In this enlightening discussion, I engage with Loyd Auerbach to delve into the intricate science underlying ghost hunting. We explore the burgeoning interest within various scientific realms regarding consciousness and its implications for parapsychology. Auerbach articulates the various non-scientific methodologies prevalent in ghost hunting, particularly those sensationalized by television, and emphasizes the necessity for a more rigorous, scientific approach to the investigation of anomalous phenomena. Our conversation elucidates the importance of critically evaluating the tools and methods employed in the field while advocating for a deeper understanding of consciousness, which is fundamental to comprehending the nature of ghostly encounters. We aim to bridge the gap between academic rigor and public interest, fostering a more informed and responsible approach to paranormal investigations.

The discourse between myself and Loyd Auerbach delves into the intricate nexus between scientific inquiry and ghost hunting practices. As we commence our dialogue, we acknowledge the burgeoning fascination surrounding consciousness and its implications in parapsychology. Auerbach elucidates the pitfalls associated with sensationalist television portrayals of ghost hunting, where the methodologies employed often lack scientific rigor. He posits that many enthusiasts are unwittingly influenced by dramatized representations, which misrepresent the true nature of paranormal investigation. We explore the dichotomy between anecdotal experiences and empirical research, emphasizing the necessity for a structured approach that incorporates both environmental measurements and psychological assessments. This episode serves as an invaluable resource for those seeking to navigate the complexities of ghost hunting with a scientifically grounded perspective, advocating for a return to the fundamentals of parapsychological research.

Takeaways:

1. The growing interest in consciousness studies has drawn attention to parapsychology's contributions.
2. Television shows have significantly influenced public perceptions of ghost hunting practices and methodologies.
3. Many ghost hunting techniques utilized in popular media are unscientific and based on entertainment rather than rigorous research.
4. Effective ghost investigations should involve trained professionals who understand ethical considerations in their work.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

1. Paranormal Daily News
2. Ghostbusters
3. International Ghost Hunter Society
4. Rhine Research Center
5. American Association of the Advancement of Science

But because of the growing interest in all fields of science in the question of what consciousness is.

Yes.

Even though there are different approaches and models to follow and philosophies, because of that many people, I can't say it's too many, but it's many people in various fields are recognizing that parapsychology has been dealing with consciousness since the beginning.

Welcome to the Deadly Departed podcast, where the veil between the living and the dead is just a whisper away.

I'm Jock and along with my colleagues in Paranormal Daily News, we will be your guides through the shadow realms of the paranormal and the unexplained.

In each episode, we will dive into the eerie and the enigmatic with the help of today's leading experts in parapsychology, science and the supernatural, prepare to uncover the secrets that lurk in the dark and explore the mysteries that defy explanation.

Let's embark on this journey now.

Good afternoon, good evening, or good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

This is Jock here.

This is Deadly Departed and you can see who my guest is today.

He's no stranger to Deadly Departed, he's been on before.

I wanted to come back before this, but of course the dreaded flu kept me off as well as anything else.

So Lloyd and I are going to have another good discussion today which is going to lay the foundation of a lot of things that we're doing in PDN and academia, but particularly we're going to be talk about ghost hunting today.

Everybody loves that subject, but maybe not so much the science of it and everything else.

Lloyd.

Welcome back to Deadly Departed, my friend.

How are you?

Hi, Jack.

Thank you.

Pleasure.

So you're well known, Lloyd.

We've discussed many of these things before, but what I wanted to kind of discuss today is the science of ghost hunting.

Because more and more out there we have, say, non scientific methods of ghost hunting.

We have, you know, television shows that kind of sensationalize the whole industry, an industry if you like.

So I'd love us to basically look at, you know, where we are really looking at anomalous phenomena, the real measurement of it and how people could really take essentially ghost hunting or investigation and anomalous phenomena more seriously.

Well, I think that because of the TV shows and it's really been television that has spurred on the interest in this subject in ghost hunting, which is great.

I mean, just like when John Edward came on TV back in the late 90s.

It spurred on a huge interest in mediumship.

Spirit.

Mediumship.

So I think from that perspective, it's really good.

And it's brought people out of the woodwork who have an interest in this.

The problem is that people, the large percentage of people who then go out and do ghost hunting, besides the typical tourists who just go to these places, you know, for conventions and things, they are following various.

If you want to call them methods.

I couldn't call them methods or methodologies that they see on the TV shows, which are based more in television production and what is needed for TV to keep viewers watching than it is actually at all in science.

Just the very use of the equipment and technology, the way they're using it.

Not that equipment or technology is bad, but the way they're using it is unscientific, for the most part.

Makes huge assumptions.

And all of that comes from television.

It does, actually.

And that's one of the things I want to talk about as well, is the assumptions, because more and more people.

And I'm seeing it even more and more, Lloyd, Especially when we talk about the equipment that we see in TV that's being used, essentially, they are purporting or suggesting that this equipment detects anomalous phenomena or detect or detects ghosts.

Right?

And that's not quite true.

Not at all.

I mean, the fact is that none of the equipment can be designed to detect a ghost.

Partly because if we look at a ghost as a spirit or consciousness after death, all right, consciousness hanging around, we have no idea what consciousness is in the brain, if it's even in the brain, which is a whole big question in itself.

So how in world.

How in the world can you design a device to detect something when you don't even have a starting point for it?

All you can do is look at.

And this is where the equipment is useful.

Much of the equipment is environmental in nature.

Not all of it is that.

Magnetometers, you know, the EMF meters, are used because we're looking to see if there's any changes in the environment when somebody has an experience.

But that also could mean that the EMF change makes them think they have an experience.

There's no guarantee that at all that that's a ghost they're detecting, or the EVP stuff, which is interesting.

But the fact is that we have more data that human beings can affect those devices than we do that ghosts can.

I want to.

I want to dive into that because that is a growing field.

The EVP And I don't want to say EVP research, but the electronic voice phenomena is growing as much as it is on tv.

But reality is, I haven't had.

I haven't recognized anything that I've seen in data that's come out.

I haven't seen a Class 1 EVP that I could say this is exactly right.

I mean, to me it's like pareidolia and making it.

Most of it is.

I have had.

I've been in situations.

We had a.

I was actually behind the scenes with kind of a consultant producer on it.

And we were in a home in Valencia, California, outside the Angeles National Forest, owned by a couple of professionals, had a couple of kids, large house, really interesting construction.

And they'd had all sorts of phenomena happening when they moved in.

And this big budget show which by the way, didn't go further mainly because it was too expensive for them to do a weekly ghost hunting show.

It basically during the situation, one of the things we did, which is unlike almost any other TV show, by the way, I insisted in working with the production people that every member of the crew, and there were 60 members of the crew, by the way, this is a huge shoot.

Wow.

You know, we had multiple camera crews and the whole thing.

The house was large, very large.

They had a crane with a flyover because this is pre drones, all that.

But I insisted that every member of the crew sign a release form and if they experienced something while something was going on, while we were doing our shooting, or even when they were just, you know, taking a break, that they would go on camera and say what it was, even if we didn't necessarily use it.

And that happened.

Actually, a cameraman and a production assistant were just inside from the garage.

There was a laundry room with the glass door going to the outside, the patio.

The production set up like the entire garage, three car garage was taken up by monitors and equipment and all that stuff.

So the production assistant comes running in and says, hey, something just happened.

This is during the daytime, by the way.

We walk in there and he says the door, it was locked, but it.

The.

We saw the doorknob turn and it opened inward and there's nobody outside because it's all glass.

They can see what's going on.

So we interview them.

We then go into the main.

Into the living room through there.

And Chris Fleming was actually our host.

He wasn't acting as a psychic there.

We Actually had two mediums.

One who was from the Arthur Findlay School and one who was a 10 year old girl who was a better medium than almost any I'd ever seen.

Wow.

So she was amazing.

And they let us into the, into the living room and Chris started just doing some quick questions.

