For those who don’t know, I grew up in a haunted house. In many ways, I think it existed on a spiritual crossroads as we would have strange visitors and the same old haunts. The woman in pink was a recurring spirit who was more just a memory replaying itself as she walked up our walkway. Anyone who spent any time in the house would see her. We would have customers who would see her, wait for the doorbell to ring, then, when it didn’t ring would say, “Oh…I thought I saw someone walking to the door.”
We saw lots of passing spirits, some of them mimicking me, or my mom to others, some just letting us know they were there. One kept me up all night when I was alone in the house, making sure that my lights were on and that there was movement in the house to prevent the house from getting broken into. None of them were ever malicious or scary. They just existed with us, sometimes letting us know they were there, or that they were aware we were aware they were there.
So you would think that I’m a believer when others when they talk about their experiences, or that I would believe other people’s stories on podcasts and tv shows, but I don’t. It isn’t that I don’t believe them, I just try to see the logical and rational sides of things before I label it as paranormal.
I’m even worse with ghost shows. I like them, but I can only watch them for so long before I feel stupid for watching them. So many of them take themselves far too seriously, always seem to be surprised or shocked when something paranormal happens off camera, even though that is exactly what they are there for and should be expecting to hear weird things, and try to pretend they are skeptics, but when something questionable happens, immediately starts asking spirits questions, fully convinced there’s a spirit there.
Now, I get that is their job, to “sell” the belief. That’s okay. I would love for one of them to suspend my disbelief, but they simply don’t. I end up yelling at the screen with things like, “You are in an abandoned space! There are nocturnal animals in there that move faster than you can turn around to look!”, “Houses SETTLE at night! That’s why you hear noises!”, “Why are you playing the EVP tape back right this minute?! What if they have more to say, but don’t have the energy to wait for you to waste time?!”
Can I also say that there are lots of things that these people don’t seem to think about. Like every place has a “child”. Did they ever stop to think that maybe the way their voice carries over just makes them sound like a kid? Same with the Lady in White or Grey that’s at nearly every haunted location. If a ghost appears as a mist, doesn’t it make sense that colors don’t carry over? They may not be wearing a white dress, we just can’t see the color due to our inability to see other spectrums?
Now…I also listen to a podcast of friends of friends of those who are on these shows. They claim these people are authentic, and the shows are not set up just for entertainment (which, honestly…I still have a hard time committing my brain to. TV is made to be entertaining. It only stands to reason 90% of the “experiences” have been fabricated for TV entertainment value.). I can’t say I’d feel bad if they were just keeping up the appearances, but at the same time, it’d make me fairly disappointed that they continue that kind of nonsense.
So, over the weekend, I watched Kindred Spirits. it’s been my most recent junk tv go to, though I think I’ve now watched them all. But since I listen to a podcast hosted by one of the people they have on as guests, I felt a bit more like I should make an effort to watch them. I can only do it for so long, though.
So The hosts seem like they are good people, but they are, of course, over dramatic and overreactive to everything that happens. Their tones of compassion and empathy, sadly, come across as condescending “aw”‘s or, just “Okay, yeah” as if they are trying to hurry to the next issue. It seems weird because I do believe they are compassionate, but their stage faces don’t come off that way at all.
I also have issues with anyone who tries to dictate how future things should take place after them. Let’s face it, the paranormal is the “unknown”, so to dictate what is the “correct” way to do something is somewhat ridiculous. Yes, people do stupid shit and have their own styles while “investigating”, but to try to set up standards over something that has absolutely no “norms” is just…well…it’s fairly self-important of them to make that assessment.
In that vein, they make a lot of assumptions based off very fuzzy and gargly EVPs. I’m sure they hear them slightly better, but having heard several EVPs over the years, I can honestly say, what you hear is similar to what you see in clouds. You often hear what you want to hear, or what you believe it going on, so you end up inserting your assumptions that may not be true. Also, in that same topic, even when answers are obvious, a lot of times, they ask “why would they say that?” and they seem to completely forget human tendencies, human behaviors and how humans react to questions. Ghosts are just people. They are going to do people things, including being intentionally subversive, but also, extremely blunt. I don’t think there are any secrets in answers. Either they are saying what you want to hear, or they are simply being as blunt and brief as possible to avoid expending too much energy. It seems like a lot of times I’m wondering why they never consider the obvious but want to impose some weird and convoluted idea that really makes their conclusions kind of absurd.
Then there was the Lizzie Borden episode where it was made very clear that Lizzie changed her name to Lizbeth and wanted to be called that, but the woman host kept calling her “Lizzie” while in her residence, not at the house where the murders happened. Then wondered why things kept happening. Um…because no one likes to be called by a name they disowned. I’m not sure why that was so hard to grasp, especially for someone who is trying to dictate that others need to investigate with respect. That was amazingly disrespectful on her part.
Then there is their psychic. Personally, I don’t like him. I’m sure he is a great person to know outside of work, but omg…He walks in and suddenly it’s “The Chip Coffee Show”. He does all the same techniques that psychics do. Leading questions to get the person to fill in the blanks. To tell me he doesn’t know or do any preliminary research on where they are going is just bullshit. They bring him in. To think he didn’t at least look at local legends and stories is just trying to tell the audience they are stupid and gullible. He definitely overacts everything. I dislike how he yells and grabs the hosts to somehow get the point across. He just comes off as very arrogant. That may be his screen presence, but honestly, it is unattractive and makes me not want to watch if this is one of their “trusted” people.
I also have issues with their other two, the guy and the girl they bring in every now and again. Like the last one they were in yesterday, they were there to “decipher some sigils”, which were literally just the words “I SUMMON THE PAST TO THE PRESENT”. No fancy emblems or designs. Just a black light that showed the words. I don’t know about them, that seemed like a waste of time. Then they claimed that the intention was to bring back something terrible from the past to the present with literally no info or indication that was what it was. They just decided that. Okay. The other one was equally frustrating because the woman in the couple waited for the hostess to say what she saw, then would say immediately afterwards, “I saw that too!!!!” Yeah…no…If you saw it, you would have said it before it was suggested. Not buying that lie.
Then some of their “guests” they have on to help with the end actions are just beyond ridiculous. The absolutely, totally white guy doing a supposed Native American cleansing of a home…Like…That’s not even a thing bro and it’s offensive to even suggest you were taught by a Native American shaman on how to perform such a thing. And that they were calling him an “expert” and gushing about the “amazing job” he did, even though he lives in the area and would absolutely know the stories about the home they were cleansing. It just was such a low bar there.
These are the things that annoy me about most paranormal shows. They assume that people who are watching have had none or minimal paranormal experience and don’t know anything about it, how to operate, or what the ghosts may even want. And I get that it’s all entertainment, but the levels of idiocy I see just get to be too much.
I should start my own show…
Goddess of Foxes 