3 quick rules for "sensitive" investigators

Okay, most of the people I have talked to about this have voiced the opinion that people who believe themselves to be “sensitive” to the paranormal do not make good paranormal investigators. I think this isn’t true because I believe paranormal investigating to be more scientific than that. So, I have put a together a short list of things for those sensitive to paranormal activity to follow during an investigation. Please feel free to add. I hope to make this a full, detailed guide but you have to start some where!

1: Use Science, not sensitivity.
We are looking for evidence of paranormal activity, not the assumption of it. Use the equipment provided, the techniques learned, and put your own feelings on the back burner.

2: Be a skeptic.
To me, this is a general rule for all investigators; sensitive or not. It is important to note that you do not have to BE a skeptic, but while on an investigation you should adopt the mindset of one. Try to explain all the things you see and/or hear rationally with science or logic and try not to chalk it all up to ghosts.

3: Work with the team.
Paranormal investigating should never be done alone and isn’t done alone for many reasons, the most important being conformation. Something is more creditable if more than one person sees it (duh) hence the need for the team and multiple scientific instruments. It is with this in mind that I say to all you psychics: DON’T ISOLATE YOURSELF FROM THE TEAM! It is important to communicate with your team and to work together to gather evidence. If you feel cold, tell your team and take a temperature reading in that area. Many psychics I have worked with feel the need to withhold information from team members for many reasons, and then on the way home they say “Well, I saw a man in the window but didn’t want to say anything.” As rule one states, your sensitivity should not be a primary means of finding paranormal activity, but that doesn’t mean if you physically see or feel something that you should keep it a secret.

There are other rules I have, but I didn’t want to take up that much time. I just wanted to get your guys and gals thoughts on it and to see if you had anything to add.

Very good topic, Kyle, and great tips for sensitives out there. As scientific paranormal investigators, we rely on instruments of technology to help us gather evidence that can be truer in nature than anything that cannot be measured, such as the gifts of a medium. Our team is also always encouraged to go into any situation objectively and to not form an opinion of a place until after the investigation has taken place. That's something good to always have in mind. I also like your rule for working with others. We are, after all, a team, and communication is key. I have one thing I'll add to this currently.


4: Rely on personal instinct.
Every member, whether you are psychic or not, should always trust your feelings. Though we will not be depending on a sensitives' abilities, if you are sensitive, you should rely on what you yourself know to be real. If you feel as if you should venture over to a different area or location for some reason, then do so. If you feel like you shouldn't be in a specific area and don't feel comfortable there any longer, then leave. It's that simple.

KBarrows wrote:Okay, most of the people I have talked to about this have voiced the opinion that people who believe themselves to be “sensitive” to the paranormal do not make good paranormal investigators. I think this isn’t true because I believe paranormal investigating to be more scientific than that.

I'm kinda confused by this statement. More scientific than what?

These are fine steps for anyone, not just those who consider themselves "sensitive". My question is more for how those who consider themselves "sensitive" prove it. You said you have worked with psychics...were they able to back that up? how?

I assumed he meant that anyone can be an investigator, even psychics, as long as they take a scientific/skeptic approach.


Yes, that's true - these rules can apply to everybody.

I feel everybody has a feeling while doing an investigation. Therefore I'm not a big fan on the "sensitive people" casuse I have had different feelings during some investigations but wouldn't say I was sensitive. That's a hard case to solve though. Same goes with psychics (physics <feel free to correct jeanette). It's real hard for me to beleive someone who says theres someone standing right here. I think the sensitive term should be expanded just because the fact that some people may have different feelings in a situation. You don't know how people will react to a situation.
I hope that made sense. I'm heavly medicated right now.

(lol thanks)

I think we all may have varying degrees of some sense that has yet to be identified. However, it's such a fickle thing that shouldn't be depended on, no matter how developed it may be within some people. I personally have never had any sort of feelings at any place I've ever investigated. That's why I rely so heavily on our equipment for hard evidence. I think though in a way, not having feelings about certain things or situations leaves me even more objective. For instance, if we capture something odd on video -- I may have some hunches to what it could be, and if I felt completely normally while this supposed anomaly was taking place, then I'm even more likely to say that it's just nothing.

