The word ghost is an idea,  hope, suggestion and belief which has been around since the start of mankind, and is still a question asked today, do ghosts exists? Now we all can have a belief and an opinion, however a fact is that science hasn’t yet proved the word ghost to be a true theory.

Through the years many scientists have tested and spent a lot of time, some spent their life dedicated to paranormal research but where is it going today? is there real scientific research still been carried out?

The Victorian Era

The most interesting era in the paranormal is when people really did push the boundaries of the research and decided to “investigate” the claims people reported, it wasn’t a cool thing to talk about in this time period you would be ridiculed, laughed at, and called crazy.. as the scientists pushed the research to try and find any credible evidence that ghosts do indeed exist, a group of charletons emerged with an idea,  TO GIVE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR messages from the other side, after all it is a question we all try to find comfort in.

People would book to see “mediums” Psychics” Investigators” who was thought by people that they  could communicate with the dead, pay them a handsome amount for a seance! where the medium would channel any spirit of their choice. This caught the eye of the sceptics and scientists, they noticed some unusual new activity. This  was called Ectoplasum, coming from the mediums mouth, Tables levitating, light bulbs coming on and off to signal a spirit energy was present and real time spirit communication through the medium. This was all to good to be true!!! It turns out these people was tricksters, shams, who really did put alot of time and effort into an “ACT”

This act was exposed, and revealed on how they did everything, from the tables levitating, Lights turning on and off, the ectoplasum, it was all one big lie and one big hoax which indeed put the research of paranormal activity into uncertainty.

A few big high profile cases was next to appear which was to put the paranormal scene back on the map, Borely Rectory, Enfield Poltergeist, Ponterfact Poltergeist to name a few big cases which captured the media and public attention, yet again in every high profile case there was some element of fraud of confusion.

The way people investigated the old cases, was to have an experts specialised in a single field they was to use on their investigation like, Sound, Emf, Temperature, photography, and so on.. but sadly there was never no real evidence captured by the top experts of the technology used.

THE TV ERA.

Now moving onto the TV era, this is where the paradigm shift started to kick the field into a new direction, in my opinion a direction for the worse, Its safe to say before the TV era did come into play, there was private small paranormal investigation teams out there who did go to peoples houses, to conduct research and compile case logs, also there was “few” very few ghost hunting event company’s.. the paranormal research really wasn’t much of an interest to people.. BUT when it aired on TV.. Most haunted.. it really did boost the spark in peoples minds.. However this show was created to sell advertisement space and created for entertainment purposes.. they made ghost hunting look fun, and also scary at the same time.. it worked because of our will to believe in ghosts… and the show did soak up the viewers and peoples minds.. it made people want to go out and start their own teams, conduct their own research, but the problem is these shows wasn’t giving these people the real facts and the real terms to consider when investigating the paranormal.

More TV shows appeared, and so did more investigation teams, yet again spreading the wrong knowledge, Then came along MORE ghost hunting event company’s people who realise the public are soooooooooo interested in this stuff, they can make some buck on it. Yet again spreading even more wrong knowledge of the field, TV has turned this field into a Thrill seeking fun adventure.. there is a huge market and demand for a paranormal rush.. with the rise and fall of many ghost hunting event company’s, many people have jumped onto the band wagon thinking they can make money, on peoples interest of the paranormal.

From this we see, 1000s of pictures, 1000s of videos of non structured research, a barrage of tricksters on youtube making haunted house videos, Paranormal Web TV shows, the real research conducted by the private investigation teams is sadly overran by event company’s findings..from the guests who pay to go on these thrill seeking adventures, expecting to see a ghost, and communicate with one. Yet again ask yourself why are people expecting this? its how the TV shows are portrayed…

The question on my mind now is, Will there be another paradigm shift? is it possible? what other direction can it take? Or has the field suck to deep within the entertainment and thrill seeking field to be taken seriously again?

After all its a cool thing to be doing now! unlike the 70s and 80s..

There will be some event company’s out there doing this for the right reasons and trying their best to do “Real research” telling the public “the truth” behind the equipment and methods used. If you are one of them teams. Thank you for trying to restore order and educate.

Thank you for reading Lee Paranormal Magazine / Project-reveal / Project Paranormal.