Question, you know, wait, question, wait.

He asked, is anybody there?

And it was, you know, I'm in the production room.

And Chris plays it back after 15 seconds of recording and we all heard through the camera mic, yes, over here, very clear.

Wow.

And then he asked another question, is where?

And the response was over by the, by the stairs.

That's the difference though, Lloyd.

See what I'm getting from that is that that response was a direct response to a question.

Exactly.

And you followed it up and it followed it up with another question or with another answer.

Sorry.

So.

But I don't see much of that nowadays.

No, we don't get that.

Almost, almost never get that.

And the thing about this is it was done right after somebody had an actual experience.

There was a physical thing that happened.

So there was activity to begin with.

Weren't just waiting around to do an evp.

In fact, there were other times you're trying to EVP there and nothing happened.

They were trying and it didn't.

Nothing happened.

If you are enjoying this episode of Deadly Departed, then please share it with your colleagues or share it with your friends.

And if you've got any ideas on anyone that you would like us to invite onto the podcast for an interview, then please let us know.

Once again, thank you for joining us today and please remember and subscribe.

God bless.

The thing that was really amazing to me, you know, I grew up in the television industry.

My dad worked for NBC, uncle worked for CBS and that.

So I spent a lot of time behind the scenes because my dad was a producer.

And when we heard the first response, when it was played back, everyone in the production room jumped up like, and looked at me and I wish I had a camera because, you know, it just was.

To me it was one.

It was like I was just nodding my head.

It was just really amusing that that happened.

But you're right, most EVP just doesn't fit what they're.

Even if they ask a question, they make it fit.

If they.

Even if they understand it, they make it fit.

And that reminds me, I mean obviously from my years experience as a medium as well, is that too many mediums make things fit right.

As well.

And we'll get into using psychics and mediums in investigations, but Even in pareidolia is a big thing for me.

A lot of it is pareidolia.

And as you know, that's kind of huge for me.

There's no evidence for it.

And what I would say is that what I've seen nowadays is people don't have.

It's almost like you would need a template.

If you're really going to go in an investigation, you should have a standard operating procedure of what you're looking for.

In terms of evp, there is a pattern analysis.

There's a pattern to it.

And you can build up that narrative by.

There was, like you mentioned, there was phenomena.

There was a direct question, there was a response, there was a follow up.

I never see that, and I never see that on TV shows.

Well, on TV it's.

If they're only picking and choosing.

Remember, it's in editing.

And even the.

That's right.

The editor, even the investigators have no control over that.

You know, they might be there for two days shooting, and nothing might.

And literally nothing might happen except for one thing.

And they bring that one thing out and they really expand it if.

If anything happened at all.

But you're.

You're right about that.

You know, there's.

I think the template for EVP is you do need to consider a number of factors, one of which is, and so many ghost hunters don't know this or don't think about this is EVP by definition is not acoustical.

It's not sound.

The microphone is not picking it up.

So the simplest thing to do if you're doing EVP and you really want to know, first of all, you probably want two recorders because you want one to record the questions you ask.

And you start them at the same time, make sure your time code is there.

But on one of them, you plug the mic.

And frankly, people are like, how do I plug the mic?

It's like, get a pair of old earbuds that are wired, you know, the kind that are 299at, you know, someplace at a.

At almost anywhere.

Cut off, Cut off the wire.

Just cut the wire and put the plug in.

That's it.

That's all you have to do.

Because there's no.

Because earphones themselves.

Earbuds themselves can be used as microphones if you plug them into the mic.

Well, that's right.

I mean, so if you clip the wire, you're only wasting $2.99 or $1.99.

And everybody has those around anyway.

There's no way that that can pick up any Any sound.

So now you have a recorder that's not getting sound, you have a recorder that is getting sound.

And you play back your question, you play back the one with no sound.

And if you get anything clear, especially clear, that's a big difference than if you're doing it on the device, which could still be someone else in the room, could be your stomach rumbling.

It's all that pareidolia stuff.

Could even be you, you know, without realizing, kind of speaking under your breath kind of thing, or somebody else.

And I think, I mean, what I know from utilizing microphones, and especially in intelligence community, is that microphones and earbuds, they're transmitting and receiving.

Essentially, you're basically.

They can control it.

They can listen into you as well as utilizing that microphone.

So you could be potentially.

And this is what I always want to say, and it's important to understand that some of the information or some of the trade craft that you learn in the security industry, it kind of does coincide with ghost hunting or with investigations because there is so much leakage of vibrational and waveforms that you could be picking anything up.

And what you may be hearing is nothing in that local environment, but something else that you're picking up surreptitiously.

Right, right.

And, you know, the thing is that when you are recording in, if you were in an abandoned place with.

With no car, no traffic around, no wildlife, none of that.

Yeah, that might, that, that might mitigate a lot of that.

But if you're anywhere where there could be cars driving by, there could be people outside, you don't even.

You may not notice that at all.

No, because human beings screen stuff out.

So that's the.

You know, having multiple recorders is important for that because typically they'll all pick up sound.

But having a recorder that does not or cannot pick up sound, again, EVP is an effect on the electronic device.

It's electronic voice.

Otherwise, it's called voice phenomena.

I mean, if you hear a sound out of midair, it's voice phenomena.

Yeah, yeah.

So you really need to do that.

And, you know, there's this thing, the Estes method, that's running around now.

I keep getting asked about that where.

Which.

Which is sort of based on the Gansfeld in that the individual who is trying to ask.

Who's asking the qu.

Who's kind of listening to the recording as it's happening, has static through his.

Their earphones and they have their eyes covered pretty much.

And the thing is, thing about this, that was pointed out by, I think, it was Philip Morse, one of somebody I know through the Rhine.

But also something I've noticed as well is that, you know, they have a standard list of questions they're going to ask in this haunted place.

Right.

And typically, the guy who's.

Or the person who's going into the.

The sensory deforation state knows the questions and knows the cadence of the questions.

Yeah.

So they're going to interpret whether they recognize it, realize it or not.

They're going to interpret what they think they hear based on the question they're pretty sure is being asked at that moment.

How would you then, Lloyd, go into an investigation like that where there is.

I want to go into some.

Using some other techniques and things like that, but using that voice phenomena or measuring, you know, that particular evp.

How would you negate that issue with the questions?

Because that's obviously sensory leakage as well.

How would you say that?

It sounds like the Ganzfeld.

That's.

It's really.

That.

That's really bias rather than sensory leakage.

Right.

Bias.

One of the things.

Yeah, one of the things I would definitely do is if there are questions being asked.

Number one, the person who is going to be in that state should not know at all what the questions are.

But they're gonna be a lot of questions.

I mean, they're just gonna be just basic questions.

Anybody there?

Kind of thing.

The other is to randomize the questions so they can't randomly get em.

But then again, you know, we all know that from our research that in.

Thanks to EB thanks to research on ESP in the Gansfeld, people might be a little bit more open psychically.

So they might psychically pick up the question too.

Yeah, I was gonna say that as well.

So they could psychically pick up.

And you almost is in an altered state and someone else may be asking the questions where they might be then picking up whatever they're picking up.

Well, and then there's one other thing that we have to think about.

Over the years, I've talked to different ghost hunting groups, not so much anymore, but a lot of groups that were using EVP and talking at either a conference or some other place where I was giving a lecture.

And they talk about the fact they're doing EVP and they're getting great evp and we got one guy in our.

In our group who always gets EVP no matter where we go.

That means it's that guy.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, it's either that guy or they got.

That guy's got a ghost following him.

Around and just kind of like playing around.

He's got an attachment to him.

Yeah.

And he's the only one that's communicating or.

Yeah.

Or he's making up unconsciously.

That desire and expectation fits in with a lot of PK research.

And we're talking about PK by the living.

You know, that that's an important thing as well to, I think to cover as well.

Lloyd, is that anybody who's going in an investigation, there is an expectation.

