Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown (24 page)

Katie was a very pleasant woman who’d lived with her elderly mother in the apartment. She told us she remembered the sound of the children, clear conversations they were having, but not what was actually said. Things were always being tampered with, she reported, the toilet seat left up, the refrigerator door open, the doors locked. Her mother was bedridden, but Katie would come home from work and find everything changed.

Why did I hear her name? It’s possible I’d heard a spirit calling her. There’ve been cases where spirits have memories, and this one may have been comfortable with her. Or, maybe her mother called her name repeatedly while they lived there, and that was recorded as a residual haunting.

Having confirmed some activity, but debunked the background story, there wasn’t much more I felt we could do. Shannon did feel uncomfortable in her home, so I contacted Keith and Sandra Johnson, a team of demonologists, to perform a blessing. Keith had appeared previously on
Ghost Hunters
, but wasn’t with the show any longer, and I thought it’d be cool for paranormal enthusiasts to see him.

Brian told us he felt more comfortable after the blessing and Shannon said it was a great experience.

That was it . . . until about a year later.

We’d filmed with the Sylvias in January 2007. That summer, casting began for
Ghost Hunters International
. As I mentioned, Shannon wanted to be a paranormal investigator and had already worked with TAPS. She tried out for the show and got in as a trainee.

GHI
premiered January 9, 2008, as a big hit for Syfy. There was a strong buzz about the show in the paranormal community. Our episode, “School House Haunting¸” originally aired later that same month, January 28. So Shannon was first seen as an investigator for
GHI,
then as a client on
Paranormal State.
To anyone who didn’t know the shooting dates, it appeared as if she’d gone from being an investigator to a client.

For some, the timing of Shannon’s dual appearance raised the question: Why not have your own team investigate your home unless you have something to hide?

These were early episodes for both series, and when you’re new, your credibility is questioned very heavily in the paranormal community. Worse, since, honestly, this wasn’t our best investigation, one of the biggest thing viewers took away was, “Hey, that’s the girl from
Ghost Hunters International
. What’s she doing here?”

Shannon tried to explain it, get the truth out, but she was pereceived as a sellout. A huge online storm started. Ultimately, Shannon left the show.

She didn’t expect a problem, and neither did we. When we advertised our episode, we said up front that our client was Shannon Sylvia from
Ghost Hunters International
. Still, she seemed angry at us for a little while. She sent me an e-mail questioning why we hadn’t mentioned in the episode itself that she’d wanted to be a paranormal investigator or had been involved with TAPS.

Frankly I’m not the editor, but I could see how Shannon’s paranormal background wasn’t relevant to the story. Had it been mentioned in passing, the thread would’ve had to be picked up, followed through, and resolved.

In the end, I don’t think there was anything Shannon, or the rest of us, should’ve done differently. I’ve no doubt that if
Paranormal State
had aired first, it would’ve been less of an issue. It does go to show how incredibly important credibility is in the field. There’s a dedicated group of people who watch paranormal shows and try to prove that they’re faked.

Some of them try to argue that all paranormal reality shows, including
Paranormal State
, are staged. I can’t speak for the other shows, but other than some honest mistakes, and time-crunched editing, which I discuss in this book, it’s not true so, in our case, no one’s able to back up that accusation. In fact, an employee of James Randi, the world’s best-known debunker, told me they tried to debunk our show but couldn’t. We present people’s experiences, the factual evidence and research we have, and offer theories. As the employee put it, “How can you debunk someone’s testimony? It’s just a he-said, she-said argument. So we just gave up on your show!” I laughed. I do enjoy being difficult.

I hate to say it, but in the end, the scandal was actually good for our show. Any publicity at that point was good. It got people talking about
Paranormal State.
And hey, I’m all for having controversy on the show, as long as we do our best.

Past that, I do want to say that while I remain proud and excited about a number of first season episodes, in all honesty, this wasn’t one of them. It lacked a compelling psychological story, the evidence was weak, and I don’t feel as if I gave it my best effort.

Normally, we did some research and interviews beforehand. Here, we were just stumbling in. I also don’t mind winging it, but only when my gut feels right, after I’ve planned things in advance. We’d done three cases in eleven days, our system wasn’t set up for that, and I was disappointed. I knew then we’d have to seriously rethink our scheduling if we were going to do more good work.

I didn’t realize it yet, but this was actually a rest break, compared with what came next.

C
OLD
R
EADINGS

Cold reading
is a series of techniques used by psychics and other fortune-tellers to convince clients they can see hidden knowledge, when in fact they’re using nonparanormal methods that can be learned by anyone and have been demonstrated in numerous documentaries. With a little practice, you can tell a lot about someone just by paying attention to their clothing, their body language, and their tone of voice, a process closer to what a detective does than someone with extrasensory perception.

