by Karen Frazier, Managing Editor
Paranormal Underground Magazine

I’ve been watching a lot of paranormal television recently – sort of trying to catch up. Most of it sits on my DVR for weeks, and I finally go back in and “clean it out” by having a marathon session of paranormal television. I try to watch most shows – from the old standards to the shiny new offerings that are so ubiquitous now. Must keep up for the job, you know.

Here’s something that struck me as I watched investigation after investigation. It seems to me that in many cases, the investigators on the shows talk to the entities that they are investigating as if they are children. Or stupid. Or mean. Or all three. This led me to wonder – why would we talk to entities who have arguably been around a lot longer than we have as if they were somehow less intelligent or less aware than we are?

I look at it this way. I’ve gotten to this ripe old age (*koff*43*koff*) with a lot of learnin’ and life experience. When I die, if I return to spirit, would I not return to spirit as aware and intelligent as I currently am on days when I’m not suffering from teen-ager induced dementia? And, if I return to spirit, but I hang around on the earthly plane for a spell, well heck – I might attempt to thump any investigator on the head who comes to me and talks as if I’d just wet my Pampers or tries to provoke me by asking questions where it is patently obvious that the questions are meant to provoke. Or maybe I’ll just ignore them and keep reading my book.

Some of the best investigators I’ve ever seen talk with entities in much the same way that they talk to me. They introduce themselves. They explain why they may be asking the same questions over and over. They talk about current events. They ask about the lives of the entities. Seems to me, if I were dead, that is how I’d like to be talked to instead of being spoken to as if I merely a monkey in a suit.

And as for provocation? Puhleez. I don’t respond to it while I’m alive, so I’m guessing that I won’t respond to it when I’m dead either. Maybe I’d just make a crappy ghost.

Now I may have it all wrong. Perhaps something fundamental about who we are changes when we die, and we somehow lose all of the wisdom and intelligence that we spent our lives accumulating. If that’s the case, then maybe the only way I’ll understand what people are saying to me is if they shout obscenities at me, talk to me as if I am stupid, or use obvious ruses to get me to pay attention.

It’s one of those silly debates. Who knows what happens when we’re dead, which is, I suppose, why anything goes in paranormal investigation. If a method or a technique is working for you, more power to you. For me, what I find is that intelligent conversation, compassion, love and understanding are the techniques I choose. It seems to me that those interactions work pretty well in the realm of the living, so they just might also work in the realm of the sprits.

But, as I point out, it’s all hypothetical. Who knows what really works? Ultimately, there’s probably no right or wrong way to do it – just the way that works for you.