Though I had planned to tackle Google's Time Travel feature, I'm all up into Saturday's ghost-hunter experience and have an urge to "debunk" (a word the Sci-fi channel show Ghost Hunters should edit from their vernacular on the basis of overuse) everything Vortex readers thought they knew about ghost hunting. It just so happens to come in a list of ten:
1) Thespian tendencies, like those displayed by Paranormal State's psychic medium Chip Coffey, are best highlighted against a backdrop of ping-pong-in-the-eyeball experiments, the only young, handsome, non-practicing priest in New England, and constant demon whispers.
2) Fist bumps are not required to successfully bring an investigation to closure.
3) The girth of your infrared cameras is directly proportional to your ratings.
4) Eighty percent of true ghost-hunting business is weeding out cracked requests from witches and those who swear they can hear their deceased toy poodle Trixie's toenails clicking on the kitchen floor.
5) If you have no ghost hunting experience but have access to a twenty-thousand dollar heat-imaging camera, fist bump. You're on the team!
6) No day job is as forgiving to ghostly pursuits as Roto-Rooter. Oh, wait. Free publicity. Right.
7) Having a psychic on the team does help at reveal time. While Jason and Grant say, "Yep, you have ghosts. See ya!" a psychic can advise clients on things that are actually helpful with regard to the spirits....like getting RID of them.
8) The Three Stooges are still eye-pokers in the afterlife.
9) I, apparently, have a spiritual entourage with me that talks all at one time in incessant, incoherent whispers. I know these women. They display themselves as the trifecta of creative muses: Confidence, Doubt and Procrastination.
10) Spirits are rarely trapped. Most who choose to stay roam wherever they please. I've wrapped a mental bubble of white light around my closet. Do I really need supernatural witnesses to the awkward ritual of getting into last year's shorts?
A huge thanks to the North Texas Paranormal Investigations team for the awesome informal lecture and for answering the thousand and one questions our writing group had. Visit their site for EVPs and video of past investigations in the North Texas area.
And have no fear, the next post will be on time travel-as if you really had any doubt, right?
What do you love (or hate) about ghost-hunting shows?
I never watch the amateurs at play so I have no opinion.
I've only watched snatches here and there of ghost hunting shows. If I were gonna do it I'd do it myself.
LOL! This was hilarious, and so true! And now I have the Ghost Busters theme song in my head, because that is definitely an example of how one probably shouldn't hunt ghosts if one, you know, had the urge...
Loved your #9!! I'm well acquainted with that "spiritual entourage" :).
What do I hate? That I can't see anything. I mean, really, isn't there one ghost who could come out during the day, in broad-light, so the camera could really capture something besides blurry images?
Um, I love everything about ghost hunting shows! I'm seriously addicted. (I heart Grant and Jason). The man and I did a ghost tour in St. Augustine and I fell even further into my addiction. 😉
@walkingman...could there ever really be experts at ghost-hunting?
@Charles...it's much more fun that way
@Caryn...good to see you! I actually don't remember much about that movie, except for the song.
@Marilyn...some days one is stronger than the others.
@Sandra...I think in the daylight we'd all be too busy to notice. I'm sure they're there.
@Katie...I love it, too. Once you go one time, you're hooked 🙂
Necromancers...
I haven't watched a ghost investigation tv program for years. But, what if you really do hear your deceased dog's toenails clicking on the floor; or you really do see the odd ghost?