By Rick E. Hale
Paranormal Underground writer/Paranormal Investigator

Let me tell you a story, dear reader. A few years ago, a good friend and I felt that it would be a good idea to go to the parlor of a local psychic/medium and pull a Harry Houdini. We were going to take this lady down.

When we arrived at the small nondescript house on the out skirts of town (Why are they always on the outskirts?), we sat in my buddy’s truck and got our story straight. We decided that we would pose as a gay couple who were madly in love and desired to adopt a child to complete our little family unit.

We entered the paint-cracked door and discovered a small women dressed in outlandish clothing sitting at a table. We also discovered that it looked as if a ginormous cliche had descended upon the place and took a big old dump. Try to imagine if you will every preconceived notion of what a psychic’s parlor should look like. Got it? Good, because that is exactly what this place looked like.

Madame what’s-her-name, finally seemed to snap herself out of a trance and greeted us with a smile — sorry guys no cheesy accent. At this time, Russ and I launched into our spiel, and the psychic was extremely open-minded to our plight and offered us a ton of encouragement — not to mention a lot of great advice from her spirit guides.

After listening to her for about, oh 30 minutes, my buddy and I declared that we were not gay and that she was busted. “Madame so and so” became instantly flustered and made a failed attempt to back peddle her story. At which time, being the smart ass that I am, I said, “Betcha ya didn’t see that coming, Nostradamus.”

In the paranormal field there appears to be two schools of thought, and each one is just as equally passionate about their position. In this corner we have the scientifically minded ghost hunting group that feels that science, not mysticism, will eventually solve the life after death question, and they have absolutely no interest in using the abilities of a psychic medium. And in this corner we have the group that feels they can not solve the supernatural without a little supernatural assistance — the help of a psychic medium.

Fight!

No, just kidding. But both corners do make some striking arguments, and both positions, believe it or not, are right. Surprised? You should be, because this is coming from a former skeptic of psychics.

The scientific ghost hunting group seeks the best evidence and seeks to accomplish this task as objectively as possible. This group feels that the impressions of a psychic/medium are way too subjective, and this evidence can not be shown to the client. I have to defend this position. That terrified family who feels they are under siege by some evil, unseen force doesn’t want impressions, they want hard proof so they know and can prove to the world they are not “nucking futs” after all. However ghost, spirits, and demons don’t always play along and will sometimes hide from the EMF meters of a ghost group, and this is why a psychic/ medium is so important.

A psychic/medium, depending on their ability, can actually draw the spirits out and toward them — not to mention they can communicate with the entity and give the scientifically minded ghost hunter a good starting point. In the group that I work with, the two mediums that we have are both spectacular, and I have come to trust their impressions and admire their gifts.

When investigating claims of the paranormal, we can have our cake and eat it to. Psychics are an important and integral part of ghost hunting. It would stand to reason that if there are supernatural forces out there haunting people, then there must be folks who have the uncanny ability to speak with said forces.

Oh yeah, I was remiss in mentioning that my buddy and I had to hightail it out of the medium’s place of business when a ginormagantuan biker named Earl came out of a back room and chased us out threatening to feed us our testes.

It’s not the dead you gotta fear but bikers named Earl!