A quick scan through the vast range of TV channels available through cable or satellite or a careful look at the titles of magazines and books various book shops will bear witness to the explosion of interest in "The Paranormal." The industry now boasts dozens of self-styled experts and a plethora of Paranormal Investigation Teams. All of this begs the fundamental question....
"when Paranormal Investigators do "investigations" what are they looking for?"
Now the quick answer is 'evidence' I guess - but of what?
You see one of the real challenges has to be the presuppositions that are made about what is being looked for; how they will know when they have found it and what finding it will actually mean.
All investigations, be they scientific or 'paranormal', have the same challenges.
So here's the question again, rephrased sightly...
What kind of evidence would support a hypothesis that there is something specific happening of a paranormal origin?
Being able to answer that question then immediately creates a second...
What quality of evidence do you require to support that there is something specific happening of a paranormal origin?
What is always apparent in any discussion of paranormal investigations are the 'beliefs' of the investigators and their apparent swiftness in jumping to some kind of paranormal explanation of (often) spurious observations.
Let's face it our mind is sometimes not the best judge of what is 'really out there'. It invents things, changes what our senses sense into things we can process. It drives the way we understand the world. The fact that a noise has been heard or a shadowy shape has been seen does not mean that it was actually 'out there'. The illusions our mind can, and frequently does, create are so convincing and so 'real' that they must exist outside of our own head.
Perception is an active process and as such is shaped by our attitudes, emotions and our beliefs. If we are to engage in meaningful 'investigations' we need to be fully aware of this and think about how we can (could) control for these perceptual variables.
Most "paranormal investigations" do seem to base themselves on what the television has depicted as being the 'right way' to do them. Hence the plethora of misunderstood, misused and inappropriate 'ghost hunting tools' out there.
Research, when conducted, tends to be quite superficial, poorly referenced and one- dimensional.
Research is a specific process of questioning, recording, checking and cross-checking, but for some of the groups I have worked with seems to be a quick check on Wikipedia and perhaps a mention or two of an 'interesting book' that was read sometime ago.
The biggest problem of all with paranormal investigations is perhaps the 'intention' behind the 'research'.
It is often to 'prove' something - like a place is haunted - or to 'look for something' - in other words to anomaly hunt!
I feel that most Paranormal Investigation 'events' and not investigations but entertainments despite what the organisers claim Investigations need to start with some very specific questions, based upon some very specific research or hypothesis.
Entertainments do not need to do so... they are fun walks in the dark, with some like minded people all out to find evidence to support pre-existing beliefs. Now there's no problem with that - in fact that's great fun and will almost surely provoke some kind of emotional response. BUT let's be honest about what they are and what they are not!
If you are serious about investigations then there must be clearly defined protocols which set out to control as many variables as possible; that attempt to define what is being investigated with some very clear hypothesis or rationale. More importantly any observations resulting from such an investigation need to be reported and verified by other groups following the same methods and approaches.
In other words SHARING what is being investigated.
It is because of a lack of sharing; questioning, challenge, intellectual honesty and experimental rigour that this type of 'work' will remain on the fringe of science and frequently fall into the pit of psuedoscientific oblivion where it will wallow spawning future generations of Most Hauntedesque hacks and wannabees...
I'm all for the ENTERTAINMENT - hell, who doesn't like a scary movie or ghost train... and I'm happy to play with that. I'm also fascinated by that part of the human experience which revels in such 'twilight' goings on. Heck, the mystic in me knows that from these experiences we can create meaning and personal learning.
But If we're INVESTIGATING then let's at least think about what that really means!