Yeah.

You're expecting to get something personally when I go in knowing full well that.

And this is kind of an interesting thing.

Barry Taft was asked.

Barry talks about having been asked by the productions who did the producers who did Ghost Hunters before the Taps folks were asked.

He was asked whether or not he would do the show.

And he had a conver.

He told me about a conversation he had with him.

Just saying, you know, a lot of nothing happens.

Well, we'll make sure something does happen.

That's the thing that's setting it up.

They're setting it up and you know, you don't know.

Even the investigators might not know if the producers are setting things up to get something on camera that is.

Is not real, you know, because they could be not forthcoming with the ghost hunters on the show for that matter.

Oh yeah.

Because they're sensational.

Because at the end of the day that's exactly what sells and that's what they're looking for.

But the problem is then is teaching the public what really investigation and anomalous phenomena is not.

Well, yeah, it's what it's not.

But also.

And what it is, the one thing I will say, I'm currently now teaching a course on field investigations and I just did a class this week on science and the scientific method.

And the fact that any field work outside of a controlled environment is limited in application of the scientific method.

Because you're not in control of the environment.

No, that's true.

So what you are doing, you can do certain things.

You can come up with hypotheses to test in the environment.

That's been done in poltergeist cases.

Like a hypothesis of.

If we identify who we think the agent is and do X, Y and Z with the agent, whether it's counseling, stress relief, whatever, the phenomena stops.

That's tested, we've done that that works.

That's also practical.

So one of the things to consider is that to be a good investigator, you should be rooted in the science of what the phenomena is and what it's connected to and the research that's happened in controlled work.

So it's applied science.

You apply the science for things.

That's the important distinction.

And so it's a major distinction.

And, you know, when you're doing applied science, it's not the same science as you'd have in a lab, but it still can be scientific, especially if you deal with the data appropriately.

It's how you deal with what you've collected.

It's not just the process of getting the data, getting the evidence, which is what ghost hunters focus on.

They only seem to focus on getting.

Evidence, and the evidence is often questionable.

And I have to know, I have to say as well, though, if people know anything about parapsychology is.

The history of parapsychology is vast.

And yeah, you've got some of the greatest scientists that have ever been known.

Frederick Myers, and the start of the spr.

The.

The way that we investigate in parapsychology is scientific.

And I mean, that is why, you know, the PA was accepted into the organization, American Association.

Advanced from the science.

Yeah, that's it.

That's it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we do have a ground in scientific methodology and applying it.

All right, we apply it within the lab, but then, as you're saying, we take that out into the field and it's applied.

But then that data then can be measured.

Right.

You can deal with the data.

And the way you deal with it, first of all, the big mistake that a lot of ghost hunters make, not all of them, but partly because some of the shows have said we have to ignore anecdotal evidence so they don't talk to witnesses.

Yeah, I've noticed that that is a significant problem because you don't have a ghost story if you don't talk to witnesses.

I mean, what are you.

What are you starting.

You starting with a folklore or rumor, which frankly is not useful if there's nothing to back it up.

And they're making assumptions, you know, well, there was a murder here.

There must be a ghost here.

That's a problem.

Yeah, that's the problem.

I think I also want to jump into something that you mentioned earlier, and that's something actually that we've got a paper coming out and paralysed about, is that ghost hunting, for the want of a better expression, why do we always do it at night when reality Is we don't have to.

And it doesn't have to be an old house.

I've done a lot of television at a couple places.

The USS Hornet, Moss Beach Distillery, place called the Banta Inn.

We almost.

While the TV folks did want to shoot some at night, and we did not in complete darkness, ever.

The phenomena that we.

We got that happened while we were there and that whenever I've investigated at some of these places has happened during the daytime.

And if a place is open, you know, if you have a public place and the place is open, if people are going to report experiences, they're going to report them when the place is open.

The only people who might report something after hours would be security and maintenance people.

And the fact that this is something pretty interesting.

The Winchester Mystery House, which is a really cool place, honestly, is not as haunted as people like to make out.

A lot of stories were made up.

Oh, we encourage them to do that.

It makes it more fun.

Yeah.

So when Annette Martin.

So when Annette Martin and I. Annette was a psychic medium I worked with for many years.

And she.

She actually knew the folks who worked who owned it and had been there many times.

So she knew what was going on there from a psychic perspective.

And we went there, she said, okay, we're going to talk to the security and maintenance people, which is what we did.

And they had some real reports which connected to each other and to a couple other things that had been happening and to what Annette had.

Other psychics had picked up, but nothing to do with what most of those stories were.

Was a handyman who had been seen by people outside.

And, you know, the stories that.

What they told were very good, clear stories.

Right.

What they experienced, firsthand experiences didn't give us secondhand stuff.

Referred us to a couple retired guys who had experienced the same thing.

And the stories were all connected in that way.

Let's talk a little bit then about the daylight.

Because obviously people think when it comes down to apparitions.

And I also want to get into measuring what people tend to see through cameras and things like that as well.

But can people expect to see an apparition during the day?

Absolutely.

Or with the lights on?

I mean, you can do it at night, but why do you have the lights out?

It's so there's such a small, small, small percentage.

I mean, there's a good percentage that happen at night.

Yeah.

Or early in the morning before.

Before sunrise.

All of that, it makes no sense.

Except for television.

Back in the 80s again, I had, we had.

There were two things that happened in the 80s after Ghostbusters.

One, even though the producers knew that there weren't any devices like in Ghostbusters, they always asked, what devices do you have?

And we, you know, we were using in the late 80s magnetometers to look for magnetic anomalies that might correlate to people's experiences.

No experience.

The anomaly is.

Some is irrelevant, the other.

So they kept on asking, do you have anything that lights up, makes noise?

This is television.

It's a visual medium.

So that's what they need.

Yeah.

On rare occasion.

On rare occasion, if I had a really annoying director, I would pull out a toy Star Trek the Next Generation tricorder, you say?

Yeah, you told me about that.

We talked about that the last time that you were on as well.

Well, you've got it.

I was going to say you've got it behind you.

Let me grab it and show it to you here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.

Let people see it.

So I think I have battery still in this.

Let's see.

Wow.

See?

Yeah.

And it looks very much like what you get these days on Amazon.

Yeah, I doubt, I doubt that the sound is coming through, but I would pull this, I would pull this.

And I think there were three cases.

I.

Three instances I did this.

And the cameraman and the sound guy, mainly the cameraman, he looks away from the camera and he looks at me and I just smiled at him and he just nods his head and he stopped rolling.

I mean, it was all three cases.

They stopped rolling at that point, pretended like they were still recording.

But the director was annoying to them too.

And they were always Star Trek fans.

So it was always.

I knew that that was going to happen.

So that was part one, that they wanted to do it in a spooky, very spooky setting and the whole bit.

They wanted to turn the lights down.

Sometimes they would say, can you turn the lights off?

And the camera guy would look at him like, are you out of your mind?

Can't see anything.

I guess.

Yeah.

And then in the early 90s, night shot cameras came in.

Sony had night shot.

So now all of a sudden they can turn the lights out, make it really spooky.

And even better, it looks spookier on the night shot.

So the thing is that of course the, the rationale is that maybe we can see them in infrared.

The problem being that that's not the case.

It doesn't happen.

But more importantly, you can still have the lights on and still, still shoot through a night shot so you don't have to worry about people bumping into things.

Yeah, and now you've got, I mean now we move into modern day.

We have digital cameras, we have mirrorless cameras and we've got them on our phones.

And I mean I've had many times in PDN we've had images sent into us.

And I look at them and I'm like, it's a digital artifact.

There's no ghost there.

There's no real anomalous phenomena there.

But TV shows haven't done us any favors with that either.

And now we've got.

Anybody with a camera is going out ghost hunting.

And so I want to talk a little bit about this, the digital artifacts and this whole idea of orbs and which is another people out there that support.