These techniques result in a lot of “hits” or correct statements about the subject that can convince the unwary that the information was gleaned through psychic means. There are a variety of examples:

Shotgunning
is a technique in which the psychic will rattle off a lot of vague information hoping they’ll hit on something specific to the client. Every hit a psychic makes allows him to narrow things down and appear more specific.

While shotgunning, psychics rely on
Barnum statements
(named after famous huckster P. T. Barnum, also referred to as the
Forer effect
). In an effort to gain trust, they’ll say very general things that are true about most people, such as “You’re having a problem with a friend or family member” or “You tend to be a bit insecure around people you don’t know.”

The
rainbow ruse
is another way to elicit trust, by saying that the client has two contradictory characteristics, such as “Sometimes you’re happy, but sometimes you’re sad” or “You can be friendly, but like to keep to yourself at times.” The purpose of the process is to glean more and more accurate details by watching the subject’s reactions, their agreement and disagreement. Ultimately, they leave the impression that the information was achieved through extrasensory means.

While in a cold reading the fortune-teller genuinely doesn’t know anything about the client, in a
hot reading
, they’ve researched their subject beforehand and then pretend to “see” what they already know.

People tend to bring personal, sometimes traumatic issues to psychics, making them vulnerable. That’s why I’m often more concerned with what sort of person the psychic is rather than whether their abilities are genuine. Some false psychics use these techniques to try to bring their clients help and closure. Others may be inexperienced, or more interested in money, and may do psychological harm. While I’ve been very impressed by a few psychics and consider it possible their abilities are genuine, others may honestly believe themselves to be psychic, but use these methods subconsciously.

B
UYER
B
EWARE
: W
ARNING
S
IGNS ON
W
HAT
T
YPES OF
P
SYCHICS
T
O
A
VOID

They charge . . . a lot!

I understand the argument that psychics, who are so in demand for their talents that they’ve decided to quit their day job at Walmart in order to devote their time to the profession on a full-time basis, need to charge to earn a living. But $500.00 an hour?!? That’s more than some hotshot lawyers or doctors get paid!

They charge to remove a spirit.

I get e-mails from sobbing women who say they’ve emptied their bank accounts to a psychic who promised to remove a haunting but it didn’t work. They ask me how much I charge and if they can work on a payment plan. When I tell them I never charge, I think it sinks in that they were taken advantage of by their psychic. Again, I understand a psychic charging for a general reading, but if they have “add-ons” like spirit removal, or to offer their assistance in passing a loved one on, that’s pretty much psychic fraud in my book. There’s no governing body determining who can and can’t actually remove spirits, so for psychics to take advantage of the pain and desperation of others is a little concerning. Why not pass on the loved one as a free bonus to the reading? It seems heartless not to. You can walk down to a priest and he’ll say an entire mass for your loved one with no financial expectation.

They ask too many questions.

As explained in the cold reading sidebar, some psychics ask a ton of questions, such as “Is your grandmother well?” That opens the door for them to make comments without being completely wrong. If you say, “No, my grandmother isn’t doing so well,” the psychic can nod and say, “I thought so.” Whenever a psychic tries to read me, or if I’m using a psychic on a case, if they ask me a question, I usually throw it back at them without giving them any answer. If they ask, “Is your grandmother well?” instead of answering, ask, “Why do you ask?” If you’re paying $500, they should be doing all the talking and answering, not you. Please don’t fall in to that trap. They bait you to try to get you to pour open your heart so they can make comments about things they know you want to hear.

The best psychics in the world . . . don’t charge!

Psychics like Michelle Belanger and Lorraine Warren do not charge for their services, which is why I respect them so much. I believe psychic ability is a privilege that should be used to help mankind; 99.9% of the psychics out there are frauds, so beware!

Chapter 12
Demons Inside and Out

You amuse it.

After the draining, frustrating experience of “School House Haunting,” the biggest thing on my mind was that we were almost done. We had just five investigations left to complete our season. We were over the hump, or so I thought.

As things turned out, the next two cases, which would become “The Name” and “The Devil in Syracuse,” would be the most complicated, frustrating, and dangerous investigations of the season. I’d soon be dealing with the fulfillment of a demonic promise, people I felt I couldn’t trust, the return of some deep personal issues, a surprising run-in with production that at first I worried would undermine the show’s integrity, and a situation grave enough for me to send our trainees away for safety’s sake.

The threads of these stories are tough to unravel. Not only was my faith in myself as an investigator and a human challenged and changed, the cases overlap in subject and timing. For the first time, we had to leave before returning to complete each investigation. So it seems appropriate to set the stage here, discuss how my involvement began, and then talk about the relevant parts of my own background that came into play. In the next two chapters, I’ll discuss the details of each case as they unfolded.

Things began in January 2007, while we were still in Massachusetts. A producer told me about a case that looked pretty good. Teena, a woman in Syracuse, New York, had sent a couple of e-mails talking about some dark activity she and her family had been experiencing. She lived in a trailer home with her husband, Raymond, and their two small children, Katie, four, and Charlie, who was a little over one year old.