Paranormal Reality TV and Research

I am addicted to quite a few paranormal reality TV shows. I guess that juxtaposing "paranormal" and "reality" would look like an oxymoron to quite a few people, but I'm an unapologetic believer so I'm fine using that phrase to describe what I watch. I call it "research."

I don't know if anyone reading this routinely sits down with the same shows, but I'll bet most of those who do aren't also sitting there with a notebook and a pen. I'm not kidding about the research. I've gotten amazing history tips from John Zaffis, The Haunted Collector. His show not only featured all of the client interviews, night vigils, cameras, recording equipment, and ruh-roh! moments as every worthy paranormal investigative show should, it also delved into researching the history of the site and the object/s he was investigating. And from that aspect of each show, I have learned about small pox, blood-letting, and 19th century cavalry uniforms, among other things. I also have a notebook with lists of bizarre details that are too good to forget about entirely; who knows when one of them will pop up in a Bridgeton Park Cemetery Book? I LOVE my research!

I have purchased the books written by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson to give me something to do between seasons of Ghost Hunters, another one of my obsessions. (I only know one other person who dragged her husband out to hear Jason and fellow hunter Steve Gonsalves do a presentation at the haunted Rialto Theater in Joliet.) 

I watched Psychic Kids for years until it went away. I couldn't talk my husband into going to see Chip Coffey in person, so I brought my daughter and we teamed up with my friend, the one I ran into  -with her husband- at the Hawes/Gonsalves presentation. Psychic Kids taught me how paranormal experiences can differ so much from one person to the next, depending on the way the ability manifests for each particular psychic. And I also got to watch, on many a show, the interactions between a psychically-gifted child and a non-believing parent, interactions that help spur the conflict I write between Cassie and her mother.

I also regularly tune in to The Haunting Of... ,The Dead Files, Haunted History, and Ghostly Encounters. I would be watching Celebrity Ghost Stories if I could only find it on my service. I sometimes watch A Haunting. And I mourn the disappearances of The Haunted Collector and Psychic Kids.

I know I have written about all of this before and apologize to anyone who feels this column is a repeat. To help make this new again, I'll include this little tidbit: I only ever write my stories during the day. This dates back to when I wrote for a community newspaper and did the true ghost stories Halloween article. Something got very interested in what I was doing and made such a crashing disturbance in the garage that I thought the shelf had come off the wall. I was home alone when that happened, and I realized I could handle it during the day, but probably not at night... 

I know I've also mentioned that when I write about ghosts, my house comes to life. Things shift and bang. I sometimes hear footsteps coming down the hall toward my office. There are miscellaneous rustlings and shufflings coming from other rooms. It all stops when I stop writing, but it always happens. Even my husband has heard it and asked me, "What is that?" "Nothing, dear, just the usual when I'm working."

So here's my little tidbit: lately, while I sit with the remote in hand, watching my DVR'd paranormal reality shows, the house behaves the way it does when I'm writing. I can't decide it it's because restless spirits like watching shows about themselves, or it they're trying to get me off the couch and back to the keyboard. Whatever it is, it sure adds that little extra to the show I'm watching. And if I write down a description of the particular rustling or other disturbance I hear, that becomes part of my research, too.

Little Psychics, Little Seers

 Last week, I wrote about ghostly children and how frightening they can be. This week, I decided to concentrate on equally frightening children: the ones who are very much alive and can see things that most of us adults can't.

There is a reality show that runs on A & E TV called "Psychic Kids." It follows two or three youngsters, anywhere from age 11 through 17, over the course of a weekend as they try to come to grips with their ability to see dead people. They work with a professional psychic, a certified counselor, and with their parents, to learn about what they are seeing, why, and how to control it so that they no longer need to fear running into all the spirits who are hanging about. The ones that most of us do not see.

The majority of people I know would dismiss the topic of this show as so much nonsense: ghosts don't exist, all these kids have over-active imaginations, I can't see it so there must be nothing to see, there is a reasonable explanation for everything that happens to these children.

And that's a really easy attitude to have until you find yourself in the company of a child who does see something, who will not be talked out of what he or she can see, who is too young to make up some of the details that come up -or even understand them, who tells the same story consistently over and over again.

I know a little guy, three years old when this first started happening, who would flee to the nearest grown-up in terror, saying over and over again that "the big boy is coming." I never found out who or what "the big boy" was, but this child was clearly panicked whenever he saw this entity. I was there for some of these events and it always brought goose-bumps up on my arms and the back of my neck. Were there any frightening "big boys" on the children's shows he was watching? His regimen at the time was Sesame Street and Super Why, so I don't think so. Could he have been bullied at day care? Also possible, but he was in a class made up exclusively of three-year old children, none of whom were much bigger than he was, if at all, so I don't think that was the root of this. This was a child who, from babyhood, would smile and babble at something just above and behind me when I changed his diaper, who once corrected me for not saying good-night to "the boy by the [rocking] horse," who had an entire conversation with an empty chair at my mother's one afternoon, ending with "Do you want a kiss?" and kissing the side of the chair before making his way back to his toys.

I have no doubt, when I look into those great, big, beautiful blue eyes that he is talking to someone he sees as clearly as he sees me. I also do not correct him, or tell him no one is there, or make him feel as if I don't believe him. I think he has a gift and far be it from me to be the one to destroy it. 

Already, some months later and now four years old, he has stopped fearing the Big Boy. But I do catch him, sometimes, clearly listening to someone I can't see or hear. But I don't disturb him. Interrupting conversations is just rude.