I'm sorry, but it's not something I support.

Even though you think I do.

Read my first, my book no Orbs.

I can tell you exactly where orbs came from in terms of why they were popularized.

And Oster reported and put up pictures of these orbs claiming that these were spirits that he got in haunted places.

He popularized that.

In fact, the.

You could join the International Ghost Hunter Society for I think it was 30 bucks a year and get access to the, the ever increasing library of ghost of orb and ghost photos that they had and you would contribute to them as well.

The problem being that orbs became fairly prevalent photographically and not even for, even for film with the instant cameras and things after flashes got more powerful.

So these were not digital artifacts.

In fact, not all even with digital cameras.

Not all of them.

When you're using a flash, it's not necessarily a digital artifact.

It is often a reflection.

Either of you have dust in front of the lens because of the focal length.

And when the flash comes back, it creates this round thing.

That's number one.

Number two, you can have anything semi reflective outside the frame of the film.

So yeah, there's no mirror, there's no glass, there's nothing reflective in that Picture, but there's a window off to the right, or there's a mirror off to the left, or you're dealing with.

There's one picture I have from one of my buddies who was.

Who's a photographer who spent a lot of time trying to accidentally on purpose create orbs in different conditions.

And he was actually in a haunted building in the attic.

And it was very.

It was old cedar, and old cedar has a sheen to it.

And he found that it reflected the flash and caused an orb.

So, you know, there's all these different possible flash reflections.

When people send me pictures of orbs, beside the fact that I tend to dismiss them, it's like, what was going on?

Number one, had you had a paranormal experience?

I mean, did somebody see a ghost?

Was there anything going on in the place?

Or did you just have the picture?

And most of the time, they just have the picture.

So I get.

I asked them sometimes to send me pictures of the other parts of the room.

And it's pretty clear the few times that I've seen that.

Why.

What.

What actually happened?

What happened?

Yeah.

And I think also in the modern moving, the digital era, the actual microchip and everything in there and the way the processor works, it does pick up, even without a flash, because I've proven it.

I've taken shots with my Sony, and I can pick up an orb if there's moisture.

Even if there's moisture in the air.

Yeah, yeah.

And I had a conversation at some event with.

It was a movie premiere kind of party.

Like a press party for a movie?

And I started talking.

This guy was taking pictures with this huge Nikon camera.

And I started talking to him.

And he was a freelance photographer for Newsweek.

We're talking a pro, right?

Total pro.

And I asked him if he had ever heard about this stuff, and he had no.

No knowledge of any of this stuff.

And I.

And I explained what it.

What, you know, what the pictures look like and such.

He said, oh, you know, occasionally I get pictures like that on my camera, which is a very long lens, by the way.

Long lens cameras almost never get those, unless they're digital artifacts.

And he said, occasionally there's.

He said, I've talked to Nikon on occasion.

There's a pixel dropout.

And the processing of the camera, the actual computer part of the camera makes it into a round light.

Not a.

Not a tiny square.

It's not a square.

You don't see the pictures of the square, but you see this round thing is vertical.

Yeah.

So you do have digital.

And you have digital artifacts on video as well.

That can happen pretty easily.

What would you say to people, though, Lloyd?

And I've had this as well, and I don't like to.

I mean, sometimes you hurt the people's feelings.

But mediums, even mediums that you know will come back and say, I've had an orb, and it's been intelligent.

Right.

And I've always maintained if it is a real phenomena, if it's an orb, it will respond to intelligent communication in a number of ways, not just one question.

There will be movement.

There'll be a pattern to it.

I haven't seen that yet.

Right.

But there'll be mediums that will say, I can call on an orb just like that, and it will appear.

And what would you say to them?

Well, first of all, I'd ask them, is it appearing visually or is it just appearing on your camera?

Because, frankly, just like with evp, we, we, we.

Yeah.

Other people, other psychics have been able to affect film and digital cameras and digital devices.

So it's probably the medium causing that.

Who's causing that orb to show.

Here's the.

The basic problem with orbs in general is somebody has a regular camera, right?

Not an infrared camera, just a regular camera.

They take a picture, flash or.

No, let's say it's a flash picture and they were not experienced.

Whether they were experiencing anything or not doesn't really make much difference.

Did anyone see the orb when the flash went off?

Because unless the flash reflected back off something or the orb was glowing, you would not have it on camera unless something affected the camera itself.

That's called pk.

Some consciousness.

Right.

So, you know, and this is the problem with ghost photos in general.

We know that ghosts are not optical because we have way too many cases where, going back well over a hundred years, where you have multiple people, but only one or two people see the ghost.

And sometimes at the same time, somebody else is hearing the voice of the ghost or somebody senses the presence.

So there's some perception of this entity, but they're not.

Our eyes are not picking them up.

And if our eyes can't pick it up, the camera can't pick it up, because our eyes pick up things, what the camera sees reflected or given off.

And for infrared, it's usually heat.

You know, I have one student right now who's kind of looking at ultraviolet.

The problem with ultraviolet is, number one, we see ghost Hunters putting up pictures from full spectrum cameras.

But unless they spent somewhere between $3,000 and $30,000 on a new lens that doesn't have the UV coating, it's.

Even if you've removed the ultraviolet filter from the actual processing, it's still filtering out ultraviolet.

It can't take a picture of ultraviolet in ultraviolet.

Looks like it's pretty, but it doesn't do that.

That brings me to the.

No.

I have a couple of professional cameras.

I have a Nikon and I have a Sony as a professional.

I have long lens, I've got expensive lenses and everything else.

And now with the new.

With AI, Right, so let's talk about that because now with AI, we have the ability for the camera and the chip in the camera to be able to pick up a form.

Now this kind of goes into knowing in Ghost Hunt and where they're now saying that their cameras will pick up the form of a ghost.

And it is this.

You see the stick figure where the.

That's the SLS camera.

There's a basic.

There's a real problem with that.

That's using the Kinect lidar.

Sls.

Kinect.

Yeah, exactly.

So, and I have a massive issue with that as well because I can, I can prove that with a Sony.

It can pick up a windowsill or a window or a transom or something like that and it will identify it as a potential person or.

And then somebody then turns around and says, well, that is a spirit.

Well, you know, all they really had to do is start looking online at the false hits on the Xbox in general with the Kinect because they're all over the place.

There's a ton of articles out there even before the SLS camera that a sofa, a chair, depending on the configuration of furniture, when you are playing a game with the Kinect, will see that as a character in the game.

It's the processing.

And the guy who came up with the SLS camera, I had one of my folks talk to him to see if we could test one out in a controlled environment.

He said no.

He asked if.

Because, you know, it's the camera from the tablet and then there's processing.

Yeah, that's the problem.

Interpretation.

It's the interpretation.

You know, I said let's do a not.

We'll do a non compete, non disclosure, whatever you want.

Because I need to.

I just want to know if this is actually something that could be used scientifically to pick something up.

No point.

It's all proprietary.

I can't let you do that.

That is highly suspicious.

Absolutely.

So I have, even on my phone I still have some of the ghost photo apps that can place a ghost on there.

And it used to be that people would send me pictures, that a friend took a picture of them and there was a ghost in the background or there was a ghost there and there were.

On occasion I would recognize the ghost from the gallery from one of the ghost hunting ghost photo apps and I would send them back a picture and say, you need to go after your friend because they are screwing with you.

Here's a picture of me with the exact same ghost.

Wow.

Do you know another thing as well that I notice is people don't understand really what an apparition actually is or what a ghost is because there is so much that's sent into us in Paranormal Daily News and even potentially myself, where they send me an image and they'll say, there's a shadow here.

And I'm like, that's not an apparition, that's not a spirit.

Or there's a streak of light or that's not a ghost, that's not a spirit.

People lack.

And this is where PDN and our journal and everything comes because we're trying to educate people.

In reality, people lack the education because of the sensationalism of tv.

