"You're a ghost hunter? That's so exciting!" I hear it often, and I'm always astonished. Growing up, waaaaaaay long ago, hunting ghosts was creepy, not cool. Ghost hunting was something you didn't admit to in polite company, it was ghoulish, even if it was a field populated by pretty smart people. The TV shows changed that, they made the paranormal normal.
However, the fact that I'm mostly retired from the field as a paranormal investigator, exciting isn't so much a word that I associate with ghost hunting. Oh sure, the prospect of a new location gets the adrenaline flowing, true, but by and large ghost hunting (paranormal investigating) is rather dull. Ghosts (spirits) are not very much fun, they aren't entertaining, the don't have a lot to say, and they do not scare me. Slightly unsettled is about as far towards fear as I am capable of swinging when it comes to ghosts, so let's face it, ghosts are dullards. Now and again though the hours of tedium are relieved by something spectacular happening, and that sort of balances out the boredom, not entirely, but somewhat.
But more to the point, excluding demons, spirits are people sans their body, people who have stayed behind, people like you and I who have had the unfortunate "life event" of excluding the word "life" from their event. Life as we receive it at any rate.
And that's largely where the field has gone astray.
We, as paranormal investigators must remember that most of the time the spirits were communicating with, or are trying to communicate with, are lost, de-compassed people. The lack a familial structure, or any structure in their existence altogether. Many times they are so very confused. Lost. And it is incumbent on us, those in the field, to maintain a respectful stance at all times, just as we would want to be treated with respect. Not shouting nor berating, not cajoling nor baiting. We must be responsible, and largely the TV shows have muddied that perspective.
Going in a different direction now, I'm working with a couple heads of other teams of forming a team comprised of just these heads of teams, and the naming process I'm not taking very seriously, as you can tell from the image, lol. You see, it really doesn't matter what your team is called, it matters what your team does. It can never be about greed, whether it be monetary or evidence collection greed. It must be about helping people on both sides of the aisle or veil cope and move on, it must be about furthering the goal of expanding research into the paranormal, it must be about giving, and it must lack self and ego, and it must embody responsibility. So many great people I have met who follow exactly this, and for those people I am grateful, and I';m sure those on the other side are too.
End rant.
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