be honest), but the timing of the two events makes me a little suspicious. At any rate, this location has experienced documented paranormal activity since 1949, so I was curious to see what would happen. The Tennessee Wraith Chasers paranormal group (Tennessee boys, which makes me fond of them, naturally) conducted an investigation of the property live--they are the Ghost Asylum show on DA. Chip Coffey, a spiritualist medium that anyone who watched Paranormal State or Psychic Kids is familiar with, would lead a seance in the house using a Ouija board. And then Bishop James Long would perform an "exorcism" of the location to close out the show. 

There's a reason for the quotes there. The "Exorcist" Bishop Long is not a Roman Catholic bishop, but an Independent or Old Catholic bishop. "Independent Catholics separated from the Roman Catholic church over doctrinal differences, mostly dealing with papal authority. And while their orders are acknowledged by the Roman Catholic church for the most part, they don't exactly have a hotline to the Vatican. Does that make a difference really? 

Well, I don't know. 

I do know that the St. Louis archdiocese released a strong statement against the show last week, The statement reads in part:

St. Louis, Mo., Oct 30, 2015 / 03:16 pm (CNA/EWTN News)- A television show’s promise of a live exorcism rite is more dangerous than it thinks, the St. Louis archdiocese warned on Thursday. 

“Any attempt to use the solemn Rite of Exorcism as entertainment exposes all participants to the danger of future hidden satanic attack,” Bishop Robert Hermann said Oct. 29. “We cannot play games with Satan and expect to win.” 

Bishop Hermann, an auxiliary bishop emeritus of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said no exorcism can take place without the authority of the local Catholic ordinary.St. Louis’ Archbishop Robert Carlson has not granted permission to any priests or bishops for the event.

In my PERSONAL opinion, that makes a difference. The Catholic church has strict tests that are applied to candidates for the rite of exorcism. That's why few people actually get permission to receive the rite of exorcism, and only a few priests are permitted to engage in them. Without the official backing of the Roman Catholic Church, I find it difficult to believe that a rite like exorcism can be successfully performed. We're not talking about smudging a house with sage here. We're talking about spiritual warfare--using consecrated objects like holy water, a crucifix, the priestly vestments--performed by a consecrated priest who is trained in the rite by the church who actually has a demonology institute in Rome where both priests and laity can be trained in the ritual.

So even before the show began, I was very skeptical about what we would see. But, you know, I could be wrong. So I watched and hoped for the best.

I did not get it.

 The Ghost Asylum guys, God love 'em--they did their best to conduct a real paranormal investigation--something almost impossible to achieve in an hour stuffed full of commercial breaks, interviews with a very cheesy host, social media checks by a radio host who would read a question and never answer it, a full contingent of multiple film crews, and actual protesters howling down the street. There's no way their evidence is uncontaminated, and even if the investigation was conducted live the evidence couldn't possibly have been analyzed with any degree of thoroughness under those circumstances. Sorry, guys--it was a bust. Totally not your fault, either. Hopefully, you got to investigate AFTER the show was done. I'm sure whatever lingers in that house was well and truly pissed off about 3 am and you got some great evidence then.

And then we get to Chip Coffey's ten minute seance.

Seriously, dude? Are you kidding me? I don't play with Ouija boards--although I have used them in the distant past--but even as a giggling thirteen-year-old at a sleepover I knew that the session MUST BE PROPERLY CLOSED. This session was barely even opened when Chip asked one question--Is there a darker entity trying to take over the board--allegedly received an affirmative answer (impossible to determine since the participants' hands completely obscured the entire board)--and then they all got up and left WITHOUT CLOSING THE BOARD for a cheesy one on one with the cheesy host and a conveniently timed commercial break.

For someone who makes his living allegedly communing with the other side, this was such an obvious mistake that Twitter exploded under my fingertips even as I typed BULLSHIT. Even Tim from livescifi.tv tweeted "What a joke that Ouija session was lol" while the first commercial was playing.

So at this point, there was less than ten minutes left before the show ended, and the world was treated to the kind of exorcism ritual you might get at Sonic if they conducted religious rites there. The show went a few minutes over, but Bishop Long and his assistant Chip Coffey emerged from the house and triumphantly announced the exorcism was successful.