And this is another thing, and one of your recent papers, people haunt themselves because of this as well, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean there's residual hauntings and we leave impressions behind.

This emphasis on technology is all because of television.

And it's.

Steve Chu, who was the Secretary of education during the Obama administration, was on the Daily show at one point being interviewed.

And I don't know how, I don't know how this came up.

Might have to see if I can dig up the transcript somewhere.

But he mentioned that there was a problem with American education and science, which is true.

And he said that people seem to equate technology with science and technology is more engineering, it comes from science and.

But using technology is not being scientific.

It's how we can measure technology to be scientific.

Right.

And technically the term.

I was talking about this with my students the other day.

Technology refers to any tool, practical tool, especially used by humans or process.

Right.

So technically, stone knives, our technology.

Hammers and nails are technology.

It's during the 80s and 90s and you remember this jock, we used to talk about computer stuff as high tech.

Now it's just tech.

There's no high tech.

Yeah, there's no high tech.

It's just tech.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I, I love to say you know, I use a tool.

I use a bit of technology every day, almost every day to cook.

It's called a microwave.

I am not a scientific cook.

Although I happen to know, because when I was a kid and we got the first microwaves as they came out.

And some would say, Lloyd, that you're not a cook if you're microwaving.

I'm not a cook, no, but I'm heating my food up.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

But I'm certainly not a scientific cook.

No, that's true.

And the fact is that there is a science to cooking and baking.

So it is, it's.

But I. I mean, I learned how to.

How the microwave actually worked.

And I could tell you that most people have.

Have not a clue.

They just know what.

What not to put in the oven to cause, which will cause a fire, like metal and things like that.

So it's.

Unless you know what the technology does, what its limitations are, and then how to apply the data, how to analyze or apply the data, and how to look for false hits for things that could also create things, you are not even close to doing even applied science at that point.

You're just simply doing wishful thinking.

If you are enjoying this episode of Deadly Departed, then please share it with your colleagues or share it with your friends.

And if you've got any ideas on anyone that you would like us to invite onto the podcast for a.

An interview, then please let us know.

Once again, thank you for joining us today, and please remember and subscribe.

God bless.

I think it's important for people to understand if they're seriously going into.

Not that I like to use the term ghost hunting, but investigations, you know, part of psychological investigations, paranormal investigations, that they have some kind of training and understanding, not only of the equipment, but even.

And I want to get any talk about the use of psychics and mediums and how that should integrate.

Yeah.

Because I think for this as well is one, there's not enough trained psychics or mediums that go into these investigations.

And they're primed.

Many of them are already primed.

They already know where they're going.

They already know what they're looking for, and the evidence is just not there as far as I'm concerned.

There should be, obviously, protocols regarding this.

And also we need to talk about the ethics of investigations as well.

Oh, yeah.

Which is the one thing, honestly, that will make it.

Make you throw science out the window.

I know, but I did the ethics.

The ethics for you and John And Ryan.

And it was like, my God.

Yeah, we have to go through this.

Irb.

Now that I'm, you know, I'm finished.

I've now finished my masters.

I'm doing my thing.

You're like, well, this does not work in the field.

You can't do this.

There has to be.

There is.

Yes, there's an ethical part to it, but it's not going to fit in real life.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

You know, it's.

Yeah.

And just like jump into the ethics piece.

When people call for help, that's the ethical goal.

Which may mean forget the equipment for, you know, it's just really, let's take what's going on and see how we can help you.

And if we can get data along the way, we do, and we use that.

But that is the ultimate goal, is not evidence.

Yes, we're trying to find out if there's something real happening here to these folks, but ultimately we're trying to see based on what they're telling us.

And again, this is back to the witness testimony.

No witness testimony.

You have nothing to start with.

You have no basis, no narrative, and.

You have nothing to go on through the investigation and nothing to correlate to.

If you're going to use equipment and get environmental measures, you have to correlate any anomalies to people's experiences.

If you don't do that, you got unusual environmental factors and that's all.

You've got.

Nothing.

Yeah, but the ethical thing is really important.

And, you know, sometimes we also have to speculate on how we can help you.

That has no, you know, has.

Has worked on a practical basis and a psychic basis sometimes, but doesn't have any necessary scientific backup other than what you're doing does.

Is an outgrowth of understanding of psychic ability, psychic phenomena in general, from the lab.

And I think it's important to talk as well about the use of psychics in these investigations because many people in ghost hunting teams, they bring a psychic in, but there doesn't seem to be any really understanding of how that psychic should be used.

They just go in raw and it's.

I'm feeling this.

Whereas there's nothing.

There's no sop to it.

No.

Yeah.

First of all, I met many people from groups that call themselves the group Sensitive.

There was one group I actually went on an investigation with, and they were all individually introducing themselves with their roles.

You know, one was the equipment guy.

It was like.

Like the shows.

And she was the group sensitive and the group debunker.

And it Was like that.

That was like, okay.

That was like.

And.

And the client with the word debunking meant she said.

She pulls me aside and says.

So they don't believe me.

And then the group sensitive anytime I.

First of all, there was somebody else there who was just testing out to join the group.

And she was a medium that I had already worked with a little bit.

Wow.

So she was.

She was telling me what she was picking up or she wasn't picking up because it was a poltergeist case and the sensitive is picking up stuff.

And I started asking the sensitive questions.

And eventually, you know, my questioning gets her.

Gets her to understand that I don't believe anything she's saying because she's picking up stuff that has nothing to do with anything.

And she practically starts crying.

So she was emotionally sensitive, not psychically sensitive.

Wow.

And that's important.

I think people have got to understand that there's a certain.

You have to have a certain capacity to deal with this kind of thing, and you have to be willing to be questioned and put.

And willing to be questioned.

You have to make it not about you.

I mean, that's the other thing.

That's.

That's.

You're hitting something that's really important.

Yeah.

I did a paper years ago.

I did a paper years ago which is going to be in next edition of one of my other books.

And I can actually supply it to the Journal if you want.

Yeah, I'd love.

Absolutely.

It's just identifying the qualities of the best psychics, aside from the psychic stuff.

Yeah.

And one of them was, you know, and I.

And I tell people this.

I'm actually doing an online lecture for a site called Ghost Education 101 in April on how to choose a psychic or medium for both investigations and actually for readings and also assess that.

But number one, no divas.

Divas need not apply.

And I've had people offer themselves over the years, even when we had our JFK parapsychology program.

And the moment that you turned your attention away from them, if they would, like, go, oh, you know, make the noise to try to get their attention back, it's like, okay, you're out of here.

I'm sorry, I can't work with you.

That just doesn't work.

They have to be able to be questioned.

They should have some curiosity about the field.

You know, the thing I've noticed about, really about good mediums, the Forever Family mediums, for example, they are all curious about the science.

They want to know how their abilities work.

They want to know.

And I think that's important because I'm not going to say that I've always been that scientific, even as a developing medium.

When I was in church and when I was serving in churches, I did fall into the trap.

I did fall into the trap of orbs.

I did fall into the trap of everything's a phenomena.

But, and this is important, I was curious.

I am curious.

I want to know the mechanics.

I need to know where the evidence comes from.

I need to find, find out how.

And that's what's taking me down the academic route, because I need to.

And I think that's, that's, that makes the best people.

I mean it really does make the best people because now they go in armed with certain information that they've got understanding and they're able to put aside their own biases.

I mean, I knew there was a medium who worked with Gary Schwartz for a while.

I met years ago, very Catholic.

But when she does her mediumship and when she does went on investigations at all, the religion goes out the window.

It's like the religion has nothing to do with.

Unless the people themselves she can relate to on that level.

But she doesn't bring that in at all.

See, that's fantastic.

Yeah.

And I think that's another thing.

They have to be willing to put those biases aside.

And I can tell you the best mediums to work with are ones who, number one, their lives are not around mediumship or being psychic.

