Wednesday, November 28, 2012

A New Little Investigator

My posts have been more sporadic than I would have preferred, but it is due to a great cause. I have a new little girl in my life! Her name is Lily and she just turned five months old. She has already caught on to so many new things even though she has no hearing and is terribly clumsy. As I have read and watched documentaries about animals being more sensitive to paranormal activity, I am wondering if Lily will be my partner in crime along with the rest of my team members? Interestingly, because she is completely deaf, any noises wouldn't necessarily affect her, but she is hypersensitive when it comes to smell, touch, and sight...and maybe even spirits?


Only time will tell...

Monday, November 26, 2012

Psychic Connections

In one of my previous posts, I wrote about the experience of my first official paranormal investigation. The special guest for that night was Chip Coffey. He is also the author of the book titled "Growing Up Psychic" and has starred in A&E's Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal, and has appeared on many other television programs over the years. I figured I would focus this entry on my personal take of Chip's book "Growing Up Psychic" as I am not only a new investigator with Black Hawk Paranormal of Rochester, but as a teacher as well.

So, I don't overwhelm myself or my readers with all of my takes on everything I will be reading, I thought I would do several short blogs that correlate with the separate chapters and topics found within the book. There are seven chapters and several additional sections that provide additional information and suggested readings.

For this blog I am going to discuss Chip's Introduction, Chapter 1 (What Does "Psychic" Really Mean) and Chapter 2 (So You Think Your Child is Psychic). I had to re-read several sentences to make sure I had read them correctly. It seemed like every other personal experience Chip had while growing up was one that I had experienced too. He also went on to discuss something that another person had also told me that would help to validate a claim this person had made.

The claim was that everyone has intuition, but some have a more keen sense of it and are able to tap into it more often and have control over when to use it and turn it off. Previously, when I had been asked about how I know things I simply said that I am in tune with my intuition and that I am able to read people's body language and "read the situation" as a whole. I never would have thought of myself as being psychic! With that said, it is also said that many people have the ability to be psychic but only a few recognize what it is and work to improve their ability to utilize it.

The next chapter focuses on children that are psychic which is a topic of high interest to me as a teacher. So that will be my next blog...Thank you all for following, and feel free to leave me comments! I am always open to learning new information and sharing with your personal experiences as well!

To Be Continued....

Thursday, November 8, 2012

To Believe or Not to Believe...

To Believe or Not to Believe...that is the question.

If you had asked me this same question about five years ago, I would have swiftly replied with a "no" and gone into no further detail. This was mostly because of my fear of scrutiny and/or rejection from not only the public, but my family and friends.  Now, paranormal events and investigations have been televised and portrayed through the media as being real events that are scientifically measurable. I had a student who was animate that he wasn't going to read because there weren't any books he liked. He did however, love a show called Ghost Adventures which he frequently talked about. I made sure to watch this program so I could then go and find books that may mirror what it was about. I was hooked after the first ten minutes and the rest is (and will be) history!

To go back a few years...or maybe more like thirty, I had many experiences as a child that I couldn't explain. I came from a Catholic family that had never discussed the paranormal and did not openly accept the existence of ghosts. I would rationalize many of my experiences as, "I just know things" and as I got older, I would play off my experiences as, "I must have heard it from somewhere" or I was overtired.  I continued to "just know things" throughout the years. It wasn't until recently, when discussing this with a fellow paranormal investigator, I realized that my gut feelings and intuition were something that we all have, but only a few truly understand and can control what they experience.

So if you were to ask me today, do I believe...I most certainly do!

Do you?

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Iron Island

My first paranormal investigation was on Saturday night four days before Halloween (October 27, 2012). This was a Halloween celebration as no other I have done or experienced before. When I was young, Halloween meant dressing up (for me, mostly as one of the Barbie's with the waxy blonde hair that would always get tangled up, sweaty masks you could barley breathe in, and strong smelling plastic dresses that tied in the back) and going around the neighborhood with my sisters trick-or-treating and never having the opportunity to give out one of the tricks I had conjured up over the last few days before Halloween. Everyone always gave a treat and never wanted the trick! No fun!