The mental factor is way to important to ignore. For alot of people if they know something about the supposed activity at a place, it will get to them and they "experience" more than someone who walked into the place cold. We have some steps in our procedures to test this theory.

Stew_DPS wrote:The mental factor is way to important to ignore. For alot of people if they know something about the supposed activity at a place, it will get to them and they "experience" more than someone who walked into the place cold. We have some steps in our procedures to test this theory.

Are you saying not to provide investigators with information concerning cases beforehand? Instead, just let them do their thing and perhaps only afterwards inform them of the supposed claims?

ahh...you're catching on. Yep, we plan to with hold the resident's claims from two people who will be investigating together as sort of a "blind" team. It will be interesting to see if those who DO know what is "going on" report anything different from those who do not. More for the purpose of experimenting during the investigation.

Stew_DPS wrote:ahh...you're catching on. Yep, we plan to with hold the resident's claims from two people who will be investigating together as sort of a "blind" team. It will be interesting to see if those who DO know what is "going on" report anything different from those who do not. More for the purpose of experimenting during the investigation.

Oh wow, that's an even better idea. A single-blind case-controlled experiment, if you will. I think that's a perfect way to go into an investigation. I think we should apply this to our own investigations, alternating the "blind" team from case to case.

Yep, the blind team is a great idea. What makes a place haunted is it's history, ya know.

KBarrows wrote:Yep, the blind team is a great idea. What makes a place haunted is it's history, ya know.

I thought it was ghosts that made a place haunted?

What is history but the ghosts of time? OoOOoo yeah, mystical!

KBarrows wrote:What is history but the ghosts of time?

Ghosts of Time sounds like a terrible terrible video game.

KBarrows wrote:What is history but the ghosts of time? OoOOoo yeah, mystical!

No thats a poltergeist!

Poltergeist sounds like a terrible terrible movie.


actually, i have fond memories of it

Stew_DPS wrote:

KBarrows wrote:What is history but the ghosts of time?

Ghosts of Time sounds like a terrible terrible video game.

LOL That it does.

Stew_DPS wrote:

KBarrows wrote:What is history but the ghosts of time?

Ghosts of Time sounds like a terrible terrible video game.

I googled it, but nothing came up lol

KBarrows wrote:

Stew_DPS wrote:

KBarrows wrote:What is history but the ghosts of time?

Ghosts of Time sounds like a terrible terrible video game.

I googled it, but nothing came up lol

well, then I guess you are free to use it however you see fit. I would recommend contacting the Corny Copyright Administration in Washington DC at once!

Stew_DPS wrote:

KBarrows wrote:Okay, most of the people I have talked to about this have voiced the opinion that people who believe themselves to be “sensitive” to the paranormal do not make good paranormal investigators. I think this isn’t true because I believe paranormal investigating to be more scientific than that.

I'm kinda confused by this statement. More scientific than what?

These are fine steps for anyone, not just those who consider themselves "sensitive". My question is more for how those who consider themselves "sensitive" prove it. You said you have worked with psychics...were they able to back that up? how?

To be honest, I have only worked with one person I really believed to have any psychic ability. It was an older woman who told me the exact life story of my late great grandmother (note that my great grandmother wa not well known nor did she ever meet this woman). Other than that, most of the other psychics were more like wet matches in a dark cave (not to be rude). Proving just depends, I would expect, on accuracy of claims and scientific backing I.E. taking a "psychic" on an investigation and comparing his/her claims to you EMF, EVP, Temp, Video, Picture, and other devices. Depending on how similar the claims are to the science would in turn prove or disprove it, right? I suppose though that a gray area exists when only some thing are similoar and other aren't, I guess that's the flaw.

O and more scientific than just riding something off because of A; you don't believe in it. Rememder just becasue no proof currently exists doesn't mean some won't or can't turn up or else paranormal investigationg as a whole would be utterly useless or B; because you don't believe a persons claims. I believe that science is about either proving or disproving a hypothesis (most likely I spelled that wrong so forgive my spelling errors please) no matter how "out there" or silly it may at first appear to be. So, there you go haha

Sensitive people do have a place in investigation of the paranormal, however, the team must be very careful with this. Misused, it can do much more harm than good. There's LOTS of people who claim to being sensitive, but actually have no such abilities at all. Not pointing fingers at all, so no one start screaming about that. (I don't know any of you so I COULDN'T point fingers if I even wanted to. )

Imagine if one of these "false-sensitives" started claiming "feelings" in a place that really had no paranormal history at all, but this fact wasn't known to the rest of the group. Here we have a situation which could GREATLY impact future reputation of that group.