They have other things.

Annette Martin, for example, who I worked with for years, her family, her grandfather started a chain of hardware stores.

She managed them sometimes she and her husband were doing the first online CD store.

So she was doing other things.

Another friend of mine who's a medium has worked in consignment work.

She volunteers for hospice.

Not as a medium.

So people having non grounded interests make, first of all, make them more able to come up with some other explanations.

They have to be absolutely able to pick them up.

And the last thing that is so important to me at least is they got to have a sense of humor.

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

If you don't have a sense of.

Humor, they cannot take themselves too seriously.

That, that's really, I mean I, I always tell people that I take my subject seriously.

I do not take myself seriously.

And I think it's important as well is that every medium, including myself, has got to be able to admit their biases.

Because I'm the first one to say I know I have biases and it's a fight for Me, I've got to get to the point where I become aware of that biases and I have to cognitively put it aside.

I have to put that aside.

And even in my research, my academic work, I've mentioned to my professors, I know I've got bias.

I know I have because I'm saying that there's a difference between experience and theory, and experience trumps theory.

And it's hard.

I've had a few arguments.

I mean, I have, I have biases against certain, certain religious and other interpretations of the phenomena.

But that comes from study and from research.

That comes from your study and.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And, and the fact that people, and I know why people label things certain ways when they have an experience that is causing fear, for example.

And it's often because of lack of understanding and buying into pop culture beliefs and that, you know, I have ghost hunters asking me, what do you do to prepare yourself before you go in?

Do you do a prayer?

You know, some of these folks do prayers.

It's like nothing.

They can't hurt me.

I don't, I don't believe that at all.

I mean, as long as I don't duck into the path of a flying object, I think I'm okay for this.

And you know, and every once in a while I'll say, well, I'm not worried about it, I'm a Jedi.

So, you know, just leave it at that.

But it's.

Again, I don't take myself seriously.

It's really important to know.

I studied cultural anthropology in college and focused mainly on magic and supernatural beliefs around the world, which gave me a really good spread of, that's all under the anthropology of religion and understanding of different belief systems.

And I recognize people have different belief systems.

I'm not trying to denigrate their belief system if they believe it's a demon.

I'm trying to say it's not a demon if it does X, Y and Z, which is what you're describing to me.

You saw a ghost, you assumed it was a demon because the next day you tripped on something or the next day you had a car accident.

That's not because of a demon, that's because of you.

Yeah, and there's a lot of investigators, there's a lot of paranormal groups that go out there and they're already primed for that.

Like, yeah, right.

I mean, I have, I have respect for Ed and Larry and Warren, but my, my respect only goes so far because in every investigation it was a friggin demon.

Literally in every most, most including ones.

That had normal explanations, by the way.

I know it was a demon.

It's got to be a demon, you know, and it got to the point was, and I'm not going to mention the book because the person's still alive and everything else, but it's got to the point.

And I think I did a review on this book at one point.

It's almost like they see demons in your burgers.

Right, Right.

I mean, like you can't.

Well, you know, depending on the fast food place you go to, that could be the case.

Right.

Well, it's ridiculous.

So, you know, there's an importance here that we are talking about, ladies and gentlemen, is that there has to be.

We don't stop when you going out and doing paranormal investigations.

We want you to, we want you.

To do it because this is another thing I want to kind of finish off with and talk more about is citizen science.

Because, you know, I think that's important.

We, we need more citizen scientists and this is why we need to have more education out there on what is sensational and what is grounded in scientific basis to be able to measure this.

And because parapsychology over the years has had a bad reputation or it's, it's never been, but we're getting there.

I think slowly we're getting there.

People are getting more.

And also from what you're doing in the Rhine, people are coming to the Rhine education and they want to learn about parapsychology.

They want to learn about the science.

Right.

And I think that one of the reasons why we're finding.

Well, you know, before, before the skeptics organization got active in the mid-70s, there was a lot more interest.

There were even like over a hundred California, 100 college undergraduate courses in parapsychology around the country.

Not, not any full programs per se until JFK had its program.

But there were, there was interest and there were people who were able to talk about their interests.

The skeptics are the ones who shut down the academics and created a really difficult and hostile environment.

But because of the growing interest in all fields of science in the question of what consciousness is.

Yes.

Even though there are different approaches and models to follow and philosophies, because of that many people.

I can't say it's too many, but it's.

Many people in various fields are recognizing that parapsychology has been dealing with consciousness since the beginning.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

And our data, especially the laboratory data, you know, the indication that ESP is beyond the physical environment, for example, or PK is something else.

And the evidence for survival of bodily death or the way the experiences people have and the patterns we've determined for that all suggests all sorts of interesting things about consciousness, whether it's in the brain or not in the brain.

And so we are finding more and more of that connection.

And, you know, in some respects, we are the field of consciousness studies.

We're just studying effects of consciousness on the physical environment.

Environment and connections with other people.

That's our kind of limit.

That's possibly another episode that we can do.

Lloyd.

Because I'm tempted to say, do you feel it's in the brain or outside of the brain?

I know I wrote an accurate.

I have my own interpretation, and it comes from a lot of science fiction, so I'll tell you.

Right, okay.

All right.

Well, we definitely have to do another episode because I remember writing my very first rebuttal for some of the.

One of the PhDs had written about the soul not existing and it being in the brain and consciousness fully in the brain.

And I was like, hi, hang on.

This is not right.

You know, because, you know, if the signal.

If the radio signals out there in the radio is broken, does it mean the signal doesn't exist?

So I wrote my own article in pda.

Well, and more than that, you know, now we know that, and we've known for years that the greatest concentration of nerve ganglia in the body is besides the brain, is the gut.

And we also know now that there's nerve ganglia on the heart.

Absolutely.

So it's not just the brain.

Anyway.

So if you wanted to say it's in the brain, you're wrong off the top of your head.

Even if it's just in the body, you can say it's in the body if you're coming from the materialist perspective, but it's not so much just in the brain.

No, exactly.

And of course, there's a lot of resonant field from the heart, which we're talking about the energy from the heart as well, and magnetic energy.

And.

Yeah, I have my own theory and I have my own perception from it.

Where I have mine as well.

Yeah.

Mind is a psyche, Psychological building blocks of reality.

And anyway, that's another.

That's another conversation.

We can talk about consciousness perception in another episode.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

The hard problem of consciousness.

Oh, my God, that's been.

And that's going to go on for probably hundreds of years from the.

Right, right.

Yeah.

But, you know, going back to the psychic and medium thing, the problem is that they do come in.

Some.

Many of them have their own belief systems.

Yeah, I mean, I knew someone who was doing investigations really good, did have real psychic ability.

But the only model he had, you know, like when he had like a.

A model to look at, who.

What does a psychic do?

What does a psychic appear to do?

I found out was watching, like, movies and detective shows where they would bring in a psychic.

So I had him on.

We did a case for a TV show, and at one point he's picking up some guy who's apparently died by being beaten to death.

And he's rolling around on the ground moaning and stuff like that.

And I just said to him, what the hell are you doing?

I know.

And it was like I could almost picture the movie where that happened.

And so he learned.

He's learned.

I mean, he's learned over the years.

Myself, Pamela Heath, who was one of my colleagues, did something with him on Alcatraz.

And he was picking up spirits all over the place, when in fact it was all residual.

That was there.

It was just residual energy.

You know, it's always interesting.

People say, well, there's lots of ghosts in Alcatraz.

Of.

Of the prisoners they wanted to leave Alcatraz.

Why in the world after they died.

Yeah, you know, that's something as well that this would be another episode we need to talk about.

But residual energy, people understand it.

It's not spiritual intelligence, residual energy.

And people mistake that.

They'll say there's ghosts here and everywhere.

Well, no, that's like stone tape theory.

It's just.

It's that weird place, you know, it's a recording.

And I.

