An outright full on attack by another group? No.

I’ve actually never really been attacked, but I’ve had some interesting situations. I’ve gotten used to it over the years because in this industry we will always have these same situations repeated. I used to get emails more before than I do now from the extremist religious people telling me that I’m dabbling in black magic and that I am not seeing ghosts, I am seeing works of the devil. Those people get the typical “Thank you for your opinion, and I respect your beliefs just as I would hope you respect mine. Have a nice day.” Then they get blocked.

I was only involved with one group once, Ohio Ghost Hunters Society when I first started investigating after doing a couple years of research on “myself” by myself. Back then, 12-15 years ago, it seemed like you HAD to be part of a group, but I learned quickly I can be just as or even more successful on my own.

My “group” consists of my husband and me, and sometimes another friend or two (also investigators with experience). It certainly helped with quite a few of my investigations by allowing me access to places most groups would not be allowed because of the size of people they work with, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Group members share ideas with each other, try unique methods, conduct different experiments at once to compare the results, etc. I do that as well, but I have relationships with other ghost hunting groups and single investigators around the world that I use as my sounding board, and vice versa.

I chose to be more independent in the industry because of all the inner-turmoil and drama I saw taking place within not only the OGHS but other groups we corresponded with at the time as well. In general, the drama in the paranormal community tends to be very petty and is a result of jealousy, the “know it all” attitude, and “my way is the only way”. I have said many times before that if we all worked together, with the understanding that we CAN disagree, we would probably learn so much more by brainstorming together for ideas, experiments, coming up with good, hard scientific and metaphysical evidence. To me it’s much more important to spend the time on my own researching, traveling, writing, documenting and studying the paranormal rather than waste my time arguing about issues that shouldn’t be an issue in the first place. The people who argue in that sense obviously don’t have a true interest in the paranormal and their priority is not to do their best to learn and educate about the paranormal, but rather to have what they feel is the “best” and last word.

For instance, when I was involved with OGHS when I first started investigating the Mansfield Reformatory, the OGHS group was “the” group who ran the hunts at the time. I was very good friends with the leader of that organization, but the more my abilities became evident and we (my sister, my friends and me) began capturing what we believe to be rare paranormal energy on film, EVPs and video, then the OGHS began “shunning” me. I tried to continue working with them, and then opted to remove my ties with them. I continued investigating the Mansfield Reformatory for the next 10 years, amongst a lot of other allegedly haunted locations throughout the USA, England and Ireland Low and behold, the OGHS group spit into two fronts who started battling it out against each other. The person who led the group opposite of the original leader of the OGHS contacted me, downing the OGHS leader, and asked me to be in a group with them. I declined and was honest with my reasons, and that was because this particular person gave me a lot of problems due to her jealousy when the OGHS was one. I am not going to work with anyone who I know provides any opportunity for drama. She wasn’t pleased with my answer and she tried ripping me a new one, but it didn’t work. All of those people disappeared years ago, and I am still making my name.

When it comes to forums the most I’ve had is when people try to befriend me and take what we discussed PRIVATELY via private messages and then post it on the forums knowing it would irritate me, which, I’m not going to lie, it did – AT FIRST. I asked repeatedly not to discuss it on the forums, and they continued which in turn has caused me to cut all ties with them. The most recent of that taking place over on SyFy a few months ago. I came to realize quickly that those kind of people do so for the sake of feeling as if they are in control, and to feel better about themselves they need to disrespect and purposely degrade others. Then they wonder why people choose not to associate with them and act all offended when people don’t want to waste their time with childish games.

I also had an internet stalker that started 10 years ago. He just happened to find me online one day online and for the next three years my life was hell to the point of filing legal charges against him. This is still considered an open case because the FBI is still having me track anything I believe is from this guy and provide it to the cops to build up more of a record. About 3 years ago he somehow got my cell phone number and then knew where we lived. That was really scary. It’s a feeling you can’t describe when a perfect stranger who acts like he hates you but completely obsesses over you for no reason at all.

So in all this industry has taught me to be stronger, not take as much BS from people, stand my ground against my beliefs but respect the beliefs of others who feel differently. I learned to cut ties with the people who are so miserable, jealous and competitive that they feel the need to make people around them just as miserable so they can feel better. In general, though there have been some stresses here and there, being a part of the paranormal community has been a happy, positive experience. It’s created hundreds of new friendships for me all around the world. I’ve visited places I never dreamed I would be able to see in “real life”. I’ve done well learning as much as possible about the paranormal and continuing in my education while teaching and assisting others. That’s the best part about it, in my opinion!

Sorry, this is long and I’m late, but I wanted to get some good thoughts together before I replied!

I got into this because of my own desires, not to worry about silly cliques and a bunch of words typed in by some anonymous cyber-jerk! Time to get back to the original reasons…

AMEN!! I hear ya there!!!

And you're very welcome. Great thread, by the way.

"To be loved is to be fortunate, but to be hated is to achieve distinction." Mina Thomas Antrim

That's so true, Regan. Thanks for posting!!

I do feel sorry for the people who are that desperate for attention. That would be a very sad, miserable life….