Now let's stop and think about that for a second.

This location was, in 1949, the site of a long-running, extensive, and extremely intense MAJOR rite of exorcism--where multiple priests conducted spiritual warfare with demons for a teenaged boy's soul. If the house is still infested by demons in 2015, then OBVIOUSLY THOSE EXORCISMS CONDUCTED AT LENGTH, BY MULTIPLE PRIESTS IN TANDEM, OVER DAYS, WEEKS, AND MONTHS DID NOT WORK. And now Bishop Long, Chip Coffey, and Destination America would have us believe than ten minutes of standard Catholic prayers, some holy water, and the participation of a few cameras managed to rid the house of an infestation that has persisted for almost seventy years? When a Ouija session had just been conducted by ONE OF THE ASSISTANTS OF THE EXORCISM and the session left OPEN by him just a commercial break before?And how did they KNOW that it worked? Especially considering that in most cases of demonic infestation, it's well documented that the house might be quiet for a few days, but then the attacks return and actually worsen?

You can't finish an exorcism, walk out the door, and announce, "Okay, we won! Yay for us!" The fact of the matter is that you don't know--can't know unless you freaking check. EVP session, EMF scan, K2 reading--something. The only thing that was successfully concluded with Bishop Long's proclamation of triumph was the show, thank God. Anything else is nothing but bullshit.

Exactly. Embrace the suck. I couldn't do anything after the "exorcism" ended. I just kind of sat there, staring at the TV, wondering if television executives really think the American public are that stupid.

Evidently, the answer is yes.

See, I had an advantage. I've witnessed demonic occurrences and I can tell you 100% that a ten minute recitation of basic prayers and a holy water spritzer aren't going to do anything with a true demonic entity except annoy it. I saw a friend of mine, who was demonically oppressed, suffer as three burns the width of his thumb rose for no apparent reason on his skin. They started below his left ear, went all the way down his neck, the center of his chest, and terminated on the right side of his torso. I have seen the rage of a devil, and that drive-by Hail Mary wouldn't affect it in the slightest.

So we have to ask ourselves--how far will we willingly suspend our disbelief?In stark contrast to the absolute idiocy of Exorcism-Live...? (punctuation change mine) stood two paranormal shows I watched this weekend. First was the Ghost Adventures investigation of Deadwood, SD--and if you weren't creeped out by that, then you're not going to be creeped out by anything. For the Ghost Adventures episode, obviously, there isn't a YouTube link that I'm aware of but I'm certain that the Travel Channel will replay the two-hour show this Saturday night.And second, oddly enough, was the Most Haunted investigation of 30 East Drive in Pontefract. This show explores a case that as best I can tell most accurately reflects some of the occurrences in the Bell Witch haunting. The location is billed as the site of the most violent poltergeist activity in the world and has been since the 1960's. When you watch it, think back to the story I just related about my friend's burns from nowhere--and you'll instantly understand what I saw.

The link is on my Scariest Paranormal Investigation videos playlist, along with several other videos you might like and that I feel are worth watching. I'll be constantly adding to that playlist, by the way, as I run across new things.

Whenever you are confronting questions about the paranormal, it pays to be skeptical. A good healthy skepticism is the advantage of a logical mind. While it may be easier to just believe in everything, it's not always smarter. You can, if you choose, watch paranormal videos for just the entertainment. Many people do.

But, take this little nugget with you and ponder: any paranormal group, show, author, psychic medium, inventor, or religious individual who makes grandiose claims about CURING or EXORCISING or CLEANSING or ELIMINATING any kind of paranormal threat is more than likely full of it. And if you're experiencing a traumatic paranormal event, the worst thing you can possibly do is to be taken in by a charlatan--something I very much fear happened Friday night in St. Louis.

Whether intentional or not, Destination America, Bishop James Long, and Chip Coffey delivered a promise that they were patently incapable of keeping. There wasn't an Exorcism--Live! on TV Friday night. There was a parody of epic proportions--the kind of thing that sets back sincere, realistic paranormal investigations light years.

(Author's Note--well over two years later, I discovered that Chip Coffey muted me on Twitter. Hell, I didn't even know he HAD a Twitter. So I'd just like to say--thanks, Chip, for reading this blog post! Hope you learned something from it. Ciao!)