And what's really interesting to me is when I'm talking on some podcasts and toward the ghost hunting groups or, you know, to different folks, I have people tell me, well, you.

You opened my eyes.

I just never thought about this.

And then it.

What they're saying this is, is the fact that I've told them that hauntings, this residual haunting, this.

This recording in the environment that we pick up because we're a little psychic, is not dependent on the.

The character in the recording being dead.

It has nothing to do with death.

In fact, the recording was made when that person was alive.

And it's like watching a movie.

If I were to watch the Maltese Falcon, which I'm planning to watch again this weekend because I'm reading, Reading a sequel right now.

Humphrey Bogart's been dead for a long time.

Alicia Cooke is gone.

Pretty much everybody in that, almost everybody in that movie is dead.

And probably most of the crew is dead.

I can still watch that movie.

But they were all alive when they.

Made that, when they did that.

So now, decades later, we can watch those recordings.

And that's what we get for hauntings.

And I think that's what groups need to understand is that if it is a discarnate being or there is a spiritual intelligence, that intelligence will be able.

To communicate, interact, interact with you.

Interact, Affect the environment.

And so there's a difference between a ghost and a spirit or a residual energy and spirit, you know, spirit intelligence.

Yeah.

And I don't even like to use the word intelligence because not every human is intelligent.

Living human.

Conscious is the best.

Conscious.

Okay.

Yeah.

And we look for, you know, a couple of key, key elements.

Does the entity react to you?

Whether they do anything else, do they react to you?

Are they aware that you are there?

And do they interact then further than that?

So it may not be communication, but it's definitely a reaction.

Just like a human noticing you're suddenly in the room kind of thing.

And you need to have some kind of reaction.

It could be a visual, it could be an auditory.

You get a sensation of that.

But you need some indication that somebody's home, so to speak, in that.

Absolutely.

Because that doesn't happen with, with the recordings with the residual hauntings, that those are repetitive patterns.

They may not repeat very often.

It's.

It's basically a form of psychometry, if you think about it.

I was just going to say that actually it's psychometry.

And, and, and, and, you know, there's.

Been a lot of holding.

Instead of holding the object, you're in.

The object, you're in the object.

You're picking it up.

Yeah.

And.

And I find psychometry fascinating.

I wrote an article in PDN about psychometry.

Yeah.

I wrote a piece on how to learn how to do psychometry.

I've been using in some of my development classes.

And it's actually one of the easiest things for people to learn, which is amazing.

It is, actually.

When I was doing teaching in our church, when Joe and I had the church in Scotland, it's the first thing we taught was psychometry.

And actually, when I went through.

When I joined the spiritualist movement and I went through that, that was the first thing I learned was psychometry.

And I used to go to all sorts of things, and I'm looking forward to having what's her face from University Georgia.

She's coming on Christine Simmons Moore.

Lovely person.

Great.

She's done some great research in psychometry.

She's coming on to talk about that as well, because I'm fascinated with that.

And there's a great history in it.

And I think it's probably one of the best tools to use to start to develop your awareness of your psychic capacity.

I agree.

And the thing is that a lot of psychics, when they walk into a haunted place, if there's no spirit there, first of all, not all psychics can detect conscious entities.

Not all psychics and mediums.

Not all mediums are psychic.

Right.

So it's.

It's also an application.

You gotta.

If you're gonna work with a me, a psychic, you got to know what they can do and what they're good at.

And there are mediums who can't do pickup residuals as well.

And there are immediate.

And certainly when I've taken people into poltergeist cases, if they're good at reading the living, that's helpful.

But otherwise they pick up nothing.

They get nothing at that point.

So psychometry, if you got someone, you know, that's useful in almost any residual haunting investigation that you actually do.

And sometimes there are apparitions in those places as well.

But people need to, you know, if you learn psychometry yourself, and I kind of encourage some of the ghost hunters to do that, but not to overemphasize your interpretations versus someone else, because someone who's practice at it is going to be better, is going to help you learn, but not necessarily, you know, you're not going to be better than them, so to speak.

And I've always maintained as well, Lloyd, that anybody that goes into an investigation, any real team, should have not just one medium or sidekick, that they should have a couple, because there can be corroboration between that information.

Yeah.

The problem is that there's just a limited number of people, psychics and mediums, who are available and are willing to D.O.

investigations for $0.

I understand that.

I mean, if that's their.

If that's how they make their living.

That'S understandable because anybody you hide, you go to a dentist, you go to a lawyer, that.

I get it.

But I mean.

Yeah, yeah.

But then private settings and council.

But I think in investigations, it's.

We don't charge for them.

The fact is, Jacques, that there are also psychics and mediums who are afraid of ghosts.

So I know my.

The medium I work with most is a woman named Mariah Canal.

And Mariah is, first of all, she.

She has a really interesting background.

She was a hotel concierge for years.

So she's really connected to a lot of the things, but she.

She's been studying it.

She's gone to Arthur Findlay College.

She's gone to taking some other courses.

She worked with other mediums as mentors, and so she's willing to learn from people.

She's taken all my parapsychology classes.

Classes, too.

Wow.

How I got to know her and she is part of some medium circles here in the Bay Area and a couple other places.

And she's.

When they find out that she's doing investigations because she loves doing that and she likes using equipment.

They were like, how could you do that?

Aren't you scared?

There's nothing to be scared about.

No.

I guess there's a difference between talking to the people who are here, the ghosts who are still here, and the spirits from the other side.

So, Lloyd, if there was, what would you say to people, as we're coming to the end of this episode, what would you say to those who are interested in seriously taking up.

What kind of education should they be getting?

Obviously there's courses at the Rhine, but what should they be looking at?

Somebody who's.

I'm interested.

I want to put a ghost group together, a team together.

What are they looking to do and what are they looking for?

Well, you know, first thing, they should get some.

They don't have to take a course.

There are plenty of really good books out there.

Yeah, I see.

Including yours?

Including mine.

And actually, I think for probably general interest, folks might want to look at my Paranormal Casebook.

It's just called a paranormal Casebook because it covers how I investigated different types of cases, including a couple that were not paranormal, that had normal, although unusual explanations.

So that's one thing.

Steve Parsons from the SPR Society, I like Steve, has two great guidebooks which you can get through the spr.

I think one of they may be both available on Amazon now.

Yeah, they are, actually.

I've got them up there.

I got them when I released them.

Yeah.

There's one that's a general investigations guide.

The other is about equipment.

Or you can buy his book Ghostology, which is a great.

If you're going to use equipment, you should read that book.

And if you're going to do evp, you should buy the book Paracoustics by Stephen T. Parsons and Callum Cooper.

Cal Cooper, brilliant.

Yeah.

All about the audio stuff.

So if you're going to do any of those things.

And I know that Steve is coming out with a book on photography, video and all that stuff at some point too.

Yeah, him and I.

He was on Deadly Departed.

Him and I connected with a great episode.

Anybody should listen.

Go back to listen to Lloyd's.

I mean, Lloyd, but also me and Steve Parsons are a fantastic one.

Steve is the man when it comes to equipment, I will say 100.

And he wrote a great page.

He wrote a great paper on orbs as well, which I put on.

That was a really good paper.

I enjoyed that.

Yeah.

And the other book that I would say, even though it's, you know, it's written to a house style, which was not my style, is my book Ghost Hunting how to Investigate the Paranormal.

It's a very, very, very basic guide, but it's got good information in it and kind of a step by step as a starting point.

Yeah, I think we've got your books.

They're on Paranormal Daily News.

If you go to the authors and the books, you'll actually see Lloyd's books there in connection to his website and everything else there.

And that's a great fundamental basis to start from all of those.

Yeah.

And then also, how do they choose the right team?

Let's talk about that before we finish.

How do they choose the right team members?

Well, first you have the people interested.

You need to find out, I think if you're going to create a team, a serious, you know, to do some serious stuff, ask.

You got to ask questions of them, like, why do you want to do this?