And that part does concern me. 85% of the time, if a "sensitive" is on a ghost hunt, they'll say at some point, "I feel a presence here." Are 85% of places actually haunted?? Now, true, that could be biased in that we normally CHOOSE locations that have paranormal history & not just any old house. But it still seems that you hear that phrase a bit too often...."I feel a presence here."

Hopefully, as professional investigators, anyone that has sensitive abilities, or think they do, will always use these in a mature way. I'll use myself as an example....I am an expert & proven dowser. I was hired for 2 years by a somewhat large well drilling firm to locate for them. During this time, I located over 100 drilling locations perfectly, with the sole exception of one. It WAS a good well, but we had to drill over twice as deep as was usual for one of my wells. At $7 per foot, depth adds up quick. However, nothing was ever said, nor would it had ever been......I located a successfull well, and a HIGHLY productive one also.....it was just deep & expensive. The only one disappointed in that particular one was myself.

BUT....I never actually specify a depth, only a location. Even if you know nothing about well drilling, you can see how a dowser could easily put himself in a dangerous situation by doing that. Kinda like ghosts....I can't actually SEE water down there, but I'm 99.8% sure that it is, and I know the technique fo locating the depth also. But what if I was wrong?? What if I said "150 feet", but we actually had to drill 400 feet. Somebody wouldn't be too happy.

So, I feel it's just more professional to tell a client, "This feels like the best location in the area." Then we drill & see what happens.

Now, I know myself that I can also locate depth, specific metals/ores, utility lines, natural gas pockets, & even the actual QUALITY of water. But going that far is REALLY pushing it. You're talking some major repurcussions if I'm wrong. I trust myself, but just do not feel it's in the best interest of anyone to use my ability, which I can't even explain, for something like this.

The same discretion should be used by ANYONE with these type of abilities, gifts, whatever you want to call it. If that is followed, then the use of "sensitives" in paranormal investigation should work just fine in most cases.

P.S. I can also locate EM energy easily, but won't do this for paranormal research. I just don't think it's provable enough when a meter can do the same thing & be 100% verifiable.

P.S.S. You can't "learn" dowsing, you have to have the ability within you. But it CAN be tuned. I "apprenticed" under a Master Driller for a while, who was also a dowser. He's the one that taught me how to fine-tune the ability & use it to find depth, quality, direction of flow, etc.

He could actually locate coal, which we proved several times by drilling through it, producing jet-black dust that tasted really bad. I never could learn that from him, even though I eventually exceeded his abilities with water locating.

I suppose the same "training" is possible with other sensitive abilities...don't know.

Good points Merc, excellent.

Stew_DPS wrote:ahh...you're catching on. Yep, we plan to with hold the resident's claims from two people who will be investigating together as sort of a "blind" team. It will be interesting to see if those who DO know what is "going on" report anything different from those who do not. More for the purpose of experimenting during the investigation.

We've done this. It caused more .. um, discussion for afterwards. There were 4 in the group that did not know what the general claims were, but 2 of them were sensitive as well so it seemed better to not tell them anything. One of them preferred it that way, the other liked to know because he liked to hone in on the areas specifically that were active.

The other two were split : one had no experiences, the other felt she was touched on the face, but it happened in the attic and could have been a cobweb. After 6 more people went tramping through, there was nothing left to run into and it didn't happen again.

Meh. I'm not sure about the whole "sensitive" topic. Is it a sensitive topic? I think so. No matter what, I could never trust that someone is a sensitive if they claim it. No matter how close I am to that person. I'm just too skeptical in this "ability". I think it's waaaay to easy for people to say that they are sensitive, with little (nothing) to back it up. The word turns me off.

IF there is something, then we probably all have it, but just decide not to use it. I have a hard time believing in "gifts" or "abilities" it's just too convenient.