As I was glancing through previous posts here on the blog I realized I’d had a grand total of about 17 posts for 2009! You might be wondering why that is considering the frequency of my posting in the previous year.
In early 2009 I officially left Sonoran Paranormal Investigations. There were a number of reasons for that decision ranging from the usual drama that surrounds paranormal groups and my position as a team manager to a shift in my own beliefs and interests that were not entirely welcomed by some members of the group. 
As my personal interest in psychology and perception increased I found that exploration of those topics caused some in the group to feel very uncomfortable. There are those who are true believers in all things paranormal and who find the questioning of the veracity of those beliefs to be threatening. In short, they do not want any avenue of inquiry that might lead down the road toward disproving paranormal phenomenon as an objective experience. It’s fine to find the occasional squeaky door or loud water heater, but not to posit experiments that might show “ghosts” as a class to be illegitimate or outside the neo-Victorian folklore model or New Age paradigm.
After Paul Bradford was tapped as a cast member of Ghost Hunters International, we spoke briefly about my returning to the group since it seemed to be experiencing some stasis. When I laid out my desire to continue to pursue my psychological work as well as looking at subjective causes or even PSI causes for phenomena, the offer to return was withdrawn quietly.
Unfortunately, much of this conflict originated with a self-proclaimed psychic who did not care for me personally (considering my well known skepticism of psychics. Certainly, my suggestion that if we were to “study” psychic impressions the “psychic” would need to be tested independently via standard PSI methodology for accuracy was viewed negatively by this person who took it as a personal attack on her “gifts.”
Thus, as so often happens when research runs headlong into hobby and ego… I found myself outside the fold.
I have resisted any criticism of SPI for nearly a year and still feel they are a superb group 0f amateur ghost hunters. However, like so many, serious research is not something that seems to be on the agenda at the moment. In the aftermath of that and without any means to continue research alone, I lost interest in the turmoil of the paranormal pop culture world for much of the year.
I am beginning to regain some steam now, though, and am thinking of putting together a group of 2 or 3 others who are interested in conducting serious research into the psychological, sociological and folklore aspects of hauntings as well as field research looking at paranormal investigators themselves and their reactions to environment and belief systems. I would also like to conduct some PSI statistical studies to attempt to determine if haunting phenomena is objective or subjective.
Interested and live in Southern Arizona? Leave a comment or drop me a note.
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