What are you interested in doing?

What do you expect?

And you need to be ready to educate them because their expectation may be very different, you know, maybe more like the TV shows than what you're trying to do in your investigation.

And then ask them about, you know, it's one thing to go to public places, but.

But you're going to be dealing with residences, which means confidentiality.

You should go through all that, too, with them to set the appropriate expectations.

And what I've seen over the years, I know a guy, Russ Allison, up in Seattle, started a group called a Ghost.

It's an acronym for his group right back in the 90s.

And he had a core group of people, which many of those people got bored with him trying to do science.

So they went out, they split out and did their own.

Own groups.

And then those groups split.

And at one point, I think there were like 50 groups in the greater Seattle area, and almost all of them could be traced back genealogically to Ross's group.

Wow.

And what I've seen over the years is that people come in with expectations, and if you don't set Those expectations right up front, then your group is going to fall apart or they're going to go off in some really weird directions when you're actually doing an investigation, which is fine in a public place, not fine in a residential case.

And it's also important to note, ladies and gentlemen as well that you have a responsibility when you're called into an investigation for people that are maybe suffering is to take that into consideration because many paranoia.

I've had letters and emails, emails coming to me.

Many paranormal teams leave a trail of disaster after they have been into a private residence.

Exactly.

They, they will.

Number one, they may show the so called evidence and then leave the family.

Family said, can you help us?

It's like, well, yes, yes, yes we can.

And all they can help them with is here's the evidence.

You have a ghost in your house.

Or worse, you have a demon.

I got a call.

Terrified.

Yeah, yeah, I got a call from a guy who had.

He and his wife had activity which seemed pretty reasonable, apparitional activity, not negative per se.

But the group that they called, the local group they called, came in, sent them to a hotel, by the way, kicked them out of the house because they spend overnight, three or four in the morning, the guy gets a call at the hotel from the lead investigator.

We're leaving.

What do you mean you're leaving?

We're leaving.

We got an EVP of a growl.

You have a demon in your house.

We're not going to say, oh my God.

And the guy's like, what do we do?

I said, well, tell me what's going on.

And I worked it through with them on the phone.

But it's just, that's the kind of thing that is highly.

It's beyond unethical, it's irresponsible.

If that's why you're going into ghost hunting, stick with the public places.

Yeah.

And that's a particular field of research that I really take to the clinical parapsychology side of things.

And you know, to Beth Hedford, a good friend of yours, now a friend of mine, I'm really interested in that side of things because there is so much spiritual crisis that happens from investigations, parapsychological investigations that leave families hanging.

And I've had kids and that's why I'm in it.

I've had cases that I've had to go into because they've left a trail of destruction and they don't know they've got nowhere to turn to.

And the reality of what would have rightly, what You've just said they've been told they've got a demon or something evil or an integrity.

You know, something that's turned the life upside down can be traced back to very natural causes that they don't actually have anything.

Right?

Right.

Yeah, that's right.

You know, Lloyd, thank you so much for joining me again on Deadly Departed.

Ladies and gentlemen, Paranormal Daily News has grown so substantial over the years.

It's very well respected throughout the world in academic circles as well.

And our next iteration is we now have our peer reviewed journal that is ready for its inaugural launch.

Lloyd and I are involved with that along with a great team of editors.

And we are hoping that we can bring real education from the academic community to the lay community to understand this in a better way and to support the work that we do in parapsychology and transpersonal psychology, clinical parapsychology.

I'm delighted that you're involved in it, Lloyd.

And other people is as well.

We're going to be dedicated to educating out there.

But if you really are interested and you really want to learn and I have trained and myself, I've been in classes with Lloyd at the Rhine and joining anybody's interested in seriously taking up and learning these classes, then tell them about Ryan Lloyd.

So the Rhine Research center is the legacy of the old Duke Parapsychology Lab.

So technically it's been in operations for 90 years.

Currently our research of the lab is on hold because we lost our lease.

They sold the building out from under us and we're looking for a building now in Durham, North Carolina.

But fortunately financially the organization is doing well enough to be able to buy a building this time instead of being leased.

So.

Oh really?

That's phenomenal.

Yeah, we're going to buy a building.

I have to give credit partly to Laura Lynn Jackson, the well known medium who has helped us with raffles and things.

She's on our board as well.

But we have an education arm called the Ryan Education center and we've been teaching classes for like 12 years I think now online.

Christine Simmons Moore actually helped John Kruth gets get that organization start.

Part of the organization started.

I'm one of the main instructors.

John Kruth, the executive director, research director is the other one and we have other instructors as well.

It's Rhine R H I N E-edu.org or you can just go to rhine.org and to our, the main website, click on education and see about what we're teaching right now.

We have a couple of four week classes coming up in March and then we'll start the new classes in typically in May, the next run of classes.

So the classes are semi, I like to say semi academic.

You can go for a grade towards A and credit towards a certification.

So we do have certain certificate programs, including one for field investigators and a more advanced field investigators certificate.

There's also research certifications as well.

But people take them just for fun.

They just, you know, they don't have to go for a grade, they don't have to take the quizzes, they just do them for fun.

And, and I'd say a good, good percentage actually, interestingly enough, used to be at 50, 50.

I'm seeing more like 75, 25 grading versus non grading, which for me as an instructor, the bigger the class, the harder it is.

I know it's interesting because when I went and did the class as well, there's a lot of professionals on there and I'm not so drawn that I say that I've been a medium for a long time, I'm an expert and everything.

You have to continually keep learning and development, which is why I went to university, which is why I'm now going to be doing a PhD with Cal Cooper and Chris Rowe, which I'm really excited about as well.

So you've got to keep developing, you've got to keep learning.

And I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, when I went and did my class at the Rhine, it was fantastic and it is academic.

Be prepared to work.

I didn't think it was going to be.

It was going to be, yeah.

If you're going for credit.

But you know, I will say that neither John nor I are like as rigid as your typical college professor.

No, it was good though.

Yeah, it was good.

But I remember when I had to do the report and when I.

The ethics and everything else and I had to write and then I was like, wow, this is okay.

All right, I get it.

Yeah, the ethics class is a real, I mean that's a real bear for a lot of people.

People.

Yeah, I enjoyed it, but it was, it was really in depth and that was my thing.

I was like, I can't.

This is not going to work on the field because I got to get this.

But by that time I'm waiting for the irb, it's gone.

We can't grow in the field.

So those watching this right now, it is an ethics and field investigation.

And John is coming, who co teaches with me, comes from the laboratory perspective.

I come from the non laboratory perspective.

And so we butt heads a little bit on things.

It's true.

Yeah.

And there's some importance to stuff here.

It just really depends on the kinds of investigations you're going to do.

And actually it depends on whether you're going to publish in an academic journal for a lot of this.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So anybody who's out there, if you're a serious researcher and you do want to publish academically, then we do have now parowise you can get Padawisejournal.com it is peer reviewed.

We're in the process of reviewing our articles and things now.

We've got an inaugural launch coming up.

So please support us and if you've got any questions for us in the meantime, then connect with us through Paranormal Daily News.

If you want to get in touch with Lloyd, you can do that there as well and connect with him.

And also don't forget to miss his Professor Paranormal on YouTube every Sunday.

Every other.

Every other Sunday.

Every other.

Every other Sunday because he's busy.

Every other Sunday it's called.

It's YouTube.com/professor Paranormal Normal.

And I do a live Q A on YouTube.

Well, I'll have something up about the next the next date.

I'm not sure when this podcast is going to be up, but February 22nd will be the next one.

March 8th, March 22nd.

Those are the next three that we've got coming up.

It's at 8:30pm Eastern, 5:30pm Pacific.

And yes, you can ask questions.

In fact, I encourage people because otherwise I get stuck lecturing.

I don't really want to do that.

So.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining myself and Lloyd today.

Lloyd will be back again at some other point.

Keep in touch with us and support the show.