As I became a teenager, Halloween meant praying you were going to receive an invitation to one of the most popular girls in school Halloween party and then you would have to try and find the absolute cutest costume and that no one else wore the same one or else you might die from the embarrassment. Those Halloween parties were never about candy or scare tactics. They were a Halloween costume version of junior high / high school speed dating, and did I mention that those days were insane! Thankfully those days are over.

Then as an adult we would go to each others homes for party's that gave awards for best costume, scariest costume, cutest couple costume, and so forth. These were more about alcoholic consumption than the trick-or-treating of the original celebration. Even that didn't have any connection to the real reasoning behind Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). The American version of Halloween gives children the opportunity to get free candy, and adults to act like kids again. The real Day of the Dead celebrates the souls of family members and loved ones.

My new Halloween tradition will be paranormal investigation! This was my first one, but definitely not my last! Iron Island Museum was more than I could have imagined. We arrived there with twenty minutes to spare for the book signing with Chip Coffey. He was amazing and personable! We were able to talk with him and ask questions without there being a mob scene trying to get to him. The capacity was limited to twenty-five people. It wasn't long into Chip's speaking that we were interrupted by knocking sounds coming from the attic. We were all accounted for in the chapel, so the noise was none of us. Chip let us know who it was and there was another faint tap to acknowledge Chip's response. That was only the beginning of the night!

During the actual investigation of the location I didn't feel any strong changes in my mood or the environment of the rooms, but let's just say; for all who were there, the flashlights were awesome! I have never seen anything like it...and it was apparently record breaking!  I had one personal experience in the basement where I felt as though my hair had been pulled. I thought my hair had gotten caught in the back of the chair I was sitting in or someone had walked past me, but there was no one around me and nothing to indicate it was the chair.

I can't wait to go through the recordings on my digital recorder to see if I caught anything and I am going to read Chip's book Growing Up Psychic. I will update everyone on my findings in my next post.
Until then...keep believing :)

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Inaugural Investigation

This is my first blog about my upcoming inaugural investigation. My adrenaline starts pumping every time I think about what it will be like when the lights go out. I have spent several hours learning the many functions of my new digital voice recorder. I've been practicing what type of questions I may want to ask, but what will I say if I actually get an answer?

In the past, I have gone running and screaming from the exits of haunted houses that contained cheap Styrofoam gravestones, costumed actors in dimly lit passageways, and the roaring of "chainless" chainsaws and gas fumes. So why would I ever want to go out and purposefully seek out haunted locations and the "real-deal"?

The "Dynamic Diana","Awesome Amanda",and the "All-Knowing Nichole" (my friends and "trainers" from Black Hawk Paranormal based out of Rochester, New York) made a great point about the fact that haunted houses are meant to scare the people within them through the use of obscene props and people jumping out at you in the pitch dark and at the most inopportune times. They want people to have that thrill and return again but with more friends and more money. Paranormal investigation is scientific in nature and utilizes our natural curiosity to help drive our mission to learn more. Real Paranormal investigation is calm and collected in how the location is approached, what technology will be used to support the investigation, and what historical information and previous evidence will be used to help support the investigation itself.

I feel like I am still a little scared about my possible over dramatic reaction to something happening, but I am definitely prepared to meet the expectations my investigation team has set for me and I want to make them proud.
As I am a fan of many of the shows that depict "ghost hunting" and paranormal investigations, I am also very interested in having the opportunity to meet Chip Coffey at this weekend's event. Chip will be signing autographs for his new book just released titled "Growing Up Psychic" which is of high interest to me as a teacher. I am interested in his view point of how many of the cases he has been involved in find deeply psychic children as opposed to inituatives and what he thinks is best for them in using, controlling, and enhancing their psychic abilities.

Tomorrow is the day! I will post and let my followers (if any? I'm hoping to get a few :)know how everything went at the investigation and what possible EVP's (electronic voice phenomena we were able to find, and any other paranormal events that will occur. I can't wait! Until we meet again...